Orphans

by Kevin Killiany

  “Sir?” he said abruptly.

  “Yes?”Tev and Kairn chorused.

  Stevens paused for a moment, waiting for one or the other to say something else. When neither did, he went on: “My suit is using more power than it should.” He double-checked his figures on the heads-up display inside his helmet. “Every task is using about four percent more power than normal.”

  “Your suit is malfunctioning?”Kairn asked, his voice ominously neutral.

  “No, sir.” Stevens bet Klingons regarded their suits as part of their arsenal; failure to maintain a weapon probably carried the death penalty. “I can’t localize it, but the drain is coming from outside my suit.”

  “Halt,”said Kairn. “Suit diagnostics.”

  Soloman was the first to answer. “Confirmed. My suit is also experiencing an additional drain on all systems.”

  “My suit is fine.”Pattie’s chuckle was crystalline.

  Abramowitz snorted and Stevens grinned as he shook his head. Impervious to vacuum, the Nasat engineer was of course naked to space.

  “However,”Pattie added, “my utility harness seems to have lost about eight percent of its reserve power.”

  Stevens frowned. Her harness, which included the vibration microphone which allowed her to speak and magnetic boots along with a selection of potentially useful tools, used only a fraction of the energy a full environmental suit did. On the other hand, most of that energy was used in highly active systems.

  “Double-check, everyone,” he said. “Is most of your loss through active systems or storage?”

  His theory was quickly confirmed as everyone reported active system drains.

  “Energy collectors,” he said. “Or maybe just one big one. Something that sucks power out of active systems. That’s why our communications are breaking up.”

  “Aceton assimilators?”Kairn suggested.

  Stevens shook his head. “Aceton assimilators project the energy they steal back at the source as deadly radiation. Ambient radiation levels are unchanged.”

  “On the other hand,”Pattie said, “either we’ve traveled six hundred kilometers, or the beacon’s signal is being absorbed as well.”

  “The pull of such accumulators is usually exponential,”Tev said. “High projective energy devices such as tricorders should be used sparingly.”

  “That means our phasers are probably useless,”Lauoc said.

  Stevens nodded inside his helmet. Tkon accumulators absorbed phaser fire so rapidly the beams never reached their targets.

  “We should go to minimum power levels,” he said, “to reduce drain.”

  “Agreed,”said Tev.

  There was a pause as everyone made their adjustments.

  “Tactical systems specialist,”said Kairn.

  “That’s me,” Stevens answered.

  Kairn grunted and resumed his march toward the entrance.

  Effusive in their praise, these Klingons.Stevens trudged behind. I’ll try not to let it go to my head.

  * * *

  With a final twist, Stevens activated the pattern enhancers.

  Without waiting for a system check, Kairn gave the order:“Transport now.”

  “Transporting,”Shabalala confirmed.

  A shielded generator appeared, gravimetric grapple already engaged to grip the spinning surface.

  If we had beamed one guy down with a pattern enhancer,Stevens thought as he helped Lauoc break the framework back down again, the rest of us could have beamed straight to the surface without risking our necks on the landing.

  “Recharge.”Kairn was speaking to Pattie, who was being held to the surface by Tev and Abramowitz.

  “Gladly.”The Nasat tethered herself to the generator before connecting the power feed. Almost immediately her boots clicked firmly to the surface.

  Two kilometers from the edge, “forward” had become distinctly “down,” and they’d had to engage gravimetrics to keep their footing. Pattie’s harness, using a larger fraction of its smaller power reserves, was almost completely depleted.

  “How is the power drain, Specialist?”Tev asked Stevens.

  “About three percent of what she draws is disappearing.” He watched the readout for a moment.

  “Now it’s four percent. I don’t think we have much time.”

  Each of the others recharged their suit’s systems in turn. Kairn was last, and by the time he hooked to the generator, less than ten percent of its energy was going into his batteries. The rest went…elsewhere. Stevens still could not determine how the siphoned energy disappeared.

  The generator shifted position as Kairn disconnected.

  “It’s losing its grapples,” Stevens said. “Better get it out of here.”

  “Let it go.”Conlon’s voice was barely recognizable through the static over the communication from the ship.

  “Huh?” he asked brightly.

  “Chief Engineer Conlon is correct,”Tev said. “If the energy tap has locked on to the generator, beaming it aboard the da Vinci might enable it to access ship’s systems.”

  They stood back as the massive device began sliding along a curving path toward the edge of the ship, two kilometers distant. It was lost to sight in moments.

  A blue-gray wall, six meters by six meters, jutted abruptly from the surface, blotting out a section of streaking stars. Between them and it was a hole, also six meters square, discernable only as a featureless blackness against the dark blue-gray of the surface.

  What sort of culture would make the entrance to their world a simple tunnel open to space?Stevens wondered. Then again, he had to admit, they had no idea what might be waiting just inside. He was fairly certain that once they crossed the threshold, the energy-absorbing field would block all communications with da Vinci.

  Well, the mission design did call for them to be completely on their own for six days on the inside. With luck, sufficient time to survey possible locations for the control center. It would be at least that long before anyone called them, anyway.

  By now, “down” was emphatically toward the outer edge. The danger of the hole was not falling in, but loss of contact that would fling them into space. They gave the square void a wide berth, approaching the wall from the side. Stevens noted it was only about ten centimeters thick and wondered if it could support them. A simple tricorder scan would have told, but might also have drained its energy. Best to save active scans for something more critical.

  Kairn evidently had similar concerns. He used hand signals to order the others to remain, then stepped onto the wall alone. He stood for a moment, horizontal from their perspective, then gestured the others to join him.

  Stepping to a perpendicular surface was awkward, but it was a relief to Stevens to reorient himself as they set his boots down onto the structure. Instantly the forward drag he’d been fighting disappeared as the wall became a ledge, “down” now firmly and comfortably toward the soles of his feet. The surface they’d traversed was now a wall stretching endlessly above them, while the stars…

  Stevens turned quickly back to face the ship.

  “Magnets,”said Kairn.

  He paused as everyone switched off their high-energy gravimetrics, then entered the tunnel. With their suit lamps at the lowest setting, the away team followed him into the darkness.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Ahrhi uncoiled from the crouch, sword hand bracing her shield as she thrust upward with all the power of her thighs and back. The heart of her shield slammed her opponent’s elbows and its metal bezel caught his wrists, interrupting a double-handed down stroke meant to split her in half. The raider reeled backward, the broadsword flying from his ruined grasp.

  The second raider lunged from her right, but he was a step too far and out of position, his shortsword still raised to hack down on her crouching form.

  At the top of her leap, her weight barely on the balls of her feet, her belly floating free, Ahrhi spun to her left, away from her attacker, and reversed her sword. T
here was a moment’s thrill of terror as the hilt spun freely about her lower thumb, but she caught it firmly, blade now flat along her forearm, as she came down.

  She dropped to one knee, bending all the energy of her fall to thrusting her sword upward and back. Her heavy belly threw her balance off, but she jammed the point of her shield into the dirt, bracing herself as the bandit threw himself on her. She felt her sword pierce his unoiled leather armor with a corn-husk crackle, the impact rocking her painfully forward against her shield and stomach. His weight fell across her back, one limp arm flailing across her shoulder to fling his sword into the dust before her as his face bounced against the crest of her helm.

  Twisting her blade, she pulled and spun, rolling the corpse from her as she stood to face the third raider. Again her unaccustomed weight threw her off and her sure stance was flawed by a momentary stumble.

  But the last of the border raiders was retreating, his back to her and his weapon undrawn as he labored the driver’s switch to hasten the laden packbeasts down the trail. If he hadn’t insisted on taking the plunder with him, she’d have been inclined to let him escape. As it was…

  To her left her first opponent was struggling to gather up his sword, at least one arm clearly shattered, and scuttle to whatever cover the hillside provided. She left him to a lingering death and loped after his fleeing comrade. Her light shield swung from her forearm as her right arm cradled her belly.

  Suddenly from behind her came the thud of riderbeast hooves galloping on the dirt trail. She turned, expecting to see Joac or even Lithal in the livery of Rowath Hold.

  Instead a fourth raider, mounted on a rangy riderbeast of the lowlands, bore down upon her. Their rear guard. He had stayed concealed beyond the same out-crop of rock that had allowed her to catch the others unawares, waiting until she was exposed on the trail before charging. He wore not armor but peasant’s homespun—evidently a disguise, for the deadly steadiness of his leveled longsword marked him as a practiced warrior.

  Part of her brain noted she was not the only left-handed fighter on the trail this day as she assessed her situation. Here the pass was too narrow to evade him and cover was too many steps behind. Her only choice was to meet his charge. She stood tall, feet planted wide with sword hand again braced behind her shield, the blade angled down and to her right, clearly prepared for his frontal assault.

  The rider thundered straight toward her, bent low over the pommel of the saddle, his sword aimed like a lance. For a long breath the classic cavalry charge against the classic foot defense seemed to play itself out in the morning source light. In the last heartbeat the outlaw stood in his stirrups, swinging the sword above his head, ready to slash down from over and behind her shield.

  Timed as though they had rehearsed this moment a hundred times, Ahrhi leaned right, left leg straight as right bent low, and raised her right arm above her head. Her sword was slashing low and wide even as his split her shield. A backhand swing in the direction of the horse’s charge did not carry as much force as a frontal blow, but it was a cut impossible for a rider in motion to block.

  The riderbeast screamed as the sword tip sliced a shallow furrow along its ribs and the severed stirrup flew to clink metallically off the stone wall of the trail. The rider’s foot landed with a more meaty thump just beyond. Screaming his own agony, the rider was barely able to cling to his mount’s mane as the terrified animal plunged down the trail.

  A wave of fatigue swept over her, and for a moment the narrow pass swam about her. She swayed, catching her fall by jamming the point of her sword into the dust of the trail, and stood for a moment, belly pressed to sword hilt, right arm hanging limp.

  Chin to chest she saw her dangling shield was beyond repair. The bezel was bent, nearly broken, and the polished leather flapped loose from the splintered wood. Dosar had made her this shield, fashioned it from stout tayr wood and armorbeast hide the season before his death. Last season, when the trees were in bud. For that memory she roused herself and reslung the shield across her shoulders.

  Rowath, the Holder, had allowed her to stay in the married quarters after Dosar’s death. He had hopes, more than she had, for the outcome of her pregnancy; he said she would need the room for her children. Until he moved her back to the barracks, she had a hearth and a place to hang this shield. A place of memory.

  She was not surprised to find the line of packbeasts abandoned. The lone able-bodied raider had apparently made good use of his mobility, for she saw no sign of him. Dosar would have known where he had gone; Dosar was the tracker. Then again, Dosar’s longbow would have brought the four raiders down before they’d known a warden was about.

  The animals came easily to hand, having no more objection to retracing their steps uphill than they’d had to following the trail down. They were loaded, she saw, with ingots from Domat’s mine, but not overloaded. The raiders had planned a long journey before finding a market for their booty.

  No mystery there: this trail branched either duskward, past the lower birthing pool to Atwaan, which had mines enough of its own, or dawnward to the Tetrarchy. The Four Houses would use this little bit of metal in a day and had the wealth to pay twice its worth without blinking.

  Come to think of it—and she did stop to think, peering first back down the trail, then up to the hills on either side—this was not enough to warrant a journey through the wilds to the Tetrarchy. These few must have been but one cell of a larger group of raiders. She wondered how many Holds were being raided today.

  Had they known, she wondered as she continued up the trail toward Domat’s outpost at the downwater edge of Rowath Hold, that the warden for these trails was dead? Their small number and the openness with which they’d moved indicated they had expected no opposition.

  Certainly not to be brought down by a pregnant shield maiden in single combat. Even in her dark mood, that thought made her smile.

  She had been proud to be a shield bearer, to excel in a craft dominated by men. She was a defender, sworn to protect others. For many years she had defended Dosar, guarded him against assault and ambush as he patrolled, searching out raiders and renegades.

  It was a familiar partnership; no longbow man could protect himself in close combat and often no armsman with sword or crossbow could engage thieves and brigands before they escaped. Though, and again despite her mood Ahrhi smiled at the memory of Dosar’s amusement, it was very rare for a warden to marry his shield bearer.

  But she had been poor defense against a raider with a longbow. No guardsman could protect another against the shaft of a longbow. They came from too far to be seen, flew too fast to see. No one held her at fault for her husband’s death but her.

  She jerked the lead packbeast’s halter more savagely than the poor animal deserved when it tried to snatch a bite of trailside grass. She murmured an absent apology, and the creature tossed its head, rejecting it out of hand.

  There was no marque of House or Hold on the arrow she now carried in her bedroll, but she knew the arrowhead. It was the narrow lozenge of dense black metal that came only from the foundries of Atwaan, though some said from the Halls of the Builders themselves. She doubted that last, but knew that when she was able to travel, it was to Atwaan she would go. When she found the mate to the arrow she carried, she would avenge her own.

  Within her, her babies stirred. Hers and Dosar’s. The shifting was not much, only enough to remind her. Enough to add a new depression to her dark thoughts.

  The Holder’s generosity did not extend to Doctor’s price, and she had no friend or family to stand midwife. She would go to the birthing pool, and sooner than she wanted, alone. That was traditional. That was the way it had been done for generations. And yet…

  She did not share the Holder’s optimism about her pregnancy. She did not relish the thought of being alone when the last remnants of Dosar died within her, as every infant had died in childbirth in the last four seasons.

  Her certainty of their children’s deaths had p
laced Ahrhi on this trail this morning. She had come not seeking thieves, but the smoky pink quartz stone that caught the source light along the ridge above. Dosar had admired those rocks and had often come out of his way to watch the display of prism light they splayed across the cliff face.

  As she stooped to retrieve her satchel and the memorial stones she had cut, she paused, struck by another thought. If, in the heat of combat, she had remembered the sorrow that lay before her, would she have dodged the mounted raider’s charge?

  CHAPTER

  11

  His breath plumed, condensing almost to ice before the wind whipped it away. Stevens shivered. Four airlocks and a tunnel had brought them to a rocky ledge that appeared to be high on a mountain. However, it had an atmosphere, so they were no longer reliant on environmental suits that were losing power at a distressing rate.

  Before them a steep landscape of heather and copses of twisted trees fell away to a rolling landscape. Stevens could make out tilled fields and cleared pastures among the rocky dales and forests.

  Pretty much answers the colonist question.

  Behind him a tricorder warbled. To reduce the loss of power to their tricorders, only one was being used at a time. Right now Abramowitz was taking a comprehensive scan as quickly as possible. She’d analyze the data after cutting off the energy-hungry sensors.

  From this height Stevens could make out the curvature of the world inside the cylinder. Though the natural setting strove to emulate a wide valley, the slight inward tilt of trees at either extreme ruined the illusion.

  Above there was nothing. No clouds, no blue sky, only white haze that looked close enough to touch. He said as much.

  “We are near the upper edge of the atmosphere.” Kairn spoke as though that explained it. He shook his head. “The stench of carbon dioxide will only grow worse as we descend.”

  Stevens made a mental note that Klingons could smell carbon dioxide. Why being near the edge of an atmosphere would cause haze instead of, say, asphyxiation remained a mystery.