by Juno Wells
“I looked over the list of vessels you sent me. We had a hard time figuring out the pros and cons of each, so I had them begin scavenging parts for the medical bay, hydroponics bay and cluster B weapons arrays.”
“That’s smart, because all those systems are fairly standard across different ships.”
“Are you really feeling better?”
“Yes.”
“We were worried about you.” Her eyes hold an element of warmth, but her expression is still guarded.
“I’m fine. Do you want to go over the ships I selected? I can give you the rundown on each design.”
“Sure.” Sitting gingerly on the side of the sleeping platform, she pulls out her electronic tablet.
When she pulls up the first design, I begin explaining what I like about it. “It’s been renovated once already. The work was high quality, and we can modify it more quickly than the other ships they have for sale. It’s designed to carry backup fuel rods so we can go longer between fuel stops.”
“I noticed the entire bottom layer is one gigantic cargo bay that can be accessed from either side of the ship. You actually mentioned that one before you were poisoned.”
I swallow thickly. I’m certain that getting myself taken out by a flying insect before the mission even got off the ground makes me look pretty weak and foolish in her eyes. Up close, I can tell those eyes are beautiful, as is her pale hair. Resisting the urge to reach out and touch her soft strands, I speak to what’s bearing on my mind. “I suppose you will continue with Drag as your commander, since I made such a poor showing at the beginning of this mission.”
Her carefully schooled expression slips and I can see her surprise. “Once you are feeling rested, I would prefer that you take up your duties.”
“You do not think me incompetent?”
Reaching behind me to adjust my cushions, she murmurs, “We’re just grateful that you pulled through.”
Her scent is delicate and feminine, and she still wants me to lead her mission. Invigorated, I ask crisply, “Would you like to hear about the other ships?”
She nods and scoots closer to look at the data on the tablet. I had them send aerial drones in to capture images from the interiors of the rest of the ships. The five freighters were severely damaged on the inside, three were rusted beyond repair.”
“Those would have been my first choice because they eat fuel rods. What did the others look like?”
“They were in varying stages of deterioration. I don’t know enough about ships to know which ones could be salvaged. I sent you the video footage we captured. Have a look for yourself.”
I click open each file and we watch the footage together. Being so near a queen affects me more than I imagined it would. Thrilled when she inches closer, I force myself to focus on the images. If I don’t pay attention, I won’t be able to have a coherent dialogue.
“Thought the battle cruisers are fast and have exterior mountings for phase cannons, I believe they lack the cargo room of the mid-range bulk transports.”
“I suppose if we’re down to the two mid-range transports the one with the retrofits is the better option. Do you have any ideas on how to clear the insects out?”
Feeling a surge of energy, I sit upright. When I pull back the blanket, I can see they’ve taken off my uniform, and I’m wearing only the long undergarments that cling to my legs. The top hangs low on my waist and when I stand, Queen Kearney’s eyes travel down my body like she’s assessing my ability to breed. Whatever she was looking for, she clearly does not find, because she jerks backward and whirls around groping for something on a nearby table.
She holds out a fresh uniform and I grab it, covering my offending body as quickly as possible. The movement wakes Phan who flies from his sleeping mat to check on me. His scanner is in his hand and moving over me before I can object. “It looks like you are fully recovered. There is no trace of the venom in your body and the nanobots have deactivated, which means there were no more repairs to be made. How do you feel?”
Catching a glimpse of our queen over his shoulder, I respond tightly, “I feel like I could fly circles around the moon.”
“I’m not surprised. I pumped you full of healing serum once the nanobots began to slow down.”
It’s the energy boost we give our young warriors when they first begin to train in earnest. It helps them bulk up and keeps them healthy while they put their young bodies through the rigors of training to be a warrior. I give his shoulder a quick squeeze. “Thanks, brother. Do you want to help me clear the insects out of our queen’s new ship?”
His face lights up, reminding me how much my brother enjoys action and adventure. “You know I do. I’m eager to learn a little more about their biology and breeding habits. Discovering a new species is always intriguing.”
“The suns will be up within the hour. I was foolish to go in without wearing armored battle gear. We won’t make that mistake this time.”
“I’ll wake the others, sir.”
Bowing our heads slightly, we murmur respectful farewells to our queen. I step outside her tent and haul in a deep gulp of the cool, early-morning air before heading over to the barracks. It consists of a thick tarp on the ground and a sturdy open-air canopy meant to keep the rain off the warriors while they sleep. Of course on this arid planet, the canopy seems like a waste of time. We gear up and make ready to swarm the ship in full force. After being on my back for two days, I’m aching to do something physical.
Leaving only a handful of warriors guarding our queens, we head to the ship. Phan and his battle buddy have not stopped whispering since we hit the makeshift barracks. Granted, they’re always putting their heads together about something, but they seem more excited than usual. It makes me wonder if the young queen initiated courting rituals with him.
I activate my face shield as we near the vessel. Since we’ve never encountered this particular species of insects before, and Drag reported that the locals insist they’ve never seen anything like it, it is likely they were already nesting on the ship when it was sold. If so, they’ve been festering there for three solars. I will need to activate the ship’s internal scans to make sure we eradicate every single insect in order for the queens to be safe aboard this vessel.
We move forward and step into the darkened interior. Several warriors release hovering mechanical devices to light our way. We make our way to an auxiliary substation, and two warriors begin working on a back-up power relay. They shove small emergency power rods into place, and the room lights up. We will have to do this in every section as we work our way to the engineering section of the ship.
Lifting my hand, I shout, “Hold.”
The warriors all go still, and we hear a faint buzzing noise.
“Is that the insects?” Phan’s voice is barely a whisper, but his eyes are huge.
I nod. “They came at me from the ceilings.”
Half the warriors aim their weapons up, and the others continue to monitor the rest of the room. It’s standard battle tactics.
Timric steps forward. “I’ll scout ahead.”
“Watch your back, warrior.” He stalks off towards one door, and I motion for Elder Scarn and another to follow him. This is his first mission as a scout. Though I know Timric is ready, I will afford him backup for this mission.
Phan squats down and snaps images of a viscous white substance from the floor before scraping it up and carefully dropping it into a tiny stasis container. He runs it across the handheld device he used to capture images, leaving an imprint on the specimen box. My brother’s compulsive attention to detail may yet win him an award among the healers. When he’s finished, our unit moves cautiously forward.
We activate two more substations before getting a message from our scouts. They’ve discovered what appears to be a nest, with a queen, no less. Since a certain subset of insects breed using a primary queen, the news isn’t all that shocking, I suppose. We meet resistance, and cut a path to our scouts using the pinpo
int accuracy of our laser weapons.
When we burst into the dining area, Timric and Scarn are squatting with their laser rifles across their laps. Sprawled around are several insect bodies, and they are staring at the large queen. She almost the size of a warrior, and unlike the males of her species, she has three distinct segments. Since the males have two, I assume the last segment is for breeding. She’s been webbed into place with what appears to be the sticky viscous substance Phan took a sample of when we first arrived. She looks pitiful and is making a keening noise. It’s clear her drones have been force-breeding her.
My brother steps to my side, clearly shocked by what the insects have done to their queen. “How can any species treat their queen in such a way?”
“I do not know. Perhaps they are but mindless animals.”
“She’s an elder queen, and her breathing is labored. My initial reaction was to give her medical treatment, then I thought better of it.”
We hear firing from the rear. “We’re being attacked again. Euthanize their queen, and quickly gather whatever information you need on this species. We will cover you for as long as we can, but after that, we ensure none remain to infect our queens with their venom.”
“Understood, sir.” Phan unshoulders his medical kit and loads a hypo-spray. The queen cannot harm him in current circumstances, so I leave Scarn to watch over him and return to the fight. Darg fights shoulder to shoulder with me. “One thing is for certain, this species is as prolific as it is aggressive.”
“This is a fact that I know all too well.”
I shoot one as it is flying for my friend’s back. It sends a clear message that we had better focus on the vicious swarm that’s doing it’s best to overwhelm our defenses.
6 WAITING IT OUT
KEARNEY
KENDRA CAN’T SEEM to stop pacing. It’s making me anxious as well. I’ve parked my carcass at a fold-up table and am scrolling through the footage from the battle with the insects that’s still in progress. Nothing leads me to believe they are sentient beings. There is no strategy to their attack patterns, no cooperation with one another, and no attempts to communicate. The insects seem to be in a blind rage and have not quit swarming our warriors even now that it is clear their stingers cannot pierce the men’s battle armor.
A worried voice sounds off behind me. “Why is it taking so long?”
Without looking up, I continue to monitor the footage. “The ship is large. They have to repair the sensors and then track down all the insect signatures. It’s only been six hours. They might not be able get it all done in one day.”
“They’re going to break and come back here to sleep, right? I don’t want them trying to bed down in there. It’s too risky.”
“It wouldn’t make sense for them to stay there overnight. Have you eaten anything since this morning? You know how you get when you don’t eat.” I toss her a food bar, and she clutches it in her hand as she walks over to look out the doorway we made by pulling the flap of the tent back. “Staring out towards the ship isn’t going to bring them back any faster.”
“I want them out of harm’s way. They’re too young and inexperienced to be in such a dangerous situation.”
All this time, I’ve been under the impression she’s been worried about all our warriors. Now it sounds like she’s more worried about the two younger warriors. “After spending a couple of days with Phan, I would have thought you might be well onto developing a friendship. However, you hardly know Meric’s son. Why are you so worried about him?”
“Phan is pretty amazing, I’ll admit that. Wouldn’t it be cool if I ended up with him and you ended up with the commander?”
At almost eighteen, Kendra is still young enough to think that the two of us mating brothers would be awesome. Even I have to admit it would be convenient, not because they’re brothers necessarily, more because they’re good-looking, smart, capable, and seem really focused on us. Most warriors would burn in hell before they pursued a queen. It suddenly occurs to me that Tabor has done everything short of that.
He helped set up our campsite, made sure we had the tools and knowhow to dig for gemstone, and helped me sort and grade it. He traded out our food bars for some kind of super nutrient-dense ones that helps us pick up some weight, even while expending tremendous energy digging for gemstone every day. Tabor never judged. Instead he just helped and supported us, while looking ten kinds of handsome in the process.
I don’t think even Kendra knows my deepest, darkest secret. Watching him fly makes my girl parts throb with need. Something about those huge wings flapping in the breeze flips all the right switches for me. Since he’s very adept at reading my expressions, I’m careful never to look him in the face. If I did, he’d know for sure how I feel about him.
We can’t have that when we’re so close to making it back to Earth. I’ve got enough of those nutrient-dense food bars to feed my family for a very long time. We stocked huge crates of them, and you only need one a day to survive. Two a day makes life easy, because not only are there no hunger pains at the end of the day, but we were able to pick up weight. I wouldn’t describe us as curvy, but I’m definitely getting there.
Rather than admit to anything, I murmur, “Sure, that would be nice. We need to get back to Earth before we begin any relationships, though. We talked about this, remember?”
“I don’t see why we can’t do both.”
“Do what you want. I’m not wasting time on anything as long as we don’t know what’s going on with Mom.”
“You’re right. Sorry, I let myself get distracted.”
I look up and catch her eye. “It’s okay. At your age boys were all I thought about.”
She gives me a knowing grin. “You must have been looking at them in a book, cause there were never enough boys to bother with on Earth.”
She ain’t wrong about that. On Earth almost fifty years ago a contagion born of pollution in Earth’s oceans locked onto the male DNA. First the males began acting strange, flying off the handle and were easily irritated. Some began engaging in non-goal directed behaviors, like pinching at the air or rocking back and forth. It was difficult to tell something was wrong at first. Then emergency rooms were literally flooded with people reporting nonsensical symptoms. It took the medical community months to find the contagion and years to fabricate an inoculation. They never did manage to find a cure, costing millions of lives. The end result was by the time we were born there were very few males, especially in our age group.
Kendra dropped down onto a crate beside my makeshift table. “Do you think we should join them?”
“I think the commander’s head would explode if we showed up without battle armor. I’m not keen on watching you go through the healing process if you get stung. The warriors are strong, and the commander is more robust than most of them. The poison almost killed him. It’s not likely that you or I would survive being stung. We’d best let the warriors handle it, don’t you think?”
Kendra wrinkles her nose in disgust. “I wish we had battle armor.”
“It takes weeks to fabricate because its custom designed to the wearer’s body. I wish we had it too, but I wasn’t about to postpone our mission to get it.”
“Do you think Mom and the others are getting by?” Her shaky voice tells me she already knows the answer to that question. She’s wringing her hands in her lap just thinking about it.
“We left them in a cave with dehydrated food and only one course of antibiotics.” Sighing heavily, I reach out and play one hand over hers. “We have to be prepared for the reality that some of them didn’t make it.”
My younger sister lifts her chin defiantly and her voice turns cold. “Kara’s still alive. If she weren’t, I’d know.”
“I know why you think that, honestly I do. If anyone can survive, Kara can. She’s always been in touch with nature in ways the rest of us weren’t. She knows how to scavenge for berries and what mushrooms are safe to eat. She can start a fire without a fire
starter and keep the coals going for days.”
“I’m thinking that as far up in the mountains as they are, there’s a chance she found a clean spring.”
My throat closes up with emotion. “Before the fall, she always said it was coming. None of us believed her.”
“They said we were just kids, and we didn’t know what we were talking about.”
I pull her into a bear hug. It’s been a long time since Kendra spoke of them as a unit. It affects me more than I thought it would. “They’ll be alive. We have to believe. If I begin doubting again, bring me up short.”
Pulling back, Kendra has a sad smile on her face. “You better believe I will.” Coming to her feet, she stretches. “Right now, I’m going to go out and work on that old shuttle with our guards.”
My head jerks up to look at her. “Don’t call them that. We aren’t their prisoners.”
“I know, I know. They work for us now. It just seems weird.” She gives me her back and strolls out of the tent.
I go back to watching the data stream, paying particular attention to Tabor. He’s a competent commander. All the men follow his order without hesitation. I zoom in on his face and am shocked that he’s smiling. A quick look around tells me they all are, with the exception of Phan. I remember he’s a healer, rather than a regular warrior so he probably doesn’t enjoy a good fight as much as the others. Still, the young man holds his own, taking down as many insects as the others. My wariness of him turns to grudging admiration. He’d be a good catch for Kendra.
I notice his battle buddy sticks right by his side. Timric is his name. He’s all warrior. I can tell because his fighting technique is similar to Tabor’s, meaning he’s super aggressive. He jumps forward to meet the enemy and doesn’t hesitate to turn and jump over objects to get a good shot. He’d be a handful for some lucky lady, but not my sister. If that’s Kendra’s plan, we’re going to butt heads.
I jolt up in my seat. They’ve arrived in the engineering section and appear to be working on the main engine. A small team leaves and returns about thirty microns later with large metal coil. I watch them retrofit it to the ship, cutting away about a third of it. I’m elated when the ship finally powers up. Our warriors are clever and hard-working men. The reward I have planned for them will make every bit of their diligence worth it.