Connor's Gambit

by Z Gottlieb

  Fernando pulled back. “Homesickness? Is it a contagion that spreads across species? Will you be well enough to fly?”

  Brad wanted to laugh but decided Fernando wouldn’t take it kindly, considering the severe look on his face. “It’s not a true illness. It’s an expression from my planet that means to ‘miss home.’”

  “Oh, alright, it shouldn’t be too long.” Fernando noted. “Your mate intercepted a report indicating that the Zuonopy would be exiting from the transit gate at any moment. It seems that news of the Zuonopy’s impending arrival has put everyone on edge, even the Aneplé, who are now on high alert. Their senior officers began moving the Kisskalu toward the Pertutinn Transit Gate.” There hadn’t been many communications on the Aneplé’s next destination, but if he had to guess, they were planning on transiting to Connor’s Gambit. Fernando had at length chewed on Brad about that name; what in the world was that idiot pilot thinking, naming the dark hole Connor’s Gambit? Didn’t he have any idea how choosing that name would attract the Aneplé?

  Brad sat up and stared at the medallion on Fernando’s waist. “When did you start wearing a personal shield?”

  Fernando shook his head in disbelief. “When did you just notice? Wesgwidy makes me wear it all the time. It’s easier for me to wear it than to have one more thing to argue about. I would prefer to not be the only one in the colony with one.”

  “Can I have it?” Brad asked. He had a sudden chilling sense it could be disastrous for Shinny not to have it on her.

  Fernando looked at him as if he was losing his nerves asking for the personal shield, but he followed Brad’s gaze outside of the glass wall at Shinny, who was standing next to Wesgwidy and Yancurve. “Your mate already has one.”

  “I know, but it won’t be enough.”

  Fernando pulled the shield off his waist and handed it to him. “I’m more than happy to leave it behind, but if it can give you a measure of relief, you are welcome to the shield. I recommend you hold onto it as long as possible. Your mate will probably just give it to Wesgwidy, who will slap it back on me.”

  Brad attached the device to his waist. “Wesgwidy at times seems a bit abusive when it comes to you.”

  “Not really, she’s just fulfilling her role as the colony’s Mother.”

  Brad stood up and walked over to his rations box and pulled out a package. Hopefully, they would be off the Kisskalu soon. He hated the meals, but after the remaining four packages, he would only have the filtered water to survive on. Looking around the room it was hard to tell who or how many were left with the carefully built bundles resembling sleeping Neslins scattered around the room. He laughed that it looked like they had used every spare blanket since they started building the bundles; even Lucky had gone missing. He thought about looking for his blanket, but he wasn’t sure if there was even enough time to rebuild the bundles to look as convincingly realistic as they did. He could always replace Lucky on Earth with another Johnson plaid blanket. Turning toward Fernando, who stood next to him, he asked, “How many of us are left?”

  “There are fifteen of us left. The rest are on the vehicle, including Ravelstan and the princess. There’s no staying here.”

  “Out of curiosity, has Wesgwidy made a decision?” Brad asked staring at the big Neslin guarding the ward.

  Fernando sighed. “No, she hasn’t, but I’ll take care of it. I realize Wesgwidy has an overly cautious nature. It has served her well as a Technician and has kept the colony alive and functioning. I will probably need to step in and force her to make the decision for the Colony’s sake.”

  Brad was curious what Fernando meant by that, but decided against asking. He could be asking for trouble, if he were to step into the middle of a Neslin family squabble. It’s the last thing they needed at this time. He began his daily regime of stretching calisthenics. Fernando joined in with him. It was a mix of human and Neslin exercises that they had begun to share. They both sat down to start a series of stretches, when the lights started flashing. Brad looked toward the glass wall and saw Shinny and Wesgwidy in a heated discussion, “Looks like those two are having an argument about Yeshawliq’s signal.”

  “Johnson, get your suits and hood on. I need to have a discussion with Wesgwidy.” Fernando stood up and ran out of the isolation ward.

  Brad stood up and walked over to the box that was storing his supplies. He put all of the remaining hoods in his pockets except for one. He then donned the extra uniform Shinny had printed for him to strip off at a later time once he was in clean air. He pulled the last hood over his head and followed up with the last remaining biohazard suit. It was overkill, but he didn’t want to take any chances, thinking he needed to take precautions should the outer suit become compromised. After he was sure that the suit was sealed, he watched Fernando through the glass wall running up to Shinny and Wesgwidy. He had no idea what Fernando had told Shinny, but she left them running toward the entrance to the ward. A couple of Neslins walked up to him looking for directions since all of the senior Neslins were gone. “We need to get everyone up and ready. We’re leaving, now.” We’d better be leaving, he thought. He didn’t know what would be worse, missing the chance to leave or trying to explain to the seven foot Neslins why he was mistaken.

  Shinny ran into the room. She looked relieved that Brad had his suit on and was organizing the rest to leave. “Get everyone together, it’s time.” She ran toward a table against the wall and leapt onto it and pulled the vent cover away from the wall. She reached into the vent with her right arm and pulled out a praser. She then placed it at her waist. Shinny jumped off the table and stared outside the room watching for Fernando’s signal.

  Brad stood at the head of the small crowd of the Neslins facing him. Suddenly the Kisskalu trembled, forcing everyone to rebalance his or her stance. Once they recovered, he briefed them on the plan and their respective responsibilities once they started the evacuation. Looking out, Brad saw Fernando’s signal to begin executing their escape plan. Later, when there was more time, he would ask Fernando how he convinced Wesgwidy to change her mind. Brad looked back at the Neslins looking at him for guidance, “Let’s go. Remember, we will split into two groups.”

  Chapter 32

  The explosions and flashing lights were giving Plity a headache. They should have had more time between the Zuonopy exiting a transit gate and the attack. Intelligence had not indicated that CIG had a weapon that could hit a target as quickly as the Zuonopy did exiting the gate. Intelligence should answer for this failure, she thought. Plity swiped her tablet looking for a damage report. Seeing nothing, she wondered if the command module had been hit because no orders were being relayed to her from chip communications. Even odder than no damage reports was seeing people running like a frenzied mob through the hallway. She had her squad stand against the wall until she could figure out what was going on and then execute their next move. Watching the panicked runners streaming in front of her, she sent a message through her chip to her lieutenant to grab one of the runners.

  Lieutenant Swetinny stepped forward, scanning the runners, and reached out, grabbing a small, dark-haired female with a ridged nose dressed in dilapidated green overalls worn by the hydroponic technicians. The woman struggled to pull away. Plity watched as the lieutenant responded quickly, slamming the woman against the wall, forcing her with a slap to remain in place.

  Plity stood in front of the runner. “What’s going on? Where were you going?”

  The woman slunk down in fear from being detained by security. “My unit received a report that five Class A gardens were on fire. The units were requesting assistance in putting out the fires,” she sputtered in fear, while watching the lieutenant’s hands to avoid being hit again.

  Plity ignored the gasping from her team. The destruction of the Class A gardens would create a ship wide morale problem. Those plants made assignments on the deployed units more pleasant, especially with the pollen floating around, she thought as she inhaled deeply.

 
The ship trembled for the third time, throwing everyone in a mass on the floor. People who had been running picked themselves up and continued running down the hall. The detained woman grabbed her head and doubled over in agony, screaming, “Let me go. There’s an alarm in my head. I need to go. I need to help with the fires.”

  Plity nodded to the lieutenant and watched him throw the crying woman into the crowd to run with the stream of people. Checking her tablet, she found the report of the fires, but no damage reports from the explosions. Whatever was going on was definitely odd. She would have expected an extensive damage report with the failure of the ship’s shields. Looking at her team, she asked, “Find out whose squad is watching the Neslin prisoners. I want a status report, now.” Her team looked at the duty rosters then back at her. They remained stoically silent. “Who’s on duty watching the Neslins?” They looked at each other. “Lieutenant, whose squad is on prisoner duty?”

  He swallowed hard before he answered. “I don’t know how this happened. My squad was assigned duty this shift.”

  Plity, stunned, stepped closer to Swetinny, reared back and slapped him across his face. “You fool! What have you done? Can’t you see what is going on? What would you do if you were them? They know we value the plants in the gardens. You should have shot that female pilot with your own praser. Get out of my sight,” she snarled contemptuously, pushing him into the crowd running in front of them.

  Plity turned to the rest of the squadron standing against the wall. “Find the Neslins and find those two CIG pilots.”

  Plity bit the inside of her cheek as she read the operations reports while her team attempted to find the prisoners. She allowed herself a momentary smile, musing about the glorious victory they would have escaping the Zuonopy through Connor’s Gambit to their home system. They would lead the vanguard of defenders to destroy the Zuonopy as it emerged from the other side of the dark hole when it followed the Kisskalu. Looking forward, she saw a security technician waiting to be acknowledged. “What do you have for me?” she barked at the sudden interruption of her thoughts about a more pleasant future.

  “Commander, our sensors show the Neslins are scattered throughout the Kisskalu.” She held her tablet’s screen so Plity could view the locations.

  Plity furrowed her eyebrows as she viewed the dots moving through the schematic. “Where is the closest Neslin?” She watched the people running past them through the dark mix of pollen and smoke seeping into the hallway.

  The technician looked at her tablet. “The sensors show the closest one is running in this hall.”

  “Idiot, turn around. Even I can see through this chaos there are no Neslins in this area,” Plity snapped, shoving the technician into the runners to be pushed back into the wall. She turned toward the rest of the squad standing against the wall. “Are there any more idiots among you? What has happened? This is not the first time we’ve gone on high alert. Send out a high priority message to all personnel on the ship to report physical sightings of the Neslins to us. They can’t blend in, so I expect a report soon. Be ready with your weapons. Shoot them all, but keep at least one alive for questioning.”

  Brad was awestruck with Yeshawliq’s activities. The flashing lights and loud noises had been their ideas, but including the ship shaking as if a weapon struck it was an astonishingly successful ploy. The first one took them by surprise, but now they were getting warnings on the subsequent tremors, allowing them to prepare. He had just finished reading Yancurve’s message. The other group was onboard and the transfer vehicle technicians were firing up the engines.

  Fernando called, “Johnson, the first group is on board. It’s time for us to head toward the vehicle.”

  “Mother, we need to pick up the pace. I just received a message from Yeshawliq that Nerunder has received a report physically sighting our current position and is not far from us,” Shinny reported loudly for everyone to hear.

  “We jog,” commanded Wesgwidy.

  Wesgwidy had started them at a slow easy jog, but quickly increased the pace and had the group running. It wasn’t too long before Brad found himself running at full speed trying to keep up with the Neslins in front of him. Running into the Transportation Room, he felt he was ready and knew what to expect, even with the poor visibility from Yeshawliq dimming the lights and the heavy pollen floating through the air. He thought he was prepared for this run, but still found himself running as hard as he ran in his dreams at full speed with his hair soaked with sweat inside of his hood. Even with his mask filtering the pollen, his sides hurt from the lack of oxygen. He kept pushing himself thinking, unlike the dream, his adrenaline would kick in to help him keep up the pace. He had an idea from looking down from the bicycle track they didn’t have much further to go, but it still felt like a million miles away. Brad could see still the outlines of the Neslins in front of him and wished he could see the vehicle beyond the Neslins in front of him.

  Ptzing, ptzing, ptzing. Son of a bitch, the Aneplé were shooting at them. He thought they would have more time. They did everything they could do to distract the Aneplé crew. Shinny pulled out her shield and used it to deflect the praser fire. A loud roar came from someone in front of him. Damn it, someone just got hit. It wasn’t in the dream, that wasn’t supposed to happen. At least most of the weapons fire hit Shinny’s shield. The few shots that didn’t flew wildly around the Transportation Room, missing everyone else. These people were as bad as their pilots. Thank goodness they only had one injury, so far, he thought. He glanced back quickly at the shield’s opalescent shimmer flickering as it deflected the weapons’ fire and wondered how much longer it was going to be. As the weapons’ fire continued, he wanted to know what the hell was happening behind him. Turning around, he despaired. Shinny had managed to stun a large number of the Aneplé following them, but three times as many poured into the room behind the stunned bodies and continued to shoot at them.

  Slowing, he glanced behind him and saw Shinny running closely behind with the same angry expression on her face he had been seeing in his dreams over the past two months. She had a weapon in her right hand and the shield behind her left shoulder, moving it to deflect the weapons’ fire. He was frustrated they were firing to maim or kill and Shinny was firing to only stun them to use as a defense, if their escape failed. He looked back at Shinny but could not hear what she was saying, with the ptzinging sounds rapidly increasing in frequency, but he knew what was coming. He moved over to the right. She ran faster to catch up to him. He slapped the shield attached to his uniform to activate it and pulled it off his uniform. The shield grew as he held it up as high as possible to protect the Neslins in front of him.

  Shinny ran up to Brad and grabbed his shield. “Brad, I can hold them. Take our friends and get the hell out of here.”

  Brad’s breath caught in his throat. Shinny might as well have slapped him. He felt a sharp pain in his abdomen from her declaration. It hurt having her tell him to go, no matter how many times it had played in his head. “Shinny, I can’t leave you alone.”

  “Brad, if you stay with me, neither one of us will make it back to Earth for Dane. I need to know our son will at least have his father. You need to leave me now.”

  Hearing Shinny’s pronouncement through his chip made it hard for him to focus on running and caused him to slow down from the emotional and physical pain affecting him.

  “Brad, if you stay with me, you won’t have anything for me and you won’t be helping me,” Shinny yelled as she shoved him away from her and swung around, still holding the two shields in place deflecting the projectiles from the prasers firing at them.

  “Shinny!” Brad cried out as he felt a tugging and pulling of his shoulder. The next thing he knew he was being lifted and carried by two of the Neslins. He looked behind him. Not only was Shinny holding her own, but she was pushing the Aneplé back. He wasn’t sure how long she would be able to keep it up since more people seemed to be pouring through the entrances.

  Once two of the
Little Mothers picked Brad up, they were able to run much faster to the vehicle. The vehicle was already running and everyone else was strapped in. The little Mothers ran toward the front of the vehicle and gently placed Brad on the floorboard. “Johnson we needed you on this vehicle to pilot it. Your mate is correct. If You stayed, no one would be able to leave and I am committed to saving the colony,” explained Fernando.

  Brad’s feet touched the platter and he looked out. He could still see Shinny holding her position against the Aneplé. He looked at Fernando and the other Neslins. “She was my copilot. I need a copilot to help me with this flight.”

  Fernando looked at the other Neslins. “Strap in, I’m flying in front with Johnson.” Lifting his head, Fernando looked directly at Wesgwidy. “There’s no other way, complain later. Have someone look at your wound and rest.”

  Brad jumped. It was the first time he had ever heard Fernando speak to Mother in a commanding voice. “Uh, are you certified to fly this vehicle?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve had some time in a few cockpits.” Fernando walked toward the front of the vehicle and climbed down from the platter into the cockpit.

  Brad followed him into the cockpit wondering what the hell had he gotten himself into. Looking at his waist he realized Shinny had attached her tablet to his uniform at his abdomen. Fernando was strapped in and was looking at the instruments and sensors. Brad didn’t know Fernando’s background and was nervous, but so far it appeared as if he had experience in a cockpit flying second seat. He handed Fernando his tablet. “Before you lecture me on losing control of my tablet, I need you to download the program for the extra shielding onto the vehicle’s computer and distribute it in a checkerboard pattern. The instructions are on the tablet. Can you do it? Because if you can’t we might have problems.”