“I’m going to try to make it to my ship,” said Robek. “I can fly out, make sure rescue is coming.”
But Elisa was well ahead of him, already at the door hatch and moving before anyone realized what she had in mind. “Sadly, rescue isn’t coming. But I’ll make sure the rest of the Confederation knows about the worst hydrogue attack since the end of the War. These gas giants still aren’t safe.”
They cried out in confusion. “What are you talking about?” Robek demanded.
The others were completely baffled, Kipps drew himself up, his face flushed with anger. He knew what she was doing. “How dare you—”
She darted through the hatch and sealed it behind her as she cycled through to the black winds. She had already started the separation countdown for the two remaining modules, but she had bypassed the main systems. As soon as the modules disengaged from each other, they would break apart, but Elisa would be far away by that time.
She ran to the sleek Iswander scout ship and climbed aboard, cursing herself for her poor planning. How could she not have established an evacuation routine? Too expensive and too time-consuming. What if there had been an actual hydrogue attack?
She made a mental note to build that into her next test run, if she ever bothered with the sky hotel concept again. Meanwhile, she felt shame and disappointment. She had meant to prove herself to Iswander, to create another innovative business venture to increase his cash streams.
She had to salvage this before she could dream big again—which meant she had to ensure that the only narrative to emerge from the Cloud Nine disaster was hers, the story she would concoct, one that no one alive could contradict.
Now, in Qhardin’s night, she was relieved when the cockpit sealed around her. Bursts of angry transmissions immediately came over the comm, Robek yelling, “Don’t you dare take my ship! Damn you, come back here.”
“To what purpose?” Elisa muttered to herself without bothering to switch on the comm. Only one person could fit aboard the scout ship, and that was her. The other five would have to remain behind anyway.
After activating the scout ship’s engines, she disengaged from the landing deck. When she lifted off, she was pleased at how easily it handled, a new model with all the most modern systems. She tapped into the Cloud Nine main controls as her ship headed away. The separation countdown continued.
She heard overlapping voices, shouts and curses. “Come back for us!”
It had been malicious of her to eject Old Bessie. Maybe those people could have drifted in the clouds, and maybe she could have made it to a nearby system fast enough and send rescue. But, oh, the scandal and political damage those survivors could cause. No, this was much better.
When the countdown ended and the two modules disengaged, the walls split open, and the panicked transmissions rose to a crescendo of screams, then fell silent.
Good. She needed her concentration anyway. No one else was here on all of Qhardin, and the debris of the modules would rapidly disperse and sink down to undetectable levels. No one would ever find a scrap.
She raced out into space and set course back to Earth. Robek had the best small-scale Ildiran stardrive and sufficient ekti to take her home. At top speed, the flight would take just under two days, so she would have plenty of time during the flight to complete her preparations.
Elisa had work to do. Streaking out of the Qhardin system on autopilot, she called up the archival images of old hydrogue attacks. The footage had been dramatic and horrifying, the most terrifying eyewitness recordings from the War. She had a wealth of images never before seen by the public. Considering the chaos that would have occurred if the alien warglobes did open fire on the hotel complex, she could make do with what she had. Her own testimony would be convincing.
As the ship flew home, Elisa selected the most horrific archival images and began to cobble together her incident report.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Rlinda Kett
What good are weapons if you don’t use them? Rlinda thought. She charged ahead with nothing left to lose. When she opened fire with her fore and aft jazers, fortunately—and unfortunately—there were so many black robot ships all around her, she couldn’t miss. The energy blasts scorched the side of one enemy vessel and struck the engines of another. Her aft jazers took out a third.
The robots responded in kind, hammering the Curiosity’s shields. Ionization flares like starbursts appeared around her windowports, and she kept flying, though she knew she couldn’t outrun energy weapons. When she had played dead deep under the gas giant clouds, she had maintained radio silence, but now she activated her distress beacon again. No point in hiding.
As she roared pell-mell away from Dhula, her sensors detected an electromagnetic flurry ahead, a buzzing knot of overlapping communications, indecipherable machine language coming from the derelict warliner. Rlinda veered away, not wanting to go anywhere close to that hornet’s nest. She had enough trouble eluding the robot ships.
“Where the hell did they come from? And how did the bugbots get so many new vessels?” She had thought all the evil insect machines had been wiped out in the War, but Rlinda’s inquisitiveness was diminished as a direct result of being fired upon.
A robot ship flew directly ahead of her, trying to match her speed. “Out of my way, damn you!” She blasted it with her jazers, hammering until the black hull reddened and then broke apart. As the ship exploded in front of her, she flew through the debris storm. Her shields went redline. Flares engulfed her. The ship rocked and rattled, but Rlinda kept roaring forward. She considered whooping wildly and uselessly, but no one would hear her.
That last barrage had just depleted her forward jazers. Her shields were on their last gasp.
The robot ships closed in, powering up their weapons to finish her off. Collision avoidance alarms screamed louder—as if she needed something else to worry about!
Then a huge, unexpected ship swooped in close, going insanely fast as if trying to shake off the remnants of a lightspeed passage. A second, equally huge ship swept in close behind it. An enormous gout of energy vaporized three of the black robot ships and scrambled the others.
Rlinda looked from side to side, astonished. “What the hell?” Not that she was complaining.
Two fully armed Solar Navy warliners cruised into the Dhula system, homing in on Rlinda’s distress beacon. The warliners continued to open fire, blasting one robot ship after another.
Up until now, Rlinda had handled herself reasonably well, one trading vessel against those malicious pursuers, but the Ildiran battleships clearly meant business. The warliners did not ask the robots to surrender, nor did they inquire about Rlinda’s status. They merely unleashed an overwhelming barrage and vaporized the remaining eight robot ships.
Panting hard, Rlinda watched the dazzling energy bursts fade and the tumbling debris spread in the shockwave clouds. She opened the comm and swallowed twice before she could speak. “Thank you, Ildirans. Next time we’re together in a spaceport bar, I will buy every single one of your crew a drink.”
Adar Zan’nh’s face appeared on her screen. He looked stern and annoyed. “We did not expect to find you here, Captain Kett.”
“Sorry, I just wanted to help you find your missing warliner. I didn’t expect to find a bugbot infestation. What are they doing out here? Why are there any left at all?”
“In the past, Klikiss robots have hidden themselves and gone into hibernation,” Zan’nh said. “Clearly, not all were eradicated in the War.” His lips pressed together in a grim line. “We will remedy that here.”
As her systems slowly began to recharge and reboot, Rlinda followed the warliner escort back toward the half-dismantled derelict. Black beetle-like figures swarmed by the hundreds over the broken hull, but most of the angular ships had scattered.
“Honest, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Rlinda explained. “I did intercept Qul Loar’nh’s transmissions, and I learned what happened. They had a reactor breach,
and the entire crew received a lethal radiation dose. In his last report, Qul Loar’nh asked if their bodies could be taken back to Ildira and incinerated under the seven suns.” She shook her head, looking at the partially dismantled skeleton of the ship as the other warliners converged on their target.
“We will incinerate them here,” Zan’nh said, “while eradicating the enemy.”
The Ildiran warliners opened fire on the infested wreck. Brilliant bursts scored the dead ship’s hull, searing dozens of black robots at a time, and the bombardment continued, without pause, turning the drifting warliner to slag.
Rlinda’s jazer banks had recharged up to ten percent. Good enough. “Might as well contribute,” she said. She opened fire, adding to the barrage for good effect. The weapons didn’t stop firing until there was nothing left but a stain of thermal energy.
Adar Zan’nh transmitted, “Thank you, Captain Kett. We have taken care of the problem.”
“I hope so,” Rlinda said, not convinced. “But why were the robots here at all? What were they doing?”
“The black robots have been destroyed,” Zan’nh said. “They cannot possibly have sufficient numbers remaining to pose any further threat.”
“I wasn’t worried about their numbers, so much as about their schemes,” Rlinda said. “I don’t trust them.”
From his command nucleus, the Adar added a perfunctory, “The Solar Navy will finish operations here and report to the Mage-Imperator. If you will provide me with copies of the transmissions you intercepted, Captain Kett, I trust you have no further business in the Dhula system.” His meaning was clear.
“I think I can go home now,” she said, “after I patch up a few systems.” She took an hour to perform basic repairs to her ship before she dared activate the Ildiran stardrive. She wished she could snoop around here long enough to get some answers.
This couldn’t be just a tiny cluster of black robots that had hidden at the end of the Elemental War. They were up to something. The robots were intentionally dismantling the warliner, hauling its materials and components away … somewhere. To what purpose? What were they up to?
Oddly, the Adar was not bothered by the questions that plagued her, but Ildirans had a completely different mindset from humans. With no other option, she took her questions with her when the battered Curiosity flew home.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Daniel
The spore storm was over, and the people had survived. Most of them. The grieka plants had blossomed and burst, then died, although many of them in the valley had been eradicated by Bjorn and Olaf’s tireless efforts with the targeted incinerators, blackening the spores so they would not germinate next time. Thick smoke lingered in the air, making breathing even more difficult. Those who had refused respirator filters for the spores finally relented and used the masks until the smoke and soot settled out of the air.
Daniel helped finish digging the last of the new graves and buried the remaining bodies. Twenty-two neo-Amish dead from the worst of the spore storm, but they would have been joined by hundreds more casualties if he had not gone through the Klikiss transportal and secured help from the Confederation. Jeremiah Huystra would have condemned his decision, but Daniel stood by it. As he held his wife and three children, he had no doubt whatsoever he had made the right decision. He had saved them.
But as he gazed across the burned valley floor, the blackened crops, he felt a lingering fear and sadness. They would be a long time recovering from this.
Olaf looked satisfied with his efforts, though. “Sometimes it takes a strong and determined person to do a hard task, even if the others around you can’t see it.” He stroked his beard. “Clan Reeves has been in that situation for the past nine years.”
Serene looked very worried. “But our crops are all burned. What are we going to eat?”
“Dying from toxic spores or from starvation … it seems a sad choice,” Bjorn said.
Serene sighed. “And Father Jeremiah is gone. We’ve been too weary even to select a new leader.”
“We have supplies from previous years,” Daniel said. “The neo-Amish always plan for lean times. It’ll be thin, but it may be enough. We can explore wider, go hunting, harvest wild plants.” He held her tightly. “We’ll survive.”
“It need not be that hard,” said Olaf. “You introduced yourself to King Peter and Queen Estarra. You would be welcome back in the Confederation. Other ships would bring supplies to you. You wouldn’t need to starve.”
There was a time when Daniel would have jumped at the possibility, but now it made him shudder. “Thank you, but … no. I used to love the outside world and the familiarities of civilization, but not anymore.” He shook his head. “The Confederation life isn’t for these people. Exposed to outsiders, they would die just as surely as if they had no food. We’ll find other ways. We know how to be self-sufficient.”
Olaf gave a slow nod. “I respect your choice.” Then his lips quirked in a small smile. “Clan Reeves already knows where you live, but I will promise never to return here. Our clan members will forget about Happiness entirely.”
Realizing that his answer would determine the future of their settlement, Daniel knew what Father Jeremiah would have wanted. “We’re fine here. Some people like to be left alone.”
Olaf gave another grim nod. “That, too, I can understand.”
* * *
A week later, on the pretext that he was going out to find wild fruit trees, Daniel climbed the slope to the Klikiss transportal. The stone trapezoid stood silent and alien, a gateway to countless possibilities.
Behind him, the blackened fields and meadows were already showing a faint blur of green as new shoots rose up, rejuvenated by the fire and fertile ash. Healthy neo-Amish men and women bustled about like worker insects, marking off, tilling, and planting new crops in hopes they could be harvested before the cold dry season set in.
Up in the high meadows, the smaller village was also getting back on its feet. There, they had suffered many more casualties because the sporeflowers had matured sooner, and because the Confederation anti-allergens had come too late to help them. But the whole neo-Amish community pulled together. They helped one another. They grieved together, and they celebrated life together. Once again, Daniel realized how glad he was to be here.
He reached the flat portal that had been erected thousands of years ago by the insect race. Encircling the stone window, coordinate tiles were etched with incomprehensible Klikiss symbols. He didn’t know where any of those tiles might lead him, except for the one that had taken him to the planet Auridia. He stared at the designs, pondered the possibilities.
This stone transportal was like an escape hatch, and he always had the chance to change his mind and leave. But he knew in his heart he was satisfied to be here with these people, with his family. He didn’t want the next time to be easier, or the next. No matter what, he would never need anything from the outside again.
He stared for a long moment, making sure he had no second thoughts. Before he could begin to doubt himself, he picked up a rock and smashed the control and power unit at the base of the stone trapezoid. Jeremiah Huystra had done a similar thing, but Daniel was more thorough. He kept smashing until the circuitry was thoroughly destroyed. The transportal would never activate again.
When the system lay in ruins, he brushed his hands together. He was home now. Home. After adjusting his broad-brimmed hat and scratching the thick beard on his face, Daniel turned about and walked back to his real Happiness.
Chapter Thirty
Elisa Enturi
By the time her scout ship returned to Earth, Elisa had plenty of time to concoct and rehearse her story. After building the framework of what had supposedly happened to the Cloud Nine hotel, she scoured through the database of hydrogue images, altered and manipulated them to fit the details, and she laid out her story.
The hydrogues had not been seen in nine years, and they were believed to be huddled deep inside their ga
s giants. Elisa had voluntarily taken the risk—as had her four guests, along with the Iswander employees who had volunteered for the job. High risk, high reward. Lee Iswander certainly understood that, as did all Roamers, and many ambitious Roamer operations had failed disastrously as well. No one could fault Elisa—and by extension, Iswander—for pushing the envelope like this.
But she had to make it sound plausible.
Kipps, Candeen, Juvia, and Fourth had all signed iron-clad waivers; Tel Robek, Oni Delkin, Shar, and Anil were covered by similar Iswander employment documents. When coming out to Qhardin, they all acknowledged the risks of a possible hydrogue attack, but even Elisa had dismissed the idea. Surely, even if the deep-core aliens came back, they would target much larger operations, such as the skymines run by clan Duquesne on Belliros. Why would they bother with a tiny cluster of modules?
She would have to make her shock convincing, make sure everyone believed her that the hydrogues were the culprits.
Elisa pulled together and manipulated the archival images—parting cloud banks, the murky crystalline sphere of a spiked hydrogue warglobe with dancing blue lightning that arced out and struck. More warglobes, more attacks … screams and detonations … module walls collapsing. The images were unsteady, blurred, broken up through chaos and power surges.
She thought they were extremely persuasive.
Reaching the Earth system, she considered racing in on a pell-mell course with emergency signals squawking, but she decided that would seem too forced. Besides, that wasn’t Elisa Enturi’s personality. Her journey home from Qhardin had taken nearly two days, so why would she still be frantic with terror? She could pretend to be in shock, grieving and frightened, but no one would believe a continued state of mindless panic after all that time … and certainly not from a woman like her. Given all that time to think, Elisa concluded that she should report the tragedy to Lee Iswander, who would take the matter to the authorities.
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