by Sean Danker
“Did I just fire the first shot?” Salmagard asked worriedly.
“The colonists did. These guys were prejudiced against us before we got here. I bet four big colony ships crunching down like this killed a lot more of them than us. Halt that cycle—we need to talk.”
“I’m reading them inside the ship,” Salmagard reported.
“No doubt; the hull’s breached in a dozen places. This changes things. Now, not only do we have no functioning beacon, but we’ve got active hostiles. Our clean room won’t stay clean for long with these guys running around—were any of you looking at his feet?”
“I saw,” Deilani said, nodding. “There was some kind of reaction with the metal.”
“Hiding ourselves away and holding out isn’t an option anymore.” I looked at the trainees, then at my chrono. “We have to get off this planet before our nanomachines fail.”
“Shuttle,” Nils said immediately. He was right. It wasn’t polite to just swipe a transport, but there was no one here to object. “Most of the vehicles probably aren’t on this ship, but there have to be some shuttles. Is the bay buried?”
“A colony ship has its atmosphere bay on top, so I doubt it. Or at least not so buried that we can’t get the doors open. We’ll get into orbit, hit the shuttle’s subspace beacon, and go to sleep. And hope for the best. Questions?”
“You trust Ganraen sleep tech?” Nils still seemed dazed.
“More than I trust their decon. Ready?”
“Let’s do it.” Deilani hit the release, and the inner airlock doors hissed open.
Nils went to the nearest console and keyed in a path to the flight bay. He seemed reluctant to disengage his helmet. I reminded him that his air supply was finite, and he shut it off.
“I didn’t think I could hate this planet even more,” Deilani muttered. “These larger ones must have hit the colonists suddenly, because there’s nothing about them in the logs.”
“I know why security’s down,” Nils said, looking up from the console, realization dawning. “The security office is smashed all to hell. Someone must have tried to make a stand there.”
“That’s where I’d have done it.” I kept moving.
“It didn’t end well.”
“Don’t be fooled,” Deilani said. “The larval ones are the most dangerous. The mist. They can’t be fought at all without a compound that’ll kill them, or at least nanomachines to hold them back.”
“You didn’t seem too bothered,” Nils said to Salmagard.
“I’m from Earth,” she replied distractedly, busy with her scanner.
“So?”
“You’ve never seen a Nipponese spider crab? Delicious.”
The fact that she was making jokes meant she was every bit as rattled as the rest of us.
The ensign shook his head. “Mad. The lot of you.”
“It was one of these—a little one, back on the freighter. In Medical,” I said, tugging at my collar. “Not a hamster. But how’d he get in?”
“What?” Deilani looked at me.
“The hull breach was at the other end of the ship.” I folded my arms. “How’d he get from there to Medical?” My eyes caught on a Ganraen vent cover. I felt ill, and this time it had nothing to do with my withdrawal.
“Got the atmosphere bay—two decks up. Let’s go,” Nils said, disconnecting from his terminal.
“Private?”
“I’m not reading anything nearby.”
“Then let’s move. I doubt there’s much reason for there to be many in here, but when we repressurized we sealed them in with us. I think just now we might’ve agitated them.”
Now that we knew we weren’t alone on the ship, its vast emptiness took on a new significance. There couldn’t be too many of them in here with us, but that wasn’t very comforting. I was looking around in a decidedly paranoid fashion, even when I knew that Salmagard would pick up anything nearby long before I’d notice.
As we ran through the deserted corridors of the colony ship, I knew how Captain Tremma and his pilot officer must have met their end. By blasting the spire, they had stirred up the locals. They must not have been quick enough to decontaminate when they got back aboard; that explained the mishap with the incinerator. Blind panic. I didn’t know what it would feel like to have these things inside my body, turning it into their mineral—but I could imagine that it would be distressing.
There were no more mysteries, but that was small comfort when there were so many crises. On the other hand, if all went well, we’d be off this rock in a matter of minutes. I could pilot a Ganraen shuttle, and it wasn’t as if I could make Deilani’s suspicions worse. Hoping for the best in Ganraen sleepers powered by a Ganraen shuttle carried some risk, but no more than we had here on the surface. It wouldn’t be my first time.
We would be picked up. The question was by whom.
None of us had come up this way since our initial sweep, which had been cursory at best. The damage to the ship was no longer puzzling, but we didn’t like the story it told.
There had been some sizable specimens running amok in here. We just had to hope the big ones had all gone back outside. Or was it the small ones we needed to worry about?
I was worried about all of them. I was used to human beings as my enemies. This was completely new to me.
We reached the bay, stopping short.
“Little roomier than it needs to be, isn’t it?” I said, feeling detached. My voice echoed in the cavernous chamber.
There were bays for several shuttles. They were all empty. Rubble was strewn about the deck; the bay doors had been open—probably when the colonists had made their escape. This was why there was so little evidence: most of the colonists hadn’t actually died here.
“At least we know what that guy was doing in engineering,” Nils said, face white, eyes wide. “He missed his ride.”
17
NO shuttles. Not one. Of course they’d evacuated. Anybody would, and I’d seen the signs.
“We’re not alone,” Deilani said.
“I’m not picking up anything,” Salmagard countered.
“It’s not moving.” The lieutenant pointed. There was something dark on the ceiling of the bay. It was well over a hundred meters away. The fact that we could even see it at this distance meant it was at least twice the size of the one we’d encountered outside.
“Don’t panic,” I said.
“Too late,” Nils replied.
“Back in the lift.” I hurried them out of the bay. Once we were safely in the lift with the shield closed, I rubbed at my eyes. I opened my mouth to ask Deilani how much time we had, then thought better of it. “Do or die, guys. How do we get off this planet?”
“We’re on a ship,” Deilani said.
I shook my head. “It takes a crew to fly, and a hundred techs to keep it flying. Even if we had the training, we couldn’t budge it—especially not knowing how badly damaged it is.”
“I looked at the overall diagnostic,” Nils said. “The damage is substantial, but as far as we’re concerned, nothing that would keep us here.”
“Moot point. We can’t fly it. Next idea.”
“There could be more shuttles on the other ships,” Deilani said, looking hopeful.
“It’s possible, but not likely enough to gamble on. They’ve all evacuated. It would be worth a look if time wasn’t so tight, but we’re at the bottom of a valley. We’d have to secure some kind of vehicle, then navigate. I don’t think there’s time.”
“Then I’m out of ideas,” Nils said. “Those were the only space-worthy options on this ship. If our ECs won’t get us into orbit, Ganraen ones sure as the Empress won’t.”
“Wait a minute.” Deilani put her hands on her hips and stared at her boots. “Wait a minute. This is the science vessel.”
“Yeah,” I said, r
aising an eyebrow.
“So this is where the satellites are.”
I wanted to kiss her. “This is why I keep you around, Lieutenant. Nils, find a console and locate the ballistic launch bay.”
“They’ll already have put their unit into orbit,” he said, shaking his head.
“There’ll be more than one.”
“There has to be one in orbit—that’s how they got their charts.”
“Not important, Ensign. Do it.”
Nils hit the release, and the lift started to move. “Survey satellites aren’t meant to be manned,” he pointed out.
“It’s worth checking out. We might have to get creative.” I was thinking fast.
“I’ve heard that before.”
* * *
The launch bay was more like a silo. A narrow, retractable corridor led to the satellite itself, which had already been loaded for launch. Nils immediately went to work on the control panel.
The maintenance cavity in the satellite was cramped, but not as cramped as I’d feared. We could all fit inside, and there would be room for supplies as well. It would be a brutally awkward and intimate fit, but I’d been worried that we wouldn’t all be able to come along.
“It hasn’t even got a recycler,” Deilani said. “It can’t support life. It’s like going into space in a metal box.”
She had a point.
“We’ll think of something.” I ducked through the hatch to get inside.
“All we need to do is stick some sleepers in there,” Nils said, grinning. It was a joke, of course. Maybe we could fit Evagardian sleepers, which were relatively compact—but not Ganraen ones.
We couldn’t cram much air in there, either. Not more than twenty-four hours’ worth for the four of us. We needed more time than that. And we’d need a way to keep the temperature up. And at least some kind of ventilation.
Deilani was right—this wasn’t a good solution.
“Getting off the planet’s all well and good, but not if we’re just going to die in orbit,” Deilani said. “This won’t work. It’s not made for passengers. This space is only here so a tech can get in there and fix it when it breaks.”
Nothing I didn’t already know. “Asleep won’t work, and neither will awake. What does that leave? How about medical stasis?”
Deilani blinked. “Does the Commonwealth even have it?”
“Of course.”
“Do you trust it?”
“Do we have a choice?”
“EMS can’t support you for more than a couple hundred hours at most. It’s called emergency stasis for a reason. You don’t even want to know what it’ll do to you if you stay in there too long.”
I shrugged. “A couple hundred hours is longer than we’ll last down here. And we won’t need air or heat.”
She gave me a calculating look. “You want to stick four stasis modules in there.”
“You and I could share one.”
Her eyes narrowed. “We are about to be dead.”
“Not if I can help it. We can rig up some kind of power supply—hell, can’t we divert some of the satellite’s systems for it?”
“Maybe.” Nils folded his arms. “But I don’t know these systems. If something goes wrong, we’ll all wake up in plastic coffins, watching one another suffocate.”
“It’ll be dark,” I told him. “We won’t have to watch.”
I clapped him on the shoulder and climbed out of the satellite, starting back down the corridor. “What do we need to do? We need to prep the satellite for launch, secure four stasis modules, and find a way to keep them powered up. What else?”
“That’s pretty much it,” Nils said, glancing at Deilani. “We might be cutting it close, but it could be possible. It might not,” he added. “I can’t make promises about coupling Ganraen tech—I’ll have to make it up as I go.”
“You didn’t get assigned to the Julian because you were bad at your job.” I waved him off. “Lieutenant, where do we get the EMS units?”
“If this was an Evagardian ship, there would be at least one mobile unit on every deck. But there probably isn’t, and I wouldn’t know where to look.”
“Medbay, obviously.”
“No.” Deilani chewed her lip. “Those are stationary units. You can’t move them. All right—this is a colony. They must have surface craft for workmen and surveyors. Those flyers and personnel carriers will have mobile units in case there are injuries on the surface. Colonists have accidents all the time. It’s kind of their thing. We’ll use those. Those vehicles should be in the bay underneath the one we just came from.”
“Will they be hard to move?”
“I don’t know. Who can tell with these people? They should have their own grav pallets.”
“Let’s get down there and have a look. Can we actually fit four of them in there?”
Deilani scowled. “Depends on how bulky they are. We could fit four of ours.”
* * *
The planetary survey vessels were all there in the bay, looking almost pristine. It was a lot of vehicles, and the vast space almost seemed full. The floor and walls were like a massive gray grid, stretching into the distance.
We appeared to have the bay to ourselves. “There,” Deilani said, pointing. “The big ones—those are for long-range work crews. They’ll have EMS.” She jogged off across the deck. I didn’t have that kind of energy. My withdrawal was getting worse.
I looked over at Salmagard. “Private?”
“There’s movement under the floor, Admiral.”
Movement under the floor didn’t worry me. I hurried after Deilani.
The long-distance crawler was the size of a small spacecraft. A big colonial seal was printed on each of the six massive wheels. There were some dents in the gray chassis, but no serious damage.
Deilani was lowering the ramp. She’d been right: there were two EMS units—one on either side of the cargo hold. “They aren’t as big as I thought they’d be . . . but I’m not sure we want to trust our lives to these,” she fretted.
“You’ll have to. How do we detach them?”
She shot me a look. “We need to be gentle. Two to a pallet. We’ll have to make another trip.” There was a hiss, and the float pallet lit up. Deilani seized the controls and lifted it off the deck, moving it gingerly away from the bulkhead. Nils took over for her, and she went to work on the other one. “Six hours on its internal charge. Then it’ll need power.”
“Six hours? That’s terrible,” Nils said, appalled. “What’s the point?”
“There are power docks here, but they’re for use with this vehicle. It’s Ganraen; what do you expect?” Deilani snapped.
Nils was looking at me worriedly. I knew what he was thinking. These units might not buy us as much time as we’d hoped. But until someone thought of a better plan, it was still full speed ahead on this one.
Deilani detached the next unit, and I grabbed the controls. “Go,” I said, and she joined Nils in moving the first unit down the ramp. Salmagard helped me steer my pallet.
The temptation to rush was strong, but these Ganraen lifts weren’t as responsive as Evagardian ones. In the long run, a spill would cost us more time than a deliberate pace.
“Admiral, are you all right?” Salmagard asked me quietly. We were several meters behind Deilani and the ensign. She could plainly see how bloodshot my eyes were. They were burning. And I could feel the occasional muscle spasm.
“The drugs the lieutenant gave me are wearing off,” I told her. “It’s making it hard to focus.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
I shook my head. “Ganraen pharmaceuticals aren’t on our level. If they had a cure, I wouldn’t be blazed in the first place. Don’t worry. I can stay in it a little longer.” This side of things had slipped the lieutenant’s mind completely, but
I couldn’t distract her with it now. Our survival was more important than my comfort.
It was a long walk, but I was getting used to crossing bays on foot. That didn’t make my feet hurt any less.
“It’s following us,” Salmagard whispered to me.
“What?” She looked down. I looked down at the deck too. “Vibration? Heat?”
She shrugged. “The more we move, the more I read. We’re attracting them.”
“Get ready to fight.”
“I am. Are you?” She looked concerned.
“I don’t like fighting.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t worry about me,” I told her. It would be enough for me to stay lucid. I’d leave the fighting to Salmagard.
“Take the first lift,” I called to Deilani. “We’ll use personnel instead of cargo—one at a time, it’s still faster. Can’t fit both of these in there.” I waved her on. “Just go.” We were lucky the lift was big enough for one unit. It was tight, though.
“Copy that.” Deilani and Nils disappeared through the hatch.
Salmagard opened the pouch at her hip and situated a Ganraen sidearm inside so it would be easier to get at.
“That’s against orders,” I said lightly. I hadn’t seen her pick it up.
“They didn’t seem to me like faulty readings,” she replied without meeting my eyes.
“Maybe we do need more people with your genes on the enlisted side.” The lift doors opened, and we pushed the EMS unit into the cramped carriage, tilting it up to fit. The ride up took only a moment.
The doors had barely opened again when there was a shout over the com. Salmagard flew out of the lift so fast that I was suddenly left with the full weight of the EMS unit, vastly reduced by the grav pallet, but still considerable. I eased it down and stumbled after her.
Deilani was dragging Nils away from three xenos. One was so large that it seemed to fill the whole corridor, and the other two were just big enough to give me nightmares.
All three were advancing. Nils was hurt; there were smears of blood on the deck and on his suit.
Salmagard got between them and the xenos, the Ganraen sidearm extended in one hand. She fired at the nearest one, which was scuttling toward her at an alarming pace. The projectile, intended to be safe for use on spacecraft, fragmented on the thing’s carapace. It barely seemed to notice. And it was one of the little ones. Salmagard’s eye twitched, and she took a step back.