Endurance

by neetha Napew

  That was when I figured out the tunnel wasn’t a tunnel, but a tightly woven web. And, like the proverbial flies, we had just walked into it.

  “Leave thiz ztation,” the largest Aksellan said. He had the greatest amount of green mottling on his céphalothorax. A sign of age, I guessed. Or an indication he was the deadliest. Dr. Dloh had often complained about the daily chore of draining the poison sacs in his forelimbs before treating patients.

  “I’m sorry, we can’t do that,” I said as I took a step forward and showed him my empty hands. “The ship outside your station has been commandeered by the Hsktskt Faction. Please understand, we won’t harm you. Now we can do this the easy way, or-‘

  One of the other Aksellans spat a metallic stream of fluid at me. Reever jerked me to one side, and the snareweb fluid fell, forming a pool of hard, gleaming silver.

  “-the hard way,” I said, staring at the puddle. My gaze went to the leader, who was buzzing something in his native language to the spider who’d tried to snare me. “Please listen. If you don’t surrender, the Hsktskt will attack.”

  The leader shuffled forward and peered at my tunic. Pedipalps behind his front appendages extended to brush over my face. I didn’t move. Dr. Dloh’s people smelled with their skin and identified everything by touch, so it was a perfectly natural thing for him to do.

  “You are a phyzician?”

  I exchanged a glance with Reever. “Yes.”

  The leader’s lustrous eye clusters rotated, something Dr. Dloh had done when he’d pondered something. “The Hzktzkt want fuel ore, do they not?” I nodded. “Az I zuzpected. This ztation haz no ztra-tegic value, nor do my people to zlaverz.”

  I never got to ask why, because at that moment the Hsktskt centurons stormed through the access corridor panel, their weapons armed and humming. The spiders seized me and Reever, and suddenly I hung upside-down, dangling several feet in the air.

  “Surrender,” GothVar said.

  “Dizengage your weaponz, and no one will be harmed,” the leader said.

  GothVar only swung one of his limbs up, then down. Pulse fire erupted all around us. I heard the shrieks of the medevac team, still back in the corridor.

  The spiders moved faster that anything I’d ever seen. Before I could get my bearings, they had dodged the blasts, climbed down the air lock walls, dropped back into the hatches and sealed them with bursts of silk. We slid down the narrow dark passage that surfaced into another tunnel, and from there went through a more recognizable station access door panel. The Hsktskt couldn’t follow us, they were simply too large to fit into the hatched passages.

  “Cloze off thiz zection,” the leader ordered one of the miners, then addressed me again. “You are Cher-ijo Torin?” Surprised, I nodded, and three of his appendages lifted. The spider holding me gently set me back on my feet. “I am Clyvoz, the fazility manager. Welcome to Akzel Drift Nine Mining Ztation.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I made an appropriate waving gesture Dloh had taught me back on K-2. “How did you know my name?”

  “The Jorenianz zent a wide-band zignal and advized all zurrounding zyztemz of your plight.” Clyvos indicated a nearby com console. “We will do what we can to help you, of courze.”

  “I think we’d better signal the Perpetua and see if I can get the Hsktskt to back off. If I can’t, do you have an evacuation plan?”

  “Yez. What about him?” Clyvos swung a limb toward Reever, who was still being held upside-down.

  “Any of you hungry?” I looked around, and the other spiders eyed Reever with distinct greed. “Though I can’t guarantee he’ll taste very good.”

  “Our digeztive juicez will render anything palatable,” Clyvos said.

  “You forget about Alunthri, Cherijo,” Reever said, calm and unconcerned. As usual.

  Damn him, I had. “You’d better not eat him yet. But if you have a detainment section, Clyvos, I’d advise stowing him in it.”

  Clyvos buzzed something at the spider carrying Reever, who swiftly scurried off. He and the other miners took me down another webbed, curving corridor, then through a larger passage to the center hub area of the station.

  “Zeal the inner air lock panelz, and charge them,” Clyvos ordered as we entered the main control room. I watched a large display as a series of protective panels slammed into place and bioelectrically charged.

  “All the Hsktskt really want is fuel to replace their contaminated stores,” I said as a group gathered around us.

  The manager taped the monitor. “The reinforced doorz will keep the Hzktzkt buzy, long enough for me to evacuate my people to the tetherz. Once we reached the azteroid field, we can hide ourzelvez among the driftz. The raiderz’ zhip cannot enter the field, and will not wazte time zending launchez to look for uz.” One of his limbs touched my arm. “You can come too, Doctor.”

  I thought of the Chakacat, and how smart Reever had been to kidnap my friend as insurance. “I can’t, but thank you. Let me run interference with the Hsktskt, and help you get your people to safety. I’ll need you to make this look good.”

  “I underztand.” Clyvos wrapped two limbs around me and carried me over to a signal array. One of the other miners sent a direct relay to the Perpetua. “Thiz iz Clyvoz, Ztarion Facility Manager. I have captured two of your raiderz and immobilized the otherz. Ceaze fire, withdraw your troopz, and I will releaze my hoztagez.”

  TssVar’s furious image briefly filled the display. “Hsktskt do not negotiate.”

  Displacer fire immediately bombarded Drift Nine’s outer hull. Clyvos didn’t move, but I felt sweat trickling down the sides of my face. “Hzktzkt. You may take whatever fuel you require. All we azk iz we be left in peace once you have it.”

  The Perpetua didn’t respond to Clyvos’s relay. More energy blasts rocked the station.

  “I don’t think ‘peace’ translated,” I said to Clyvos. “You’d better get your people out of here now.”

  “With the zhip firing on the Ztation?” Clyvos’s appendages fell away from me. “Impozzible. The tetherz are in plain view.”

  I thought for a moment. Reever had mentioned something to TssVar about avoiding the main power core. “You have a central fuel system powering the entire station, right?” Clyvos pulled up a design grid for the facility and showed me their main power source.

  It was fusion. Perfect.

  I explained my idea. “If I can close down and seal the central exchangers and bypass the main coolant array here”-with my finger I traced the ventilation system back to the core-“the discharge will funnel back in around the main housing here, correct?”

  “Yez, but the houzing will not withztand those temperaturez for more than fifteen minutez at the mozt.”

  “That should do the trick,” I said. “Gives us time to evacuate the station. Your people should be safe in the drift tunnels. Do you have the equipment there to signal for assistance?”

  The facility manager, who hadn’t realized I was serious, drew back in alarm. “Yez, but if you do thiz, it will deztroy the Hzktzkt raiderz and the ztation.”

  I smiled. “Not necessarily.”

  One of the miners escorted me to the holding area where they’d dumped Reever. Along the way, I saw hordes of Aksellans-these without the vivid markings-busily hauling huge green nodules on their backs. They came down a separate corridor and gathered on a loading dock, where they were placing the nodules into oversize field packs. Curiosity made me comment on the difference in coloring.

  “Thoze are our femalez,” my escort said. When I would have walked over to say hello, he grabbed me. “Don’t get too cloze to them.” One of the drab-colored spiders saw me and made a low buzz that made me forget all about being congenial

  “Don’t they like females of other species?” I asked as I stepped back behind him.

  “When they are protecting our young, they tend to regard anything that movez as a meal.” He was keeping his eyes on them, too. “Even a mate.”

  “What are those green
things? Food?”

  “Egg zacs,” he said. “We will not leave our hatchlingz for the Hzktzkt to devour.”

  “Good idea.” I stopped when the spider halted at a small access panel and keyed open the hatch. Just inside the tiny space, Reever was hanging upside-down, wrapped in a metallic cocoon from his neck to his knees. Small, greyish baby Aksellans were crawling all over him.

  Alarmed, I grabbed my escort by the nearest appendage. “They aren’t trying to eat him, are they?”

  “They can’t, they’re too young,” the arachnid told me. “Our species doesn’t develop mouth parts until after its first molting.”

  So he was safe, and why was I worried about it in the first place? “Hi, Reever. Having fun in there?”

  “Cherijo.” He didn’t look amused, not with a fist-sized spider using his chin as a chair. “Tell them to release me.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. “Say pretty, pretty please.”

  He shook off the baby Aksellan, and another one promptly took its place Then he sighed. “Have them release me before you get us all killed.”

  I might need him as a hostage, if Plan A didn’t work. “Better take him down,” I told the miner, giving him a wink Reever couldn’t see when I added, “you can start ingesting him as soon as I’m done.”

  He picked up on my joke at once. “I hope it will be zoon. I’m ztarving.” With quick, efficient clacks of his mandibles, the big spider chased off the baby Aksellans, cut Reever down, and sheared off the rest of the snarewebbing.

  Reever crawled out of the confining space and straightened with visible relief before giving me a cold eye. “You intend to feed me to them?”

  “Why not? You made me a slave.” I used my most reasonable tone. “Besides, TssVar is trying to blow up the station”-displacer blasts buffeted the hull as I said that-“and you know how competent he is at that sort of thing.”

  “Get me to an open console and I can stop this,” Reever said.

  “No, I don’t think I’m going to do that.” When he stepped forward, I pulled out the pulse weapon from the body-holster Clyvos had given me and pointed it at his chest. “Walk that way if you would, please.”

  “Joey, I can-“

  “You’d enjoy having a two-foot hole in your sternum?” I asked politely, while my companion scuttled forward with a hungry sound. “You can even have your choice. Blasted, or chewed.”

  That shut him up. The Aksellan nudged him in the right direction, while I holstered the weapon and followed at a discreet distance. We walked down three levels until we reached the central processing unit where Clyvos had told me I could access the main fusion chamber controls.

  “You are zertain you underztand the prozedure?” the facility manager asked me.

  “Not a problem.” I keyed the panel to open, then noticed the big spider’s nervous shuffling. “Stop worrying already. Worst case scenario, I end up toasting me, Reever, and the Hsktskt.” I glanced at my ex-husband. “No great loss.”

  Clyvoz rolled his eye clusters in apparent resignation. “Luck to you, Doctor.” Then he scurried off down the corridor.

  “Right.” I went inside, pointed to a spot for Reever to stand, then manned the chamber control console. It was crowded with enablers fashioned for a eight-limbed being, so I had to do some fancy hand moves.

  I shut down the exchangers first, which sounded an immediate alarm.

  “What are you doing?” Reever asked.

  “Saving the miners.” I disabled the discharge feed through the coolant array. A second alarm sounded and critical temperatures began to rise. “Among other things.”

  “You’re tampering with equipment you’ve never used.”

  “Not for the first time, either.” I channeled the discharge back into the core, then altered the panel access codes.

  Reever came up behind me. “You will destroy this facility.” His hands were still bound by Aksellan webbing, but I kept an eye on him anyway.

  “I hope not, but you never know.” I signaled the Perpetua. “Aksellan station to OverLord TssVar. Please respond.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dire Consequences

  The signal came in from the L.T.F. Perpetua at once. “SsurreVa. Have you and HalaVar secured the facility?”

  Time he understood who was playing on his team, and who wasn’t.

  “Not exactly, OverLord.” I programmed a chamber status report to go out with my signal. “But as you can see, I have secured the main fusion chamber, bypassed the coolant system and routed the superheated discharge back into the core. It should melt down the outer housing and cause an explosion, oh, quite soon.”

  There was a long stretch of silence. Then TssVar, who I had expected to detonate himself, returned the signal. “You had no intentions of negotiating a peaceful exchange, did you?”

  I shrugged.

  “The Terran Grey Veil was correct. You are a habitual liar, SsurreVa.”

  I smiled at his furious image. TssVar should have listened to Joseph Grey Veil-my creator was usually right. “If that’s what it takes to keep the Aksellans from being slaughtered, you bet I am.”

  “I have captured a group of these miners,” the OverLord told me. TssVar gestured, and a writhing Aksellan was brought before the screen. “I can kill them one at a time, or all at once. Which do you choose, SsurreVa?”

  “I don’t.” I kept my face and voice bland. Damn, how had he managed that? “But do whatever you feel is necessary. Watch out for the females. They have awfully bad tempers.”

  “Very well.” Surprisingly, he ordered his guards to remove the Aksellans from the Command post. “What are your terms to end this before the core detonates?”

  That I could deal with. “Release the Aksellans you’ve captured, and allow the miners to peacefully evacuate the station. Send a small group of your cent-urons over to handle the ore processing. Once that’s done, unload the League crew, take the fuel, leave the station, and head on your merry way.”

  Reever made a strange sound, but I ignored him.

  Something crashed on the Hsktskt side of the link. Might have been that piece of console TssVar heaved across his office. “I will not release the League slaves.”

  “You’d rather be blown into itty-bitty molecules?” I spread my hands out. “Fine with me.”

  “You will not destroy my ship,” the OverLord said. “Not when all the captives remain on board.”

  Bluff time. “I sold them out to you, didn’t I? Watch me.”

  I’d been counting on TssVar’s inability to feel humanoid emotion, but he’d been hanging around me for too long. “I watched you operate for hours on the League Commander after he attempted to kill you,” he said. “You will not do it.”

  “Then it’s been nice knowing you.” I quickly ter-minated the signal. Maybe if I said nothing more, he might change his mind-

  “He will not, Cherijo.” Reever moved to stand beside me and examined the console. “This overload becomes irreversible in five minutes.”

  “I know.” I gnawed at my lower lip. Surely there was some other way I could convince the Hsktskt I was serious, without actually killing anyone. Then it occurred to me that Duncan had accessed my thoughts, that we were alone, and he could do any damn thing he wanted. Especially as he’d somehow gotten his hands free.

  “No, Reever.” I pulled the weapon from the holster, but it was already too late.

  Cherijo.

  All he had to do was gently pry the weapon from my nerveless fingers and set it aside. Then he used his mind-control tricks to make me walk away from the console. I made some gasping sounds as my body mechanically followed his mental commands.

  Why are you laughing? he said inside my head.

  Because you don’t know the override codes. Tears of strain from being unable to physically laugh rolled down my face. So we’re all going to die together, one big happy family.

  He tried to get at them for a minute, and I had to use every ounce of control I had to keep
my mental bolsters in place. Finally he left the console and knelt before me. Cherijo. You cannot do this. You cannot kill.

  He was absolutely correct, not that I was going to tell him. Why not? I’m not too fond of the Hsktskt, or the League. Alunthri will never be free, and I know it would rather die than go back to being someone’s pet. Most of the Aksellans will survive. And you- The bitterness swamped me. I loved you and look where it got me.

  The autodrone announced that two minutes remained before the core went to critical mass.

  I can persuade TssVar to agree with everything but releasing the League captives. Reever cradled my stiff face between his scarred hands. If I do, will you stop this?

  I had two minutes, but it didn’t take that long. Yeah. Okay.

  He kept me there while he went back to the console. “This is OverMaster HalaVar. I have negotiated an agreement on your behalf, OverLord.”

  “HalaVar, shut down that core!” TssVar said, in a near-bellow.

  Reever’s voice went low, but I still heard him. “I have never asked anything of you, TssVar, but I remind you of our blood-bond.”

  Another brief interval of dead silence. “Very well. Quickly, the terms.”

  Reever told him, and TssVar agreed to it. The next moment I was being dragged over to the console, then the mind-force controlling me disappeared. “Reverse the overload.”

  I worked fast. The exchangers blew open and I engaged the hull dampers to open and vent the super-heated fuel into space. The chamber sensors slowly began to inch back down out of the red range.

  All the excitement was over.

  The Aksellans had been monitoring the situation from their remote terminals in the asteroid field, and Clyvos agreed to provide the necessary fuel stores. As before, his only condition was that the station and the miners be left alone once the Hsktskt had what they wanted.

  TssVar ordered Reever to bring me back to the Perpetua. “To the Command Center, brother.” He appeared, if anything, angrier than he had before.