Protectors of Earth

by Felix R. Savage

  So the medic saw through his bullshit. He didn’t get to go on sick call after all. He had to go out on patrol with a hangover. And now he’s …

  “Dead?”

  Cyborg Eye opens his eyes, sees Patrick, and draws breath to yell.

  Patrick picks up a branch and hits him in the side of the head, knocking him out.

  “Body armor,” he says in disgust.

  I don’t know whether to be relieved or horrified. We have just fought, and beaten, two cavalrymen.

  I help Patrick drag them into the ruins of our hide.

  Then Patrick does something terrible.

  He undresses both of the unconscious cavalrymen, and directs me to undress, as well, so that we can steal their uniforms.

  I can’t exactly argue. I already stole their horses.

  But this feels worse, especially when Patrick ties their hands and their ankles with the luggage cords from our horses, jerking the knots tight.

  I struggle into Cyborg Eye’s uniform, leaving behind his custom-fitted body armor. Shivering, I kneel in the snow and dig through the pile of our own discarded clothes.

  “Hurry up, Scatter.”

  “Just …” I unzip the inside pocket of my parka and take out Tancred’s blankie. Hiding it in my glove, I transfer it to the breast pocket of my stolen jacket. “OK.”

  Patrick takes my parka and tosses it, with his own, on top of the unconscious men. “That’ll keep them warm enough.”

  It is ten below.

  “They’ll be fine,” Patrick assures me. “I spent a whole night outside in my underwear when I was twelve. Didn’t even get frostnip.”

  I have a feeling that wilderness survival tactics are not the only things Mr. Newcombe taught his eldest son.

  If I had had a father like Patrick’s, instead of my actual, no-good father, who was so uninterested in being a dad to me that he left when I was two, would I be more like Patrick now?

  Well, maybe it’s not too late.

  Maybe I’ve already started to be more like him.

  I’ve still got a long way to go, though. As we ride away from the scene of the crime, Patrick sits his new horse confidently, and looks plausible in his borrowed uniform, whereas I feel (and am sure I look) like a complete fraud. I cannot even enjoy riding this military-grade mecha, whose locomotion is as beautiful as its network security is shitty.

  “Slow down,” Patrick says. “We want to look like bored cavalrymen on a routine patrol.”

  Aardie follows us, nose waving, having reverted to egg-hunting mode.

  She’s the only one hunting for eggs anymore.

  The sun was shining brightly earlier, but now clouds cover the sky. I bet it’s going to snow again. I take out my phone and mutter a command.

  Aardie obediently turns around and returns to the hide.

  “Where’s she going?” Patrick says.

  “I sent her back. To stay with them. Just in case they freeze to death.” I’m still typing. Being designed for the front lines, Aardie knows the difference between live human and dead human and about-to-be-dead human. “If they exhibit signs of distress, she’ll notify me. Then we’ll have to go back and help them.” I meet Patrick’s eyes, expecting him to disagree.

  To my surprise, he nods. “OK. Good thinking.”

  Our horses’ hooves crunch through a rind of new frost on the snow.

  “And now,” Patrick says, “we are going to get a proper look at that Pulverizer.”

  9

  We circle all the way around the exclusion area and hook in towards the impact zone as night is falling. The sun goes down at four o’clock at this time of year, and the gathering snowclouds make it even darker, quicker. By this time Patrick has fielded two check-ins on the cavalrymen’s radio. He reported that he had nothing to report, speaking into his gloves to distort his voice, barely able to contain his laughter.

  There’s no laughter in his voice as he says, “OK, here we go. Sit up straight and remember it’s all about the attitude.”

  “What is the correct attitude for a cavalryman coming off a long and boring patrol?”

  “Entitled asshole, same as always.”

  We find a place where there are fewer trees around the fence.

  Then ride our horses straight at it, and command them to jump.

  Over they go, smooth as flying.

  It’s fun being a cavalryman.

  Whoops. Attitude check. Bored, entitled, cold … and yet hopelessly awed by the sight before me.

  We have entered the impact zone on the opposite side from the cavalry camp. This was on purpose. To reach it—not that we actually are planning to reach it—we will have to pass the Pulverizer.

  The earth-movers have knocked off for the day. The giant machines stand motionless, headlights off. Vapor wisps from their tailpipes. The engineers will idle them like this all night so the engines don’t freeze.

  On the far side of the impact zone, the cavalrymen saunter around in the warm light from their tents and catering vans. Another couple of vehicles have just arrived and are getting directed to parking spaces. These guys probably get fresh fruit and sushi trucked in every night.

  There are no lights on the Pulverizer. Of course; floodlights would be visible to the people happily leading their lives just a few klicks away. The ship is a black silhouette against the almost-black sky.

  As we trot closer to it, I get a prickling sensation all over my shoulders, like the damn thing is watching us.

  Targeting us.

  It’s just my imagination.

  It’s a wreck.

  And up close, even in the twilight, it looks more wrecked than it did from a distance. From horseback height we can see over the berms, down into the hole—like a moat with the outer side gently sloped—that they’ve dug around it. It must’ve hit so hard that it burrowed and melted its way a full three, four meters into the ground.

  A tangled mass of metal down there was the ship’s drive.

  Shame. That’s the part our scientists would have most liked to get a look at. Offense drives are better than ours by an order of magnitude. They use hydrogen as a propellant, like we do, but they get twice the thrust on half the wet mass, and we don’t know how they do it.

  “It’s holed,” Patrick whispers. He’s slowed his horse to a walk and so have I. We’re dawdling along like kids rubbernecking at a traffic accident.

  “Where?” But then I see it myself: a warped, melted-looking hole just north of the drive, where the hull begins to flare into that ugly zeppelin bulge.

  “That wasn’t made by the crash.”

  “I guess it was the Constellations that got it.”

  “Burnt right through that shit,” Patrick says in awe. “I didn’t know our energy weapons were that good.”

  I didn’t, either. In fact I know they aren’t. As Patrick has said in the past, our average beam weapon could hardly toast a marshmallow. “Well, I guess that’s all there is to see,” I say. “Let’s go back …”

  My voice peters out.

  A group of riders are trotting out of the camp, directly towards us.

  This is it. We’re done for.

  Their horses’ eyes are headlights, fingering the berms and the earth-movers. As they’re about to finger us, we frantically kick our horses and turn in a tight circle, retreating into the shadow of the biggest berm. Our horses’ shoulders meet with a metallic scraping noise. We tumble out of the saddles and crawl up the berm, slipping on snow-coated earth and rocks.

  The group of riders has stopped at the edge of the moat. Their horses’ eyelights shine down into it, illuminating the hole in the side of the Pulverizer.

  “Well, this is it, sir,” says a cavalryman’s voice. “The Terrorflop, according to its final comms blast.”

  “I’d like to take a closer look,” says an older, authoritative voice.

  “Um, I’m afraid it’s off-limits …”

  They weren’t after us! They’re just showing some bigwig the Pulverizer.
Relief washes through me. We’ve still got a chance to get away.

  “It really isn’t safe, sir.” I almost laugh out loud at how young and tentative the cavalryman sounds.

  “Of course it’s safe.” I feel like I know the older man’s voice, too. Is it someone famous? “Anyway, I need to examine the interior.”

  Famous Person slides down from his horse and waddles into the beams of the eyelights. He appears to be wearing about six pairs of snowpants and two parkas. But his face is uncovered.

  There can’t be more than one beard like that in the galaxy.

  Patrick elbows me. I nod.

  This person is famous only to us. He is, in fact, Dr. Clay Joy of ARES.

  “What the fuck’s he doing here?” Patrick whispers.

  “Maybe …” I have no idea. He’s supposed to be on Ceres. Is it wrong that my first reaction is relief? If he’s here, he’s not testing his prototype energy weapon on Tancred. This thought makes me realize something cold and dark and undermining: I don’t actually trust Elsa to keep Tancred safe. That is why I’ve been so worried about him.

  Dr. Joy descends into the moat. He makes the last part of the descent on his well-padded bottom.

  “Sir, it’s not safe,” the cavalrymen bleat from up top.

  Dr. Joy stands up and shades his eyes at them. “Take it up with your commanding officer, lads,” he says, not unpleasantly. “The Department of Defense has authorized me to examine this ship, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Something dark and humped scuttles down the slope to him. It is a porter mecha, the approximate size and shape of a giant spider crab, carrying a suitcase. Dr. Joy’s scientific instruments and computer, I guess.

  He turns and clambers into the hole in the side of the ship. The mecha scrambles in after him.

  You have to give Clappy Clappy Joy Joy credit.

  I wouldn’t go in there. Not for anything.

  Patrick nudges me again.

  “What?” I’m watching the cavalrymen turn their horses and trot back to camp. Wise decision, lads.

  “We’re going in there.”

  Before I can argue, Patrick crawls over the top of the berm and slides down into the moat. It’s so dark down there now I can barely see him picking himself up, climbing over the wreckage of the drive.

  I hurl myself over the berm and scramble after him.

  “Quick,” he says, and ducks into the hole.

  I cannot go in there. It’s pitch black and it smells strange, like some weird kind of incense. It’s an Offense ship. I can’t.

  Then a saving thought flashes through my mind. Dr. Joy will be able to get us out of this mess! I didn’t take to him on Ceres, but he does have DoD authority ... or does he? I thought ARES was an independent agency … anyway, he just said he did. So he probably outranks everyone in this camp. He’ll be able to explain to them … we had no choice … we’re just doing our jobs … we had to knock those guys on the head … and leave them in the cold with no clothes on … Oh God.

  Still, it’s the first glimmer of a plan I have had so far. Gritting my teeth, I climb into the hole.

  “Careful,” Patrick whispers. “There’s a drop.”

  He isn’t kidding. I have to hang by my elbows from the lip of the hole before my feet find the floor. It’s just as well I left Aardie back at the hide—she wouldn’t have been able to handle this.

  We grope around in the dark. The floor is weirdly crackly. “I think this was a propellant tank,” I whisper. We’re in a fuel tank that once held cryo-cooled liquid hydrogen. But Dr. Joy is obviously not in here and soon we find another hole, matching the first one, on the opposite side of the tank. We clamber into the Terrorflop’s engineering deck. We do not manage to do this silently.

  A suggestion of light wavers through a translucent, badly buckled deck overhead. “Hello?” Dr. Joy shouts, his voice sharp.

  I draw breath. “Dr. Joy—"

  Patrick’s gloves clamp over the back of my head and my mouth, cutting my shout off. His breath burns my ear. “Quiet! Quiet! What’re you thinking? We can’t let him know we’re in here!”

  I can’t breathe. I nod frantically: I will be quiet.

  Patrick lets go. Too late, I understand that he has not for a second contemplated throwing ourselves on Dr. Joy’s mercy. “He’s not supposed to be here. He’s up to something,” he whispers. “We’re going to find out what.”

  Does Patrick think that is how we’re going to get out of this mess? By heroically exposing Dr. Joy’s nefarious intentions?

  “Hello?” Dr. Joy shouts again. Shadows move on the translucent deck high above our heads. Him and his mecha.

  What if he does have nefarious intentions?

  “Don’t move,” Patrick breathes. “Hopefully he’ll think it was just the cavalrymen trying to get him to come out …”

  And apparently Dr. Joy does come to that conclusion, because the two shadows, big and little, wobble away, taking the light with them.

  Patrick tiptoes towards the twisted, slumped staircase that leads to the upper decks. I glance the other way. I guess that used to be the reactor, or whatever kind of power plant these ships use. Now it’s a gnarled nightmare of molten and recooled metal like one of those awful abstract sculptures they put in front of government buildings. I’m drawn to it. I could be the one who discovers how Offense drives work …

  No, I couldn’t. I don’t know very much about propulsion systems, and anyway it’s going to be pitch dark in here in a second, and I haven’t got a flashlight. I asked Francie to bring my other one, but she’s not coming. She’s on her way to the States, and the others have all noped out for reasons of their own. It’s just me and Patrick now.

  I catch up with him. He didn’t even notice my moment of agonized indecision, so intent is he on tracking Dr. Joy.

  The staircase has narrow treads that are five feet apart. It would be very difficult for a human being to climb if it were still vertical, but it’s lying at a sixty-degree angle, as is the whole ship. We tiptoe up it to the upper deck, and follow the faint glow of Dr. Joy’s flashlight as he climbs deeper and higher into the Terrorflop. The decks and companionways have very high ceilings because the Offense are ten feet tall. They’re also very broad because the Offense are almost ten feet wide. I realize that for the jellies, this ship was probably just a dinky little two- or three-man fighter.

  “He’s got to be heading for the bridge,” Patrick whispers— “Oh shit fuck don’t step on that!”

  The floor is sticky. I hadn’t thought anything of it, beyond the fact that it’s odd when the temperature is below freezing. But now I see that my right boot is about to come down in a puddle of goo. In it floats what looks like a tangle of burnt spaghetti.

  Oh my God. I was about to step on an Offense, singular. An Offensive.

  “We’ve been walking on them,” I whisper. It is hard to whisper because I’m a bit hysterical. Patrick is, too. We cling together, shuffling our feet away from the gooey mess around us.

  We call the Offensives ‘jellies’ because they look like giant jellyfish. Their tentacles are so strong they use them to walk with, and they breathe air, and obviously they have brains—giant brains—but just like Earth jellyfish, they have no bones. The proof is under our feet. They are mostly made of high-spec goo.

  Speaking of Pulverizers, the crash must’ve simply pulverized them.

  I suddenly remember, and say to Patrick, “When I was about twelve, I stepped on a jellyfish on the beach. It was dead, of course. It just went squish.”

  “Squish?”

  “Yeah, squish.”

  We’re both laughing, desperately trying not to make a sound.

  “Stepped on it. Went squish,” Patrick groans. “Hey, where was that? Ain’t no jellies on the beach in the States.”

  “No, this was Africa. I grew up mostly in Kenya.”

  “Kenya! You’re an international man of mystery, Scatter.” Patrick grins, puts his finger to his lips—and bri
ngs his boot down on the dead jelly. “Squish!” he hisses.

  We dance around on top of it for a minute, fighting to contain our hilarity. Then we see footprints in the goo, leading straight through it.

  Dr. Joy didn’t stop to do a stupid touchdown dance on a jelly that was already dead.

  The next companionway, it turns out, is the last one. Patrick goes first, and stops with his head just barely through the hatch. He beckons. I climb up beside him.

  Our eyes are at deck level. There’s a huge saucer in the way, which I guess is an Offense crash couch, because it’s dripping with goo, but by craning around it, I can see Dr. Joy’s back. He’s standing in front of a giant console, on his porter mecha—it’s giving him a boost with its gripper arms so that he can reach the dashboard. Blue light strobes. There’s a fizzing, cracking sound. I smell burning plastic, or something very like it.

  He’s taking a freaking laser saw to this priceless treasure trove of enemy intelligence.

  “He’s cutting something out of the dash,” Patrick breathes. “I knew it. I knew it!”

  “What?”

  “He’s a spy for the Offense! He’s trying to steal the computer before the DoD can get ahold of it.”

  “The computer? Spaceships are—this whole ship is a computer. It isn’t a box under the dashboard.”

  “Well, he’s trying to steal something.”

  It does look that way.

  Patrick eases a knee up onto the deck, reaching into his pocket.

  The crab mecha lets out a piercing squeal.

  Of course, the damn thing has eyes in the back of its head. Motion sensors. The whole ball game.

  It dumps Dr. Joy to the floor and scuttles up the slope of the deck towards us, terrifyingly fast. Its eyelights are blinding but I can still see the grippers waving menacingly. And now it raises another attachment and something goes pop and zings off the wall behind me.

  It’s got a gun!

  These porters double as personal security mechas, and Dr Joy must have illegally set his crab to Armed & Dangerous.

  Even Patrick does not think of standing up to this nightmare. We tumble back down the companionway and flee back the way we came, in the pitch dark, with Dr. Joy’s scared, angry shouts of “Who’s there?” pursuing us, and the mecha’s legs clicking on the deck. It is better than we are at climbing the slopes. It’s gaining on us.