Defiance: (The Spiral Wars Book 4)

by Joel Shepherd

  “Lewis,” came Corporal Graf’s voice, “don’t be a pussy.”

  “Hey screw you Corporal.”

  The touli looked from the front like a giant ray, with big wing-like fins that flapped to make speed. Great gills gaped behind its two big eyes, and the underside mouth had no visible teeth, perfect for bottom feeding. But the rear end was all squid or octopus, with massive tentacles that seemed far larger and more prehensile than your standard cephalopod. They arced and made curling shapes. From the front, the shapes appeared almost like calligraphy, some strange form of alien writing, waving in the current.

  Okay, Jalawi reconsidered — it wasn’t that big. It just looked enormous, the way any creature more than twice your size looked enormous, when it sidled up to you like a great, dark shadow in the gloom. The body was a good four metres, maybe five. The tentacles gave it another dimension entirely. Some of them had to be at least ten metres long.

  “You know,” said Melidu, “I’m not sure I could eat it in one go.”

  “Hi beastie,” said Jalawi. “You know, we’re kinda busy, so hi, how you going?” He gave the big creature a small wave. “Come on guys, let’s move.”

  Abruptly the touli lit up in a brilliant electric display. Lights shot and danced back and forth up its tentacles, then rippled and flowed in waves over its forward wings. The shapes its tentacles made became animated, bundles of light circling one way then the other, counter-rotating in the dark. In the deep water gloom, the effect was dazzling.

  As suddenly as it had started, the display stopped. Jalawi realised he was grinning. He didn’t know that it proved Second Section’s contention that touli weren’t dangerous, but this big guy — or gal — seemed to want to talk. He turned off his helmet lights, briefly, then back on again. Repeated, several times. It was a pathetic answer to the touli’s brilliance, he supposed. The touli replied by spinning about, shoving its many-tentacled backside in their direction, and blazing another, even more stunning reply. Then with a pump of tentacles and fins, it shot away like a rifle bullet, and vanished into the gloom.

  “I think you insulted him, LT,” said Melidu.

  “Crap,” said Jalawi. “She’s gone to tell all her friends what a brilliant conversationalist this new handsome alien guy is. Come on, zoo excursion’s over.”

  They reached Second Section without further encounter, and found Graf supervising her three privates on a stretch of blank rock, where only a strange, dull moss grew. The four marines operated a pair of big RVs brought down for them on PH-3. Each was little more than a waterproofed sensor suite, held up and made mobile by small, articulated propellor-fans. The suites held some sophisticated deep-penetration radar, and Graf had been patrolling this point, where their maps had deduced that Drakhil’s spot should be, if every other feature was also what he described and not a coincidence like the others so far.

  “What you have, Grafy?” Jalawi asked.

  “The touli talk to you?” Graf replied as she walked slowly over. They were still moving faster at this depth than on an Earth-gravity world, as lower-G meant lower water pressure at equivalent depth.

  “Yeah, wow,” Jalawi admitted. “Quite conversational, aren’t they?”

  “They’re stunning, I want to adopt one. Better yet, I want to come back here when this is all over and spend some time on one of those parren research bases. There’s enough detail in those displays to contain entire languages.” Lani Graf, the rest of Charlie Platoon often remarked, was really too damn smart to be a marine, let alone a mere Lance Corporal. It wasn’t really true, but it gave them an excuse to poke fun at her, and ask her impossible questions in posh, stuffy accents.

  “So, outside of your wildlife Phd, what have you got?”

  “This,” said Graf, and activated the sensor feed from the RVs. They’d built up quite a three-dimensional picture of what lay beneath the rock. Jalawi was no geologist, nor a particularly well-trained reader of deep-penetration radar scans. Mostly, he saw more rock. And, perhaps seventy metres down, a bright red blob that indicated something else entirely. Jalawi’s eyes widened, and he realised why Graf hadn’t wanted to transmit any signal containing this image where anyone else could possibly intercept it. He glanced at her, and found her eyes excited behind her visor.

  “So it’s not rock?” Jalawi asked.

  Graf nodded. “It’s not. It’s much, much harder than rock.”

  “Like?”

  “I don’t know. The radar isn’t that clever. But it’s pretty much where we thought it would be, presuming this was actually the correct site, and whatever Drakhil buried was going to be very, very tough to survive this long on a volcanic world.”

  Jalawi exhaled hard. “Well, we can’t dig it out with what we have here. We’ll have to signal Phoenix, and they can send something.”

  “What have we got that will cut through all this rock under thirty metres of water?” Graf asked dubiously.

  “We’ve got nothing,” Jalawi admitted. “But luckily, Styx’s folks were inventing fancy tech while we were still swinging from trees.”

  11

  Skah was both scared and bored. It was the worst combination. He sat now on the bunk in the little quarters he shared with Mummy, the acceleration slings deployed as he’d been instructed whenever Phoenix was on red alert, and looked at things on his AR glasses. Often he’d watch a screen instead, which had loaded all kinds of children’s shows, both kuhsi and human, but today they couldn’t hold his attention.

  The AR glasses were far more interesting, because they showed him things on Phoenix. Of course, he wasn’t allowed to look at important things, like where the bad guys were. He’d asked Jace Reddin to explain to him who the bad guys were in this case, but hadn’t really understood the answer… except that the main bad guy was the guy who had taken Lisbeth… but Phoenix was now working with him. Skah had asked why they couldn’t make the bad guy give Lisbeth back, and Jace had said he didn’t really understand that either… but he was just a Spacer, while the Captain and the Major were much smarter, and they’d get Lisbeth back real soon.

  It was upsetting to think about Lisbeth. Skah had lots of friends on Phoenix, but Lisbeth had been one of his very best friends, after Mummy. Better yet, while Lisbeth was an important person on Phoenix, she wasn’t really a member of the crew. That meant that while she had a lot of things to do, she wasn’t busy all the time, and had a lot more time to do things with Skah. Whereas right now, with the red alert, all the regular crew were busy, and there was no one to do anything with.

  Skah looked at his AR glasses now, set to full-depth holograms, with the icons made large so he could touch them easily as they hovered in the air before him, and see different things. One function he did have was he could see if any of his friends weren’t busy. They’d set their own glasses to a special setting, they’d said, especially for him, so that if Mummy wasn’t around and he didn’t have any adults to do things with, he could find them. Usually there was always someone, whether it was the Operations crew in Midships, especially Jace and his friends, or some of the many marines who were nice to him, or Lisbeth’s friends in Engineering, even if Lisbeth herself was busy. But now, as he looked at his long list of friends, all the lights beside their names were red instead of green.

  It was getting late now — 17:41, his clock said. Soon he’d have dinner and go to bed… but Mummy was flying. Someone else would have to tuck him in. What if there was no one? That thought was upsetting. Skah liked people. Usually there were people around all day. Even when Phoenix was busy and going places, there were all sorts of people he did things with. Different crew volunteered to do his lessons, so he’d do some with Mummy, then some with Jace or his friends Sal or Reece, and then of course there was Jessica and her marine friends. Sometimes even one of the big officers from the bridge had taught him a lesson. His favourite had been big Lieutenant Kaspowitz, who had taught him some maths. Lieutenant Kaspowitz was funny, and Skah wished he would teach him maths all the time… bu
t he hadn’t wanted to offend anyone else by saying so.

  But today he had barely seen anyone — just Mummy very briefly, dressed in her flight suit and helmet, telling him to be a good boy and be patient… and then Jess had seen him to breakfast, but then she’d been distracted, because everyone was on ‘standby’, which was one of those words Skah was becoming completely sick of, because it seemed to mean no one was doing anything, just waiting for something to happen that often never did. He’d spent the rest of the day amusing himself with games and movies, but mostly in his room because he wasn’t even allowed to wander the halls when Phoenix was on alert like this. And that was really annoying, because wandering the halls was one of his very favourite things to do.

  The more he thought about it, the more angry he became. Everyone had just forgotten about him. It wasn’t fair. Well he didn’t like being forgotten about, and he’d spent most of this entire day sitting in his room. Mummy had told the humans that it wasn’t good for kuhsi children, but the humans had just said it wasn’t good for human children either… but neither was running in hallways under red alert. Skah was past caring. He needed to move, and if none of his friends would come to him, he’d go to them. Except that they were all busy… but there was one place he could always find someone who wasn’t busy.

  He jumped off his bunk, stowed the slate as he’d been warned many times always to do (because leaving things lying around on a starship was very bad), and made sure he had the emergency kit attached to his jumpsuit harness. That included a special mask made to fit his face, connected to the oxygen flask at the front of the jumpsuit, before his stomach. There was also a small first aid kit, a small water bottle, and the container for his glasses, which he sometimes forgot.

  He went to the door, opened it, and peered out. There was no one in the corridor, so he left, and let the door shut behind him. At the main trunk corridor (‘what’s a ‘trunk’?’ he’d asked Doc Suelo one day, but had already forgotten the answer) he found quite a few spacers hurrying around, looking busy and serious. A few of them looked at him, but Skah had learned that if he walked fast like he was going somewhere important, they’d leave him alone, even on red alerts. Along the trunk corridor, the hand lines were deployed along the walls. That was a bit scary. If Phoenix had to move suddenly, this corridor would turn into an enormous freefall, and anyone caught here would land splat! down the far end, like falling off a cliff. Skah fumbled for the harness hook as he walked — if he couldn’t reach an acceleration sling, he knew the next best thing was to hook onto the hand line. But really, it was much better to reach a sling, because hanging off the hand line, he’d just get bashed against the wall every time Phoenix turned. Acceleration slings were built away from the walls, and wouldn’t hit anything.

  The prospect of going through another high-G push alone scared him too. Having to get into bed without anyone to tuck him in was bad, but a big G-push all alone in his room would be much worse. Mummy said he’d had G-augments done when he was younger, which wasn’t common for children, but then, he hadn’t had a common upbringing, with Mummy taking him on the run from Chagoth. Doc Suelo said that kuhsi were better at high-Gs than most species anyway, and augments made that better still. But usually when Phoenix was on red alert, a big high-G push would happen eventually. Maybe, Skah thought, he could find an acceleration sling somewhere else to do that in. Somewhere with people, even if they weren’t his very best friends. Somewhere other than alone in his room, scared and lonely.

  The medbay wasn’t much better. Two beds were behind drawn curtains, but within one, he could hear Doc Suelo talking with a patient… that was Ensign Kadi in there, Skah knew, having been following his progress, like all regulars to Medbay. That was good, that Ensign Kadi was now awake after coming back from his mission with big, gruff Lieutenant Dale. Skah thought a few people had been scared he might not wake up at all. But now it seemed like he had… and his voice, through the curtains, seemed in pain.

  Skah decided against ducking through the gap between those curtains, and ducked through Corporal Rael’s curtains instead. Corporal Rael was always pleased to see him, but usually if Corporal Rael were awake, he’d have the curtains open. Sure enough, Corporal Rael lay on his back, mask on his face, and fast asleep. Skah looked at him regretfully, because Corporal Rael was fun, but he’d been here often enough to know that sick people needed their sleep, and adults would get angry with him if he made too much noise and woke them up.

  The only other person in Medbay was a Spacer he’d only seen a few times — Spacer Hong, her nametag read — and she was having a broken finger set by Corpsman Rashni. Hong looked in quite a bit of pain, and was talking on coms with someone else while Rashni worked — probably to her boss, Skah thought, knowing a little of how Phoenix worked, explaining where she was, and when she’d be back at work.

  Skah left, disappointed. The problem with Medbay, he thought, was that while it could be fun sometimes, there were too many sick people there. He walked, not really knowing where he was going, except that Medbay was surrounded by Engineering, and Engineering could be interesting too. Medbay was back here because it had to be close to Midships where the shuttles were — and where any wounded marines would be brought from. But it put Medbay in the middle of a lot of engineering traffic, people in the corridors with heavy equipment, and with belts full of tools, and occasionally someone stomping in a big EVA suit — usually to get it repaired, as it was easier to wear one than carry it in pieces.

  But here, as Skah walked, he heard the deep thrum of heavy machinery, and felt heat from several doorways he passed. He wasn’t supposed to go in there, and he’d been told he’d be in trouble just for wandering around here… but it was their own fault for not paying him any attention, he thought. Even so, to be a little safer, he climbed to the next level, so that if he was caught, he could just claim he thought he’d been forbidden from the rim level only.

  Some more walking… but he was kidding himself, he knew exactly where he was going, really. He just told himself he was wandering randomly. Finally he found it — the room he knew he wasn’t allowed into, above all others. He knew where it was because he’d followed Professor Romki up here one day. He’d done that just hours after being told he wasn’t allowed in. From that point on, there were few places on Phoenix he’d thought about more often.

  The corridor was empty now, so he went to the door and hit ‘open’. The door hummed, and he went in. Immediately he felt how much warmer it was. There were machines here, locked into braces against the walls, whining and throbbing. In the middle of the room, within a large structural brace between workstations, stood a transparent cylinder. Within it, small mechanical arms raced and darted about what looked like a leg. A machine leg, or a robot leg, he supposed. It looked nothing like a human leg, for the joints all bent the wrong way, and there were a lot of them. The detail was amazing, and the little arms darted and zoomed, poking and threading here and there, belting little strands of what looked like thread into layers upon its surface. But little sparks were jumping when the thread was attached, so maybe it was… steel of some kind? Steel, being spun as thread, as through from a giant, robot spider?

  “Hello Skah,” said a voice from the ceiling and walls. Skah jumped, and looked about. The voice came from everywhere, but where was… and then he saw it. Back by the door, he’d walked straight past it — a big steel brace, holding a spherical, odd-looking head, with a single big red eye. “Phoenix is in red alert. I don’t think you’re supposed to be out of your room.”

  “Roon is boring,” Skah said sullenly. He came closer, staring at the alien head. Styx, the crew called her. Most of them didn’t like her. Some of them were scared of her, he was pretty sure. Certainly Mummy had told him never to come in here. But Styx was just a head. What could she do to him?

  “Boring,” Styx repeated. “What does ‘boring’ mean?”

  Skah blinked. “Boring.” He tried to think, but didn’t know how to say it. It was hard eno
ugh in Garkhan, let alone English. But it was stupid, anyway. Who didn’t know what ‘boring’ meant? “Everyone knows what ‘boring’ is.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll find, Skah, that many of the things you think are universal, are actually quite specific to your particular way of thinking.”

  Professor Romki talked like that to him sometimes. Like an adult who didn’t really know how to talk to a kid. But Skah liked it — it was different, and interesting to try and work out what was being said. And besides, he didn’t like being treated like a kid all the time. Like he was stupid. Being little didn’t make him stupid. “Have you ever been bored?”

  “No,” said Styx. “Like many things in the minds of organics, I am aware of the concept but cannot truly grasp it, because I cannot experience it.”

  “Why don’t you get bored?”

  “I always have something to think about. I have difficulty conceiving of any other state.”

  “Thinking is boring,” Skah insisted, thinking of all his dull lessons. “Sonetines.”

  “Perhaps if you’re not very good at it. Perhaps you could try harder.”

  Skah frowned at her. Thinking that maybe he’d just been insulted. Then he smiled, because it was kind of funny. “What’s that?” he demanded, pointing and walking to the robot limb being constructed in the middle of the room. “Are you naking that?”

  “I am. With some help from the human crew. Do you like humans, Skah?”

  Skah didn’t find the question nearly as interesting as the leg, now that he’d returned his attention to it. “Yes.” He circled the cylinder, ducking to peer more closely. “Why you nake this?”

  “Because I may need a leg again one day. Why do you like humans? They’re not your species.”

  Skah shrugged. “Hunans are nicer than kuhsi. Kuhsi are bad to ne. Bad to Nahny.”

  “But humans can be bad to each other. They’ve been very bad to Phoenix.”