Farfetch tdt-2

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

She dropped flat, letting it zip over her, blessing Arlai for the hours of weapons drill he’d put her through after each of her injuries.

  Prone, she squirmed around and glanced back at the knot of people gathered about the Oliat. As she watched, Viradel grabbed a stun rifle from Adina and broke ranks to follow Krinata. Right behind her came Jindigar. The Dushau were evolved prey, not evolved predators like the other species here, and never fought unless cornered. When they did fight, their style was more devious than vicious.

  Behind Jindigar, several of the Dushau who’d grieved Frey also broke ranks and trotted after him. Others joined the movement, grouping around the Oliat and its Outriders in a protective wall of indigo bodies, charging into battle.

  As the Dushau moved, another Imperial mounted detachment peeled off and swooped down over them. Firing deadly burners and beamers, they slashed through the defenders. But some Imperials were only armed-with stunners. They’re not invincible! Krinata’s heart thundered with the first hope she’d felt. Some fallen defenders had to be alive.

  Grinning, she rose and aimed her beamer at the mechanism of a gun platform already wobbling as it descended. Tracking her target, she burned through the housing, and the platform dropped inertly. She picked off two more scooters and was just beginning to feel effective when a suit of Holot armor, dull gray without its fields, came up behind and snatched her off her feet in a huge bear hug.

  Without warning the both of them went spinning into a backward somersault, and the trooper landed on top of her, knocking her breath out. Cy heaved the armor off her, hollering over his shoulder, “Jindigar, that was clumsy. You almost killed Krinata!”

  Jindigar sent another trooper spinning and waded toward them. “She’s not hurt!”

  “That’s not the point!” Cy complained. “You should have let me take his head off.”

  Krinata pointed and screamed, “Duck!”

  Another scooter whizzed overhead. Cy came up on one knee, shooting from the hip into the underside. Sparks flew, and a loud explosion flattened them again. The concussion unseated a couple of other troopers, who were summarily dealt with by other defenders, and suddenly there were a lot of abandoned scooters floating around. Krinata knew the best strategy was to outflank and attack from behind.

  She beckoned. “Come on!” She grabbed a scooter, swung aboard, and fumbled at the controls. She’d never been on a military unit before. After several harrowing mistakes she found that the controls were backwards.

  After that, it was a short hop to the top of the cliff. She angled north across the tall grass to the fortress, sparing only one quick glance back. An indigo flood, carrying a host of other species, rose over the cliff edge behind her. Hell of a way to surrender, isn’t it?

  Streaking low, hoping none of the big guns would fire at them, she aimed for the fortress’s scooter-launching platform. A swarm of half-armored troopers—all species– emerged onto the platform, took positions, and fired at them with small arms, mostly stun-pistols.

  She flew straight into it, unable to remember how to turn. A shot singed her hair. Another glanced off the scooter’s armor. Then one direct hit showered sparks in her face. She yawed and crashed onto the platform, skidded sideways, and smashed the bottom of her scooter into the hatch at the rear of the platform. The heavy machine blocked the hatch, while it pinned her left leg to the deck. Behind her, the other scooters came in, landing with more elegance. Most riderless scooters circled under control of the docking programmer. But the Dushau transferred from one scooter to another in midair, sending their abandoned machines in to crash on the platform, turning it into a smoking inferno, driving the Imperials back through other hatches.

  Krinata put her hands over her head. She was trapped, about to die, and it had all been for nothing. She had totally surrendered to her fate, when suddenly she heard, “Jindigar, give me a hand!” It was Cy, heaving at the dead machine pinning her. Indigo hands joined his, and human ones.

  “Jindigar! Storm! Viradel!” She pulled her leg free, amazed she could still feel it. Cy pulled her up. She leaned on him, squinting through the smoke, coughing. “Where’s the Oliat?”

  Jindigar gathered her in, and she felt the duad link clenched down tight, so she could barely feel it. “They’ve taken losses. We must secure the platform to give them time to recover from the shock.”

  “Jindigar, you should stay and help them.” She grunted as she helped Cy heave the dead scooter away from the hatch.

  “No,” he said woodenly, dragging at the massive machine.

  She froze at a horrible thought. “Darllanyu?” She had to peel him away from the stubborn lump of metal and shake him. “Darllanyu? Is she all right?’

  “I don’t know! I must not go to them now, Krinata, and neither may you!” He yanked free and applied himself to the job. With Cy and Storm they moved it enough to get by. Krinata grabbed a fully charged beamer from a Cassrian trooper. People gathered to follow them, but Jindigar nudged Cy and Storm back. “The Oliat needs you.”

  Cy glanced at Krinata as she struggled to fit her hand into the grip of the Cassrian’s beamer. He said, “Storm, I’ll stay with the duad; your group take the rest of the Oliat.” Then he forged ahead into the open hatch, beckoning, “Come on before we lose the advantage of surprise.”

  Krinata pushed ahead, ignoring the sharp yanks of pain that laced her body. Her concentration narrowed to exclude fear, but her heart was pumping hard. She glanced back and thought she saw Shorwh behind them. No! He’s just a child!

  But there was no time. She traded the Cassrian beamer to a Cassrian who could use it, in return for a burner designed for human hands. It could cut through the bulkheads of this fortress if it had to.

  They jogged along a corridor to an intersection, rounded the corner, and found a waist-high barricade across the bottom half of the next corridor. Behind that, a line of Imperials stood, weapons aimed point-blank.

  When they whirled to look behind, a vacuum bulkhead slammed across the intersection. Retreat was cut off. Along the corridor, status panels blinked alarm/alert. A silence fell as the two groups confronted each other.

  Krinata handed her burner to Jindigar and strolled out into the space between them, arms out from her sides, a smile on her face. “I surrender!”

  At the center of the line of troopers facing them, a Cassrian, grotesque in scintillating Imperial armor, but wearing Commander’s insignia, snapped in a trained voice, “Who are you?”

  “Myself,” snapped Krinata.

  The Commander warned, “Insolence will—”

  Jindigar handed away the weapons and drifted out behind her. She didn’t turn.

  Distracted, the Commander started again, in a more reedy voice, Cassrian outrage growing, “What kind of people are you to bring a child into this?”

  “What?” Krinata turned to follow his gaze. Shorwh eased out of the group. His field clothes were torn and dirty, and he limped on his right leg, but he held himself proudly.

  “They didn’t bring me,” he announced. “I came because I must protect my siblings—I’m all they have.”

  Krinata could never have read Cassrian emotions through the shrouding armor, but she guessed that the Commander’s parental instincts had engaged. Shorwh had claimed a sacred privilege. If his brothers lived, he wouldn’t be killed.

  The Commander of the fortress signaled, and the barricade clanged into the floor. The troops moved up to cut the three off from the group surging forward to help the Dushau. The Commander aimed his beamer at them and announced, “The battle is over. The settlement has surrendered.” He ordered his men to put the prisoners in detention. “And get identity checks on them all. We can be off this planet by nightfall.”

  He turned and stomped away. Krinata stared after them.

  They were herded through a cargo bay hatch, beyond which was a long chamber of empty cargo racks shrouded in red shadows under battle lighting. Dushau would be almost blind here. The hatch slammed ringingly.

 
; Krinata saw cargotainers labeled as field rations for various metabolisms. While people sagged to the deck, weakened by the backwash of adrenalin, Jindigar only leaned weakly against a bulkhead. He was shaking, the duad linkage all but imperceptible.

  Suddenly he grabbed at a protruding handle and pulled. What came sliding out of a recess looked like an oversize cargo come-along. Jindigar brandished it like a weapon. Then he grabbed it with both hands as he let himself down to sit on the deck, back propped against a bulkhead. “When—”

  His stricture on the duad slipped, and Krinata felt the dizzying whirlwind of images flickering through his mind. Alarmed, she knelt. “Jindigar!”

  He laid the come-along across his knees and cradled her neck with his broad hands, capturing her eyes. “Yes. Anchor for me. It can’t be more than two Renewals!”

  From over her shoulder, Threntisn’s voice boomed, “What can’t be?”

  Jindigar looked up at him, blind in the low lighting. “A fortress—just like this one. Don’t worry, Krinata can anchor me,” And his face went slack.

  The duad linkage flowed with scattered images. “Can you?” asked Threntisn.

  “I—” The images were claiming all her attention, “I don’t know.” On the periphery of awareness, she sensed a knot of pain, five bright hot spots of ongoing loss.

  //No, not there. The pentad will grab us, and we’ll have to contend with the Archive. Concentrate—II

  Then she was overwhelmed by rapid-flowing images she recognized, flying at her and through her in rapid succession as if guided by a strong hand, flashing brighter, surrounding her with vivid holos—Ontarrah’s death, only this time she was Jindigar—Takora’s death, only this time she was Jindigar—and on back before Jindigar knew how to form an Oliat. And suddenly they were in the cargo hold of a fortress, they were walking the corridors, they were in the main control room—lights flashing everywhere. And on the screens of the engineering station—flick—flash—the plans for the fortress.

  //Jindigar?// Behind her mind, the lopsided whirling tesseract beckoned with its myriad windows flashing images.

  //Takora—I’ve got it. Can’t stay here.//

  //All right. Let’s go.// But which reality was real? //The cargo bay—Bay Six—how do we get there?//

  //This way.// From the control room they raced weightlessly along corridors, but when they opened the hatch of Bay Six, they found it crammed with cargotainers.

  Jindigar gathered her in his arms, pressing her face against his shoulder. //No, we’re not now, we’re then. You’re Krinata now.//

  //Krinata.// It was a vaguely familiar name, a proud name. //Yes, I’ll be Krinata.//

  Again they raced through Takora’s death, barely time to sob out the horrible agony of knowledge of what they’d done, and Ontarrah’s death, eclipsing all the minor losses of those years. And there she was, seated at her desk console, looking up politely at this new Outreach who’d come to be debriefed—“Krinata Zavaronne?”

  “Yes.”

  “Krinata!”

  Jindigar was shaking her. Threntisn was peering at Jindigar, one hand on his forehead. “Yes,” she said, “I’m all right.” The crowding images had receded, and the duad link was choked off again. That was farfetching? It can’t be that simple!

  “You got it?” asked Threntisn.

  “Yes,” answered Jindigar.

  “You’re a fool!” said the Historian. “You’ve no right to risk your Me and hers like that!”

  “Tell me that after you’ve Centered—”

  Just then the hatch clanged open and another line of disheveled combatants was ushered in. When it shut again, Darllanyu emerged from behind the dirt– and smoke-begrimed Lehiroh Outriders. leaning heavily on Storm, she made for Jindigar.

  Darllanyu shook her head. “Jindigar—I’m sorry—”

  He waved her away. “It’s all right. I found a block.”

  Darllanyu wavered unsteadily, and Storm made her lean on him, urging her back toward the knot of Dushau and Outriders who had appropriated a stretch of bulkhead on the other side of the chamber. Krinata counted. Five of the Oliat had survived—a pentad, if anyone was strong enough to hold it. Some of those Dushau had lost Oliat zunre twice in the span of months. It was a miracle any of them survived.

  People were breaking open the ration containers, looking for water. “I found the Medic Aide’s Supplies!” called someone, and a small stampede flowed to the other end of the bay until someone else called, “A native! No, two!”

  Jindigar perked up at that. “Chinchee!”

  Krinata followed Jindigar to see what she knew had to be there—Chinchee and one of the shellfolk, a hivebinder. The two were huddled by a stack of first-aid supplies. Chinchee seemed to be feverish and unconscious, more emaciated than when they’d first found him but with no visible wounds. The small, dark creature clinging to his shoulder was unmoving except for a faint trace of respiration.

  Krinata cut across the babble. “They didn’t know how to open the containers—or maybe even that they are containers. Let’s find them some water! And they can eat ration bars.”

  Shorwh and Irnils wrestled a water container over and began forcing drops into the two natives. After a few moments she realized that Jindigar was no longer beside her. “Cy!” He turned, and they saw Jindigar lurching across the wide, open floor toward the pentad. Krinata raced to catch up with him.

  People crowded about them as Darllanyu met them halfway. Krinata began to understand as the duad link wavered, sending disjointed images blinking behind her vision. Darllanyu apologized, “We—I can’t stop it, Jindigar.” She glanced around, only a trace of the Outreach’s distance in her manner. “We’ve lost our Center and Emulator. But we’re still reading the local gestalt. This fortress is doomed—and so is the settlement.”

  Jindigar swayed, and Cy took his elbow to steady him. “What are you doing to him?”

  Krinata took his other elbow. “You’ve got to stop it, Darllanyu. You’ll throw him into the Archive!”

  Her eyes widened, her hands coming up to cover her face as if to fend off a horror. Krinata hammered her words home through gritted teeth. “He’ll drag you all down into it again, like at the grieving!”

  Jindigar seemed to pull himself together, tightening his grip on Krinata to stem the flow of her fears. “They’re a constituted pentad and we’re a duad,” he explained softly. “They can’t help it.”

  The images flickering behind her mind showed creatures, thousands and thousands of creatures, running together in an enormous herd that stretched across the upper plain farther than the eye could see. Below the cliff, far out beyond the river, swarms of huge insects flew and crawled, blackening the trees and grass like locusts. Only something told her these would as gladly eat flesh.

  Jindigar turned to the crowd behind them and raised his voice. “This fortress has grievously wounded the network of hive symbioses in this region, and now hundreds of hives have sent their protectors against it. Thousands of animals are stampeding toward the fortress in a mindless, thrashing rage, determined to destroy as they have been destroyed. Billions of insects are swarming toward the settlement. There may be nothing left alive here tomorrow.”

  Considering the fortress’s defenses, it was hard to regard animals as a threat. But the hives of this world had already reduced a proud force of the Imperial Guard to a rather sad state. “Including us,” said Krinata.

  Jindigar added more softly, “Unless Chinchee and his friend will help us.”

  Storm peered into the gloom to where the white figure was now stretched out, head propped on a water bag.

  “What,” asked Terab, “could we say to get him to help? He’s seen two hives destroyed by offworlders. And what could he do against thousands of tons of mass?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Jindigar in a thin voice, breathing deeper, as if determined not to faint. “But I’ll do my best to find out. We haven’t got much time.”

  Krinata looked around
at the bay. Stowage for the standardized cargo crates lined the walls, but in spots machinery blossomed, panels of controls bristling with complex knobs and screens. Cargo handlers.

  She was blinded by a sudden light in the eyes. It flashed, and then passed on—the onboard Sentient grabbing ID data on them, no doubt. They hadn’t much time. She wouldn’t put it past that Cassrian Commander to start ordering executions before they’d finished identifying everyone.

  With Jindigar she went back to the natives, sure she could already feel the deck vibrating under her feet.

  ELEVEN

  Efficacious Helplessness

  “Chinchee!” whispered Jindigar. As he transferred concentration to the native he seemed to forget to keep the duad link constricted. His headache pierced her, and the pentad’s perception of a living wall of herbivores stampeding at the grounded fortress intensified. Behind that, Krinata felt the kaleidoscopic whirlpool of Archive images enticing her attention. But she’d learned that was deadly.

  Jindigar went down on one knee beside the natives. Chinchee was feeding a ration bar to the shellperson on his shoulder, the job seeming to take all his strength. But he acknowledged Jindigar by patting the Dushau’s cheek.

  Jindigar began gabbling at him full-speed. Chinchee dropped the ration bar and gabbled back, talking at the same time as Jindigar, who never stopped. Soon the shellperson was twittering and hooting with them. The pentad and everyone else gathered to watch this demonstration, and every once in a while, Shorwh put in a squeak or howl.

  The duad link gave Krinata the gist. Jindigar was asking nun to stop the attack, and Chinchee was objecting that it was impossible. Jindigar insisted, and Chinchee’s resolve weakened as the hivebinder rang in on Jindigar’s side. Its nature was to bind mind-groupings, and that’s what it wanted to do. But Chinchee overrode that with the edict of the plain’s hives that the destroyers must be destroyed.

  Before Jindigar could point out that the herds would also destroy people who respected the land, the main hatch clanged open, and armored feet marched into the bay. There must have been more than a dozen fully battle-armored troopers surrounding the fortress Commander. “Stand to! Which one of you is in charge here?”