“We lost our spotting. It’s going to get dicey,” he said. His effective range had just dropped below fifty meters. There were simply too many vines, spires, and leaves in the way without something ahead to sense the targets for him.
“They need another minute,” Telisa said. “Wait. Or they don’t! Fall back now, that’s an order!”
Caden did not understand Telisa’s mixed signals, but he picked up and retreated. His neck felt stiff. He did not dare touch it. Caden assumed the damage was causing inflammation despite the likelihood that his suit would try to counter it with drugs.
Caden walked down one vine at a slope, then stopped to climb up one of the artificial spires covered with smaller vines.
“Pick it up, Caden,” Telisa said.
“I’ll try—”
Caden was pulled up to the next vine in a second’s time. He gasped in surprise, relieved to see it was only Telisa hauling him in.
“I never took you for the slow poke of the group,” she said.
Caden ran across the next thick vine, then grabbed a leaf stem to keep from falling when it curved to the right. He could hear himself breathing inside the helmet. It sounded raspy.
A huge swath of forest erupted into bright light.
Vooosh.
Nuke!
Caden froze, waiting for his life to end. Instead, a wave of smoke rolled over him. His Veer faceplate did not let any smoke in, so instead of coughing he stared, helpless, as smoke roiled past his face.
“What the hell!” Imanol sent out.
“Keep moving toward the ship,” Telisa said. “All we can do is hope that thing’s targeting is good.”
That thing? Of course. The battle sphere.
The smoke abated to the point that Caden could see a blackened section of leveled forest directly ahead. Then light came again. Caden cringed, but the light was farther away than the first one.
Hrm, those creatures probably won’t stand in the open? So that’s where I should be. Lightning never strikes twice.
Caden scrambled down his vine and ran out into the smoking ash-covered area, then he turned sharply right toward the ship. He kept his single remaining personal attendant close, just in case it was reporting his position to the battle sphere.
If it wants me dead, I’m dead either way. I think it wants those things dead.
Vooosh.
As if Caden’s presence had been the only thing keeping the section of forest from destruction, as soon as he staggered out into the burned out area, the forest to his right flashed into a burning wall. His suit warned of breathing hazards, but Caden wasn’t about to deactivate his faceplate anyway.
Caden stopped thinking and just struggled to make it to the New Iridar.
Vooosh.
Telisa found him and put her hand on his shoulder, slowing him.
“The battle sphere has us covered,” she said. “Slow down. Head for our sick bay, what there is of it.”
“How bad is it?”
“Your neck is burned badly. Deeply,” Telisa said.
“I’ll make it. Concentrate on Siobhan. Get her back.”
“I will. Tell me about Vincent,” she asked. “What did he do during the attack?”
“He did absolutely nothing,” Caden said.
“Ah. Just froze, right? I think that’s how they deal with stuff like this,” Cilreth said.
“Doesn’t seem very useful,” Jason said.
“Well, if you look like a plant, acting like a plant isn’t so bad. Who shoots at a plant?” Cilreth asked.
The battle sphere, Caden thought, but he did not say it aloud. He knew what she meant. Oh. Did Vincent just get incinerated?
“Well, yes, if you’re on a planet where the plants aren’t hunted by whatever is attacking,” someone said.
Caden felt pain eating through the blocker his Veer suit had put into his bloodstream.
Great. All those raw nerve endings. I need more synthetic skin from my pack.
“Well, at least our watchdog proved useful,” Cilreth said.
Telisa just stared at the battle sphere and said nothing. Caden felt woozy. He let them lead him to the ship.
Chapter 14
A scary machine with knobby metal limbs carried Siobhan inside a hexagonal weave net. Its body was small, incongruous with the length of its arms. Its eight limbs came together in a central juncture only about the size of her upper torso. Joints were set at four points along each of the arms or legs. The limbs were strong despite the thin rod composition. Siobhan could not overpower her captor. She had struggled at first, but it soon became clear waiting was her only option. She had been stripped of her weapons and equipment pack.
The machine brought her inside through a roof door and deposited her on a metal platform with rails around the sides. She gazed at the building beyond. The ceiling was much higher and larger than the platform, just as she had seen before she was captured. The wide open space immediately made her feel exposed and vulnerable.
Another of the creepy machines climbed onto the platform from below.
Are these Celaroid machines or just Celaran? If so, I don’t want to see one of them. Pretty clearly not flying creatures if this is roughly what they look like. Just amazingly long arms.
The two machines worked to hoist Siobhan onto another smaller raised platform that could have been an oversized Terran coffee table. They gently set her down and then started to open the net. Grateful to be released, Siobhan pushed the net away from her toward one of the machines.
The machine surged forward, pinning her to the flat table with four segments of its legs. Siobhan screamed. She railed against the thin metal legs, but they were incredibly strong. She might as well have been struggling against solid rock. She was mostly immobilized at arms and legs. Another bar kept her head from rising more than a few centimeters.
What the hell is it doing!?
The machine froze. Her panic fled its course. Siobhan regained control of herself. She took a deep breath.
“It’s just curiosity,” she told herself. “They’re just curious... not meaning to scare me.”
Siobhan believed her words. She just said them out loud to calm herself against the panic of being trapped. The other machine moved up from the side and extended an arm. It came close to her face. Something soft ran over her cheek.
They won’t dissect me. They won’t. Fracksilvers, what if they ARE going to dissect me?
“I’m a sentient creature please don’t dissect me!”
An arm came out from the other machine and tested the zipper of her Veer suit. The zipper wouldn’t move unless her link told it to unlock, or she put her fingers on the surface in the manual release pattern she had set under her arm.
Clearly the machine had done some sort of mechanical scan, as it knew what the zipper was for. There was a tiny flash and a pinpoint of heat on her chest. The zipper broke.
Frackedpackets!
“No! Stay out of there!” she snarled. Once again Siobhan tested the arms. She tried to throw the machine off balance, but with such long limbs its base was too wide. She concluded it must be attached to the floor or the table somehow anyway.
An odd thought arose that caused fear to rise again: what if they were not aliens at all? What if she was just the toy of some Terran gang that had taken over the facility?
If I find out there are Terran men and women behind this, I’m going to be adding some new people to my kill list.
Her heart beat rapidly again. The arm slowed. It retreated.
Siobhan took deep breaths and struggled to relax again.
See? It slows when I get too agitated. It cares about my well being.
The arm returned and unzipped her suit about three centimeters. Siobhan bristled. It was all some kind of nightmare. She found herself wishing it was virtual for no sensible reason. Virtual torture somehow seemed cleaner and less personal.
The machine folded over a bit of her suit at the zipper. The end of its limb hovered over the
exposed skin for a moment, then swabbed it with something soft. Then it let go of the suit and pulled the zipper back.
Siobhan took another deep breath and counted her lucky stars.
Aliens. Aliens. Just curious and see? They can tell I don’t like that.
“Thanks,” she muttered. Then, a little louder, she said, “Let me go please?”
There was a loud clack from somewhere nearby. It put her nerves on edge yet again. The other machine had grabbed a long tool. It came toward her.
“I’m sorry I trespassed,” she said in desperation. “Can you understand me? Do you even speak?”
The tubelike tool stopped over her head, then slowly moved downwards.
It must be scanning my insides. Or irradiating me to see if that kills me.
The arm pointed its tool lower, heading down her torso. Then it moved over her left leg. It hummed and paused again. Siobhan’s neck hurt to stare down so sharply in her restricted position, but she was too scared to not watch. A huge needle snapped out of the tool.
“Fracksilvers!” she yelled in combined fear and anger. She struggled anew, then the needle met her suit. The Veer skinsuit reported dangerous surface pressure at a tiny point on her leg. Then she felt the prick as the suit reported a very tiny failure point. She forced herself to be still. It did not hurt much.
Is it injecting or sampling? Sampling. They are just sampling. Please just be sampling.
Siobhan’s heart redoubled its pace. She struggled for breath. The arm retreated.
“I guess it’s nice you stop when I get scared, but now I get the feeling you’re just pausing and plan to continue anyway.”
To her own ears, her voice did not sound as careless as she had been shooting for. She listened for a moment. The hangar was big, mostly quiet. There was a background hum. The air felt fresh and at a comfortable temperature on her face, though it was hard to tell. Her skinsuit regulated her temperature and aided in evaporation of sweat in the heat as well as closing off to add insulation for colder climes.
The arm moved forward again. She tensed. It stopped above her face.
“Careful! Now think about what you’re doing there—”
A series of lights flashed into her face. She squinted. Then the light became dimmer. She opened her eyes a bit more. She saw a black pane hovering before her eyes.
It’s testing my vision.
The black pane showed a single horizontal white line across the top. Then the line descended. She tracked it. Then two parallel lines descended together. Then three. Then four.
“Yes, I can count, thanks,” Siobhan said, though she calmed considerably. This was certainly much better than being scanned and poked.
The single line descended again. Siobhan had a sudden inspiration.
“One!” she said. She synced up with the lines as they descended. “Two... Three.... Four.”
The sequence repeated itself so she did too.
Two lines ascended from below and two lines from above. They met in the center, then descended.
“Two plus two equals four,” she said. More lines met in the center. Each time she described the sequence aloud. Then lines formed in the center and subsets of them descended leaving lines behind, so she started to speak out the subtraction involved. The intuitive sequences continued for multiplication and division.
This seems reasonable. They think kind of like us, maybe.
Soon her link started to report noise. She suppressed the warning. Siobhan knew her link queried for service lists several times per second. No doubt the Celaran investigation had turned up its requests on the link frequencies.
“Can I talk to whoever’s in charge here? Well, actually, anyone at all?”
Abruptly the rods securing her against the platform rose. The machine retreated a meter then stopped.
A floating platform smoothly joined the platform she stood on. The low wall around the area opened to allow access to the mobile platform. Lights blinked insistently at her from the contrivance.
“You want me to go that way,” Siobhan said aloud. She took a nervous breath.
I can’t believe I made it through that. I think they are going to let me live, maybe even let me go! Or they just want to get my hopes up. If they kill me now I’m really going to be pissed.
Chapter 15
The forest around them was a ruined mess of incinerated debris. Telisa was reminded of the destructive capability of the Vovokan battle sphere. Thanks to Momma Veer, Caden’s rifle, and the sphere, the entire team had survived the sudden attack.
At least this time our watchdog played the role of bodyguard, she thought.
Imanol summed it up out loud. “Well, Shiny’s pet made short work of them.” Imanol had been hit by the caustic substance, but required minimal first aid since his suit had taken most of it. Jason’s faceplate was ruined and his face was red but mostly unburned. Cilreth had burns on one leg and another partially ruined combat suit.
We’re under equipped, Telisa thought. Before, we would have had all the replacements we could want. Now... every ruined suit is going to be missed.
“It’s too bad, those things were nothing but wild animals. They didn’t deserve that,” Cilreth said.
“You handled it well,” Telisa sent her privately.
“Thanks, but I turned on the emotion stabilizer at the first sign of trouble,” Cilreth said back on their channel.
“That’s fine. It worked.”
“We have a right to defend ourselves,” Imanol said in response to Cilreth’s original thought.
“By incinerating every last one of them?”
“We didn’t. The sphere did. I would have been satisfied to shoot a few up front and run—”
“You can debate that later. We have to concentrate on Siobhan right now,” Caden said.
“I agree, Caden. This little fight gave me an idea. It’s time we introduced the Celarans to our spherical friend,” Telisa said.
“Wait a second,” Cilreth said on the group channel. “Are we starting a war with an alien race?”
She’s right to hesitate. But I’m making this call.
“They have one of our people,” Telisa said. “Besides, there are no Celarans here, just automated defenses. That’s pretty clear from the empty settlement. With all the snooping around we’ve done on this planet, if there were a couple left, they’d be aware of our presence by now. I think a guard robot took Siobhan and incarcerated her. If it’s a real Celaran that took her, they deserve a hostile response.”
Even as Telisa said it, she knew she was making some assumptions. Maybe there was only one Celaran on any given planet and it lived in there. Maybe the Celarans were only robotic now, having discarded their old bodies. Maybe to Celarans, trespassing was a killing offense. Any number of possibilities could explain everything, and they did not all work well with her plan. Yet she felt she had to act.
There’s one more advantage to this. If our watchdog is destroyed, all the better.
“It could kill her,” Caden said. His voice was different, softer, despite his determination.
His suit has him on painkillers. But it would be no use to order him to rest now. It would just be torture for him.
“We have to get her back. Let’s get started,” Telisa said aloud.
“Everyone in the ship,” Telisa broadcast through her link. “We’re landing just outside the perimeter of the third site.”
“I want to hurry,” she said switching back to speaking aloud. “Let’s give the watchdog minimal time to recharge.”
“The force towers—” Cilreth started.
“Are designed to keep out wildlife, not spacecraft,” Telisa said. “What good would it do to push a spacecraft away? Most ships have long range weapons systems.”
“Okay, though you warn us about such assumptions,” Cilreth said.
“We’ll drop from the sky right onto the base and let our Vovokan friend loose. If some of you want to hoof it over there, I guess you don’t have to co
me with me. The ship will be a target.”
“Wait. If New Iridar is heavily damaged, we might never get back,” Imanol protested.
“We have to get Siobhan back,” Telisa said.
“There’s a middle option,” Cilreth said. “We can land just outside the edge. It might keep the ship from being a target to the automated defenses. But we know the battle sphere will come out to patrol the vicinity...”
“And it will see the Celaran machines as a threat. And vice-versa, when it starts to incinerate the perimeter net or a tower or a patrolling robot,” Telisa finished.
“If we have to, we can take a shot or two to get things started,” Caden said.
“We can try just outside the perimeter. It makes sense,” Telisa said. “The New Iridar is valuable. If it’s destroyed, I don’t know if we would survive. I’m not sure we can digest that sap or any of the life here.”
“Honestly, which side do you think will win?” Imanol asked.
She turned to look at Imanol. “I have no idea which side will win. Part of me wants to go looking for Siobhan during the battle, but I guess I’ll wait until there’s been some damage to the Celaran guard machines. I’ll also have a better chance without having to worry about being killed by stray fire.”
The others loaded up into the Vovokan shuttle. Cilreth told the New Iridar to prepare for takeoff. The battle sphere took the cue and entered the ship as Telisa did. They prepared for flight inside the small ship.
Telisa brought up the satellite maps of the third site as she secured herself in the sleep web of her tiny quarters. She pushed down a pang of loneliness that came to assail her. Her sleep web had been so warm and happy with Magnus around. She remembered their giant bedrooms on the Clacker.
“There,” she said, passing Cilreth the target spot. It was fifty meters from the edge of the Celaran hardtop. “Everyone, fan out along the perimeter when we get there. Take cover behind some heavy vines. Caden and I will light the fire, if it’s necessary.”
“Okay, give me ten minutes to get us there,” Cilreth said.
“Got it,” Caden said.
The others provided nonverbal acks.
Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins Page 15