by Ginger Booth
“Remi?” Corky hung on the doorframe. “Are the fans acting up?”
He stared at her. He had noticed that. The fans were loud. With a sinking feeling, he asked, “Computer, why fans blowing?”
“Unknown. Ventilation is an autonomous system.”
Because naturally it would be on a PO-3. Ventilation was a simple life support subsystem. Except on Thrive, ventilation was no longer simple due to the ship’s greenhouse aspects, mostly rigged long ago by Sass and Eli, amateurs. Remi noticed that when he built the cryo bay, and added…quite a lot more processors. And precisely because ventilation was independent of the main computers, he tossed some massive backup arrays up there, too. And he routed the main systems to connect for backup and restore.
He found and opened the ventilation diagnostics. Sure enough, the entire system throbbed with unknown activity. “Bron, with me, let’s pull the panels on ventilation.” The AI couldn’t run amok on ventilation if he powered down the master controller. But it wasn’t easy to get to.
Aurora interrupted by hail. “Remi? You need to see this. Something is happening to Prosper.”
He flipped the desk display to the cameras pointed in that direction. And he beheld Prosper, engulfed in dull green light and sinking. “Prosper, Thrive,” he hailed. “Zan, what’s going on? Zan?” But he couldn’t get a signal through.
He tried Ben, but of course the captain didn’t answer during his fancy dinner. He tried brief text messages. He didn’t bother to mention his Bloki suspicions. Ben had bigger problems.
Remi trained sensors on the olive goo field. But aside from the light, the phenomenon might as well be a black hole. His sensors couldn’t even detect the mass of the starship. No electromagnetic emissions at all, just the sickly glow. He had no idea what caught Prosper.
“Found her!” Aurora exulted. “Oh, no, him. Cope’s comms.”
“Thank you, Aurora, keep looking,” the engineer said absently. He reviewed all the personnel presently on his ship. The science team was with Ben, except Elise. And Milo. He opened a line to the med-bay. “Milo! How’s it going?” He asked in French of course.
“She is fearful. But she shares my alignment, to Beltane!”
“I’m happy for you,” Remi assured him. Milo once tried to explain that moon alignment nonsense on the way to Hellada. He and Elise were born Catholic, and unsympathetic. “I’m sending you a picture of something happening to Prosper.” He beamed it to the med-bay diagnostic screen. “Do you know what this is?”
“Ah-ah!” Milo crooned. “I have heard of this! The orb of nullity!”
“Do you know the physics?”
“Physics?”
“The science. What is it? What does it do?”
“All electrical impulses die within. A fearsome Deutsch weapon. They used it once to deny Britain its mines for months.”
“Die within? It destroyed the electrical equipment in the mine?”
“No, I think it was fine after the nullity was lifted.”
“How did they terminate the nullity?”
“Deutschland stopped generating it.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Remi!” Aurora reported. “Found the comms signals, all three! Not moving, Sass and Kass together.”
46
“Excellent news, thank you!” Remi cried to Aurora. With Sass and Kassidy located, he was free to track down what generated the nullity.
He rose to head back to the bridge, to fly toward Prosper to seek the source of its problems. That’s when Ben called and told him to get out of there. Dammit!
No. Ben was right. And even if he was wrong, by this point Rem was delighted to obey an order rather than make a decision. He continued to the bridge and slipped into the pilot’s chair. Aurora obligingly scaled the plot to fit, and pointed out their current location relative to Cope’s comms tab, and Sass and Kassidy.
Now that he was here, it occurred to Remi that sitting 20 meters above the dome offered advantages. Would they shoot strange olive rays at him while a starship of many tons hovered directly over their major city? And Thrive might be able to provide backup to Prosper if he stayed close. He drifted slowly toward Sass’s position, mapping the streets below. Though tonight’s prospects were looking bleak for Ben’s planned raid to liberate the women.
That’s when Sass called him the first time. She was out of captivity, and requested an atmo drop over her location. Remi grinned and set up a shallow shot on their main forward gun, through the dome angling toward the Checkpoint Bravo gate. He chivalrously let Aurora press the fire button.
Nice! Nearly a kilometer of broken dome, shards raining down onto the streets, probably crossing two or three air control districts, plus a touch of damage to the wall itself. Locals below scattered in terror. Remi bet they’d take years to fix this, bad as when Sass and Lavelle broke the dome at Sagamore Landing. Whoever attacked Prosper had much to answer for. The balance of his political capital just hit goose-egg.
Pierre Lavelle’s family in Landing never recovered from the disgrace. Good! Bastards.
His exultation was short-lived. His comms opened. “Remi? Ben. What the frick?”
“Sass is free, Ben! She asked for an atmo drop.”
“Good news. But where did I order you to go?”
“Away. But –”
Ben cut him off. “Sass has zero knowledge of our current situation. Correct?”
“Yes, captain.”
“Get your ass away from that city. Now!”
“But if Sass wants pickup?”
“She can rendezvous at Checkpoint Bravo Gate. Remi, I have every confidence in you. Thrive is our lifeline. Get her out of there! Acosta out.”
Sadly Remi set course northwest, gaining altitude and angling between Scandia and Benelux into the barren countryside. Sass called him back from a tree, asking for a situation report. She got an earful for a few minutes, including his fears that Bloki was back online and haunting the ventilation system.
Thrive rose to over 1000 meters as it passed over the monorails. And suddenly the ship fired its main asteroid-killer guns to rupture all four northern tracks, including the ones to Zentrum and Polska.
“Remi?” Sass prompted in concern, when he abruptly halted his rant in mid-word.
“I didn’t do it,” Aurora hastily denied.
Remi knew she didn’t do it. Her hands hadn’t touched the console since the one shot at the dome. She didn’t know how to target the main guns. Watching him as he locked in a single shot hardly qualified as a teaser. “Bloki did it. Merde.”
“Did what?” Sass demanded.
The comms channels lit up. Someone was making a lot of video calls. Someone not on the bridge.
Stunned, Remi said slowly, “Sass, rendezvous with Ben at Checkpoint Bravo. Thrive out.”
Remi had dim standards for his stints as acting captain. But losing control of guns, comms, and captain rated an all-time low.
Ben was already outside the pavilion when he signed off with Remi. Fortunately the pavilion itself wasn’t under electromagnetic interdiction. He left Cope in charge inside, to secure the captives. His husband was much happier now that he wore Ben’s toolbelt, stowed in the sideboard after they erected the tent.
No one was better than Cope at Ben’s side for a straight-up fist fight. But Cope tended to freeze when things got insane. That wouldn’t do here. Of the people Ben had on hand, few could handle what he had in mind. Eli could try to apply the science staff. Controlling the Sanks was Hugo’s problem.
He’d love to believe the dinner party crew could accomplish something while he was gone. But hell if he knew what.
The captain brought Abel and Clay with him through the airlock to join Wilder. The guard dismounted his emu to dole out blasters.
“No, mount up again,” Ben ordered. “As soon as Prosper is low enough, we’ll shoot out the projectors. Not all of them. I want at least one to dissect. Have all of us ridden…?” His eye fell on Abel, who nodded.
&
nbsp; No one asked why they’d ride the emus. These things had a maximum speed of nearly 30 kph, or 18 mph as their Denali friends insisted. Sometimes Sass and Clay slipped and used the archaic units, too. Not that they were likely to go that fast.
“Pretty exposed, cap,” Wilder warned.
Ben nodded judiciously, looking over the ground. “Useful range is fifty meters on the blasters.” He swung onto his emu and waited for the others to do the same, for the added vantage. Then he pointed out some dubious bits of landmark as the fifty-meter threshold.
“Ride crazy, zig-zag, vary your speed. But get across that line. Once you’re there, shoot the guys holding projectors. If you spot a power cable, sever it. Wilder, lead left. I’ll take right.”
“No, captain,” Wilder argued. “You stay here. We’re short on captains.”
“He’s right, Ben,” Abel argued.
“Argument noted,” the captain allowed. “And overruled. You have your orders. Now!”
With that, Ben cranked his emu up to max and broke right. He quickly noticed the bird’s headlamp was on, and doused the light. He hadn’t tried the electric emu before, only Sanctuary’s robot horses and three-wheelers. He laughed out loud at the ridiculous two-legged gait, and held on for dear life. Fortunately the bird design included vestigial wings. The rider’s thighs tucked underneath, for a fairly secure seat, and the padding was excellent. He remembered to jerk the reins one way and the other, and vary his speed a bit, in case the locals had ranged weapons they hadn’t seen yet.
Other than that, he sat back and exulted in the ride. Rotten-egg breeze and acid mist ruffled his short white-blond hair and stung his eyes and bare hands on the reins. Good thing Kassidy isn’t here! He’d never live down video of leading the charge of the emus against the walls of Deutschland.
Which were getting closer. He leaned low over his pommel and bird neck, and stole a glance behind at the others. Clay was close on his heels, but zagging well. Abel was well behind Wilder, now a good hundred meters off to Ben’s left. He could barely spot them in the dark, though the two crescent moons granted fair visibility nearby.
Yes, the locals have blasters, too. The first shots came at extreme range. One of the advantages of the dark was that their laser beams left clear lines lingering on Ben’s retina for a second, despite the brief fire. Those shots came from the ramparts above the walls. He pulled his reins tighter and zig-zagged his speed and heading in shorter bursts, but held his fire.
“Ah!” Clay cried out behind him. Ben looked back to see him steer back toward the pavilion, presumably to heal up. Damn. He also checked Prosper. The ship was still hovering a good 10 meters up. That fall would hurt. But the ship would take it on the eight containers below. We’re a go.
Grimly, Ben focused on his problem, the umbrella-wielder now less than 40 meters away. He steadied his blaster arm on the emu’s neck, then jerked its reins to turn right. He waited for the smooth sailing-through-air phase of the bird’s furious pace, then squeezed the trigger. Missed.
The captain didn’t let that faze him. For one thing, the guy dropped his projector in alarm. But mostly, Ben figured the chances of hitting his mark on the first try as nil. He slowed, veered left, then sped up and veered right again. He aimed at his next contestant with similar results, another dropped projector.
Off to the left, something exploded in eye-stunning olive. Ben yanked his reins around to ride left for a few seconds, checking quickly to keep out of Abel’s line of fire. No, Clay dropping back left a considerable gap for maneuvers. The blasters above on the walls appeared to be few and unskilled. Ben simply jerking his reins after each shot served to prevent them from hitting him. But he preferred not to close on the wall any further. The walls’ 20-meter height meant his targets on the ground were inside his range, but the shooters atop the walls couldn’t hurt him too badly.
He waited until he’d passed one of the umbrellas. Then he locked the target and shot at him freehand, then immediately swerved and got the next guy in line.
Several projectors before him lay on the ground now. The dark-uniformed bearers were in a rout, abandoning their positions to retreat in through the gate, while wizards screamed at them and tried to pick up the umbrellas again. Ben shot one of the still projectors, creating the same sort of green explosion he’d seen from down on Wilder’s end of the line.
As his eyes cleared, he saw the wizards give up and run for cover, as well.
At that point, he heard a horrendous crash from behind him, as the great olive egg of Prosper hit dirt at last. You’ll pay for that, bastards! Ben’s next shot sent three of the fleeing to sprawl onto the ground.
“Retreat, Ben!” Wilder’s voice, thin from distance. Screw that! Ben wheeled his mount again and trained his eyes on the wall-top, looking for blaster traces. There. He found their silhouettes against the night sky. He turned the emu straight into the wall and charged. Hold, hold…in range! He shot at the middle-most of three men up there, who obligingly hurtled from the wall. He only had another second before he rammed into the wall, but got one more shot off, then cut hard left and braked his emu.
He jumped off and collected two of the projector umbrellas. The cutoff switch was obvious, and he turned them off. He strode toward a last one spewing olive misery at his poor ship, but Abel plucked it up before he could.
He jumped as another blaster bolt narrowly missed from above. He ran back to his emu and got the hell out of range as quickly as he could.
And he galloped back toward poor Prosper, listing down at the bow and still trapped in an olive glow egg.
Killing the projectors hadn’t canceled the nullity.
47
“Clay! Are you alright?” Ben reined his emu to a smooth stop beside the older man, who rested arms and head on his own saddle.
“Getting there,” Clay agreed, raising his head. “I think my emu’s air tank ruptured, though.”
Ben huffed a laugh. He doubted broken emus would make it onto his engineers’ punch list anytime soon. Abel and Wilder caught up, Abel handing over another couple nullity projector umbrellas.
“Anybody shoot the power supply?” Ben asked hopefully.
“Didn’t see any,” Abel said grimly. Ben nodded. Neither had he. It was hard to imagine these umbrellas, however sturdy, channeled enough power to do that to his ship. Then again, he knew damned little about what that was. A nullity, Remi said Milo said.
Milo’s education didn’t include basic grav manipulation. But levitating Prosper to a soft landing sure looked like a gravity attack.
Sort of soft landing. He took out his comms tab to call Eli, inside the pavilion. “Any word from inside?”
“None, cap,” his faithful botanist replied. “Hugo gave his comms to Cope. He’s talking to Remi on and off. They’ve got an idea.”
Ben detected a certain note of dismay in Eli’s voice. “An idea I won’t like.”
“You’ll hate it. It seems Bloki is awake –”
“What?”
“Remi managed to wrest control of the ship back. But they’re feeding Bloki data on the nullity to see if he can figure out what it is.”
Ben stuck thumb and forefinger though Pinocchio’s eye holes to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Tell me Thrive is OK.”
“Aye, cap. Thrive is OK.”
“That wasn’t very convincing.”
Eli allowed, “I’m not very convinced. But, Cope.”
Ben supposed he meant that Cope knew what he was doing. Sure hope so, because I don’t. “Right. Godspeed. I need to check on my people. Uh, no need to mention that part to Cope.” He’ll figure it out soon enough. Ben disconnected.
“You mean, go inside that thing?” Abel asked, looking horrified.
Clay volunteered. “I’ll go. Not Ben.”
Ben pressed his lips, though no one could see it inside his rebreather. He grabbed the lead line on the broken emu and led the way. “Abel, Wilder, stay here on security. Keep an eye out for Sass and Kassidy. In fact, cal
l and see how they’re coming along.”
“Cap –” Wilder objected.
“Clay will go first.” Ben kept walking. When they were out of earshot, he asked, “Are you up to this? And are you the right person? We don’t know how the nullity will affect your nanites. We could lose you, Clay. I’d never forgive myself for that.”
“Sweet of you,” Clay allowed. “But I’m going in. I’m more likely to survive it than you are. And we’ve got four people in there. No, six.”
Ben mentally tallied them – Judge, Zan, Quire, their new crewman Flo from MO, and…right, the two test subjects Schauble supplied. “Well, survive, old man. I need your skills to interrogate the rego hell out of Schauble.”
Clay snickered. “Sass can handle it.”
Ben halted five meters from the edge of olive field that held his ship. He didn’t feel anything strange at this distance. He turned and walked along until he was aligned with the door airlock, the only one he could operate with no electronics. He dug out his comms tab and tossed it a meter toward the door. It was still alive, so they stepped forward to it. They repeated the process until the tablet died, about a meter from the visible edge of the eggshell.
“Let’s see what it does to metal,” Ben suggested, tugging his emu forward. The picnic basket saddle-bag compartment had a fairly flimsy lid. He tore it off and considered his experiment while Clay called Cope to ask for advice.
Ben didn’t wait. He tossed the metal lid to lie just beside the dead comms tab, then crouched to study it.
Clay finished his conversation and handed over his comms. “Don’t kill this one. What’s your thought?”
“The energy field doesn’t seem to conduct outward along the metal. Just ignores it. Maybe.”
That established, Ben turned and cut the lead line off the emu, and on second thought the plastic tubing of the airline. Fully extended, that reached 15 meters. They tied both lines around Clay’s waist.