“I thought you’d gone.”
“If you’d rather I do it—”
“Go,” he said. “Help the others. I don’t want us both in the same place if…if this collapses the cave or something. Please, Tania.”
“You’ll wake her?”
“I will. Promise. Now go, okay? For me?”
She stepped back, paused, turned, left.
He tightened his fingers on the lever with both hands and pulled, hard. The metal bar resisted, if only for a heartbeat, and then smoothly rotated into the on position. Perhaps only his imagination, but Skyler felt a tingle rush across his hands in the next instant.
Several seconds passed. He imagined some reactor core, stone dead the instant before, beginning to glow. More precious seconds ticked by with nothing at all to show for it.
Finally, the lights came on. Sound filled the air as the ship’s internals roared to life. The vibration of machinery, alien and yet now wholly familiar.
“Eve?” he asked.
Nothing. Had the enemy already disabled her? Blown up her CPU or whatever? “Eve!?” He shouted this time.
A low blast of noise rippled through the ship, like a horn sounding in warning. The cry cut off abruptly, then clicked back on, then vanished entirely in a series of sharp tapping sounds not unlike distant machine-gun fire.
“Wake up!” Skyler shouted. “We’re in trouble, dammit. We need you.”
She finally spoke, the low mind version with all the infinite calm of an emotionless machine. The voice boomed, coming from everywhere. Of all things, she said, “All hands prepare for high acceleration.”
He almost sank to his knees in relief. He absolutely did sink to his knees when the Chameleon’s mighty engines fired. Skyler grunted as he went to the floor, face-first, pressed down against the dirt so hard he could only move his eyes. He heard a terrible groan of pain and realized it came from his own misshapen mouth. He was screaming.
And still the acceleration piled on.
His vision darkened at the edges, a pulsating shadow that grew like a living thing. Dark fingers trying to seal his eyes and send him to the safety of unconsciousness. Skyler fought it the way only a trained pilot could: clenching his leg and abdomen muscles and shifting to short, sharp inhales and exhales.
And still the acceleration piled on. Nine or ten g’s, easily. More than he’d ever experienced before, except perhaps in the violence of the Melville’s last flight, when he’d fled Gateway Station with a docking arm still attached to the craft, resulting in a catastrophic failure upon reentry. Then, though, he’d simply left the aircraft. No such option here.
The blurry dark fingers met in the center of Skyler’s vision. The air finally shot from his lungs through clenched teeth, so forcefully it should have stirred the soil around his mouth. Should have, but didn’t. Even the soil couldn’t move. He wanted to laugh at how ludicrous it all was. Ten or eleven g’s, had to be. Where was Jake, and Sam? Ana? Where was his copilot, Skadz? “Skadz,” he tried to say, though no words came. Skadz, we’ve got to land her. The Melville can’t take…
And still the acceleration piled on.
—
He woke sucking in air and soil. Skyler rolled and coughed, fought for a breath while gagging at the same time.
A popping sound from all around filled his ears. Applause? Who the hell would be clapping?
His own hands grasped at dirt. The cave. Skyler tried to sit but the force of Eve’s flight still had him all but pinned. Less now, but still four or five times what his body was used to.
“Status,” he managed, unsure who or what might hear him.
Eve replied, utterly calm. “Scipio ships have penetrated the hull at four locations. The others are giving chase, and continue to burn away the last of our camouflage.”
That popping sound, Skyler realized. Their recently added outer hull being torn to shreds.
“An unknown vessel,” Eve went on, “has attached to our tail section and refuses to be shaken loose.”
“It’s friendly,” Skyler said. “Well, sort of. From Earth.”
“Earth?”
“They beat us here, Eve. By decades.”
A pause. “An unexpected development.”
“No shit.”
“I understand now why you activated me early.”
“What do we do? What happens now? If you’re going to self-destruct, Eve, please, tell us. Give us a chance to say—”
“The situation is being analyzed.”
A second of silence stretched into three.
“Eve?”
“The situation is being analyzed.”
Not knowing what else to do, Skyler scrambled to shaky feet and stumbled out of the cave, feeling as if he carried a fallen log over his shoulders. The biome was alive again. A small fire burned near the center, where their suspended warming element had come crashing down to the forest floor during the intense acceleration. Whatever was going on outside, Eve had evidently settled on a roughly one-g pace now. She’d put the ship on an erratic course, however, but the gimbaled biome rotated to keep them pressed more or less to the floor. This caused the world beyond the clear shell to tilt to and fro as if they sailed an angry sea. Skyler forced himself to focus on his immediate surroundings before nausea took hold.
He rushed to the airlock and found armor suits still waiting. Tania and Prumble were sitting beside each other, she leaning against him, one hand holding a white bandage to her forehead. She glanced up when Skyler approached and, to his great relief, managed to smile.
“Not as bad as it looks,” she said.
Prumble’s expression said otherwise.
Skyler grimaced. “It’s done. Eve’s awake, and she can help heal you. Let’s get suited, find Sam and Vaughn.”
“Tim already went,” Prumble said.
“Good. Wait, what? Tim?”
“The young man is going to get himself killed,” the big man added, almost to himself.
Tania shook her head. “He’s more resourceful than you give him credit for.”
“Resourceful isn’t quite the trait needed in this situation,” Prumble mused.
“Eve?” Skyler said to the air. “We’re in a world of shit here. Give us a plan or I’ll make one myself.”
“Hear me,” the synthetic voice said immediately. It took Skyler a second to realize she was now talking to every one of them. Sam, Vaughn, Tim…even Vanessa if she was still suited. Still alive. “The first priority is to defend our ship against the intruders. I’ve identified their locations and divided the targets among you. Follow the paths displayed on your visors.”
Skyler double-checked his armor. For the first time the black outfit made him feel safe, even powerful. Now ready, he helped Tania verify her gear, too. Prumble was set by the time she finished.
“Tania,” Skyler said, “if you can’t—”
“I can,” she said, voice flat. “The alternative does not appeal to me.”
“All right, then.” He glanced at his visor. Rather than a 2D top-down map, Eve had merely projected a glowing 3D line for him to follow over the terrain before his eyes. His path led out the biome airlock, and then up toward the top of the larger, cylindrical chamber that housed the three biomes.
“Looks like I’m headed aft,” Prumble said.
“Me too,” Tania replied.
They were both looking at him. “I’ll see you later, then,” he told them. “At the victory celebration.”
Prumble grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. He turned and ran out.
Tania stood before him and rested a hand on his chest. They could not touch, suited as they were, but she held his gaze for a few seconds and that was enough.
“Be safe,” she said.
“You too.”
Tania spun and rushed out.
As Skyler ran along his own path he ordered Eve to put up a display of everyone’s vitals on one side of his view. The information appeared a split second later. He scanned it as he clambere
d up the steps, past the second biome. There, Vanessa. She was okay. Alive, at least.
“Everyone, report,” Skyler said. “Sam? Tim? How’s it going out there?”
It was Eve who replied. “I will route communications for now, Captain. Some of your crew are in circumstances where distractions must be minimized.”
“Maybe you should let them decide that,” Skyler shot back, annoyed.
“The risk is unacceptable. My plan must be followed with absolute precision or it will fail.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a plan at all, then,” he muttered. The ship did not reply.
He ran on. A silvery grit covered the steps, as if a sandstorm had blown through here, something Skyler would not be surprised by. Much stranger things have happened, he thought.
Ahead, flashes of light reflected off the interior walls. A battle, beyond the third biome. He leapt, pleased at the suit’s reaction. Small rockets embedded in his feet, knees, and elbow joints propelled him straight up, past the final sphere and into the domed ceiling of the massive central cavity of the Chameleon.
He saw a black-clad figure positioned in the center of the mesh floor at the exact point where all hallways entering the chamber converged. It was Tim, both arms held out, each covering different entrances. His head whipped from one to another, occasionally unleashing brief blasts from his beam weapon.
In those darkened tunnels, lit sporadically by Tim’s weapon or by gouts of flame and small showers of sparks, Skyler saw the wreckage of the Scipio scouts. The debris all but clogged the spaces. Their sizes varied, but the shapes were all the same: spherical bodies studded with segmented tentacle-like limbs of varying thickness and length. Some of these still swung about, lashing at the air around them in their death throes.
Behind the carcasses still more enemies loomed, their central bodies alive with scanning lights and lasers in a riot of yellow, blue, green, and red hues.
Motion, at a rent in the wall that Skyler had not seen before. He aimed at it instinctively, then lowered his arm as Vaughn leapt through.
The man moved backward, his arms pointing back the way he’d come. He ducked behind the smoldering corpse of a Scipio scout, fired into the hole in the wall, then pushed back and to one side, giving himself a better shot down the same tunnel. He swept beams of violent energy across the space and held the weapons there, slicing away at the scouts clogged within. Skyler rushed toward him, enthralled by the timing of Vaughn’s movements, the accuracy of his attacks. How much of that was due to Eve’s timed orders, and how much his natural talent?
Skyler realized then that Sam was not with him. The two, so inseparable, had somehow been torn apart.
He watched as Vaughn fought, his beams clearing a path in the wreckage of one of the connecting tunnels. Simultaneously Tim moved toward the other, the odd pair each unleashing devastating blasts at the crawling enemies within. Vaughn moved with absolute purpose, his attack unwavering. He pressed until, before Skyler could reach him, Vaughn was inside the tunnel and continuing deeper.
“Where is he going?” Skyler demanded of Eve. “And where the hell is Sam?”
“You have your own target, Skyler. Follow your path. Please make haste there.”
Tim came into view, dancing back from the hall he’d temporarily focused on. He moved to his spot in the middle of the platform again, where both passages were in his line of sight. The mortar on his back extended and puffed twice in rapid succession. Skyler winced as explosions erupted from both entrances.
“What the hell? Vaughn is in there!”
“He is following orders, blocking the paths the scouts are taking. Please trust me, Captain, and follow your own path.”
“But you can reshape the ship at will, goddammit. Why not just fucking delete those tunnels and let whatever’s inside get crushed?”
“Scipio viruses have sabotaged that ability,” she replied in her even, matter-of-fact tone. “If you delay further, life support will be next. The Swa-a-a-a-arm burrow there even n-now.”
The urgency of her message, and the alarming decay of her vocal quality, left no doubt as to the severity of the situation. For the first time he felt the cold reality that he could die here, and soon. A truth he’d willfully ignored since leaving Earth. Yet he could not tear his gaze away from the smoldering ruins of the tunnel where Vaughn had just disappeared. A sudden anger flooded through him, directed at Tim. Why had he followed such an asinine order? The son of a bitch had just doomed one of their best fighters, trapping him with the enemy. And now he just stood there, his back to Skyler, arms held out as if he were some kind of goddamn hero. Tim’s hands slowly came together above his head. He stood there, perfectly still, like a statue. What the hell was he doing? Posing?
Skyler ignored the glowing path superimposed over reality and marched the three steps toward Tim, ready to turn the youngster about and trash him for what he’d just done, for everything. Then the other man’s beam weapons began to glow.
At the same instant a chunk of the ceiling above exploded inward and a fresh Scipio scout began to wiggle in. The tentacles came first, sweeping in around the edges of the rent in the ceiling and plunging into any surface they could find for support. The spherical body came next, sensor lights already alive and flashing about the room.
A spray filled the air in front of it, coalescing into hair-thin filaments of translucent blue. Fibrous crystals that reminded Skyler vaguely of a thicket.
Tim’s beam weapons fired. They looked different than before. Tuned. Changed by him or, more likely, Eve. The beams resembled columns of flame, roiling with orange, white, and red. They tore right through the still-growing crystalline structure that nearly filled the space between Tim and the Scipio. The fine material melted instantly and fell in glowing drips that splattered on the ground around Tim’s feet. He traced lines of fire on the ceiling until they met in the center of the hole, right on the body of the enemy. It began to thrash, its body glowing from the intensity of the assault. Tim did not relent. Standing there, arms raised, firing twin columns of sizzling death, awash in the colors of his destructive attack, he looked like some kind of oil-painted warrior.
“Skyler,” Eve said. “Please follow your path or I will assume control of your suit. You each h-h-h-have your role to play. Please trust m-m-my guidance.”
Several seconds passed before her words registered. Skyler finally broke the spell of watching quiet, simple Tim and the epic ass-kicking he’d unleashed on that Scipio. The young man’s actions defied Skyler’s expectations. Perhaps the warrior in him came out when cornered. Being well armed didn’t hurt, either. Or maybe it was out of some sense of protecting Tania. Skyler decided to give Tim the benefit of the doubt and assume it wasn’t just because Eve had taken control of his suit. That he could hold his own was now abundantly obvious.
Reluctantly, Skyler turned and ran along his own path, leaving Tim to his battle, and Vaughn to his. He’d seen nothing of Sam, though the vitals said she yet lived.
Somewhere, ahead, lay his own demons.
—
The glowing path took him into an alcove, down a narrow side corridor, and then straight into a wall.
“Dead end, Eve,” Skyler growled.
On his visor a red indicator fell into place from somewhere above. He’d only just registered this as some kind of threat when the wall before him changed.
A bulge appeared, then exploded inward, showering Skyler with debris. A Scipio scout about one meter in diameter waited beyond, tentacles already creeping into the hole it had made.
There was no time to think. The suit reacted to his instinctual response. He felt his shoulder twitch and then watched in fascination as a mortar round lanced through the air and slammed into one of the glowing eyes that dotted the scout’s body. The whole mass wiggled for a split second, and then cracked apart, glowing embers and fluids spilling out from within.
Skyler’s marked route led inside, along the path the Scipio had burrowed. He leapt over
the fallen foe in a single hop, glad to be in gravity for this fight. The route turned upward then, straight toward the nose of the ship. Skyler’s rockets propelled him into the darkness above.
—
Tania Sharma raced along the phantom glowing path, unsure what lay ahead or indeed how she would even handle whatever she found there. If not for the reassuring words from Eve she would have demanded the group stay together. Or barring that, she at least remain at Prumble’s side. But not two junctions into their journey, Prumble suddenly darted down a hall that did not follow the path laid before her own eyes.
She’d called out to him, but it was Eve who’d replied, explaining the threats to the ship were too numerous for the two of them to remain together, or even communicate. At least for now.
And so she’d raced on, placing her trust in the artificial mind. Minds, she reminded herself, for there were two in there.
“What sort of weapons do I have again?” she asked, hearing the trepidation in her own voice. She shook her head, willed courage and concentration.
“Each arm has a plasma beam, which will automatically configure itself to the enemy being targeted.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“In addition, a mortar is mounted at your right shoulder, which can deliver self-guided projectiles to a target with a payload of your choice.”
“Can you choose the payload?”
“I can.”
“Good. One less thing I need to remember to do.”
“Automatic payloads will be d-d-d-d-deployed.”
Tania ran on, around the spiral hallway that traversed the entire ship. “Where am I going, anyway?”
“Several scouts have breached the hull near my en-en-engines, and seek to disable them. You will remoooovve this threat.”
“Can’t you just fix the breach? Regrow it?”
“That capability is nonfunctional. Skyler is working on it.”
This gave her a confidence she did not know existed within her. He was out there, fighting, just like her. They all were, and Eve knew exactly where to deploy them. We’re going to make it through this, she decided.
“Eve?” she asked, barreling around a corner, near the tail of the ship now. “Why did you keep Alex Warthen? Why didn’t you tell us?”
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