by A. R. Knight
The predictability is boring. The results are not.
9 Joy Ride
Going down is far more frightening than going up. For one, turning away from Ignos means we’re diving into a rippling, puffy gray expanse. For another, my stomach churns as we make the arc, the thought of that rocky ground we’re now speeding towards tying my last snack of nutrient goop into knots.
Several of the terminals start to blink, displaying numbers in increasingly large and panicky sizes. I’m assuming all of them are counting down the moments till we splatter against the rocks and die.
But T’Oli’s the reason we’re up here, T’Oli’s the reason we’re on Earth in the first place. I can’t just leave, can’t assume that the Ooblot’s fine.
“Don’t crash,” Viera squeaks, pressing back against her netting as we dive into the gray.
“You may want to pull up,” Vee hisses from the back. “You’re coming in too steep.”
Pull up. Right.
I move the flight stick back towards me and the shuttle responds, though it’s hard to tell how much since everything I can see now is just varying shades of foggy gray. Some of the terminals, though, stop yelling at me, so there’s that.
“How are we going to find T’Oli if we can’t see anything?” I ask nobody in particular.
“Get low, to the surface,” Vee’s voice is so close that I twitch.
The Oratus is up from the passenger bay, apparently willing to risk the journey while I’m piloting, which seems suicidal. Yet there he stands, his claws looped through my crash netting, those bloodshot eyes of his staring at the screens.
“Use the maneuvering jets,” Vee hisses. “Not the engines.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t help me,” I reply. “You know how to do that?”
“I’m not a pilot.”
As not-a-pilot Vee keeps telling me how to fly, the shuttle coasts through the gray, and I start to see a darker shade below. Apparently we’re still descending, because the shade resolves itself into the ashy ground I’d hoped we’d left behind.
I keep playing with the flight stick and the throttle and find that when I lock the throttle’s lever into a central notch that the main engine dies away. This results in a momentary panic as our descent becomes a plummet, accompanied by our screaming trio - Vee’s wild hissing doesn’t harmonize, but I appreciate that the Oratus is as certain as we are about our impending death.
Then we bounce. Sort of.
It’s like landing on a pile of grass - the shuttle catches itself as we near the ground, what must be the maneuvering jets finally finding enough pressure to keep us aloft. I take a huge gulp of air, stare at the ground around us, and thank Ignos I’m still alive.
“Intentional,” I say a second later. “Completely intentional.”
“Next time, I’m riding with the Ooblot,” Viera says.
The first signs of T’Oli come in the form of wreckage; a broken wing, a still-burning engine lying on the ash. We follow the debris trail till we find the main body in the middle of an ash trench dug by its own crash.
Now that I have a handle on the maneuvering jets, it’s not too difficult to get the shuttle low enough to land. Actually deploying the struts, though, requires Viera slapping at terminals until something she hits works.
Vee takes the lead after we drop the ramp, and the Oratus doesn’t bother waiting for us. He’s loped through the ash all the way to the wreck before we make it to the ground.
“He makes me feel slow,” Viera says as we move.
“We are slow compared to him.”
“You’re supposed to say we’re just as good.”
“Sax and Bas proved that’s not true,” I say. “At least, not when it comes to fighting.”
“You think we’re smarter?” Viera replies.
“I hope. Otherwise, we’re going to wind up like the Flaum.”
Humanity as servants, as playthings for the galaxy’s more powerful species. I won’t, can’t accept that.
Vee’s tearing away at the wreck, flinging bits of metal into the air as we get close.
“What do you think’s happening on the other side?” I ask Viera. “Back home?”
“I think they’re going to be gone by the time we make it there,” Viera replies. “The Sevora will either take all of us, or destroy us. I don’t think Nasiya’s going to accept an alternative.”
“We’ll stop them.”
Now it’s Viera who laughs. “Kaishi, when did you get to be such an optimist?”
“You told me I needed to act like an Empress, so I am. We have to have hope, Viera. If not us, then who?”
Whatever Viera’s thinking of saying, it’s interrupted by Vee’s victorious hissing. With both foreclaws, Vee holds up what looks like a large lump of rock, complete with a pair of small stubs rising up from its surface.
T’Oli’s rock skin is ash-blasted and burned, chips are missing and the Ooblot looks a far cry from the smooth puddle it often takes. The eye stalks, those two stubs, are more like stalagmites; spikes of solid black emerging from a more mottled body.
“Is T’Oli still alive?” I ask as the three of us stand over the Ooblot.
We’re back in our shuttle - ramp raised to keep any roaming creatures out - and T’Oli’s sitting in the middle of the passenger compartment. It hasn’t thawed, hasn’t moved.
“Ooblots are difficult to kill,” Vee rasps, then flexes his claws. “It would take me some time to carve through one.”
“Never heard a better compliment,” Viera mutters, then looks at me. “We can’t just sit here waiting for it, Kaishi, if T’Oli’s even alive.”
“You’re giving up quick,” I reply.
“Every minute we spend here is one that we could be using to fly home.” Viera points at Vee, who blinks back at her. “There are species on this planet that want nothing more than to kill us, or take us as living bodies. We have to get back, Kaishi. We have to help them.”
She’s right, but I barely know how to fly the shuttle, much less how to fly it where we want to go. And if I try anyway, choose wrong and wreck our one chance to get back?
“T’Oli crashed through the ceiling to make a hole, Viera.” I crouch next to the Ooblot, place a hand on T’Oli’s warm rock skin. “It’s the reason we’re here right now. We’ll give T’Oli a chance. Besides, I’m exhausted, hungry, and it’s almost night. Humanity can survive just a little longer.”
That argument, at least, gets some support from my cohorts. We dig into some rations from our escape mod packs. The nutrient goop, preserved in sealed bags, tastes - as ever - like the dustiest of dirts, but my stomach isn’t in a position to protest. The shuttle manages to have some filters that recycle water, and, Vee says, it even pulls moisture from the air, so we’re able to quench our throats.
Night falls over the ash and at first we don’t notice - the shuttle’s a constant bright white inside. At least until Vee finds a setting in the cockpit that adjusts the spectrum so that we’re sitting in twilight purple that gradually fades to a starry black.
“Why bother?” Viera asks as the lights shift around us. “Seems like a lot of unnecessary work.”
“These are meant for survival on new worlds,” Vee explains as we sit around T’Oli’s rock-body. “The shuttles, I mean. Land, introduce colonization steps, and live here. It wouldn’t help much if the colonists lost their minds, would it?”
“After seeing what they did here, I’m not sure.” Viera takes a long look at her own hands, as if coming to the same conclusion I had back in the rooms with the tubes, with the experiments. “The Lunare always figured Ignos was a myth, you know. That we never came from some mystical god. Guess we were right.”
She doesn’t sound too thrilled about that. Go back not all that long and I’d press her, I’d defend Ignos with everything I had, but after this, after those things, I don’t really have the energy.
“Congratulations,” I finally say, and that’s all.
“Gods are for those
who need them,” Vee hisses into the silence. “They’re not right or wrong, they just are.”
“Do you have any?” I ask the Oratus.
“The Oratus are weapons, human. We exist to serve a purpose, not to ask questions.”
“I don’t know whether that’s a nightmare or a blessing.” Viera stands, paces around the room. “Don’t you ever get curious? Don’t you ever wonder what it’s all about? Why you’re here?”
“We know why,” Vee replies. “It’s clear from the moment we are born.”
I’m used to mornings starting with Ignos rising from the horizon, or, lately, the blinking on of lights in whatever dark metal structure I happen to be in. This one, this time I wake up to the sound of cracking stone, of flakes and chips settling onto the shuttle’s floor in soft patters.
We’re all curled up in the various netting, sleeping as best we can, so it’s something of a mess as Viera, Vee and I scramble up and get ourselves tangled. We’re able to see T’Oli shift back to its creamy white form, though - even its eyestalks shake off the coating, blink their way back to life.
“That took a longer nap than I thought,” T’Oli announces, taking the rest of us in. “Is that how you all normally sleep? It seems uncomfortable.”
I wrestle myself free first - a virtue, I think, of being the smallest one - and crouch next to T’Oli. Hunt for any signs of damage, like bleeding or scars, but see nothing. It’s as if the Ooblot is perfect, even though it just crashed a ship through a rock wall, a ship that then exploded and fell into the ground.
“How?” I can only ask.
“Ooblots are very hard to kill,” T’Oli says. “Shooting us into space works. As does concentrated miner fire. But an explosion? Especially if we have time to prepare? Not an issue.”
“He’s got scales, this thing can turn itself into a rock,” Viera says, getting up. “How’d we get stuck with the fragile bodies?”
“Because the Amigga wanted something they could control,” Vee hisses. “Something that would not be hard to kill should it prove a problem.”
“Seems like we weren’t as easy to kill as you wanted,” Viera replies.
Vee hisses a laugh. “We underestimated your species. And the Amigga who very much wanted you to survive.”
“What happened to it? The Amigga?” I ask.
Vee shakes his head, “I don’t know. It was gone, with plenty of humans, before we arrived. They used shuttles like this one, I believe. Escaped to the far side of the planet. I don’t know why the Vincere did not pursue.”
I wait for Vee to say more, but instead the Oratus hunts for and finds a package of nutrient goop and starts tearing into it. Breakfast is a higher priority than information, apparently. So I switch targets:
“T’Oli, we need you to fly us home,” I ask.
“Can’t do that for a while,” T’Oli replies. “I might look good, but it’ll take another day or two before I’m able to shift cleanly again. You want to travel now, you’re going to have to do the flying.”
“You can guide me, though, right?”
“My speaking abilities are just fine, Kaishi.” T’Oli swivels its stalks towards the cockpit. “Let me grab a bite, then let’s see if this shuttle’s still in good shape.”
This time, when the shuttle clears the gray fog, I have T’Oli beside me yammering about what each and every little symbol means. This diagram shows the shuttle’s orientation, that one shows the speed, and this last thing here is the fuel, powered by batteries.
“Batteries?” I ask.
“Big buckets of energy,” T’Oli replies. “These were dead, which is why you needed to release the emergency liquid fuel to kick them up. I’d say we have a few hours of flight time before you’ll have to land.”
“Then what?”
“Either we get some place where the light can hit the shuttle’s wings and charge it up, or we walk.”
So I boost the speed, turn the shuttle west, and hope we can outrun the fog. Even with the time limit, flying above a gray sea doesn’t do much for my attention. It’s relaxing, sure, but T’Oli pushes me to let the computer keep to the course. Diversions waste power.
I take my hands from the flight stick and look at the Ooblot puddled up on the ground next to me. Vee and Viera are in the back, both catching naps after the initial excitement of clearing the clouds wore off.
“Do you think we can trust Vee?” I ask the Ooblot. “He was sent here to kill us, right?”
“If I had to guess, he’d rather be killing Sevora. Seeing as that’s where we’re going, he ought to be fine.” T’Oli tilts an eye stalk. “Between you and me, who’d you be more loyal to? The group that left you to rot in that base for so long, or the ones that rescued you?”
“Oratus are strange, T’Oli. I don’t know what he’ll choose.”
“They’re strange, Kaishi, but they’re not stupid.” T’Oli says. “One thing I’m curious about, though, what’s your place here? With the humans?”
We’ve got the time, so I tell T’Oli the story. The Ooblot’s a patient listener, and I feel like I’ve gone through the tale enough that I tell it efficiently. Skip over the boring bits. Though I find myself stumbling over Malo. He’s only a character now. Someone that appears in memories and nowhere else.
T’Oli notices.
“Losing friends is a terrible thing,” T’Oli says after I finish the bit about Cobalt, how we barely survived, when the Sevora in my head sent us to the place that would take Malo’s life.
“I’m sure you’ve lost plenty.” I wonder how many T’Oli’s known, forgotten during the time spent with Clarity’s Dawn.
“Gained plenty too,” T’Oli replies. “You can’t dwell on it, Kaishi. Otherwise it becomes all you are; a walking list of tragedies.”
“That’s what you think I am?”
“Not yet.”
I laugh, sad and short. “Thanks. Guess a living puddle would know.”
“Now there’s an insult,” T’Oli replies. “You know, I’ve heard that in most of the galaxy, Ooblots have plenty of power. We run things the Amigga don’t care to. I might wind up running this planet when we’re done, and then we’ll see what you call me.”
I think it’s joking, but there’s enough in the Ooblot’s words to catch my mind. Running this planet? Did that happen?
“What do you mean?” I finally ask. “Wouldn’t we, humans, choose who’s ruling us?”
“Nope,” T’Oli says. “If you fight off the Sevora, the Amigga will come next. They’ll give you a choice: annihilation, or joining the galaxy. And once you join, you’re under their laws. Not so bad really - the Amigga mostly care about themselves and, after they’ve stripped your DNA of anything they want, they’ll leave you alone. You understand, of course, I only know this secondhand, but everyone in Clarity’s Dawn preferred the Amigga to the Sevora.”
Two of the terminals are flashing by the time the mountain rises into view above the gray. T’Oli’s calmly counting down the moments till our shuttle runs out of power and sends us crashing, Viera and Vee are all strapped into the netting for when that happens, and my hands are on the flight stick, holding it tight and wondering how much control I’ll have when what amounts to a big metal rock decides to fall out of the sky.
“Can I land there?” I point to the mountain, whose frosted top rises out like the tip of my father’s black-glass knife.
“Are there any flat parts?” T’Oli asks.
That’s a no. At least, not above the cloud. The gray is thinner here - we’ve made progress and I’m able to see the shadowy outline of the rest of the mountain - and its shorter brethren - beneath the top of the haze. Maybe the shuttle could still get some energy under the lighter cloak?
In any case, it’s not like I have a choice.
I angle the shuttle into a slow descent, aiming for the peak and hoping something resolves itself.
“If you crash us into the only thing above the clouds...” Viera says behind me.
“I�
�m trying to land us anywhere,” I reply. “There’s not a lot of options.”
By which I mean zero, but I don’t say that. All I do is continue sending us towards the mountain, lower until we’re kissing the tops of the foggy clouds. The peak draws close, and I’m still not seeing anything.
“I would start going in,” T’Oli says. “Staying up here much longer will make for a rough landing.”
“Go in where?”
“Anywhere, really. Landing under some semblance of control is always better than crashing without it.”
The peak is beautiful snowy obsidian and it glints in the noonday light as I start a long banking turn around it, dropping all the while. It’s a magical last look at nature, something I’ve missed since leaving Damantum, since leaving home.
Then it’s all gray. All fog.
“Push that there,” T’Oli says, angling an eyestalk towards a circular icon split by various lines.
When I push it, the glass in front of me flashes and suddenly burning blue lines appear beneath us. At first I don’t know what’s happening, then I see a big line glowing to the left, right where the peak rises. Outlining the landscape.
“Easier than flying blind,” T’Oli says.
“You could have told me about that,” I reply. “I would’ve gone in sooner.”
“But the view was wonderful.”
“You need to work on your priorities, Ooblot,” Viera snaps from the back, and I agree with her.
Regardless, we’re now coasting over a rocky pattern of blue. The terminals now are all showing red, and I’ve noticed the lights inside the shuttle are shutting off.
“Non-essential systems shutting down.” says a voice, a very non-living voice, from the speakers in front of me.
“Nice of it to tell me,” I say.
“Focus on finding a place to land,” Vee hisses. “I just escaped from that terrible prison. I’d rather not die now.”
“Then maybe you should be the one flying,” I shoot back.