by Chris Reher
From somewhere, she heard Nolan curse and yell something about “rods” and “stabilizers”. Jex counted something in a strangely cheerful voice. Things seemed to have lost their colors here on the bridge and she realized that she was graying out. When an annoying red haze crept into her vision, the thought of passing out seemed oddly welcome. A high-pitched whine drilled through the ship, modulating only when Ryle forced his hand up against the pull of gravity to swipe his fingers through the hologram above his console.
It stopped. The shaking stopped, the whine of the engines stopped and Laryn’s chest rose to gulp a greedy draft of air when the gravity returned to tolerable levels.
“Awesome!” Azah yelled when the Nefer escaped the grasp of the Well and sped away. “Hope no one had to pee.”
Ryle fell back in his seat with a loud exhalation of air. “That was darling. Good thing you said that about them being slippery. Gave me all sorts of ideas.” He tilted his head to wink at Laryn. “You all right, Agent?”
“You do this a lot?” Laryn said. Her fingers had left dents in her armrests.
Ryle grinned. “Yeah. Jex, diagnostic and top speed to Pendra. Nolie? You still there?” He shifted a screen to show the ship’s main engine room. It was empty and so he switched it to the adjacent cargo space. “Nolan? You can come out now.”
A small, square door on a shipping container slid aside and Nolan ducked out of it. He looked up at the camera. “Guess we made it, huh?” He turned to stoop back into the box and Laryn saw him dragging Toji from it. “Toji fainted,” he said, sounding worried. “Should have tried to find out how his people deal with high-G.”
“Is that what you meant by them getting boxed?” Laryn said, intrigued, as she watched Toji, ashen-faced and silent, find his feet.
Ryle nodded. “Small field bubble designed to mitigate gravity crashes for fragile cargo. Figured that Nolie’s delicate skull wasn’t going to stand up to the G’s. I’d run the ship in it if it didn’t burn so much energy. How’s the Nefer, Jex?”
“All systems are operating optimally. We will reach Pendra Station in two point seven eight kilo-secs.”
Ryle removed his restraints. “Still almost three hours. A lot can happen on Pendra in three hours. Keep trying to hail them. Maybe there’s someone nearby that isn’t dealing with their jammers.”
“Toji, Nolan, if you’re done down there, come up to the med station,” Laryn said. “I want to get a scan of everyone.”
One by one, the crew submitted to an examination and then stripped to spend time in the decon shower. Jex concocted a potion for all but Toji to boost their immune system and a drone sniffed through all areas of the ship to hunt down and destroy foreign lifeforms they might have brought aboard. It was a small measure toward the more rigorous process to follow, but it made them all feel a little cleaner.
* * *
“Your turn, doc.”
Laryn looked up from her charts when Ryle’s voice broke the comfortable quiet aboard the ship. Although traveling at top speed toward Pendra Station, the Nefer did so silently and the others had retreated to their cabins. He entered the med lab, limping a little from their recent tumble through the caverns of Torren. A clean bandage covered a long scrape on his shoulder and a strip of tape sealed the cut on his temple.
She smiled. “I’m all right, Captain.” She pointed at the screen. “Look, clean like my mama bathed me.”
“Except for that bruise on your back,” he said and pointed at the padded bench. “Let’s take a look.”
Exhaling a theatrical sigh of surrender, she gathered her hair and shifted to the examination table, surprised when he sat down as well. “Is it bad?” she said, turning her back toward him.
“It’s pretty purple,” he said, examining the welt running across her shoulder and upper arm, a souvenir of the crawler’s support strut. She wore only a sleeveless shift and he placed his hand on her other shoulder while applying a slim tool to help break up the blood that had pooled under her skin. “That’s going to be sore tomorrow,” he promised. “So hold still. I’m an expert at this.”
“Really?” she said, aware of his fingers at the curve of her neck.
“Well, no. But I’ve had a bruise or two in my life. Jex is making sure I don’t dissolve your bones or whatever this thing does.”
“Laryn also strained her left upper trapezius muscle, although it’s not—”
“Thank you, Jex,” Ryle said. “We’ve got this. Go to standby.”
Laryn grinned, about to comment on Jex’s ever-vigilant presence when she felt his fingers gently probe for the muscle the AI had mentioned.
“You are more resilient than I thought,” he said.
“You thought I was frail?”
“No,” he said and she heard the smile in his voice. “But delicate. I sometimes feel like an oaf standing beside you. Like the grunt I am. Like I might accidentally break off a piece if I shook your hand.”
“I don’t break so easily,” she said.
“I certainly found that out today.”
Her breath caught and she felt the hair at her nape rise when he stroked a long strand out of the way.
“Agent Ash?” a timid voice reached them through the door to the lab.
Ryle’s breath brushed over her skin as he exhaled forcefully and dropped his hand.
“Yes, Toji?” she said and turned when the Kalon entered the room. Ryle stood up to face him as well.
“Oh, I am disturbing you,” Toji said. “I did not realize you were injured.”
“That’s all right,” she said, not daring to glance at Ryle, not daring to make assumptions about the moment that had just passed. “I thought you were with Nolan, taking apart that Kalon weapon. Are you all right?”
He hesitated. “No, I don’t suppose I am.”
“Come sit down,” Laryn said. “Are you in pain?”
Toji shook his head. “No. I wanted to speak with you. You were there, in the cave…”
Ryle and Laryn waited, a little unsure of what the Kalon expected from them. Finally, Laryn took his hand and made him sit beside her. “Yes, and I’m glad you were with us,” she said. “You fought bravely.”
“Did I?” he said, staring at the floor. “My thoughts keep returning to that place. I see my… I see the Kalons. Attacking. And then I killed some of them.”
Laryn looked up at Ryle, who shrugged, puzzled.
“And you regret that now?” she guessed. “They attacked us, first.”
“I know. But…” He rubbed his hands, one over the other, as he looked for words. “I feel… Those are my people, are they not? I know I told you we suspected them of wishing harm on you, but I had not expected such terrible intent. And am I not one of them? Have I turned my back on us? On the Br’ll?”
She pursed her lips. “I suppose you have. But are those your people? You were not… designed for what they did. For what they did to the Harla group. You wanted to stop them, too, didn’t you?”
He nodded stiffly. “We did not think they had reached such extremes. This has turned out far too… unacceptable.” His eyes found hers. “But I am not Human. I have betrayed the purpose and the trust the Br’ll placed in me.”
“You made a choice,” Laryn said. “We value that ability. You said that maybe they made you too Human. Your generation, I mean. So in a way, they gave you that choice.”
“We need you with us on this,” Ryle said. “For all we know those Kalons with the chip are hiding aboard the station right now. Pendra may need some convincing to admit that something’s gone wrong.”
“And what will become of us, then?” Toji said. “What will happen to me and those few of my generation, the first Kalons to have arrived at the station? Will we be killed? Exiled? There is no Kalon planet for us to return to. We have no home at all…”
Laryn put her hand on his arm. Even she, who had lost her home and most of her family, could return to Earth if she wanted. Toji did not even have that. His primordial world was
nothing more than an alien planet where none of them would survive for long.
“And will you make war on the Br’ll, for fear of what they might do in the future?” Toji said. “Yes, I can see by your faces that you think that, too.”
“Well, yes,” Laryn said. “We’ll have to take steps to protect the station. And the filaments to Earth and Terrica.”
Toji said nothing for a drawn-out moment before speaking again. “I do not believe the Br’ll are entirely to blame.”
“Eh?” Ryle said. “Why not?”
“I drew information from that injured Kalon in the cavern, if you recall.”
The others nodded.
“I drew much more. Some of it is vague, as I’m unskilled with this. I… I have not been privileged to join in the formation of a Kalon, and certainly not a Br’ll. But he shared some of his thoughts, his knowledge, with me.”
“Jex, record this,” Ryle said. He nodded to Toji. “Is that all right?”
“Yes. You need to know.”
“We’re listening,” Laryn said softly.
“What you assume about the Br’ll is correct. But there is more than one… one faction on our planet. Some do not wish to return to the Hub at all. Others want to do so peacefully, as they are curious about your people. They bear you no ill will for taking the Hub from them. But others do. They want it back. And they want Humans gone.”
Ryle whistled appreciatively. “Sounds complicated.”
“Hmm, yeah,” Laryn said. “But no more than on our own planet.”
“So I have learned,” Toji said. He looked up at Ryle. “Even your own crew does not always share the same opinions.”
“Tell me about it!” Ryle said with half a laugh.
“The Br’ll had some of your technology and… and some living tissue,” Toji continued, “From their first encounter with you, more than a hundred years ago. They used that information to learn about you, your technology, and to learn your language. And then they created the Kalons, maturing them on a ship designed after yours. That would have taken many years. I was among the first generation to be sent to Pendra Station. We were, like you, Agent Ash, ambassadors, a vanguard to establish a rapport with your people. And to discover your intentions for the Br’ll homeworld.”
“And then you made a deal with Pendra and the Ministry to declare your planet off limits,” Laryn said. “To protect your species. To keep the Br’ll world safe from Human invaders in exchange for some of your technology. Would have been very acceptable to Pendra since Kalon isn’t ever going to be habitable for us.”
“Isn’t that clever,” Ryle said. “And in turn you promised not to visit Earth. And so, until other Br’lls decide to make the trip to the Hub, no one will know there aren’t any Kalons on Kalon.” He smiled at Laryn but there was no humor in his expression. “And Pendra isn’t likely to ask questions for as long as they benefit from whatever tech the Kalons are willing to share with them.”
“Yes. And things went well. Your people welcomed us, for the most part.” Toji took a deep breath, like his version of a sigh. “But then the others started to arrive at the station. Recently. A new generation, different from ours. The… the Kalon I questioned on Torren said disagreements took place among the Br’ll factions. It was bitter and eventually a group left Br’ll and entered a filament to a planet you had not yet discovered. Torren. They’ve known about it for a long time. The Br’ll know of many places you have not yet found. They diverted the Harla there. It was there that they started to birth the new Kalons and bring them onto the station, by replacing the Ophet workers.”
“And now, instead of a handful of Kalon explorers, we’ve got a hostile army of them,” Ryle said. “With weapons and ships we haven’t even conceived of.”
Toji nodded. “I’m so sorry. Azah was right to question why we did not alert your people with our suspicions. We aren’t bred to imagine secret schemes. We only knew what we were given during our emergence into adult Kalons. We did not know of the conflicts on our home planet.”
“I think you’re carrying enough guilt,” Laryn said. “We’re not going to assign blame to anyone but the Kalons that want to harm us.” She glanced up at Ryle. “Well, and Pendra. I promise I’ll do all I can to make sure your friends aren’t blamed, either.”
Toji offered his shy smile. “You are kind, Agent Ash. I have to admit I don’t hold much hope if this army is at this moment converging upon your station.”
“Well, we’ve got guns, too.” Ryle said. He pondered for a moment. “So, going back to what you said about other planets we haven’t found yet. Got coordinates for those?”
Chapter Fourteen
“We’re now in visual contact with Pendra Station,” Jex announced a few hours later, rousing Laryn from the short nap she had sought in her cabin.
“Everyone to their stations,” Ryle’s voice added over the speakers, sounding wide awake.
The crew assembled on the bridge, more or less rested. Azah in full combat mode, Toji anxious, and Laryn was not surprised to see Nolan sipping from a steaming bowl of rations. Laryn, in anticipation of speaking with Pendra authorities, had slipped into a buttery pair of fawn leather trousers and silk blouse, and again wore her Ministry insignia.
“All screens.”
The image of the ponderous station appeared before them, floating serenely in space, as always surrounded by a clutter of beacons and sensors. But they were dark now, and no maintenance shuttles buzzed around the station on their endless inspections and repair assignments.
Ryle, like the others, dropped into one of the six chairs circling the hologram platform. After a moment’s thought, his gesture invited Toji to take one of the empty seats. The Kalon’s eyes widened in surprise and he smiled as he hurriedly sat down beside Nolan. Laryn noticed that, this time, he sat as they did, with his feet on the floor.
Ryle focused a camera on the upper docking level housing smallcraft vessels. “Eight outbounders,” he said. “Colsan wasn’t kidding about them being recalled. Three Pendra ships now.”
“I don’t see the two ships the Kalons were using out of Torren,” Nolan said. “Did we beat them here?”
“There,” Azah said, pointing. “On the lower deck. It’s where the Ophet transports usually park.”
“Well, I guess we can assume they’re aboard the station,” Ryle said. “What sort of numbers can we expect there now?”
“Mostly just staff here now, so close to the fleet arriving,” Laryn said. “About two hundred admin, support and science staff. A few dozen workers from Terrica here to help with the migrants.”
“Eight out of fifteen outbounders means about forty or fifty more,” Nolan said.
“Only about fifty or so security personnel,” Laryn added.
Ryle nodded. “Kalons?” His question was for Toji.
“Forty,” Toji said. “Not counting those who arrived on these ships from Torren.”
“How many of those are… uh, friendly?” Azah asked.
Toji hesitated a moment. “There are eight in my… group. They’re not part of… of whatever is happening here. There used to be more, but they’ve not returned from Ophet. I now worry what might have become of them.”
“Hmm,” Ryle tapped a finger to his lips, calculating. “I don’t think the Kalons intend to take the station by force. Not unless there were a lot of them on those two ships from Torren.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Azah said with a scornful note in her voice. “Pendra guards aren’t a fighting force. Wouldn’t be a good investment for Pendra. They won’t expect an armed attack.”
“They will have been trained for… for hostilities,” Laryn said, knowing well that she wasn’t ready to admit that the station was woefully unprepared for an actual outside attack. But how does one prepare for an enemy whose size and strength was unknown? The last alien invasion they had suffered here had been a virus from Antica. “But I think Ryle is right. They’re here to take control of the station from inside. By
fooling the ANN into giving them access, with the interface chips they stole.”
“Let’s hail the station,” Ryle said.
Azah and Laryn exchanged a puzzled look.
“They can’t hear us, remember?” Azah said.
“Yes, but we’re not supposed to know that. If the Kalons are in control of the station I’m guessing they have a way to monitor approaching ships.” He signaled Jex to open the com. “Outbounder SC Nefer on return,” he said. “Having trouble with sensors. Do you receive, Station?” He waited a few moments. “Requesting dock permit.”
“So, I hate to state the obvious,” Nolan said. “But how are they going to dock us without sensors? Does the control tower even know we’re here?”
“Maybe we can hold up a sign,” Azah joked, pointing toward the cameras below the control tower. A horizontal bank of windows also overlooked the docks, but they remained opaque from this angle.
“Can we use Morse?” Laryn asked.
Ryle turned from his scrutiny of the station to raise an eyebrow at her.
“What’s Morse?” Azah said.
“An old com code,” Ryle said. “Pulses and pauses instead of letters. Used two or three hundred years ago. Jex, do you have that code?”
“I do, Ryle.”
“So?” Azah said. “They can’t receive us. Doesn’t matter what protocol we use.”
Ryle grinned at Laryn. “Agent Ash has other ideas.” He turned back to the screens. “Jex, can you strobe the forward running lights to send a message using Morse?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s hope someone is looking out of a window somewhere,” Laryn said. “We can warn them from here about the Kalons.”
“I don’t want the wrong attention. Just request permission to dock, Jex.”
“Am I the only one who thinks that’s not really a very good idea?” Laryn said. “You want to go in there not knowing what’s going on? What difference can we make?”