Terminal Alliance

by Jim C. Hines

  Mops grabbed the others and hauled them away from the stage, down to the relative cover of the first row of Glacidae seats. The next shots shattered and shredded the contoured seat backs.

  Doc had started a countdown without being asked. Two minutes and forty-five seconds.

  Mops drew her second pistol, but before she could lean out to return fire, Rubin caught her shoulder.

  “You need more time for this plan.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Two minutes, forty seconds,” said Mops. “If we can stall or hold them off—”

  “We lack adequate cover.” Rubin stood, hands raised above her head. “And they continue to damage Arena Two.”

  “Get down, dammit!”

  Instead, Rubin looked around, her movements those of an infantry soldier tagging enemy targets.

  “What are you doing?” asked Kumar.

  Rubin stepped out of reach. “Stay down.”

  “We don’t want you,” shouted one of the Krakau. “We know you’ve got two other humans down there.”

  Two minutes twenty.

  Rubin started up the stairs to the left. She lowered her arms and grasped her combat baton in both hands. A warning shot cracked a step in front of her.

  Two minutes ten.

  With a strange, ululating shout, Rubin raised her spiked baton and charged.

  “Ah,” said Kumar. “So that’s what a charger does.”

  Mops leaned out to provide cover, but as soon as she peeked over the smoking, half-destroyed chairs, the Krakau opened fire from two directions. She managed to pull the trigger once before ducking.

  One minute fifty-five.

  More gunshots. Mops cringed at the wet thump of slugs tearing through flesh.

  Rubin kept shouting. One of the Krakau swore loudly. Another whistled orders. “Keep shooting. Aim for the head and spine! Try to—”

  A squishy crunch cut off whatever she’d been trying to say.

  One minute forty-five.

  Mops pulled her second weapon. With the Krakau distracted by Rubin, she raised both guns over the seats, lined up the crosshairs, and fired. A Krakau dropped.

  But Rubin was down, too, and Mops spotted movement at the entrance—Krakau reinforcements.

  She swore and ducked as the newly arrived Krakau turned their weapons on Mops and Kumar. She crawled on her stomach toward a less-damaged area, kicking Kumar to get him to follow.

  At the one-minute mark, the arena lights dimmed, causing a momentary pause in the assault. A green warning light flashed. Mops risked another peek to see whether it would be enough to scare them off, but the Krakau kept closing in.

  Forty seconds. Mops grabbed Kumar’s collar and pressed him to the ground. Doc continued to ping her with suit puncture alerts from stone fragments.

  “Where the hell is station security?” Mops muttered. “Rubin can’t have been the only guard down here.” The Krakau must have found a way to disable or distract the others.

  At fifteen seconds, a series of tarnished metal nozzles poked out of the ceiling like animals leaving their burrows. None of the Krakau appeared to notice. Nor were they likely to hear the pumps starting up.

  She silently counted down the final seconds. “Keep your head down and shield your eyes.”

  The countdown flashed zero.

  Nothing happened.

  “He said three minutes, right? That was exactly three—”

  “Kumar! Why isn’t it working?”

  “It’s old tech,” Kumar protested. “The timing mechanism probably needs to be recalibrated or replaced. Do you want me to add it to the maintenance log?”

  Before Mops could answer, jets of heated cleaning fluid—a mix of water, alcohol, and lots of detergent—shot down with enough force to knock one of the guns from her hand. She retrieved it and holstered both of her weapons, counted five seconds, and climbed to her feet.

  Krakau were sensitive to temperature extremes, and these jets were easily powerful enough to cause bruising. Neither of those things would stop a determined Krakau with a gun.

  The detergent was another matter.

  One of the Krakau who’d been fighting Rubin pointed a long, tubelike weapon in Mops’ direction. The weapon promptly squirted free of the Krakau’s grip and clattered to the floor. She lunged to retrieve it, missed, and kept on sliding down the aisle . . . directly into Mops’ path. Mops gripped the closest seat for balance and met the Krakau with a swift kick, launching her three rows up like an Earth football.

  “You’ll appreciate this story, Kumar.” She limped toward the next Krakau. “Eight years ago, we had a malfunction in the bridge lift autocleaner. Commander Danube was completely doused. She spent the next two days slipping and falling like her limbs had turned to greased ice.”

  The second Krakau fumbled with her weapon, trying to bring it to bear on Mops. Mops reached down to dig her fingers into one of the Krakau’s primary tentacles. Using the tentacle as a handle, she spun the Krakau through the air, then slammed her to the ground. The unconscious Krakau slid away like a Glacidae ice puck.

  “Krakau secrete several different chemicals from their skins,” Mops continued. “One makes them slick and harder for predators to hold. Another forms a thin layer of biological gel on their limbs, which allows them to grip almost any surface. Industrial detergent dissolves one of these two chemicals. Guess which one?”

  The reinforcements had abandoned their weapons and were trying to retreat through the Krakau section. They clung desperately to the bars of the seats and pulled themselves upward, using sheer muscle to overcome their lack of grip. After only two rows, they were both beginning to sag from exhaustion.

  Mops barely noticed when the autocleaner jets finished their rinse cycle, and the water began to trickle down toward concealed drains at the base of the arena. As she approached the Krakau, they dropped from the bars and shrank to half their size.

  Mops pointed one gun at each Krakau. “One of your friends shot me,” she said, jerking her chin toward the hole in her thigh. “I probably could have forgiven that. But then you started shooting at my friends. . . .”

  “How is she?” asked Mops.

  “Alive.” Kumar’s muscles were taut as he continued dabbing bioglue into Rubin’s wounds. “They shot her eleven times before she fell. Missed the brain and spine, but she’s in bad shape.”

  “What were you thinking, Rubin?” Mops demanded.

  “They were in the arena.” Rubin coughed. “Nobody’s allowed in the arena before the show.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “No, she can’t!” Kumar snapped, adding a curt “sir” a moment later.

  “There could be more Krakau on the way.” Mops glanced at the four whimpering Krakau. None had tried to move from the Quetzalus seat where she’d dropped them. “We need to get somewhere safe.”

  “Her legs are too messed up.” Kumar pinched another wound shut, holding it until the bioglue took hold. “I can carry her.”

  “Do it.” Mops yanked a garbage bag from her harness and shook it open. “You and you, inside,” she said to the two closest Krakau. She sealed the bag and grabbed another for the remaining two Krakau.

  Between their weight and the hole in her leg, she had a distinctly lopsided gait as she started up the arena stairs. She had to drag the bags behind her, bumping their occupants against each step. “The sooner you Krakau want to start talking, the better. If anyone else starts shooting, I intend to use you all for cover.”

  The Krakau squirmed weakly within their bags, but didn’t respond.

  “Monroe, Wolf, we’re alive and heading your way.” She stopped at the archway. Wisps of smoke curled up from the broken remains of the gate. Nothing appeared to be moving outside. Holding the bagged Krakau in front of her, she stepped cautiously through.

  “What made a bunch of Kraka
u team up with Prodryan terrorists in the first place?” Mops waited for a response, though she didn’t expect one. “I suppose it makes sense. Out of ten-plus billion Krakau, there’s bound to be some extremists who don’t like the Alliance.”

  “Sir?” Kumar carried Rubin over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He pointed his chin at the lift, where three armed humans had just emerged.

  “Now station security shows up? It figures.” Mops dropped the two bags. “Last chance, ladies. Tell us who you’re working for and where we find them, and I’ll ask Security to take it easy on you. Otherwise . . .” She shrugged. “The Coacalos family isn’t known for being gentle with people who shoot up their property. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

  One of the Krakau twisted inside the bag. “Lieutenant Marion Adamopoulos, by the authority of the Krakau Alliance, I hereby place you and your subordinates under arrest.”

  Mops froze. “You’re Alliance?”

  “She could be lying,” said Kumar.

  Mops rubbed her neck and shoulder. She’d been so intent on rooting out Prodryan collaborators she hadn’t stopped to think about other possibilities. Of course the Alliance would have agents planted at Coacalos Station. And if Command had put out a galaxy-wide alert about Mops and her team . . . “If they’re telling the truth, they probably contacted Command as soon as they spotted us. How long do you think we have before a cruiser full of troops docks with the station?”

  “A day?” guessed Kumar. “Two if we’re lucky. Do you think there are other Alliance agents here?”

  “We have to assume so.” She raised a hand to greet the approaching security guards. “We’re mostly all right. There are two dead Krakau back in the arena, though.”

  “Which arena?” asked the closest human.

  Mops stared at him. “I don’t know, son. Try the one with all the smoke and rubble?”

  A second human smacked the first on the back of his helmet. To Mops, he said, “You look like you need medical assistance. The Coacalos family will be happy to provide hospital services for a reasonable price.”

  “We’re fine, but Rubin is in bad shape,” said Kumar. “She’s station security.”

  “Don’t worry.” The human came to take Rubin in his arms. “She’ll get a fifteen percent employee discount.”

  “Surveillance was shut down,” said the third human. From her tone and bearing, she was in charge. She glared at the squirming garbage bags, then back at Mops. “Who did this?”

  Mops hesitated. If the Krakau were Alliance, they were only following orders from Command. Anyone from the EMC would have done the same. Until a few days ago, so would she. “We never got a good look. They chased us into the arena and started shooting. I assume it’s just another hate-crime against humans.”

  She nudged one of the bags with her toe. “These Krakau were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got caught in the crossfire.”

  “Were they injured?” asked the commander.

  “Just washed. A random shot must have set off the autocleaner. The Krakau are having trouble walking, but they’ll be fine in a day or two when their skin gets back to a healthy level of slime.”

  The human hesitated, but apparently decided to accept Mops’ explanation. “How many attackers were there?”

  “Four,” said Mops, while at the same time Kumar blurted out, “Six.”

  Mops gave an apologetic smile. “Like I said, it was pretty chaotic. We’re brand new here. We’re assigned to Maintenance, not Security. Are things always this violent?”

  “Not usually.” The human in charge gestured to the others, sending them to examine the arena. “Do the Krakau require medical assistance?”

  Mops unsealed one of the bags, folded her arms, and waited. She trusted they knew exactly what the Coacalos would do if they discovered Alliance agents had been working—and starting a firefight—in their station.

  “The injuries . . . are not life threatening,” said one. “We decline your offer of assistance, thank you.”

  “No skin off my bones.” The human shifted her rifle and tapped the edge of her monocle, a blue-tinged model Mops hadn’t seen before. “Let me get your names and a snap of each of you. We’ll probably have more questions once we’ve looked around, and we’ll want a download from your monocles of anything you saw.”

  Mops gave her name and nodded for Kumar to do the same. The Krakau complied as well. “Doc, can you give them a data dump of our mystery attackers?”

  “You have an AI assistant?” The human peered closer. “Fancy.”

  “Saved up for years to afford him.”

  “I take it you’re expecting me to just edit something together that will fool a security analyst AI?”

  “That’s right,” said Mops.

  “You know, sometimes it feels like you take me for granted. But I suppose I can layer in more autocleaner spray to obscure most of the incriminating evidence. And if I adjust the lighting a bit, and snip out the part where you went after the Krakau . . . rewrite the time stamps, add more motion-shake. . . .”

  Two minutes later, Doc had transferred the edited data over to station security. Two minutes after that, they were on their way. Mops whispered a quick message to Monroe as they approached the lift. “We’re headed back up, and we have company.”

  There was no response.

  “Monroe, respond.” Her stomach tightened. “Wolf, what’s your status?”

  Nothing. They hadn’t acknowledged her earlier call after the firefight either. She’d been too caught up in the aftermath to notice.

  She dragged the Krakau into the lift, dropped both bags, and hammered her fist against the wall, waiting impatiently for the doors to close. The instant the lift began to move, she pressed her badge against the control panel. “Emergency stop.”

  The lift halted abruptly. Mops pulled her guns and pointed one at each bag. “Kumar, open them.”

  His eyes were wide as he unsealed both bags.

  The first Krakau thrust her head free, whistled in alarm, and tried to duck back into the bag. Kumar tugged both bags lower, exposing the four squirming Krakau.

  “My people aren’t answering,” Mops said quietly. “You’re going to tell me exactly what’s happened to them. Once you’ve finished, I’ll decide which of you—if any—will survive to report back to Command.”

  “We didn’t—” started one, a younger Krakau with blue-green skin.

  “You were our primary target, Lieutenant,” said one with a gold braidlike design tattooed around her head, just above the eyes.

  A mud-brown Krakau with a chipped beak added, “We planned to take you first, then round up the others.”

  The fourth Krakau, an older warrior with a vivid yellow shell armoring her torso and two missing legs, simply shrank away.

  They might be lying. Unlike Prodryans, the average Krakau lied as well or better than any human. But to Mops’ eye, they looked scared and exhausted. Their skin was tight, their limbs curled close to their bodies. “All right,” she said. “Then tell me about a Prodryan named Heart of Glass, and a human named Floyd Westerman.”

  “It’s not our job to care for human deserters,” said the brown one.

  Mops shifted her aim.

  “However,” the Krakau continued hastily, “we have been observing the Prodryans. We believe the one called Heart of Glass is actually a Prodryan exile named Invisible Flame. He crossed one of the warlords, and fled Yan to avoid execution.”

  “Yan? He’s from the Prodryan home world?” Mops filed that fact in her mind. “What did he do to earn a death sentence?”

  “Advocated cooperation with other species,” said the warrior.

  Mops whistled softly. “So we’re dealing with a radical extremist. What was he doing on Coacalos Station?”

  The tattooed Krakau answered, “We kno
w he had several meetings with certain . . . questionable elements.”

  “Like the Tjikko?” asked Mops. “Theta?”

  “That’s right.” The warrior rose, arms lashing out in anger. It would have been an impressive display if she hadn’t slipped and toppled onto her tattooed companion. Struggling to regain both balance and dignity, she said, “We suspect Heart of Glass was also working with humans. Traitors to the Alliance.”

  Her implication was clear. “You mean us,” said Mops.

  “The rest of your crew was lost, but miraculously, your team survived,” said the warrior. “You then proceeded immediately to Coacalos Station to rendezvous with your Prodryan contacts. Or do you expect us to believe humans, acting on their own, could track down the origin of this attack so quickly?”

  “Technically, we were tracking the origin of the threads in Prodryan regurgitate pellets,” Kumar protested.

  Mops took advantage of the Krakau’s confusion to ask, “What can you tell us about a Prodryan missing her right wing? The other was green and tattered.”

  “Her name is Falls From Glory,” said the one with the tattoo. “Disgraced, like Heart of Glass, though for different reasons. She’s a low-level messenger and spy.”

  Mops ordered the lift to resume.

  “What will you do with us?” asked the brown Krakau.

  “While you were busy shooting up the arena, Falls From Glory must have gotten reinforcements and gone after Wolf and Monroe.” Mops began shoving the Krakau back into their bags. “If I were you, I’d pray we get them back safely.”

  Human Restoration Project Manual Ver. 1.1, Section 23: Harvesting Guidelines

  Whenever possible, attempt to collect humans that are mostly intact. Humans should have four (4) limbs.

  Never pursue humans into their nests, or anywhere that does not offer you a quick escape route.

  Mature specimens only. But not too mature. Examination of teeth and scalp fur should help you determine a human’s age. (See Figure 23.1.)

  Once you’ve selected a human, try to isolate it from its pack.

  Raw meat can be used as bait to lure humans into the open.