by Foxx Ballard
Drak paused. He looked like he was weighing his thoughts carefully before he gave her an answer.
“What do you want more than anything? Wealth? Power? To explore the galaxy?”
Chais looked up as if in thought. “Well, being as I will probably survive over a thousand years, I just want to find my sister and explore. Off planet would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath. Like you, you could live for five hundred years. What do you care about?”
“Power,” Drak said sternly, surprising her with his candor.
“Really?”
“Really. I come from a planet with no technology. Our lives as Drakkenfang involve social grouping to overcome more powerful enemies than ourselves.” Drak rolled into an upright position on the arm of the couch and looked her in the eye. “After I arrived on Earth, I was introduced to amazing levels of power. Control over millions. Maybe even billions. I had never dreamed something like that was possible. I aspire to be one of those people. I have a following already, several thousand, though it will have evolved hopefully, in my absence since I’ve made this trip.”
Chais laughed. “You’re kidding right? The trip here would have taken over one hundred years! You came here on purpose? How could coming to a prison world possibly further your ambitions?”
Drak’s expression never wavered. She had to admit, she hadn’t realized how little she had known about him.
He continued as Keena and Hirk arrived to sit on adjacent couches so they could listen in while eating from their heaping plates of food.
“I knew about Chang’s existence. Technoids. Well, indirectly.” Drak held one small arm up in the air as if trying to pluck the right words from the sky. “One of my informant teams was scanning for valuable ore deposits on accessible worlds, like this one, from orbit, and while passing over the desert location where you—transferred—into Chang’s body, they discovered the crashed ship.”
“They have patrols around this world. I doubt they would have allowed other ships to scan—”
“Yes, you’re right, they have one carrier patrolling this world at all times, but it is easy enough to stay on the opposite side of a world from one ship, especially when they are maintaining a particular orbit, you just have to match the same speed and path. My team discovered an unknown alloy, which in itself is of interest, but what really struck them as valuable was the unique power signature discovered there. Like the one that now operates at your core. They relayed the information to Earth, and I have arranged for its retrieval. I wanted to oversee the operation myself. Since the core is so valuable, it would likely not have made it back to my hands. That’s why I am here.”
Chais looked at Hirk and Keena, but the two didn’t look like they really understood what Drak was saying. Of course they didn’t. They were both from here. They had never been off-world, let alone been taught simple astrology. Or how machines worked. She wondered if they even knew the planet they were on was round.
“So I have to ask then, Drak. Why are you telling me all this?”
He looked around casually, as if to see if anyone was eavesdropping, and when he was satisfied, he answered.
“I was originally going to call down a capture team. They left Earth the same time I did, so they should be up there now. They’re waiting for me to send up a pattern of extremely bright flares at night. ‘Drak’ in morse code.” He smiled when he said this, baring his pointed crystalline teeth. “If the military patrol saw them, they would ignore them. Just a Drakkenfang calling for help, or a local that had invented fireworks. But once my retrieval team saw the flares, they could fly down an atmospheric craft for a quick retrieval. The problem is, things haven’t gone according to plan. But if I can get you on-board…”
Chais interrupted him by laughing. “I’m on-board.”
“But I haven’t told you—”
“You don’t need to. Look…” Chais leaned in close to speak in softer tones, so Hirk and Keena both leaned in as well. Neither of them had stopped eating, and Keena had wide eyes like this was the most interesting story she had ever heard. It probably was.
Weak and annoying. Flesh-beings. That word was entering her head often as of late. The more Dacnil visited her with his demands, and the more she saw how dependent they all were on each other. The more time she spent amongst them, the more she wanted to find Lais and escape this planet.
“You have a way to get off-world, and you want plans for the TFD. I can respect that. I recognize the value of a portable fusion drive. It would benefit Earth greatly, and I realize that you would have first dibs on manufacturing. You would be rich. I don’t care about all that. I’ll make you a flash crystal with all the fabrication specs. When I’m about to step on the ship, ready to leave the planet, it’s yours. Deal?”
Drak smiled even wider than he had been.
“Deal.”
“What’s ‘Drak kin more scode’?” Keena asked through a mouthful of food.
Chais ignored the girl’s question. “You really should have told us a long time ago, Drak. Why didn’t you?”
“Well, you don’t always know who you can trust.”
Suddenly, the Chakran near the outer wall of the lounge started chanting and humming and the wax on the wall near them crystallized, becoming transparent. Chais had seen it a few times before, but it amazed her every time. Through the new gigantic window, they could see the tops of the clouds from where they were sitting. Of interest, though, was where the Chakran were pointing. Chais followed with her gaze and immediately zoomed in on several trails of white smoke that were stretching up into the atmosphere. Only jets or rockets left trails like that.
“Did you call down your team already, Drak?”
Drak was looking in the same direction she was. “No…” His voice trailed off for a moment. He likely couldn’t see as accurately as she could.
She decided to fill him in case he couldn’t make them out. “They look like ship trails. Small ones, several of them, heading back up into orbit.”
“Likely the military patrol investigating something on the planet, my team will only have one atmospheric craft.”
Keena and Hirk followed her gaze, but looked confused, obviously understanding little of flying atmospheric craft and ships in orbit.
At that moment, there was a shift in the direction the Hive was heading. Not jarring, but noticeable. They were floating towards the new discovery. Chais stood and walked over to the transparent wall so she could see everything clearly. Looked like all the colonies were heading that way. They would have no idea what they were dealing with if the military ships even decided to come back. What ships were doing in the atmosphere left her with questions, though, so she started to scan through radio frequencies until she found one that had chatter on it. The encryption was only 1024-bit, so with the full-body Technoid processor, it only took her a few seconds to break. The voice she heard was similar to the deep voice of Mogul, so a Ramogran.
“—maintain observation. Drop a satellite drone along this orbital path. The Captain wants us to keep an eye on the alien android woman. Set it to the same scan specs that can detect her drive core.”
“Acknowledged, Officer Paligrad, launching satellite drone now with those specifications.”
Chais listened for several more seconds, but the transmissions seemed to have ceased. She started to become excited. They had to be talking about Lais, didn’t they? And the hives were already heading in that direction.
“My Queen.”
Dacnil’s unmistakable grinding chitter was far more legible than the other Chakran that she had heard speaking Earth Common. She knew who it was without having to turn around.
“Yes, Dacnil?” Normally she was annoyed by his presence, but she was too elated now to care. Lais was nearby.
“We are investigating a strange phenomenon that we have not observed before. We would humbly suggest you retire to your quarters for your safety.”
When she turned back to glance at him, he was in his usual
submissive posture.
“No.”
“I don’t understand, My Queen.”
“Yes you do, Dacnil. You just don’t like the answer. That—” she said, pointing at the slowly dissipating trails of white smoke that were getting closer to the point where she didn’t have to zoom in any more to make them out. “—over there is where my sister is. I’m not helping you anymore until I’m reunited with her.”
Hirk and Keena had walked up to peer out the transparent wall as well.
“Then we will do our best to reunite you,” he replied.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Rusty: Southeast coastline, Farrun
Rusty smiled. It was nice to be reunited with the group again. The familiar smells, the cheerful faces. Not that he didn’t love Angel’s company, but he was feeling safer with Buck back in his hands and the robots by his side. They were zipping north along the coastline, on a cliff above a long stretch of flat beach that led out to the ocean. Ahead, he could see the airship. The fighter pilots had fired their grapples like bolas around a couple of the palm trees to keep the ship anchored, but without a constant supply of heat the ship had sunk to the ground where it now sat askew, though upright, because it was leaning on one of the pontoons. The long, billowing, partially filled silk balloon flapped along the ground, still attached to the ship by the netting. They would need to refill it.
As they approached, several of the small sea gulls flew up from the shoulders of the motionless Mogul, who was simply sitting on the deck. Rusty wondered if the giant was dead as he walked up the sloped stabilizers to the main body of the ship.
“BOO!” The lurching rock-giant jerked towards Rusty, shaking the whole ship and nearly caused him to jump out of his skin.
As Mogul rumbled in laughter, Rusty had to regain his breath.
“What take you so long?” the Ramogran asked before Rusty could speak, rocky limbs cracking loudly as he stood. He must have been sitting still for some time.
Jack rolled past Rusty, pulling the mouth of the balloon with him until it was close enough to the infrared heater to start filling the balloon. “We came as soon as we were able, Master Mogul,” he said while everyone else boarded. Rusty, relieved that the giant was just being playful, untied the grapples from the palm trees, and dropped the anchor instead so they could pull it up once they were airborne.
“Thanks for waiting for us. I was afraid we were going to lose you,” Lais told Mogul as Rusty climbed back up the anchor rope. When he climbed over the side railing, he saw her placing her hand on Mogul’s.
“Where would me go?” Mogul shrugged and Lais patted his giant fingers before walking to the bow to help keep the balloon fabric from catching on the railing and pontoons as it started to rise.
Synth-E-Uh took her regular place, attaching herself to the propeller, and Jack was holding the metal ring that comprised the mouth of the balloon over the heater. At the rate it was expanding, it wasn’t going to be long before—
Even as Rusty thought it, the airship shifted beneath his feet, dragging along the ground briefly before it wasn’t touching anymore and they were floating over the cliff. Rusty quickly jerked the anchor to release it before it had a chance to dig in, as it looked like they were floating free.
As he was pulling up the silk rope tied to the anchor, the ship rose steadily into the air, and an errant breeze brought a whiff of wax to his nostrils. A lot of wax. And insects. Rusty glanced in the direction the wind was blowing from and panicked.
“Ant-men! Look!” He pointed up in the sky in the direction of the lowering sun. It was almost impossible to see, but when looking through Buck’s scope, his field of view was small enough not to have the sun glaring in his eyes.
It took a moment for the others to realize what they were looking at, but once they knew, he could see the awe on their faces. Even Jack had an open-mouthed emoji. Rusty had seen firsthand the enormity of the flying battle-decks built atop the gigantic floating worms, but there in the distance wasn’t just one or two. At least a hundred of the floating worm-hives and battle-decks filled the sky, and watching for a minute confirmed they were closing slowly on the airship.
Synth-E-Uh spun up the propeller and started the slow turn that would face them northward up the coastline, perpendicular to where the hives were approaching from.
“It’s going to be close,” she shouted over the propeller’s loud whine. “They’re closing quickly, faster than I would have expected. I’m not even sure if we can outrun them, but I’ll give it a go.”
Lais shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand. It was getting close to setting. “Chais is probably on one of those things.”
“Be dark soon,” Rusty observed. “Too many. Can not fight all. One or two okay, but so many?”
Rusty was still looking through the scope at individual hives, some with the tall orange pyramids and others just flat battle-decks, like the one that had attacked his village.
“Do we… need to fight?” asked Jack. “Are they not open to negotiation?”
“We don’t know, Jack,” Lais replied. “They didn’t stop to ask questions the last time I encountered them.” She looked at Rusty with raised eyebrows expectantly, but he just shook his head. They hadn’t negotiated at his village, either.
Angel spread her wings and shook each one separately, as if to test them. “Want me to fly over and see if I can detect Hirk or Drak or Keena? I’ll keep my distance.”
Lais shook her head. “They have crossbows, they could just shoot you down.”
“Well, it’s not as easy as you think to hit a moving target, but you may be right, there are many of them…”
“I don’t like the idea of you risking your life.” Lais gave her a serious look, which meant she wasn’t going to back down.
Angel acquiesced and folded her wings back behind her.
“Target acquired,” Buck stated, as Rusty was looking at one of the hives in the distance. “Want me to send them a message?”
“No!” Rusty barked, quickly aiming the weapon up in the air. “We make attack choice together.”
“Attack not suggested,” Buck replied. “I can send a spoken message via laser induced plasma.”
Rusty stared at the weapon with incomprehension. Even Lais looked skeptical.
“Point me at the deck,” suggested Buck.
Rusty shrugged and did as asked.
A bright point of light appeared and a wisp of smoke from the center of it. And a clear voice, though sounding slightly synthesized, said “This is me talking through a laser.”
It wasn’t easy to hear over the sound of the propeller, but there it was, Buck talking through a laser.
“How that work?” Rusty asked, intrigued. It didn’t seem like something like light could make a sound.
“It makes a small plasma ball when you strike something with the laser and then secondary laser pulses with the plasma cause vibrations in the air that can be varied to imitate speech. I’m sure every AI Laser-embodied weapon can do it.”
“What else you do that you not say?”
“Well, I can create a flashbang, point me at the—”
“No!” shouted Rusty, immediately aiming Buck in the air again.
“—I can use plasma spectroscopy to analyze the composition of a material. It’s what allows me to make accurate adjustments to the laser’s properties. When I shoot something, I also analyze it. On a low setting, I can also simply analyze something without destroying it. I do not specifically have to be used as a weapon.”
Buck was becoming more and more impressive the longer Rusty got to know the weapon. It was like carrying a scientist around in his hands. A dangerous one that could shoot lasers.
“What message we send?” Rusty asked the others.
“You could tell them we have crates of useful devices for sale,” offered Jack cheerfully.
“Maybe we’ll do that later, Jack,” Lais reassured the robot. She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I would ask the
m if they want to negotiate, wave a large red flag or something of the sort, so we know they agree. Send the message a few times. If they don’t respond, we run.” She looked around at each of them. Angel nodded, as well as Synth-E-Uh and Mogul. Jack just maintained his typical smile.
“Got that, Buck?” Rusty asked, aiming the weapon towards the dots in the distance that were starting to take shape.
“Yessir, hold me steady. I can adjust some, but you’ll have to aim somewhat close to a person in order for them to hear.”
“You want me pull trigger?” Rusty asked as he stared through the scope and watched it zooming in on its own accord.
“Stop moving, I’m already sending the message.”
Rusty watched as the scope made minor adjustments and settled in on the orange wax wall beside a Chakran. Rusty could barely make out the humanoid’s shape from this distance, but the ant-man stepped out of sight shortly after.
After a few minutes, they were starting to wonder if the ant-men had even received the message when Synth-E-Uh and Jack both looked at each other at the same time.
“Yes, I will relay the message,” said Jack. “This is Chais,” he continued, in a voice very similar to Lais’s. “Is Lais there? By Connor’s bones, I missed you Sis!”
“Can you hear me?” Lais asked tentatively.
“Yes!”
Rusty didn’t bother interjecting anything. This was between them, but he was happy to observe.
“Do you need rescuing? Are you okay?” Lais asked as tears formed in her eyes. When one strayed down her cheek, she didn’t bother wiping it away.
“No, they view me as a sort of queen, it’s all good. Just bored.”
“What do you mean it’s all good?!” The tears dried up instantly, like they were sucked back through her skin. “They killed our friends, Randall and Gloria. Their son now doesn’t have any parents, and countless other people in Cassiden. It’s not all good. The Chakran have been attacking villages all over the place.” Lais glanced at Rusty when she said the last, and he nodded in return.