Silent Songs

by Kathleen O'Malley

  CHAPTER 15

  The Brolga

  Captain Stepp took one last tour of her new ship before she docked with the Singing Crane. This maiden run had been remarkably free from glitches, and Jane already felt as if this cooperative, well-behaved vessel was "hers."

  Entering the spacious dining area, she nodded hello to the few passengers there. The ship's mess had tables seating four in a brightly lit area that could accommodate one hundred.

  Several of the Crane's new staff communicated animatedly in Grus Sign Language, the only one they had in common. Seeing her, one of them signed a greeting. She waved back.

  Finally, she entered her bridge. Glancing at her command seat, she ran a hand over the still-immaculate console. Cradled in the belly of the ship's body, this bridge had a better layout than the Norton's. All the consoles were placed against the walls under easy-to-see holo-displays. In the middle of the room, the large control center was manned by her red-haired navigator, Renata Taylor, and her copilot, Chris Baftus. Renata scooted her seat back and forth along its tracks, running her hands over the controls, while Chris stayed in place, checking their trajectory. They were almost ready to dock.

  "Looks like everything's under control," Jane commented.

  Moshe Rosten, the first mate, entered the bridge, gave Jane a

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  nod, and went to his station. "I'm going to the airlock to greet Meg and Bruce," the Captain told the room.

  "I'll holler if there's any problem," Renata responded.

  "I'm sure you will," Stepp said dryly, exiting the bridge.

  Jane looked forward to seeing Meg and Bruce again as she walked toward the ship's blunt, fan-shaped tail. She still felt bad about not greeting them the last time they were here . . . but she hadn't been ready to face that damned Harkk'ett again. .. . She wondered idly what repercussions there would be from bringing that particular Simiu here. Serious ones, she feared.

  A cluster of passengers had gathered at the bulkhead nearest the airlock, eager to finally meet the scientists from Trinity. Excited chatter filled the area, and the flash of moving hands rippled through the crowd.

  Martin Brockman stood beside the lock, repair kit in hand, as did Steve Manohar, the rotund, bearded cargo master. "I've got everything we need to fix their comm link, ma'am," Brockman said, patting the case.

  "I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that, Martin." She glanced at Steve's manifest and raised her eyebrows. "How long do you think it'll take to unload all that?"

  "We'll be lucky to get the passengers checked off today," he said, scrolling through the seemingly endless list. "We won't even start going through the hardware till tomorrow."

  She nodded.

  "There's something weird though, Captain," Martin added as an afterthought.

  "I've tried to talk to the Crane ship-to-ship for the last ten minutes, but no one's responded. They should be able to do that, even with serious equipment failure."

  Stepp peered at him quizzically. That was odd.

  The ship kissed the docking port. Nice, Renata. The grapples engaged, and they waited as air filled the vacuum of the lock. Finally, the outer door cycled open. When the green panel lights lit up, she punched in the command to open the inner door.

  Smiling, she stepped back, facing the lock. As the door rose, a blast of warm, humid air swirled around her feet, making her frown. Jane took a step back, then smelled a foreign odor.

  "Captain Stepp!" Renata's voice rang out sharply, distracting her.

  "Emergency transmission from Trinity--from Bruce!"

  "That can't be," Steve said. "He's meeting us here."

  "He says," Renata continued quickly, "that they're under invasion from some hostile force. Says they need help from the CLS. Captain? What should I do?"

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  The Brolga's officers could just see the feet and legs of the figures behind the airlock door. The footwear and jumpsuits were the familiar garb of the Crane crew.

  "Get a location on that transmission," the Captain ordered, as knees became visible. "Are you sure it's Bruce?"

  "The message is on the right frequency, and he's using the correct priority code."

  Stepp slapped the control panel, halting the now nearly open door. "Get out of here, you two!" she barked, just as one of the uniformed figures ducked under the descending door.

  A green and gold, slash-mouthed alien wearing a Terran jumpsuit rushed her. Before she could react, Brockman threw the repair kit at it, then tackled two others who were scrambling under the door. Steve dropped his clipboard and shoved Stepp toward safety just as yet another alien grappled him from behind.

  Taking advantage of the scant seconds the two men had bought her, the Captain spun, feeling like she was nailed to the floor.

  "RUN!" she screamed at the stunned passengers as she raced for the bulkhead. If she could get through and seal it...

  Some of the scientists bolted, while others stood, confused. Alien hands latched on to her and she fell, hitting a passenger, all of them landing in a heap on the floor. An alien had her around the knees, but she was through the bulkhead.

  "Hit the controls!" she shrieked at a woman immobilized in fear beside the control panel. The passenger stared at the panel, then at the alien clawing its way up the Captain's body.

  "I SAID HIT THE GODDAMNED CONTROLS!" Stepp bellowed, kicking the alien viciously in the gut. Ripping onto her stomach, she slammed her fist onto the passenger's softshoed foot. The woman yelped, then jabbed the button as if snapped out of a trance.

  The being and Stepp played a grisly tug-of-war with her body as it tried to drag her back under the descending door. Jane felt herself losing ground in the battle, when suddenly the befuddled woman passenger kicked and chopped the alien expertly in the side, making it squeal. The door descended just as Jane pulled her foot free and the invader was forced to back away.

  Stepp scurried away from the door on hands and knees, yelling at the intercom, "Taylor, the Crane's been invaded! They've got Brockman and Manohar! Blow the damned airlock!"

  "Blow the lock, Captain? That'll damage the station...."

  The bulkhead door rose half a meter, then stalled.

  "They've got computer overrides, understand? All hands, arm 173

  yourselves! Passengers, lock yourselves in your quarters! Taylor, BLOW

  THAT DAMNED LOCK!" Jane suddenly realized the aliens had managed to kill her intercom, that she was talking to herself. "Shit!" She bolted away from the traitorous bulkhead, shoving the woman passenger ahead of her.

  How many weapons do we have! she wondered as she moved toward the bridge from the tail, sealing doors behind her. The answer was hardly any.

  Why hasn't Taylor blown that lock?

  The terrible sound of tearing metal reverberated through the ship as Stepp fell to the floor, thrown by the force of her vessel ripping itself away from the Crane's dock. Jane bounced back to her feet as damage alarms and human voices screamed in concert. Come on, Renata, get us the hell out of here!

  "Airlock Twelve has sustained serious damage," the safety program intoned.

  "Repairs must be instituted immediately. Engineering staff please respond.. . ."

  The Brolga responded sluggishly. The ship's safety systems would have to be manually overridden to permit the vessel to take off now. Stepp raced for the bridge.

  "We're moving away, ma'am," Renata said as soon as she arrived. The woman's voice was edged with tension, but she'd obviously already plotted their course. The copilot and first mate were all business as they handled the controls of the ship, but they were visibly shaken.

  Stepp stared at the holos, fascinated by the garish damage her ship had done to the Singing Crane as its gaping wound spewed out equipment and bipedal bodies. She'd delivered the materials to build the station when there'd been nothing here but vacuum.

  "Dear God" Moshe gasped, and everyone turned. His holo showed a different angle of the same scene. Stepp squinted and suddenly recognized the c
lothes, then the face, of one of the rotating bodies. She felt her knees go weak as Steve Manohar tumbled stiffly, over and over, his arms and legs outthrust. His face was frozen in surprise, the half of it facing the sun seared brown. Blood had spurted from his nose, eyes, mouth, and ears. Some of it had crystallized against his flesh, but the droplets facing Trinity's sun had burned black against his exposed skin.

  "Captain!" Chris called out, and Jane pulled her eyes away to see spacesuited figures propelling themselves out of the Crane, toward the Brolga.

  "Renata, override whatever you have to," Stepp snapped, fighting to keep her voice steady. "We've got to get out of this solar

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  system and into metaspace. Moshe, send an emergency S-OS, and boost Bruce's signal. We've got to let someone know . . ."

  "Captain," Chris said with unnatural calm, "ships are closing in off the starboard bow."

  "What ships?" Stepp asked, astonished. Five space vessels emerged from behind the Crane, then moved to surround her vessel. They fanned out, approaching the Brolga's many airlocks.

  "Captain," Renata said, "the spacesuited aliens are working on our other locks. They must be trying to dock their ships."

  "Moshe, keep those locks closed. Renata, whatever happens, keep transmitting that S-OS."

  "But where are you ... ?" the navigator began.

  "I've got to coordinate the crew," Stepp told them. She reached into a cabinet and pulled out handheld communicators. "Most of the passengers are wearing voders. We can communicate through them. Lock the doors behind me. If... we're boarded, hold them off the bridge for as long as our weapons hold out."

  "That won't be very long, ma'am," the copilot pointed out quietly. "We've only got two repulser guns and a blaster."

  Bruce made another minute adjustment in his jury-rigged comm unit. Come on, he thought desperately, someone's got to hear this. Would he ever know?

  The worst thing was the terrible silence. There should be forest sounds outside the tiny shelter, the calls of animals, the snapping of dry twigs, but in the Land of Confusion there were no animals. There would be nothing to warn him when . ..

  The signal drifted and he compensated. He'd been broadcasting for twenty-five minutes. How long would it take the Brolga to pick it up? She could still be in metaspace, and this device was not sophisticated enough to trigger her emergency beacon.

  Bruce thought he heard something rustling through the undergrowth, but forced himself to ignore it. It was the wind. Branches falling from trees. He imagined the Kiowa Dog Soldiers, pinned in place of their own free will, their defiance in the face of incredible odds, their courage .. .

  The signal drifted again. He adjusted it, the eerie silence building up. He ought to put his nullifiers on; he was used to that soundlessness. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. Something was nearby. He could feel its presence hovering around the shelter like an ominous spirit.

  Not yet, he thought desperately, please, not yet.

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  Javier read his voder in stunned disbelief. He'd entered his quarters just as his wrist voder flashed. They were under attack! He read the Captain's orders. Lock your rooms, stay out of the way, let the crew handle it.

  The crew? A dozen against an invasion? He moved into the hallway to find a cluster of other passengers. Carlotta Estafan, the linguist, was speaking rapidly. He read a garbled account of how her slow reaction nearly cost the Captain her life. Abdul Kadir, the biochemist, tried to calm her, even as a steward urged them to return to their cabins. Javier turned on his hearing.

  "We cannot stay in our rooms!" Kh'arhh'tk, the lead drum dancer, growled.

  "There is no honor in hiding like children."

  "Please, you must follow the Captain's orders," the steward insisted. "Secure your quarters and wait for instructions."

  "But those aliens are trying to board the ship!" someone in the back cried out.

  "They will not be able to breach the locks," the steward assured her calmly.

  "Besides, none of you have any weapons or training for this kind of conflict."

  "Are you so defenseless without weapons, human?" Kh'arhh'tk grumbled.

  "My people can fight with our hands alone!"

  "He's right," Carlotta agreed, surprising everyone. Her voice was steadier.

  "The engineer and the cargo master defended the Captain with their bare hands. Then she did the same to save me and the ship. Can we do less?

  I've had survival training, and so have others here. And I'm a black belt in karate. I'm not going to sit in the belly of this ship and wait like a turkey for Thanksgiving!"

  That's why she's so embarrassed at freezing up, Javier thought. She'd never been tested before.

  As

  if his thoughts had caught her attention, she turned to him, her dark eyes bright. "Javier, you've worked with native people. Don't you know how to make weapons?"

  "From natural materials," he reminded her. Everyone turned to him. He thought for a moment. "Well. . . there are transparent monofilaments in the blankets. They could be used for trip wires. Flexible cabling and small, heavy objects could be made into crude bolos." He thought of the funneling traps native people used to capture large game. Once a herd had been lured or driven, one by one, through the trap's small opening, it was hard for the group to escape. And the ship had detachable wings.. . .

  "Abdul," he asked, "would the infirmary have the right 176

  chemicals to make incendiary devices .. . smoke bombs . .. ?"

  The chemist grinned. "Don't tell me you've heard about my escapades in college!"

  "You can't do that!" the steward protested. "The safeties will seal any room with smoke or fire in it. . . ." He trailed off suddenly, realizing that was what Javier had in mind. "Call your Captain," Javier said. "We need to talk."

  Dacris sat in the small Terran vessel the humans had given the

  untranslatable name Patuxent, watching the data flow over his tank, listening to the rapid-fire reports with utter dismay. How could his soldiers have failed to commandeer the lock? It was such a simple ploy! He watched the ravaged space station spin wildly, its devastated airlock gaping like a hungry mouth.

  Inside, his troops fought the alien machine, struggling to get it restabilized in its orbit. What would Atle do if he lost not only the ship but the station as well?

  Well, it was Atle who had failed to pursue the humans still roaming the planet. If Dacris lost the ship, it would be Atle's fault. That warning message had come at the worst possible moment, and Dacris would lay that right at Atle's feet.

  He watched the human ship he'd been charged with capturing creep away from the station. It was barely one-tenth the size of the Flood. Where was its speed? Whatever was slowing it to this crawl could only be temporary. He scanned the Patuxenfs instruments and the myriad translators working frantically to keep up with the barrage of information passing through them.

  As far as he could tell, his quarry only had minor damage, but since it was designed for transport, not for combat, its own safety programs were attempting to halt its progress until repairs could be affected. Its crew must be working frantically to override systems carefully designed to ensure their welfare in the inhospitable environment of space.

  Still, he needed more information. If only the human computers had known more about his prey. There were no maps, no schematics, little information on its cargo, or its drive. He'd told himself the joy would be in the discovery, but now, he wondered if that joy would be his. He maneuvered the Patuxent around his prey, watching his soldiers futilely attacking its locks. They should've defeated its codes by now, they should be calling the ships to dock. Nothing was going as he'd planned. That was why he'd risked taking out this alien vessel. Its systems were compatible with the wounded transport. If his soldiers could not break into

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  the larger ship's system, perhaps this vessel could hold the key to its companion's betrayal.

  A change in the tank caught his
eye. He saw a weakness there, in the large, triangular outriders. He followed the figures. Yes, they could get in there.

  Why didn't that please him? Because .. . instinct told him it was too far from the bridge. Those outriders were too exposed to shelter the command center. It had to be elsewhere. Safe. Protected. He didn't relish a long battle to find and capture it.

  Two of the ships attached themselves, one to each triangular wing, but the locks hadn't opened yet. But his eyes rested on a small lock near the narrow head of the ship, even though the reports indicated their ships would not be able to break its code. He might waste valuable time here, and even if he could get in, he would still not know where the bridge was.

  Dacris' throat pouch quivered and his tail lashed back and forth. His soldiers had special weapons filled with the chemical controls they needed to capture every human on this vessel, but it would do them no good if they couldn't get in. And in his heart he knew he alone would bear the blame if this ship were lost. His colors burned as he maneuvered the Patuxent to the head of the wounded transport, lining its lock up with its mate on the larger ship; all his hopes rested in the traitor's kiss of this commandeered shuttle.

  "We've got to get out of here," Idoto Okigbo whispered to her companion.

  "They'll be through any minute!"

  Abdul nodded hurriedly, punching the last few commands into his voder.

  The computer announced that the huge cargo lock at the wide end of the wing was about to be breached. He took one last glance at his contraption, and wished he could see the lock from here. However, twenty of them had just finished rearranging the cargo in this cavernous place to match Javier's diagram, and he could no longer see the lock.

  The computer announced that the lock had been breached, that ".. .

  unauthorized personnel are about to enter the cargo bay." Abdul heard the lock cycle and the doors open.

  "Come on!" Idoto hissed in his ear, tugging on his shirt. The dark woman's sculpted face was flushed, her eyes wide.

  "Can you see them? Are they coming?"

  The tall Nigerian grabbed the chemist by the collar, physically hauling him away from his trap.