by J. N. Chaney
Looking back, I saw Petra, her eyes half open from inside the pod. “Sorry,” I muttered, uncertain of whether I should stay or leave. “I was just checking on the two of you.”
“Frederick told me what happened,” she whispered, glancing at him as he slept.
So, this wasn’t the first time she’d awoken. That saved me from having to explain the situation to her. “How are you feeling?”
“There’s not much pain,” she said, like it surprised her.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said.
She lowered her eyes. “I keep trying to move it, but there’s nothing there. It’s jarring. I suppose I’ll get used to it.”
“They call that phantom limb,” I explained. “It’s not uncommon. The good news is that there are options. Dressler thinks we can get you an artificial arm in under a week. You’ll just have to go through some rehab work.”
She nodded. “Athena mentioned something about it.”
“You don’t seem very happy about that,” I observed.
“With all due respect, sir,” she began. “I can’t imagine anything artificial ever living up to the real thing, can you?”
“I don’t suppose I can, Petra.”
She smiled, although there was a sadness to it, like the kind you give at a funeral to the widow of a friend. She touched Freddie’s head, gently rubbing his hair. “He stayed with me through the night, you know.”
I nodded.
“Most women would have seen the way he ran when he left the ship and assumed the worst, but I knew better.”
“The way he ran?” I asked, trying to play ignorant. “What do you mean?”
“I’m no fool, sir. I knew he felt intimidated by the prospect of meeting my family, but that doesn’t mean his feelings were any less sincere.” Her eyes warmed as she said the words, glancing again at Freddie. “He’s been here the whole time, trying to act brave for me, but I know he’s terrified. I can see it.”
“He does it because he loves you,” I said.
She nodded. “I know.”
I stared at the two of them as she continued to stroke his hair, neither of us saying anything. After a little while, I leaned off the wall. “Petra,” I said, calling her attention a final time. I waited until we locked eyes before I continued. “We’ll figure this out. I’m promise you that.”
With that, I left her to rest again, heading down the hall towards the exit. My day was only just getting started.
* * *
When I arrived outside, Hitchens was standing on the nearby stairs, waving the new arrivals to form up. They were sluggish, having just rolled out of bed. I expected a few to stay in their quarters, but that was fine. Whatever I said now would be circulated in the dorms over the next few days, one way or another.
“Thank you all for coming,” said Hitchens, raising his arms to the settling crowd. “Today, we’ll be dividing into groups and going over potential work assignments. If you have any experience in a particular field, regardless of what it might be, please let one of us know. We’ll try to match you with a job that best suits your abilities. That should take up most of the morning, so once we’re through, we’ll break for lunch. After that, we’ll break into our groups and you’ll learn about your first major project.”
The crowd stirred, inaudible chatter filling the square. Whispers, mostly, but a few choice words made their way to my ears.
“Is that The Renegade?” someone asked.
“There! I saw him on the ship!” said another.
Hitchens glanced at me, like he was giving me the floor.
I sighed but went along with it and stepped forward to the edge of the top step, right beside the archeologist. “Good morning,” I said, raising my voice. The second I did, the chatter ceased. It was a surreal feeling, being able to control the attention of a mob. I wasn’t sure I liked it. “I was supposed to be up here in front of you all sometime yesterday, but—” I paused, clearing my throat. “Well, let’s just say the day got away from me.”
“We heard someone got hurt,” said a man in the front. “Is that true?”
The question threw me, although I knew it shouldn’t have. Of course, they already knew about the accident. In a colony this small, news traveled fast, so what was I really expecting?
“Yeah,” I answered. “One of our crew took a bad hit. We went to investigate something on the surface and the situation took a turn. She’s being treated right now in the med bay, but I won’t lie to you. It isn’t good.”
The crowd stirred, whispering amongst themselves. I knew what they were feeling. Fear. Confusion. Regret. All of it compounded by the notion that maybe leaving their homes wasn’t such a good idea, after all.
“I’m not going to sit here and lie to you about how hard all of this is going to be,” I shouted, instantly quieting them. When they settled, I paused, letting the silence fester until I was certain it could no longer last. “I came here because I wanted the same thing as all of you—the freedom to live by my own choices, and enough weight to throw around in case anyone tried to come and take it from me.”
“The Union!” someone shouted.
“Fuck them!” yelled another.
I raised my hand to quiet them. “You say you hate the Union. Well, so do I. So, does everyone else on this planet. But you can’t be free of them that without doing the hard labor, without sweat and blood to keep you safe. That’s the cost of having what you want. It’s the wall you build to keep them out.” I pointed behind me, towards the end of the hall inside the building. “Sometimes that means losing a little before you can win, and gods know we’ve a need to win. But let me just say this, and then you can decide what you want to do: one way or another, this colony is going to become what I aim for it to be, even if I have to build the whole damn thing with my own godsdamn hands. You want to do the work with me and call this your new home, then I promise you, that’s what it’ll be. Verdun is a city for you, built by you, and protected by you. It ain’t no one else’s, and it sure as shit ain’t the Union’s. You remember that, and you ask yourself if something that rare is worth hurting for—if it’s worth dying for. If not, then you let Hitchens here know and he’ll have you back aboard The Dawn, back to the Deadlands.” I looked at Hitchens and he nodded. “As for the rest of you,” I continued. “Well, it’s about time we got to work.”
NINE
I stared at the pad Hitchens had just handed to me. The screen listed each and every newly documented colonist, breaking them down into potential job categories. “Are these already assigned?” I asked.
Hitchens shook his head. “Not until we approve it.”
“Sixteen for farming, twenty-two for services, eleven for engineering, and—” I paused. “—thirty-two for combat?”
“Those are based on previous work experience.”
“Are you saying a third of these people have combat experience?” I asked.
Hitchens shifted his weight. “Well, some are former soldiers, but many others happen to have been, oh, shall we call them, unlawful citizens.”
“Criminals?” I asked, glancing at the pad again, then sighed. “Can’t say I’m surprised. We did pick them up in the Deadlands.”
“Yes, I suppose it does come with the territory,” admitted Hitchens.
“What’s this second line beneath the first job listing?” I asked.
“That would be the preferred occupation listing,” said Hitchens. “I thought it might be a good idea to see what the individual wanted, rather than rely solely on their work experience.”
Sure enough, beneath several of the colonists with combat experience, they’d listed something else, such as farming or services. There were even things we didn’t offer, such as pilot, teacher, and cook. “Some of these aren’t half bad,” I conceded, scanning the new entries.
“I thought the same, although we aren’t in need of them at the moment,” said Hitchens.
“Well, we could use the extra soldiers, even if they are a li
ttle threatening,” I said.
“Threatening?” asked Octavia, closing the door as she entered. She walked over to Hitchens and smiled at him.
“What I mean is, why not start them off elsewhere else and see if they’re trustworthy?” I asked.
“You’re saying you’d rather get to know them first?” Octavia asked.
I thought back to the incident on The Galactic Dawn involving the drug addict and the way he threatened a family. That had only been with a knife. I couldn’t imagine the outcome if he’d found a gun. “Since most of these people are strangers, I think it might be best.”
“Speaking of which,” said Octavia. “Are we certain we want new soldiers at all?”
“You don’t think we do?” I asked.
“We have an entire fleet of drones protecting us,” she explained. “There’s also Lucia’s team, each of whom is capable enough to handle any policing that needs done.”
“You saw what that trilobite did to Petra. She lost her arm in only a few seconds. Now imagine what might happen if those machines attack us. Hell, what if there’s something else on this planet that aims to do us harm? It seems to me that having some capable fighters on our side might not be such a bad idea.”
She nodded. “Had that incident not occurred, I might be inclined to disagree with you, but you raise a good point. We’re in the unknown.”
“But that doesn’t mean we have to rush into anything,” I added.
“No, it certainly doesn’t,” she agreed.
I handed the pad back to Hitchens. “Split the people with combat experience between the farmers and services. At that size, we’ll be able to clear out a few more buildings by the end of the week, maybe even renovate them, and we can start a new garden on the other side of the square.”
“Not bad,” commented Octavia.
Hitchens placed his hand around her waist. “I believe the Captain is adapting well to his new role. Wouldn’t you say?”
Before I could give them any shit for what they’d said, my comm clicked and pulled my attention away. “Captain, this is Dr. Dressler. I need you to come to the lab at once.”
“What lab?” I asked. “You mean the classroom?”
“Yes, and right now it’s a lab,” she corrected. “I’ll be waiting.”
The comm clicked off. “Cheerful as ever,” I muttered.
“Problems?” asked Octavia.
“Dressler says she’s found something and she needs me to have a look,” I said, walking to the door.
“Do tell us if she’s found anything remarkable, would you?” asked Hitchens.
I motioned dismissively with my hand as I walked out the door. “You’ll be the first.”
* * *
Dressler stood in front of me with a pair of thick goggles that I’d never seen before as she examined the trilobite on the table. “I won’t lie to you, Captain,” she said. “The technology used to create this machine is more sophisticated than either Athena or I anticipated.”
I said nothing, sensing there was more to it than that.
“However,” she continued, flipping around to the trilobite. She picked up one of its severed legs and brought it up for me to see. “The dissection was not a complete failure. While we were unable to examine the operating system, its sensors were a different story.”
“How can you tap into the sensors without using the operating system?” I asked, staring into my own reflection from the goggles.
“The sensors are made up of physical parts. More hardware than software, really, but it gives us some insight into how they operate.”
“That’s good news,” I said.
“Quite so,” she agreed. “However, while the hardware may tell us how the sensors work, the software keeps us from getting access. In simple terms, that means we can’t control the trilobites or—”
“Shut them down,” I finished, letting out a long sigh.
“Correct,” she said, setting down the trilobite’s leg.
“So, we’re still stuck,” I said, not bothering to hide my agitation.
“Maybe not,” she answered, looking at Sigmond, who was standing quietly by the wall. “Would you mind?”
“Not at all,” said Sigmond. He reached out his hand and another holo appeared above his fingertips. It was the trilobite, only smaller and in a state of constant motion, crawling along an invisible ground. “This model represents the machine’s standard rate of movement. Based on the sensory lens and its other hardware, we believe these machines are using a form of echolocation.”
“Echo what?” I asked.
“They’re blind in the traditional sense,” said Dressler. “They respond and react based on auditory stimuli. Sound, in other words.”
The hologram of the trilobite suddenly emitted a pulse of gold light, which left Sigmond’s hand and bounced off my chest, returning to it. The trilobite received the pulse, then moved towards me and raised its legs, like it was going to attack.
“Alright, I get it,” I said, swiping my hand through the hologram, disrupting the light and momentarily scattering the image of the trilobite. “But why not have them use normal eyesight like any other drone?”
“I have a theory,” said Dressler, walking to the holo on the counter. She typed a command, zooming out from the single trilobite so that it was standing on the ground, high above my head. Beneath it, there was nothing but dirt stretching all the way to the table. She typed another key and the trilobite started moving, burrowing into the ground. “We’ve seen a small portion of the machines wandering around on the surface, but as you may have noticed during our expedition through the chasm, there are thousands more beneath our feet. Without proper sunlight, the machines would need another form of vision to maneuver properly in the dark.”
“Hence their echolocation,” finished Sigmond.
“Why not just give them a light source?” I asked.
“Perhaps the Eternals found this system more energy conservative,” said Dressler. “Frankly, without sufficient information on their intentions, I couldn’t say for certain.”
I looked at Sigmond. “What good is any of this if we can’t shut them down?”
“I believe she was getting to that, sir,” explained the Cognitive.
Dressler waited for me to look at her again before she continued. “You must understand, Captain, knowing how these machines perceive the world around them is an extraordinary discovery.”
“Oh?” I asked, crossing my arms. “And how’s that?”
“You’ll recall how the machine first noticed us,” she said, jogging my memory.
“Alphonse’s ship hit the rocks and knocked it down,” I said.
“That is only partially accurate,” she corrected. “Sensors show that the trilobite reacted to the ship, skittling from the rock to the wing on its own volition. It was at this point that the machine lost its footing and fell.”
“Are you saying it saw Alphonse’s ship, then tried to board it?” I asked.
She raised a finger. “Not saw,” she corrected. “Heard.”
“Right, right,” I said. “Echolocation.”
“Correct, Captain, but what I find most fascinating is this.” She brought up the image of the trilobite as it had been on the chasm wall. There were several others around it, maybe eight of them, all remaining perfectly still. Then, as the wing of the ship touched the rock, the trilobite moved onto it, with two others following after. All of this was shown to me at twenty percent speed.
Once it was over, I asked her to run it again, just to make sure I had it.
As the holo replayed, I watched the trilobites, looking for whatever it was that Dressler had found. The first one grabbed hold of the wing, same as before, but the others—
“Stop there,” I said, pointing to the trilobites near the edge of the holo. I took a step closer to them. “These aren’t moving at all.”
Dressler smiled. “Exactly.”
“Why?” I asked, looking back at them. “Can’t
they sense the ship?”
“I’ve watched this several times, examining each and every trilobite. I’ve also observed the other feeds from both your ship as well as Octavia’s. There are thousands of these machines inside the chasm, and yet—” She leaned away so that I could see the dead trilobite on the table. “—only this one and three others reacted to that ship.”
“And they were all right next to where the wing hit,” I added.
“Which means there is a limit to what they can hear,” she explained.
“Approximately five meters, by my estimates,” added Sigmond.
Dressler smiled. “A small window of visibility that I believe, given the right preparations, may yet be exploited.”
* * *
“All of this is fine, but we can’t take a ship down in that chasm,” said Abigail, after Sigmond had explained the situation to her. I’d called her here, along with Alphonse and Octavia, hoping to get a handle on the situation and develop some kind of plan to deal with it.
“We’re not,” I replied, giving Sigmond a quick glance. “My boy here is sending one of his drones.”
“A drone?” asked Alphonse. “Won’t it lose its signal beyond a certain point?”
“That’s correct,” said Sigmond.
“Then, what reason do you have for sending it?” asked the former spy.
Sigmond smiled. “The drone can be set to run a continuous scan in all directions as it descends. This will occur without user input, regardless of distance. Even if the drone loses contact, it will perform the scan and send its results every quarter second.”
“We’ll need to place a few signal repeaters, just in case that hole goes deeper than the drone can transmit,” I said, tilting my head and giving him a look that suggested it wouldn’t be easy. “But since the walls are lined with trilobites, that means we can’t use them.”
“If we can’t touch the walls, then how do you plan on doing that?” asked Octavia.