by Smith, S. E.
“Sure,” City said. Was this how Noah had felt on the ark?
Rocky launched himself forward, landing neatly on Tiger’s back. As she followed them out the hatch, she wondered if Noah was the right comparison. At this moment, she felt more like Barnum or Bailey.
* * *
Lunch didn’t take long, so City decided to drop down and see how her Mikes were doing and also check on the remaining passengers. The Emissary had lost its stale ship smell when they all came on board, but the aliens were winning against the humanoids. Even with scrubbers, there was an odd mix of river and stable that came in whiffs, or lingered in unexpected corners. The smell built as she left the Mikes and dropped down to the cargo deck. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was earthy and on the pungent side.
With the turtles gone, the swans had the run of the small waterway that had been jury-rigged for their aquatically inclined passengers. City noticed that as they drifted gracefully past a chunk of fake greenery, they almost appeared to disappear. Bird calls preceded the green-footed boobys—the Sulian Nubians—from a stand of fake bushes. They regarded her with comic solemnity from their huge eyes, but before they could speak—if speaking was their intention—the black and red pandas tumbled out of another huddle of fake greenery. They rolled over and over until they bumped against City’s leg. Kraye grabbed to her arm to steady her, then staggered himself when one of the panda’s wrapped all four legs around one of his legs.
The other panda hugged City’s leg and asked, “Are we there yet?”
“Are we there yet?” This sounded like a small chorus. The hedgehog-like creatures rolled into view and tipped pointed noses and dark eyes up, blinking slowly as they waited for City’s answer.
She bent down and eased the panda’s paws off her legs, then sat down. Tiger settled under one armpit and the panda under the other.
“Rita, can you give me a flight plan holo for our guests?”
A less detailed holo appeared before City and the animals clustered around it, one of the swans leaving the water to draw closer and study it.
“We’ve had to modify our original flight plan,” she admitted. “We’re trying to avoid possibly hostile contacts.” She pointed out the modified route, tracing it with her finger. It looked a bit crazy seen this way.
“We approve,” the hedgehogs said, their squeaks perfectly synchronized. And when one shifted, she realized the other did so, too.
It must have been awful for them to be separated. She reached out her hand, not daring to pet the spiky things, but letting their noses nudge against her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?” they asked.
“About what happened to you.”
Two pairs of eyes studied her for what seemed like a long time.
“We will heal when we are home,” they finally said.
“I’ll do my best to get you there.”
“Are we there yet?” Kraye’s panda asked.
She met his gaze over the panda’s head and grinned ruefully.
4
They dropped out of comet drive space, the pull of it still strange to Kraye. Granted this was only the third or fourth time he’d traveled this way, but perhaps it was not possible to get used to the sensation of being stretched one direction, then the other, then compacting forcefully before smoothing out.
He watched the controls, tracking their momentum as the scanners kicked on, searching for dangers in their path, particularly those close enough to be of concern. He almost smiled. As predicted, they’d—as Caro put it—blown past a small cluster of suspicious looking ships. They’d planned to arrive at the Sulian Nebos’ planet first, but the course change had brought them to the Cygninains instead. Their scanners were updating in waves as Rita applied the “brakes” so that they didn’t also blow past their destination.
Thanks to the probes they’d launched they knew a little more about this planet and it had not—yet—cloaked.
“It’s an ocean world?” City asked, “or just this side?”
He did not let himself look at her profile as she studied the probe data. Doing this made him wish to trace the line from her hair to her chin—with a pause to trace the curve of her mouth. He wished—
“There are land masses, but they are scattered rather than concentrated,” OxeroidR said, “Based on the life signs assessment, inhabitants are either amphibian or avine. We will not be able to transport the Cygninains and their offspring to the surface. The atmosphere is not compatible with transport energy.”
“Mr. Faxton will be happy about that,” City muttered. “Dr. Lowe Dauwn, too.”
Kraye glanced at her, wondering why her lips twitched whenever she said the doctor’s name. She caught him looking, so he arched his brows.
“It’s his name. On Earth, we say ‘give me the low down.’ It’s like a briefing.”
Kraye found it easy to smile, forgot about the clues to how she saw him and enjoyed looking at her, basked in the warmth in her eyes.
“They have provided coordinates for our shuttle,” OxeroidR said.
City held his gaze, then half shrugged and turned back to her controls. While Kraye had not had a lot of personal time alone with City, as in no time alone with her, Faxton had not been in the mix at all, so it was almost like being alone with her. Other than OxeroidR, Rocky, and Tiger. So almost alone. At least it had been semi-alone time without the necessity to be on high alert or in a fire fight. The fingers of the hand closest to his tapped on a section of her station that did not have control functions.
She spun around, her gaze moving between Kraye and OxeroidR. She straightened as if she’d come to a decision.
“One of my functions as a Marine is to protect US diplomatic personnel. Mr. Faxton and his team will want to be on that shuttle. Unless we can identify it as a high-risk situation, I have to let them. I’ll be the pilot with three of my Mikes—my Marines.” Her gaze still moved between them. “You’re both good in a fight, but I can’t have all our key people in that shuttle. I need one of you to stay here.”
Kraye’s gaze jerked to OxeroidR. “You should stay.” He could stand in for many people whereas Kraye could only ever be one person. The fact that he did not wish Caro to travel on the shuttle with Faxton and without him was not relevant.
Caro looked at OxeroidR. “Do you agree?”
After a long pause, the robot slowly nodded. “I can complete the mission.”
Kraye exchanged a rather wry look with Caro. They both knew he could have done the whole mission with just he and Rita.
“I’m going to go talk to the…swans. Rita, the bridge is yours.”
She rose and Kraye found himself standing as well.
“May I accompany you?” he asked.
“Of course. Bull, you’re second seat with Rita.”
“Aye, aye, Sergeant.” He rose smoothly and took her place.
When they were in the corridor, with the hatch closed between them and the bridge, she asked, “Is he being ironic when he aye, ayes me?”
Kraye hesitated. “I do not know if he is able to be ironic,” he admitted. “They are sentient, but emotions are difficult for them.”
They turned and started walking toward the lift.
“That is not to say they are incapable of intense loyalty.” He hesitated, then said, “They are complicated.”
“Life,” said Caro, “is complicated.”
The lift opened, and they entered. As it closed, he realized he was alone with her. No Rocky or Tiger. Just the two of them. It would not last, so he should do…something. He turned so that he fully faced her. Her chin lifted, her expression losing worry for curiosity.
“Seems like they’d be too much and too little at the same moment.”
For a moment he did not understand what she meant. “Yes. That is what it is like.” Living with sentient robots. Wanting her. He wanted to say more. The lift was dropping. It would open and the chance would be gone. “I do not know your words.”
Her
eyes widened, she seemed to hesitate, then the line of her mouth softened. “You’re okay.” She touched his elbow.
She touched him. If OxeroidR was correct, this was a positive sign.
“I like you.” The words dropped into the space between them like asteroids. Her eyes widened and soft color stained her cheeks. The wait for her to speak felt longer than a light year of travel. Her lips began to tip up at the edges, the lips he wished to press with his began to part—
The lift door swept open.
“There you are, Sergeant,” said Faxton, his clever, knowing gaze moving between them before he stepped into the lift, forcing them to separate. “I was hoping you could brief me on the plan for repatriating the Cygninains.”
* * *
The only sound that broke the silence as the shuttle lifted off were twitters from the cygnets, with an occasional admonition from their mama and papa. At least, City thought they were a gal and a guy. She hadn’t looked under their tails and didn’t plan to.
She glanced at Kraye. Even judging by his usual, he was devoid of expression. This was probably the first time he’d gone on a mission without at least one of his robot crew. While Bull hadn’t broken out in expression either at their parting, Rocky had seemed anxious. At any rate, he needed an emergency lick of a body part she’d rather not see.
She might miss Bull, too. There was something reassuring about a huge robot with who knew how many built-in weapons he could deploy in a blink. And he was fast enough to cover point and six at the same time.
As to Faxton and his team, she’d given each of them the opportunity to use the comms for their diplomacy efforts. She might be a little impressed they all wanted to go head to, um, beak with the aliens.
“Amphibians and avines,” Caro murmured. “Under water and over land. Dr. Dauwn finds that intriguing. I wish we had a better risk assessment. Intriguing could go either way.” If they waited for one, this mission could be longer than the months Noah was stuck on his Ark. So she was going with her gut—and sometimes against it. Actually, her gut was neutral on this one. The hair on the back of her neck wasn’t standing up, but her right eye kept trying to twitch.
Through the passenger cam she could see her rifle squad of Mikes sitting facing Faxton and his team. No one could look like they weren’t looking at Brittani like a Marine could look like they weren’t looking. And she’d given them a lot to look at back there. Ms. St. Danniels had donned her uniform, too, a gray suit that packed the impact of a red dress. Dr. Dauwn went against geek trend with his fairly well cut brown suit. His tie had been a little crooked but Britanni had fixed it. Mr. Faxton had had to straighten his own tie. She’d given Kraye a thorough once-over, but he wasn’t wearing a tie and didn’t notice the look over.
City was starting to like her, though she thought the foxtrot mike heels were a mistake. City was expecting a soggy landing.
One thing she’d done when she couldn’t sleep was do simulations for both the Emissary and this shuttle. Sadly, the shuttle did not have the sassiness of the Emissary. At least it could cloak, it had shields, though these were limited by the shuttle’s power capacity, and it could do some pointing and shooting. These were also limited by space and power.
City set a course for the LZ provided by the Cygninains. Advance scanning and the probe data had identified abundant life forms, both above and below the water line, but no radio or power signals, no sign any of them were space capable. Maybe it was this making her eye want to twitch. Why did the swans speak Standard albeit a bird accent? Had they learned it in captivity or on their planet? Even before her deployment to another galaxy she’d learned that ducks that looked like ducks weren’t always ducks. And she had three people who really wanted to talk to the ducks. If she’d have had her way, they’d have dropped down, dropped off the birds, and lifted off again.
But this wasn’t just a repatriation. It was an attempt to open diplomatic relations with a non-human species. Apparently, that was a lot more interesting than talking with alien humanoids. Faxton didn’t admit it, but it was obvious the cool factor was part of what lured him into this “boldly going” further than they’d already “boldly” gone.
Her guys were packing regular projectile weapons and a nice selection of ray guns they’d picked up in Central Outpost. Lethal force was only authorized as a last resort. No one wanted to mess up future diplomacy by killing the wrong species. But she was also not about to let her Marines die on their ray guns. They were good guys. They’d do their best. They all would. She just hoped it would be enough.
“Approaching atmospheric insertion,” Kraye said. He was acting as navigator and backup pilot for the mission. Bull was monitoring their comms from the Emissary, but no one knew how the atmosphere might affect communications. It was compatible with their lungs, which was weird, and the shuttle had its own decontamination protocol, and then the Emissary had another one. But the humidity was going to be a bitch.
“Adjusting course for atmosphere entry,” City said. She felt the drag start as they nosed in, watched the heat build up on the shuttle’s skin. It stayed within an acceptable range, even as the atmosphere thickened. As soon as the drag overcame momentum, she fired up in the in-atmosphere engines. Kraye gave her the course, and she made the adjustments, bringing the nose down until they broke through the cloud cover.
Spread out below them was a blue water world with tracings of green and brown, like a quilt design.
“It’s beautiful,” City murmured.
“I have initiated threat scanning,” Kraye told her.
Her eyes moved constantly over the various controls, reading and processing the information. This was a different operation. Usually she was with her team, moving forward with all of them on the alert. At the controls like this, with all their lives resting on her reacting fast and in the right way, it felt off.
“We have a contact,” Kraye said. “Biologic. Big.”
“Shields,” she ordered tersely, activating the forward view screen. “Hotel sierra.”
Its wingspan was as wide as their Harparian, but this bird was pure gold with a white under belly. It turned, and she got a good look at its face.
“It looks like an…owl,” she said as it played chicken with them. She decided to turn first. She’d never played chicken and didn’t intend to start now. She banked the shuttle to the right and lost visual on it, though tracking showed it banking left, then coming around. “We can probably outrun it, but do we want to?”
“We could ask the Cygninains?”
City considered it, then nodded. The owl was banking, diving, and basically dogging them. She activated the intra-ship comm. “Mr. Faxton, I’m going to send some video back there. Could you ask our passengers about the intent of this species?”
“Aye, aye, Sergeant.”
Kraye worked the controls, sending them the feed. After a few minutes of dancing with the owl, Faxton came on the comm.
“They wish to know if there is a function to broadcast sound.”
City blinked. “They want to talk to the big owl.”
“They want to talk to the big, er, owl, yes.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
“I am looking as well,” Kraye said. Then, “I believe we can broadcast now.”
She slanted him a grateful look. “Give it a shot, Mr. Faxton.”
The sounds were also audible on the small bridge. Painfully audible. But it helped. The big owl swooped several more times and then dove into the boiling mist below.
“Resuming course for our LZ,” City said. She glanced at Kraye. “Get the translation program running. See if we can find out what they said.”
* * *
Kraye didn’t take his eyes off the sensor data as Caro set the shuttle down on a small island of solid ground in a large lake. The nose of the shuttle looked out on a shifting scene of blue-green water and thick mist.
Caro leaned over and did a last check of the atmospheric readings. “Darn, we can breathe,
though gills would be helpful.”
He did not know what this meant, but he nodded and returned her grin. Each time he did this, it got easier. The Najer did not make many planetfall landings. There was too much risk. Even contact with space station docks involved risk for a ship as wanted as theirs.
Caro pushed back and rose. “You’re on the con, Mr. Kraye.” She hesitated, her gaze meeting his, the expression one that puzzled him. “I’ll keep the radio open. Yell if—well, you know when to yell.”
“I do.” He wished to go with her down the ramp, but he understood her need to have him here on the bridge. “Have care.” He wished to reach out to her, but he did not. She’d called him Mr. Kraye. This was official, business. Her hand came to rest on her shoulder and her gaze once more puzzled him.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. Before he could respond to this, she’d turned and left.
I am glad you’re here.
This seemed encouraging. A shuffling sound drew his attention as Tiger jumped onto her vacated seat.
“You should not,” he said, even as he reached out t0 run a hand down its back. They had something in common. They both wished to be near Caro.
* * *
The ramp lowered on a world of blue, green and white, with swirls of gray and purple, too. The air damp rushed in, bringing with it the smell of water and plants. Not being a scientist, City didn’t know what else to call all that green crap, even if they’d been on Earth. Which they weren’t. So not on Earth. In truth, it felt like and looked a movie set, not a real place. City was stacked on one side, at the top of the ramp with Fox on her six. On the other side, Jenkins was stacked with Spencer. It was hard to feel outnumbered with Kraye reading her the stats on the approaching life signs. They were few, but they were Marines.
Oorah.
She gave the signal, and they started down the ramp. No one hesitated at the edge. They stepped down, mud oozing up to cover the top of their boots. She and Spencer cleared their point while the other two cleared the rear. Something was out there. Kraye could see them on the sensors, but they didn’t have eyes on anything. Weapons ready, she eased up to the edge of their small patch of ground. She tested the edge with a foot. Spongy but there was something hard under the sponge.