Please, God, she prayed silently. Don't let me find Marco dead here.
They walked through the Miyari. All its lights were off, and they switched on their flashlights. Pipes had cracked open, spraying steam. They passed by the mess hall. The chairs had all tumbled into one corner, a jumble like some massive bird's nest. They walked down narrow halls, sparks sputtering around them from severed cables.
"Marco!" Kemi cried again.
Lailani, meanwhile, walked silently, but Ben-Ari saw the fear in the little soldier's eyes. Ben-Ari knew, of course, of the love between Lailani and Marco; it was her job to know about the lives, the fears, the hopes, the dreams of her soldiers. Lailani was the smallest soldier in the company and among the toughest, but there was softness to her too, a fear she kept hidden deep.
A shadow stirred ahead.
The three soldiers froze. Ben-Ari raised her plasma gun. Lailani raised her assault rifle. Kemi raised her pistol.
The shadow moved closer.
Ben-Ari held her breath and narrowed her eyes, peering forward in the darkness. She pointed her flashlight.
"Hold on!" spoke the shadow. "It's me."
"Marco!" Kemi cried. She ran forward and embraced him.
"I'm all right," Marco said, holding her, then peered over the cadet's shoulder. "Lailani!" Leaving Kemi, he embraced the little Lailani. Ben-Ari was perceptive enough to catch the flash of pain in Kemi's eyes.
"Private Emery," Ben-Ari said, nodding to him.
He nodded back, relief in his eyes. "Ma'am."
She stepped toward him, smiling, and pulled him into an embrace too. Damn protocol today.
The four of them kept searching the dark ship, and they found several other survivors. Major Sefu Mwarabu, commander of the Miyari, had suffered three broken ribs. Several crew members were banged up but otherwise unharmed. The ship itself seemed in worse shape than its commanders. When they reached the engine room, Ben-Ari saw gaping holes in the walls. Through them, she saw the engine, still glowing, across a valley.
Ben-Ari sighed, standing in the wreckage. "Looks like we're not flying anytime soon." She stepped through a hole in the hull, emerging back onto the surface of Corpus, and the crimson gas giant above seemed to weigh down on her. She looked up, seeking some sky, some stars, but she saw only the massive, roiling surface of Indrani.
There was no sky on Corpus. Only that red goddess.
* * * * *
"I've scanned the planet again and again," said Osiris. The android stood in the ravaged mess hall of the Miyari, smiling pleasantly, unperturbed by the devastation. "I can detect the signal of no other starship on this planet. They've either left Corpus, masked their signals, or were destroyed." The android tilted her head, staring at the troops. "We must fix the Miyari, or we're trapped on this moon."
The survivors of the crash—over a hundred soldiers—had gathered here inside their dead ship. It was only a few hours since crashing, and they were all shaken, many of them bandaged and bleeding. The dead lay in several of the ship's bunks, wrapped in body bags that would preserve their bodies until they could be buried. The living stood here between the toppled tables, chairs, and trays of the mess. Through the viewports they could see the dead landscape of Corpus, a smoking shuttle, and pieces of shattered solar panels.
Trapped, Ben-Ari thought, suppressing a shudder. No other ships here. She swallowed hard. What happened here? Why are there no other ships on Corpus?
Captain Petty, face red, lifted a fallen tray and tossed it against the wall. Fury twisted her face. The company commander had suffered a few gashes and scratches, but she was otherwise unharmed. Ben-Ari hated that she felt a little disappointed that Petty hadn't . . . well, not died. Ben-Ari wasn't quite ready to wish Petty dead. But a broken leg or two would have been nice. As it was, Petty paced the slanted floor of the mess between the survivors.
"This is a disaster," Petty said, voice shaking. "By God. This is a disaster. How did this happen?" She grabbed an overturned chair and tossed it. "How did this happen? Who did this?"
Everyone was silent.
"Answer me!" Petty said. "Who's to blame? It must have been one of the earthlings. It—"
"It was the scum," said Ben-Ari. "Only the scum, ma'am. They hid behind the moon. There was no way to detect them, not with the interference from Indrani."
Captain Petty ignored her. She clutched her hair. Her eyes bugged out. Ben-Ari knew that some of the soldiers secretly called her Captain Chihuahua. Ben-Ari could see the resemblance to the diminutive, neurotic dog.
"This is all wrong," Petty whispered. "And the scum are still here. They're on the planet. I know it. I know it! We're going to die here. We—"
"No," said Ben-Ari. "We survived so far. We will survive this too." She turned toward one of the medics, a tall mustached man with wide arms. "How many have fallen? How many wounded?"
"Fifty-one dead," the medic said. "Fourteen seriously wounded. Two mortally wounded; they won't make it through the night. The rest are banged up but well enough to fight."
Ben-Ari nodded. "That leaves a hundred and thirty-three soldiers—the best soldiers in the HDF." She turned toward the ship's crew. "Are the Miyari's cannons still functioning? Can they swivel on their turrets?"
An engineer nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"We have soldiers," Ben-Ari said. "We have cannons. We can defend the Miyari for now. If the scum return, we'll hold them back. We just need to survive until another HDF ship arrives with aid."
"We can't call for aid!" Captain Petty said, reeling toward her. "You fucking idiot. You fucking, fucking idiot. The HDF doesn't know we're here! We were to fly toward Nightwall on the frontier. Not to Corpus. Coming here was your idea. Yours! And now look at us. Look what you did."
"So we call for aid, ma'am," Ben-Ari said. "We have communication systems. We—"
Petty laughed. "We're light-years away from any other ship. Why do you think nobody else came here? Because Corpus is in the middle of nowhere."
Ben-Ari was silent. She understood. Of course. Even the fastest method of communication still couldn't move faster than light speed. Communication systems didn't have warp engines on them. They still relied on good old-fashioned photon waves, just like ancient radio. Even if they sent out a distress call, it would be years before the nearest human ship detected it—and centuries before it reached Nightwall or Earth. The only way to communicate over the vast distances of interstellar space was using couriers—ships with azoth engines, able to warp spacetime and travel between stars within weeks instead of centuries.
Ben-Ari suddenly felt very foolish, very young.
"So we can't call for aid," she whispered.
Petty laughed—a cruel, bitter sound. "We're stuck here. Thanks to your stupidity."
Ben-Ari squared her shoulders. "Corpus is a major mining colony, ma'am. Distant, yes, but important. Certainly ships travel here, importing supplies, exporting azoth."
Osiris stepped forward. The android blinked her lavender eyes, tilted her head, and spoke to nobody in particular. "Corpus is located one hundred and three light-years from the nearest inhabited human colony. Next trade ship scheduled to arrive in two hundred and fifteen days and three hours."
Ben-Ari's heart sank.
"Seven months," Captain Petty said. "Seven months with those fucking scum crawling over this moon. We're stuck here. We're fucking stuck here."
Ben-Ari suppressed a shudder. "We're not stuck here, ma'am. We can solve this. We still have options." She thought furiously. No other ships detected on the planet. No way to call for help. That left . . . "We can repair the Miyari." Ben-Ari turned toward the ship's commander. "Can we, sir?"
Major Mwarabu sighed and scratched his chin. He spoke with a rich, deep voice, the hint of an African accent to it, though Ben-Ari could not pinpoint the exact country. "The Miyari was never meant to land on a planet," the major said. "That's why we have shuttles, you know." He looked around him at the tilted mess hall. "My beautiful girl . . ."
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"But can you get her back into space, sir?" Ben-Ari asked. "If we can repair her?"
"Well, the solar panels are smashed beyond repair," Mwarabu said. "But we might still have enough juice in the batteries for life support, and we can divert power from the thruster engines to other systems. As for getting back into space . . . the Miyari was installed with a class A, state of the art azoth engine. She could blast out of a black hole, let alone a moon's atmosphere. But there's just a little problem—that azoth engine is three hundred meters away across the landscape. And . . ." His eyes darkened. "Somebody tampered with it."
Ben-Ari frowned. "Sir? Tampered with it?"
Mwarabu nodded. "The engine bay is the most fortified, secure place on the Miyari. It has to be. That azoth engine blasts out so much power it can bend spacetime. That engine was lodged in so tightly it would take God himself to yank it free." The major snorted. "The Miyari's hull was thick enough to withstand the scum assault. But the warp engine just tore free from the hull like a hangnail tearing off a finger. Does that make sense to you, Lieutenant?"
"I'm not sure, sir," Ben-Ari said. "We were hit hard. And we crash-landed onto the surface of the moon. Wouldn't that be enough to—"
"No." Mwarabu shook his head. "The Miyari could fly into a supernova explosion, and the only thing left would be the engine bay. There's no way, no how, that a scum assault or even a crash onto a moon could leave the rest of the ship in one piece, but yank out the engine and toss it across the landscape. Unless . . ." He scowled. "Unless somebody purposefully removed screw by screw, loosening the engine from within the ship. Come with me. I'll show you."
The major left the mess, and the other officers followed him through the corridors of the ship, climbed down a ladder, and finally entered the engine rooms. The outer wall had been blasted open here. In the distance, on a black hill, the warp engine had gone dark. Mwarabu pointed at sections where the ship's hull had been ripped open.
"See here? The protective shielding has been stripped off—from the inside." The major scowled. "The screws are missing. Unless a crash onto the surface of the moon can somehow turn foot-long screws, one by one, all fifty-two of them, we have an inside job here."
"I knew it!" Petty shouted, reeling toward Ben-Ari. "It's one of the soldiers you brought from Earth. One of your filthy, unwashed earthlings is in cahoots with the scum."
Ben-Ari stiffened. "Ma'am, let's not jump to conclusions. We don't yet know who the saboteur is. We—"
"Maybe it's you!" Petty said, pointing a shaking finger at Ben-Ari. "Do I see guilt in your eyes?"
Ben-Ari had to take several deep breaths, her fists trembling. "Ma'am, that is a serious accusation. I do not take false accusations lightly. If we're to survive here, you must trust your officers." She turned toward Mwarabu. "Sir, can your crew fix the warp drive?"
Mwarabu grumbled and scratched his chin. "Well, we can bolt the engines back into place, patch things up, weld things together. But there's another problem. Come with me."
They followed him outside the ship and across the dark, rocky landscape of Corpus. Soldiers of their company stood guard on the surrounding hills, and three flares hovered above, casting white light, floating lanterns beneath the red sky. They reached the warp engine—a massive, towering machine as large as one of the shuttles.
"See, the engine's exterior is perfectly fine." Mwarabu kicked it. "Barely a scratch. Needs to be sturdy to withstand bending spacetime. But see, this is just the shell. The engine itself—the actual engine, not just the casing—is much smaller." He climbed the machine, reached inside, and fiddled around for a moment, then finally hopped back down. "Here."
He held out his palm. On his hand rested what looked like a metallic human heart, roughly the same size and shape.
"Is that the real engine?" Ben-Ari asked.
Mwarabu nodded. "The heart of the ship. This is where we store the azoth, the stardust, the juice, the magic. The material that makes warp speed possible." He opened the heart like opening a locket. Inside were blue crystal shards, each piece smaller than a fingernail. "Do you see the azoth pieces inside? This used to be a single, large crystal. Expert gemcutters spent a full year cutting the stone to just the right shape, down to the last atom. Only through such a crystal can we alter spacetime. Somebody opened the metal heart, then smashed this crystal into pieces. It's useless now." The major closed the metal heart, sealing the blue shards, and shook his head sadly. "If you ask me, somebody did this after we crashed. Only way to reach this heart is the way I just did—by climbing into the cool engine casing. Someone, in the chaos after the crash, made it to the heart before we did." He tossed the heart aside. It clanged against the ground. "This I cannot repair. Without an azoth heart, the Miyari is good as dead."
Ben-Ari inhaled sharply. Her hand strayed toward her gun. "We're dealing with somebody determined. They not only unscrewed the engine casing during the battle, letting us crash down. After the crash, they knew to open the casing, find the heart, shatter the crystal inside, and finish the job." She frowned. "And they tried to hide their work. To make the scum look like the culprits. I reckon that you dusted for fingerprints?"
Mwarabu nodded. "Nothing. Our saboteur did careful work. No prints. No DNA left. An expert job. And somehow done within the past few hours, all in the chaos after the crash."
Ben-Ari frowned. "We're dealing with a professional."
"You seem to know a lot about how the saboteur operates, Lieutenant," said Captain Petty, turning toward Ben-Ari. A twisted smile tugged at her lips. "I wonder. A junior officer with no homeland, jealous of her commanding officer, seeking new allies among the aliens—"
"Enough!" Ben-Ari said, unable to curb her anger. She stepped toward Petty and sneered. "Ma'am, you outrank me, but right now you're cut off from the rest of the military. I will not tolerate your goading. I fought scum. I killed scum. I dedicated my life to defending humanity. And I will not—I will not!—listen to your baseless accusations. We will find the saboteur. And we will prove his or her guilt. But we must not turn against one another. Not if we're to survive here."
Petty stared at her, silent for a long moment, and gears seemed to be turning behind her eyes. Finally she nodded—slowly, carefully. "Yes, we will find the saboteur. And we will find proof. And when we find the traitor, when we prove her guilt, I will gladly put a bullet in her head."
Major Mwarabu shifted uncomfortably, and Ben-Ari was about to reply, when a voice spoke beside them.
"There is a heart inside this moon."
Ben-Ari nearly jumped and fired her gun. She spun around to see that Osiris stood beside them. Ben-Ari hadn't even noticed the android approach. Nor had Mwarabu and Petty, judging by how they started.
Ben-Ari still found Osiris unnerving. She had never met an android before. On Earth, robots were not humanoid, could not speak, merely performed mundane tasks such as welding ships, assembling tanks, and flipping burgers. Osiris, with her alabaster skin, platinum bob cut, and lavender eyes, lived deep in uncanny valley. Her twitching smile and knowing eyes—God, there was true awareness in those eyes, calculating and just slightly mocking—only added to Ben-Ari's unease.
Captain Petty laughed. "Release your gun, Ben-Ari. It's only our toy. The most expensive toy on this ship. Don't put a bullet through it." She turned toward Osiris. "What do you mean?"
A smile stretched across Osiris's lips. "My database indicates the presence of a second azoth heart on this moon, one compatible with the Miyari's engine. It pumps deep within the mine below Corpus City, powering the great drills, smelters, and machinery that extract more azoth from the moon. We can borrow the heart from the mine, install it into the Miyari, and return to space." Her smile widened into a sickly grin. "We just need to go deep into the mines to find it."
Captain Petty nodded. "Major Mwarabu and his crew will remain on the Miyari and begin repairs." She turned toward the ship's commander. "Sir, are you able to reattach the engine casing to the hull?"
&n
bsp; "We can," Mwarabu said. "And there are other repairs to perform. They will take three or four days. But we'll still need that azoth heart, or we'd be repairing a relic."
"We'll get you that heart," Petty said. "I'll lead my company to Corpus City. It's only a few kilometers away. We'll assist the colonists who sent out the Mayday, then delve into the mines. We'll find that heart. And then we'll blast off this rock."
As the officers walked back toward the Miyari, Ben-Ari looked over her shoulder. Osiris still stood by the dislodged engine, gazing right at her. The android's lavender eyes glowed, and for the first time, Ben-Ari realized that Osiris's eyes were the color of scum miasma. The android smiled thinly at her and nodded. Ben-Ari looked away.
CHAPTER TEN
They walked across the black landscape under the red sky, heading toward the city.
The company had lost a third of its warriors in the crash. An entire platoon had been wiped out, slain in their shuttle on the way down to Corpus. The remaining three platoons—two of the STC, one from Earth—had suffered losses as well. The survivors of Latona Company, one hundred and thirty-three of them, now trudged across the wilderness, geared for war.
Marco walked in his squad, carrying his supplies and weapons. His canteen, magazines of bullets, gas mask, flashlight, first aid kit, assault rifle, helmet, grenades, bayonet, and pack full of battle rations rattled as he walked, weighing down on him. He was thankful that the gravity here was slightly lower than on Earth. In addition to their usual supplies, his platoon had taken new pieces of technology from the Miyari. Headsets now fit into their helmets, allowing them to communicate through an earbud and microphone. Marco had to nudge Addy and tell her to shut off her mic; he could hear her breathing—and occasionally cursing—through it.
There were twelve privates in their squad, down from fourteen, following squad leader Corporal Diaz through the darkness. Two other squads of earthlings walked alongside, all still in their drab fatigues. They held their guns before them, magazines loaded, ready to fire at any scum that should emerge.
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