by Tim Waggoner
One of the bridge officers snickered, and Adams shot her a disapproving look. Just because the Eye of Dardanus was smaller didn’t mean it couldn’t deliver on its captain’s threat. The most venomous creatures on Old Earth had often been among the smallest.
“I have to protect my people on board the Janus, Captain. Surely you can understand that.”
“I don’t care about your people; I just want Hastimukah.”
“Does that mean you can guarantee the safety of my people?” Adams asked.
Kryllian didn’t respond.
“That’s what I thought. Looks like both of us are too stubborn to compromise.”
“It would seem we have that much in common at least,” Kryllian acknowledged.
The gray sludge next to Kryllian spoke. “If Suletu may make a suggestion, Captain?”
Kryllian’s carapace reddened. “Now’s not the time. “
“Now would be seem to be the perfect time, if you’ll excuse Suletu saying so. Perhaps both of our vessels could enter hyperspace to search for the Janus. We could open a portal and maintain it long enough for both ships to go through, and then once in hyperspace, we can allow the humans to share our navigational data and follow us. That way, once we locate the Janus, they can monitor us to make certain that we do not harm their personnel when we apprehend Hastimukah. Afterward, we can lead the humans back to realspace and then depart peacefully with our prisoner.”
Adams was impressed. “For a big pile of ooze, he makes a lot of sense.”
Kryllian, however, did not appear happy. His shell was dark red now, and his antennae or feelers or whatever the hell they were whipped through the air as if he were highly agitated.
“You are second in command of this vessel, Suletu. You have an extremely annoying habit of forgetting that at the most inconvenient times.” Kryllian paused. “However, your suggestion is not completely without merit.” The alien captain paused, and Adams knew that he was considering the sludge’s plan. Slowly, Kryllian’s shell returned to its normal brown.
“I’m sorry, General, but I’m afraid I still must insist you move aside. The Residuum is built on strength, not compromise. It is the only way we have survived the Manti for so long.”
“We humans aren’t exactly slouches in the survival department either,” Adams said. “And we didn’t get that way by rolling over every time an alien invader shows up and shouts boo—whether those invaders are Manti or any other species.”
“I believe we are two of a kind, you and I,” Kryllian said. “However, that will not stop me from blasting your ship into subatomic particles.”
“Same here,” Adams said gruffly.
Kryllian broke contact contact, and the holoscreen returned to the image of the Dardanus.
Too bad, Adams thought. For a moment there, it looked as if they might be able to work this out without firing a single shot.
“I’m reading an energy surge from the alien ship,” the sensor officer said. “I think they’re powering weapons.”
“Then we’d best do the same, eh?” Adams said.
“Aye, General.” The weapons officer began bringing the Kipling’s defenses online.
Adams didn’t know what their chances of victory were, let alone survival. But he’d been fighting against the odds since the first day the Manti had attacked Earth’s system, and he wasn’t about to stop now.
“Buckle up, boys and girls,” Adams ordered. “Things are going to get bumpy real soon.”
Everyone, including Adams, activated seat restraints and prepared for battle.
“General, I’m detecting another energy surge!” the sensor officer shouted.
“Increase power to the forward shield!” Adams yelled.
“No, General—the surge is located to our aft. It’s coming from the Janus’s departure point!” The officer looked away from his holoscreen, an expression of horror on his face. “The hyperspatial portal is opening—and something’s coming through!”
“And I bet that something isn’t the Janus,” Adams growled. “Direct power to aft shield and train rear weapons on the portal. Looks like we got ourselves another set of visitors to welcome.”
Adams hoped Kryllian had detected the hyperspatial breach. He had a feeling that the Kipling was going to need all the help it could get.
Then the portal tore open and hundreds of Manti began to pour out.
“The Influx facility is straight ahead, Mei. It should be in visual range within the next few seconds.”
Kyoto waited, and sure enough, the image of crater-pocked ice fields gave way to Colony construction. Kyoto immediately knew the Manti had been here; although the domes and towers were mostly intact, the plasteel surfaces had scorch marks from Manti energy discharges, and there were gaping holes in every structure. But there were no humans visible, living or dead. No Manti, either.
“Scan the facility for life signs, Memory.”
“Multiple life signs located in the central building.”
Kyoto felt a burst of hope. Maybe there were survivors after all. “Scan the building. Are life support systems intact?”
“Negative. All Influx facility systems are offline.”
“Damn it!” That meant the survivors were wearing vacc suits to stay alive, but depending on how long it had been since Influx’s power had shut off, they could have been wearing the suits for hours. They must be getting dangerously close to running out of air.
“Any comlink signals coming from inside?”
“Negative.”
“How about the rest of the colony? Any life signs or comlink traffic?” Because of the nature of its business, the Influx facility was located kilometers away from the rest of the Rhea Colony. Just because Influx had been hit hard by the Manti didn’t mean the rest of the colony had been.
“I’m afraid not.”
Kyoto’s heart sank as it appeared that, with the exception of the Influx workers, the Manti had wiped out the entire population of Rhea.
“Find us a suitable landing place, Memory. We’re going in.”
“Will do, Mei.”
Seconds later, landing coordinates appeared on the holoscreen, along with a visual image of a thick sheet of ice only meters away from a hole in the outer wall of the main Influx building.
“That’ll work.” Kyoto applied braking thrusters and activated the Defender’s landing sequence. As the starfighter began to descend, Kyoto thought it unfortunate that the hyperetheric bubble prevented her from contacting the Janus. Otherwise, she would have told them to come down at once so they could pick up the survivors. Her Defender had no room for passengers. She’d land, assess the situation, and see what she could initially do to help the survivors. Then she’d return to the Janus and bring the much larger ship back to get them.
Without a ferroceramic landing pad, Kyoto had to rely on thrusters. That meant she’d melt the ice beneath her as she set down, and the Defender would become caught once the ice refroze. The thrusters would have no trouble melting the ice once more during takeoff if the ship didn’t sink too deeply upon landing. The trick was to avoid melting too much in the first place.
She waited until the Defender was ten meters above the ice before lowering landing gear and activating thrusters. She fired them in short bursts as the ship continued downward. Finally, with only a couple of meters to go, Kyoto turned off the thrusters and let the Defender fall the rest of the way. As cold as it was, the ground would at least partially freeze before the ship landed.
The Defender dropped, thudded onto the ground, listed several degrees to starboard as the ice beneath the landing struts on that side refroze. Finally, the ground was solid again, and the Defender sat still.
“Any landing you can walk away from,” Kyoto said.
“Since I’ve never had legs with which to walk, I can only concur with the sentiment in abstract terms.”
Kyoto smiled. It seemed Memory Junior didn’t have quite the same sense of humor as her big sister.
K
yoto’s vacc suit was already sealed, pressurized, and heated, and oxygen was flowing freely. Nevertheless, she performed a quick check to make sure everything was functioning properly. When she was satisfied she wasn’t going to die from explosive decompression the instant Memory opened the Defender’s cockpit, she checked her sidearm. The handblaster had a full charge—not that she’d need it since Memory hadn’t detected any Manti, but Kyoto had learned from hard experience that when it came to Buggers, one could never be too cautious. Next, she grabbed the ship’s emergency med kit, for whatever small good it might do, then asked Memory to equalize pressure and open the cockpit.
Kyoto climbed out of the ship carefully. The mini grav-gens in her boots were set for Earth normal, but the grav field didn’t surround her entire body, so three quarters of her existed in much lower gravity than her bottom quarter. Her vacc suit would compensate so her body could handle the dual gravity without ill effects, but maneuvering would be tricky.
As Kyoto stepped onto Rhea’s icy surface, boot treads keeping her from slipping, she thought how this was the first time she’d set foot here since leaving for the Defender Academy. Though her memories of Rhea weren’t fond ones, she was surprised to find herself experiencing a sense of nostalgia.
I guess anyplace you live long enough can become home, whether you like it or not, she thought.
Her vacc suit’s comlink chirped. “How well can you see, Mei?”
“Pretty well. The hyperetheric bubble is casting plenty of light, but everything looks weird, like it’s been painted aquamarine.”
Kyoto checked the starboard landing strut. It was partially encased in ice, but she didn’t think she’d have any trouble melting her way free with thrusters when she took off again.
Kyoto started toward the hole in the wall. She stopped at the edge and peered through, but it was too dark inside to see, and the greenish blue glow from the hyperbubble did little to dispel the gloom. She switched on her helmet light. She half expected it not to work, or work in some strange fashion—the light moving so slowly that it had took several minutes to reach its destination, perhaps. After all, Memory had said light behaved differently here in hyperspace.
But her helmet light cast a beam of illumination outward, just as it was supposed to. Maybe the hyperbubble somehow preserved the physics of realspace on Rhea, or perhaps there was another explanation. Kyoto decided she didn’t care what it was, just so long as the helmet light worked.
She drew her handblaster and stepped through the hole, being careful not to brush her vacc suit against the jagged edges of plasteel. Vacc suits were designed to be resistant to tearing, but only an idiot test that resistance.
Once she was all the way inside, she played her helmet light around and saw she was in some kind of storage area. Whatever had made the hole in the wall—Manti weapons fire, most likely—had ripped through the storage room, tearing shelves from walls and scattering tech components all over the floor. Kyoto didn’t recognize any of the parts, but she assumed they were used in some aspect of stargate construction. She picked her way though the debris, not worrying whether or not she stepped on anything. Rhea had no atmosphere to conduct sound, and the building had been depressurized, so its air was long gone. She supposed it was possible that the vibrations caused by the Defender setting down might have been detected by whoever—or whatever—was in the building. Either way, it didn’t matter where she stepped now.
She made her way to the supply room’s door. Since there was no power in the building, there was no AI to cheerfully open the door for her, and the manual controls didn’t work. But power outages were always a problem after Manti attacks, and the GSA believed in sending out its personnel prepared. Kyoto unsealed a pocket flap on her vacc suit and removed a small gen-stim device. She pressed it against the control panel next to the door and activated it. There was a soft hum of power that lasted for three seconds. She then removed the gen-stim and touched the controls.
The supply room door opened four-fifths of the way before the power boost the gen-stim had given it ran out. Kyoto considered giving the control panel a second jolt, but she decided against it. She wanted to conserve the gen-stim’s power, and she thought she could squeeze through the opening, vacc suit and all. She put the gen-stim away and, handblaster ready, poked her helmeted head out into the corridor. She shined the helmet light in both directions but saw nothing. Good. At least she wouldn’t be attacked while squeezing through the doorway.
Striking what she hoped was an appropriate balance between speed and caution, Kyoto pushed herself sideways through the opening and into the hall. Still no sign of danger, but now she had a decision to make: right or left?
“Memory, where are the nearest life signs?”
“All the life signs in the building are gathered in a single place: a large room in the center of the complex. The most direct way to get there is to go to your left.”
“Roger.” Kyoto turned left and started down the corridor, handblaster charged and ready to fire. “Use ship’s sensors to watch my back, Memory.”
“You got it, Mei.”
As she walked, Kyoto wondered why all the survivors were in the same place. Maybe they were huddled together to maximize the heat generated by their vacc suits. If so, it was a smart move. Without power, it wasn’t much warmer inside than out.
“Do you know what purpose the room serves?” Kyoto asked.
“Sorry, Mei. If I had access to my full databanks on the Janus, I could pull up the blueprints for the building. I assume the survivors chose to congregate in the center of the building because it’s farthest from the outside. Other than that…” Memory trailed off.
“Don’t sweat, it. We’ll be there soon enough, and we’ll know then.”
Kyoto continued down the corridor, turning at junctures whenever Memory instructed. Many of the rooms she passed were closed, but some were open, contents strewn about either by damage to the outer wall or, from what Kyoto could see, panic on the part of their occupants. Datacubes were scattered about, covering the desk and floor, as if someone had frantically been searching for a specific program. She wouldn’t know if they’d ever found it, whatever it was. She passed a laboratory that was drenched in blood. It covered the walls and tables as a coating of crimson ice. But a quick look inside didn’t reveal any bodies, and Kyoto moved on.
Eventually, she reached a corridor that dead-ended in a pair of doors. A plasteel plate next to the door said this was Vortex Stabilization. In smaller letters underneath, the sign warned, Only Authorized Personnel Wearing Appropriate Safety Garments Permitted Inside. Kyoto didn’t know or care whether her vacc suit counted as safety gear, and she didn’t give a damn whether or not she was authorized. Still, she decided to check with Memory before going in.
“Any dangers inside?” she asked. “Radiation, chemical leaks… anything?”
A paused. “Negative, Mei. There’s probably a hyperetheric energy infuser inside, but without power, it isn’t a threat. It should be perfectly safe to go inside.”
“I don’t suppose you can give me anything more definite than ‘should.’” Kyoto said.
“Afraid not.”
“That’s what I figured.” Kyoto tried the door control and wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. She gave it a zap from her gen-stim, but although the control panel came to life momentarily, the door still refused to open.
“Security precaution,” Memory said. “The door control has a built-in DNA scanner. Not only is your hand encased in a vacc suit glove, your genetic pattern isn’t authorized for access.”
Kyoto considered pounding on the door, but without atmosphere to transmit the sound, the survivors wouldn’t be able to hear her. She then tried her suit’s comlink, but no matter what frequency she used, she couldn’t raise any of the survivors.
“Memory, can you override the security feature?”
“At my current capacity, I’m not sure, but I’ll give it a try. Give me five seconds to get ready, then u
se your gen-stim again.”
As soon as Memory was finished speaking, Kyoto began counting. The instant she reached six, she shoved the gen-stim against the control panel and gave it another zap. A row of lights on the panel flared to life, blinked in what seemed to be a random fashion, then went dead again. Kyoto thought Memory had failed, but then the double doors started to open.
“Voilà!” Memory said.
Smiling, Kyoto put the gen-stim back in its pocket. “Good work. Now let’s go see how the survivors are doing.”
When the doors finished opening, Kyoto stepped inside and shined her helmet light around. The room was huge, though not quite the size of a starcraft hangar. Empyrean rings—seven of them—were lined up on the floor, held fast in support cradles. Hanging down from the shadowed ceiling was a thick ferroceramic shaft that supported a large sideways figure eight. No, Kyoto realized: an infinity sign. It had to be the hyperetheric energy infuser Memory had mentioned. And below it were empyrean rings that needed charging, or perhaps were new models ready for testing. Whichever the case, Kyoto felt a sense of awe upon seeing them. This was a place where humans routinely harnessed and worked with unimaginably powerful energies, as if this were some mythic forge of the gods. But her awe quickly turned to puzzlement when she realized that aside from all the equipment and machinery, the room was empty. There were no signs of survivors.
“Did I take a wrong turn, Memory?”
“No, Mei. You’re in the right place. This is where the life-forms are located.”
Kyoto frowned. That simply wasn’t possible; there was no place in here for anyone to hide, let alone an entire group of survivors. She wondered if maybe Memory Junior had been only partially downloaded by her sister AI back on the Janus, or if the Defender’s sensors—which Memory Junior was using—had been damaged when they passed through the hyperbubble. Whatever the reason, something sure as hell was wrong, because…
Some instinct prompted Kyoto to train her helmet light on the ceiling. As the beam pierced the gloom beyond the infuser, she gasped. Clinging to the ceiling and clustered around the infuser’s metal shaft were a dozen Mutants.