Friendly Fire

by Michelle Levigne

  "Um -- excuse me -- Ma'am? Lieutenant?" The girl of the trio looked like she was trying to back up even as she moved forward. M'kar gave her points for not stinking to the heavens of terror.

  "Problem, ensign?"

  "There's a door. A compartment. It looks like it’s sealed with webbing.”

  "Where?" She managed to temper her bark and gestured for the girl to go ahead of her. "Knew I should have headed left around the curve instead of right when I got to this deck."

  The ensign glanced over her shoulder, her eyes even wider. M'kar knew better than to grin. The poor thing would drown inside her pressure suit if she sweated any faster.

  The other two ensigns stood in the corridor, looking through the first doorway. At a glance, M'kar deduced this was some kind of auxiliary storage, and one of many adaptations the crew of the Corona had made over the years. On the other side of the small room, which was only half the depth of the compartments on the outer side of the corridor ring, was a hatch, covered in the shiny-gritty-dirty-dull gleaming threads of Hiver cocoon material.

  Chapter Eight

  There was something on the other side of the hatch that the Hivers wanted to keep in there. Or maybe they were just being vindictive because they couldn't get through the hatch. The cocoon material stuck so tightly to the wall and hatch, M'kar could make out the dings and dents, the bent edges where something big had tried to pry the seal away from the bulkhead.

  "M'kar to Jasper." Please, please, Enlo, be merciful. "Any data on what it takes to cut through cocoon silk or whatever this disgusting stuff is?"

  "Why? Freeing people from cocoons would be Tahl's job."

  "It's not people. It's an interior hatch, covered with the stuff."

  "Fascinating … Where are you?"

  "Deck four, to the left off the central access tube."

  "On my way."

  "Very, very good." She gave the ensigns what she hoped was an encouraging smile, and not one guaranteed to turn their blood to ice. Her friends claimed M'kar's smiles could be quite terrifying. She turned her back on them and pressed her hands against the bulkhead, trying to feel for something, anything that might be alive on the other side.

  Everyone who found pieces of dead dracs reported to her. So far she had tallied eighteen dracs. None of them were white with lavender shading. M'kar didn't think dracs changed colors when they died, so where was Dulit's Poki? She tried not to think of her classmate imprisoned inside one of those cocoons on their way to the Defender. Wherever he was, hopefully Poki was with him. And the other dracs. From the bits and pieces Dulit had spilled when they met on Sheffroab, she had the impression the Corona had more than nineteen dracs. So where were the rest of them?

  Brea came with Jasper, to get samples of the material before and after he tried removing it from the wall. The few times medical personnel had tried to open cocoons, before they learned that opening cocoons killed the occupants, the material reacted in unpredictable ways. Just like their ships, a bizarre amalgam of plant and animal and bio-active crystal, the cocoons were hybrid constructions, alive and conducting energy. One cocoon had exploded when a simple plasma cutting wand touched it. Another had turned to acid goo, reacting to a compound meant to dissolve the threads. The cocoon material could be picked apart and unwound, but the process of finding the end of that thread was a tedious process. Breaking the thread caused it to splinter. All the new ends adhered to anything around it. Brea came armed with a sample tube and long forceps, and an extra layer of gloves over her pressure suit gloves.

  "It's got ends all over the place," Jasper muttered, after studying the flat matting of cocoon material. He leaned close enough for his nose to touch it, and went around the perimeter of it twice. "Knock yourself out."

  "Encouraging," Brea muttered. She took a deep breath, gave M'kar a sideways glance and grin, and stepped up to pull at the visibly frayed fringes of the matting. In short order, she had ten threads pulled loose. "That just doesn't feel right."

  "Nothing does." Jasper raised the business end of the two-meters-long wand coming off a canister that looked like it had been used and reused multiple times. The coding indicating the chemicals or compounds inside had been written over enough times to be illegible.

  M'kar trusted Jasper to know what he was doing. The problem was that if he created something interesting that worked like a charm, and then got himself killed, how could anyone ever duplicate what he had done the next time they needed a miracle solvent or a patch for a ship's skin that never should have worked and yet was tougher than the original coating? Not to mention explaining what happened to Treinna. She would be far less understanding than Fleet, over losing one curmudgeonly engineering genius.

  White clouds spilled from the nozzle of the wand and cling to the cocoon matting. It turned white. Jasper covered it, dragging the wand and the clouds across the material three times, then stepped back, turned the valve on the canister, and nodded to M'kar.

  "Kick it. Punch it. Whatever feels good." His lips spread in a thin, frightening smile that reminded M'kar of her crazy great-grandfather, making a pronouncement no one wanted to hear.

  Gut instinct said to protect her hands. Just in case she needed to pick up someone and haul them away at top speed before this entire side of the Corona broke off. M'kar took a step back, took a deep breath, crouched down halfway, then leaped and lunged, swinging her whole body to put all her weight and momentum into her heel.

  She expected a crunch, maybe even the bones of her foot breaking despite the reinforcing of her pressure suit boot. The off-key chiming that rang through the air startled her, so she almost lost her balance as she finished her spin and came down on her other foot. M'kar staggered away, pushing Brea in front of her as the cocoon material shattered like spun sugar candy. It hit the deck, spraying in every direction. The three ensigns had been smart enough to retreat to the ship's corridor when Jasper's gizmo let out the first thick white cloud.

  "You froze it." Brea tipped her head back and laughed. "Brilliant."

  M'kar ignored them. The intense cold pierced her gloves as she worked the hatch. It had a manual lock, and an indicator that it was also locked on the other side. She thumped on the hatch while she opened her side of the lock.

  The click in response sounded loud enough to make her heart skip a beat.

  Yes, I heard it too, Thyal said, before she could ask.

  M'kar threw all her weight into pulling the hatch open. Between the intense cold and the dents and other damage from the Hivers trying to pry it open, she had a struggle. Jasper joined her, then snarled for the three ensigns to make themselves useful.

  The hatch made a disgusting sucking sound, then popped, ending on a clang. The hinges were twisted enough to resist opening. M'kar and Jasper slid out of the way and left the three ensigns pulling, while they adjusted their stance, pressed their hands on the lip of the hatch, and pushed.

  "Could you use that thing to freeze the hinges until they shatter?" the girl ensign asked, when the hatch had groaned and creaked and protested open about twenty centimeters.

  Jasper went very still, his gaze fixed on her. "Why aren't you assigned to engineering?" he barked. He gestured out into the corridor, where he had put the wand and canister.

  "That means go get it," Brea said, taking advantage of the momentary pause to dart in and scoop up bits of the frozen cocoon to put in her other sample containers.

  M'kar and Jasper gave another hard shove, managing to get the hatch open another ten centimeters. Enough for her to stick her head in through the opening. Not enough opening for light to do more than streak through and hit the floor in a few spots.

  Enough, though, to show a boot.

  "Garion?"

  A muffled sound answered her. M'kar gritted her teeth and wedged herself into the opening and made her back the base against the side of the hatch as she shoved with arms and legs.

  "Stand back," Jasper said.

  M'kar slid into the room. Her eyes were still a
djusting to the shadows, but she saw something lying on the floor, and avoided stepping on it. She tipped up her helmet and turned on the faceplate light, then lifted it off, disengaging it from her suit to put on the floor. A moan caught in her throat as she saw the floor covered in limp, unmoving dracs of all sizes and colors, and a small pile of eggs. Many of them didn't look like the egg Dulit had given her, but had patches that seemed crystalline, jewel-like. Had the Hivers damaged them?

  "Infrenx," Dulit whispered.

  M'kar turned so fast she nearly knocked herself off her feet. Dulit sprawled across the floor, propped against what looked like a broken packing crate. Poki draped across his chest, cradled in the curve of one arm. The little drac didn't have a mark on her, but her eyes were dull and half-lidded. She looked as bedraggled and ready to collapse as Dulit.

  His eyes were blackened and there was blood from his nose dried on his upper lip. Blood smeared his cheeks from his ears. He looked so pale, she thought to look for more blood smeared across the floor, underneath the carpet of dracs.

  "Now I know what you go through," he said. "Taking on people and critters at the same time. Felt them."

  Jasper barked the order to push. The hinges of the hatch screamed protest for a split second, then shattered with another chiming discord. The hatch banged down onto the deck. Poki started to leap up, then let out a high-pitched yelp. Dulit flinched and went so pale, M'kar thought she could see through his skin to the bones underneath.

  "Just be quiet. Rest. We'll get you back to my ship as fast --"

  "Need to tell you before I lose it completely. They're not dead." He managed to lift his hand off his thigh, a feeble flick of his fingers at the dracs. "Out. Felt them, felt when everybody went under. Cocooned." He shuddered, and M'kar reached to catch his hands, stung by the bleak horror that made his eyes gleam. "They all came to me, terrified when the cocooning started. So many voices in my head, I got sucked in, group mind. Not a speck of discipline in any of them." He tried to smile. "Felt the Human minds on the other side of the bond. It doesn't go fast. Cocooning. You know it's happening. Sucking you down."

  His gaze flicked past her, and M'kar turned to see Jasper and Brea come into the room. Brea found the controls for the light and hit it. She let out a gasp at the sight of the dracs covering the floor.

  "Why'd the Hivers kill the dracs?"

  "Dracs can sing -- dozen notes at the same time. Found a note. Makes you want to peel your own skin off."

  Brea dropped to her knees on Dulit's other side and pulled out her medical scanner.

  "So we finally found Hiver repellant?" M'kar shuddered at the chill of his flesh.

  "Find Granny. Go back to the drac world. Find Granny." He coughed, and blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth.

  "You need to stop talking," Brea said.

  "We led the Hivers to the drac world. Didn't even know it." Dulit coughed again from the force of his words. More blood. "Worm program in our computer. Turned on a tracking program. Find it, figure out how to keep them out."

  "Jasper," M'kar said. He nodded and stepped back, reaching for the button to contact the ship. "You just had to be a hero, didn't you?"

  "Scragged it up good. Hivers know -- know dracs can shatter them." His hand turned inside her grip, feebly trying to grasp her. "Dymcraits."

  "I know. Figured it out." M'kar glimpsed the readings on Brea's scanner. None of those levels looked the right color to her. What did she know about medicine, though?

  "Shatter them. That note. They're going to wipe out all the nests. Save them."

  Poki let out a whimper so exactly like a feverish, terrified child in a bad dream, M'kar nearly reached to scoop her off Dulit's chest and cradle her. She caught enough of their mind-link to stop her. Separating man and drac could hurt them. M'kar feared the two were keeping each other alive, while dragging each other down, a vicious cycle of sharing their strength and their pain.

  Maybe that was the answer? Stabilize Dulit through his bond with Poki?

  "Is that everything?" She rested both hands around the drac. Poki's eyes widened and swirled with sparks of red and yellow. The little creature's terror spilled through M'kar, nearly driving her away. Now was not the time for that skin-peeling note to break out. Peace, little one. Dulit is my friend. "Garion, show her we're friends so she trusts me."

  He bubbled cracked laughter, more blood trickling from the other side of his mouth. "Trust a Nisandrian? Gotta be nuts."

  She grinned, tears burning and blurring her eyes for a moment.

  "It's okay, baby," he whispered, and closed his eyes. "Daddy's friend. Like family."

  M'kar caught her breath and braced as the drac's natural shielding, stronger than in any animal she had ever touched, rolled downward with fits and starts, in time with the staggering beats of her tiny heart. The tension drained out of her body and she seemed to deflate into Dulit's embrace, under M'kar's hands.

  That's right, she soothed. I'm a friend of your daddy. Let me help you, and then both of us can help him. Garion, do you hear me?

  Gotta be cranked scared, using my first name.

  Putting you in a healing trance. Probably put both of you out in seconds. The next face you see will probably be Thyal's.

  Reason enough not to wake up.

  I heard that, Thyal said.

  Huh? Who? Dulit's eyes fluttered.

  M'kar wrapped her mental fingers around the essence of Dulit and pulled down hard, envisioning flattening him against the workout mats when they were beginner students, just learning to harness their Talent. Poki sighed and deflated even more.

  "Gotta teach me that trick," Brea said. "Caught him just in time."

  Well, that was interesting, Thyal said.

  You are going to make sure you're there when he comes out of it, aren't you?

  Oh, absolutely. Just to keep him from thinking he's lost his mind.

  Who says we haven't? She cupped Dulit's too-cool cheek, stroked down Poki's spine ridge, giving an extra push of mental energy, to make sure they stayed asleep, and stood.

  Now what?

  "Now we get these dracs safely aboard the ship, probably keep them in the same hold with the cocoons." She paced a few steps away, dodging sleeping dracs. "Considering the bond between Poki and Dulit … they're unconscious because their Human parents are unconscious. Contact, physical contact isn't possible, but it has to help to have them in the same room with them. You think?"

  "Theoretically …" Brea nodded.

  "More shuttles coming, and handlers for the dracs," Jasper said, leaning in through the gap where the hatch used to be. "Keep those things away from Tress."

  "I promise, dracs won't hurt any child." M'kar stepped out into the corridor, to give Brea room to work.

  "Not worried about that." He pulled his tablet out of the carry pouch in the thigh of his pressure suit and got to work tapping data in. "Once she sees it, she's going to want one."

  "Oh. Right." M'kar bit her lip against a smile. She didn't dare confess she seriously coveted the egg destined for Thyal.

  ~~~~~~

  "What in …" Rimson frowned at his scanner and raised the half-meter-square viewer closer to his face, as if that would resolve the anomalous readings.

  "Problem?" Abbott, his teammate, glanced up from the puzzle of slagged metal and polymers that had sealed the hatch of the remaining unbreached cargo hold. He gestured at the mess and took a step closer to Rimson. "It's going to take a good long time to determine if someone was trying to seal the hold or blow it open."

  "I'm putting my wager on blow it open." He waved the sensor wand, longer than his arm, along the wall next to the sealed hatch.

  "Why?" the other engineer asked when he turned and moved along the wall, walking slowly and paying more attention to the data on his screen than his feet.

  "Life signs." Rimson looked over his shoulder. "My gut says someone jammed a lifepod in there, and the survivors are inside. Double shielding, soundproofing, and no need t
o use up the air in the hold. The readings I’m getting … I'm really hoping Enlo is listening to me today, and the ship's children are in there."

  "I'll take your gut over hard facts any day." Abbott thumped him on the shoulder and reached up to slap the communicator in the band around his neck. "Abbott to Lore. Possible survivors hiding in hold five. Need help cutting through a hatch with drek melted all over it."

  ~~~~~~

  The live feed from the engineering team cutting through the hatch of the cargo hold played out on the forward viewscreen. Genys studied the data coming through on all the readout screens on the wide armrests of her chair and the command station in front of her. Everybody on the ship was involved in the rescue, monitoring and analyzing. More than two-thirds of off-duty crew had volunteered to aid in the rescue effort. The remainder were resting, per regulations that Tahl wouldn't bend. They were diving through the Corona's seriously tangled computer system to find the worm program that could conceivably make all Human ships susceptible to Hivers. Or they were up here on the bridge, filling in at the auxiliary stations and watching for the first blip of the suspected trap closing around them. She was proud of them. There weren't many ships in the Fleet with a better reputation for solidarity and a family-loyal mentality.

  "Breached," Jasper reported, moments before a layer of slagged material fell off the damaged hatch. Several crew scattered backwards as the heavy, misshapen clump thudded and clanged to the deck.

  In moments, the crew was back at work, everyone wearing pressure suits and breather masks, against the moment the atmosphere inside the cargo hold mixed with the atmosphere in the corridor. A standard survey ship tactic was to flood cargo bays with noxious, smothering, or even explosive gases, to take down whoever had captured them. A loud hissing came through the audio pickup. Sparks shot through the air from the damaged control panel. The hatch groaned and creaked and squealed. It popped out half a meter with a suddenness that indicated it had been stuck and fighting to open until the obstruction snapped free.