“People come from all over the country to jump off the cliffs.”
“Shut up, Paul.”
“It’s not right, is it? We work that hard keeping them safe, and the ungrateful sods don’t appreciate it.”
I was once one of those ungrateful sods. Not anymore. If this works out, the squad will have saved my life. My heart’s thudding. My jaw aches with tension. The Alsatians have narrowed it down to a small depression shaped like a heart. Now, in accordance with procedure, two of them withdraw behind nearby hills, while S2X458 gets to work. Why do I have such crappy luck?
Patrick says, “Statistically, if we’ve found one mine in our first hour on the surface, we’re probably looking at multiple devices emplaced all over the rock.”
“Let’s retreat,” Francie says. “We’re too close. I don’t want a face full of gamma rays.”
I blurt, “Wait a minute. She’s not digging.”
S2X458 sniffs the ground with her sensors, circles the depression, repeats the behavior.
“She’s pinging me,” Patrick says. “Preliminary analysis … the traces do not match known mine signatures. Huh? This is weird. Scatter, check it out.”
S2X458’s data scrolls over my faceplate. There is a trace of radioactivity on the surface. That’s what the Alsatians glommed onto in the first place. But there’s also carbon, in a much higher concentration than is generally found on rocky asteroids, and what’s this? Shock compressions in the quartz grains in the rock?
“Um. Guys. I think these traces might have come from …”
As I’m hesitating, reluctant to embarrass myself, the Tancred blows up.
A wash of light, a squeal of static, gone.
By the time I get turned around, there’s nothing to see except some flecks of fiery debris shooting away from Beachy Head.
Francie grabs my arm. She motors down to the surface, right behind Patrick and Paul, towing me like luggage.
Patrick’s on the radio. “Huifang, come in. Milosz, come in.”
He doesn’t bother radioing the people who stayed on the ship: Dilip, Noob Two, the pilot and co-pilot. They’re dead.
“What the fuck?” says the tinny voice of Huifang.
“We’re under attack. Tancred’s gone.” Patrick lands on the rock, near the Alsatians. We clump up behind him. There’s no need to be careful where we put our feet. There are no mines here. Those traces that the Alsatians found were emissions from an Offense ship’s drive.
A ship that was here very recently, and obviously hasn’t gone far.
“Regroup at my position,” Patrick tells the other team.
Francie and Paul kneel, facing in opposite directions, rifles snugged into their shoulders.
“Cover your arc,” Francie snaps at me.
It seems completely pointless. We no longer have a ship. We are millions of klicks from help. We’re going to die, no matter what.
My eye falls on S2X458. She’s sitting on her haunches, awaiting instructions. I open my back-door channel to her. It’s a text interface, but now I have no keyboard so I have to vocalize. “Come here,” I say.
Patrick shoots me an irritated glance. “Radio silence,” he hisses, like I should have known that.
S2X458 prances over to us. I put my arm around her neck, behind her blast shield.
The Offense must have landed here before we did. They saw the Tancred coming. You can’t hide a ship drive. The heat emissions are detectable from millions of klicks away. They took cover—Beachy Head has a surface area of 50 kilometers squared; we didn’t see any overt signs of occupation, but the Offense are well known for digging deep and covering their tracks, just like they bury their mines. They took our measure, and then struck.
An orange speck breaks the horizon. Callout tag says ZHOU. It’s Huifang, flying towards us, hugging the terrain.
Paul lets out a soft grunt.
I swivel on my knees, lose my balance in the micro-gravity, fall on my ass.
A miniature flying saucer is zipping towards us. A flattened sphere balancing on an inverted cone. Its armor captures distant Jupiter’s light, flashes rainbows.
Chips of rock spurt and fall lazily.
Francie and Paul shoot at the flying saucer. Radio silence forgotten, they’re screaming, “Die motherfucker die.” Their bullets ping soundlessly off the pale metal monster.
It is an Offense warrior.
Inside that metal armor is a toad-green jellyfish 3 meters across with a clever brain—some say a superior brain—and a strong desire to kill two-legged prey beings on sight.
Patrick says calmly, “More jellies at my ten o’clock.” He opens fire at four or five Offense who are angling towards Huifang, cutting her off from us.
I huddle against S2X458. My terror is so great that it approaches a disembodied state of calm. I examine the rifle in my hands, recalling what Patrick told me about it. This model is a combination weapon that fires regular projectiles from its primary barrel and energy pulses from the stubby laser on top. The laser gobbles power, so you only get about thirty seconds out of it before the battery dies, Patrick said. It’s pretty much useless.
I’m sure he’s right, but Paul and Francie’s bullets are not having any effect on Offense Warrior #1. It’s bearing down on us, pouring fire into the two Alsatians stuck in between us.
I aim the laser at the vertice between the bottom of its dome and the inverted cone, and depress the trigger.
A white spot appears in the shadow of the vertice. Within seconds, it turns red. White gas jets out.
The warrior lurches backwards, propelled by the air escaping from its suit. It nearly turns over. Then it rushes away, rocking and swaying.
I scream, “The lasers, use the lasers! Aim at the vertices, not the dome, not the dome, it’ll reflect it off!”
Francie and Patrick get the idea. They leap to their feet and target the warriors converging on Huifang, Milosz, and Noob One.
Paul lies face down. I shake him. He doesn’t move.
Francie and Patrick have further to shoot than I did, but they’re better shots than I am, and there’s nothing to degrade their pulses in this pure, freezing vacuum. The jellies scatter, air jetting from their suits. We’re routing them!
But they’ll be back.
I pick Paul up and drape him over S2X458’s back.
Huifang and the others hurtle down to us. Looks like Milosz is hurt. Noob One is dragging him by his tether.
“Destroyed the motherfuckers,” Huifang screeches. She and Francie hug. Noob One is roaring some victory song in a patois I don’t know.
Patrick yells, “You think that was all of them? We’re gonna be buried in jellies in a minute. Check your batteries and …”
He trails off. He doesn’t know what orders to give. We have no ship, nowhere to hide, no escape route, no way to recharge our rifles.
But we do have S2X458.
I finish tying Milosz and Paul to the mecha with Milosz’s tether. I fasten my own carabiner to Paul’s belt. “Clip onto me,” I say.
“What are you playing at, Scatter?” Patrick groans.
“Please! Just do it!” We have to get away before the Offense sends reinforcements to wipe us out. I grab Francie’s hand, grab Patrick’s elbow, hope that Huifang and Noob One are hanging onto someone. “S2X458,” I say in a shaky voice, “execute string: Destination Pluto.”
Beachy Head is a small asteroid with no gravity to speak of. Escape velocity is scarcely greater than walking pace. S2X458 engages her mobility thrusters and labors into space, with all seven of us hanging onto her back.
6
We fly for an hour.
And then another hour.
Patrick made us disable our suits’ heat rejection functions, on the theory that we’d have a better chance of escaping unnoticed if we weren’t radiating in the infrared spectrum. It seems to have worked. The Offense must have mistaken S2X458 for just another piece of debris from the Tancred. We’re boiling in our suits, drowning in sweat, but we’re ali
ve.
Alone in deep space.
Beachy Head just a dot in the blackness.
“Fuck it, I’m dumping heat,” Francie gasps. We all follow her lead. My suit begins to cool. I take a big gulp of water from the hydration tube in my helmet, and then, before I can prevent myself, another one.
Stop. Stop. Mustn’t drink it all.
Then again, what does it matter?
I’m going to run out of air before I run out of water.
We all are.
I steel myself to look at my oxygen gauge.
Oh, God.
3 hours and 45 minutes of air remaining.
Patrick says, “Only twenty million klicks to Ceres!”
That would be the nearest human outpost. Ceres orbits the outer edge of the Jovian Belt like a guardian, Demeter of the green shoots, watching over her human children. But she can’t be everywhere at once.
Francie says in a funny voice, “Remember what Paul said about Beachy Head?”
Paul is alive, but unresponsive. His suit telemetry says he took a bullet in the chest. He’s probably bleeding internally. The suit sealed itself over the wound. It can’t doctor him.
Milosz also got shot, but only in the shin. Only. Voice taut with pain, he says, “What about Beachy Head?”
“He said it was a notorious suicide spot. Apparently it’s a cliff where people often jump to their deaths.” Francie makes a strange clucking noise. It might be laughter. I can’t imagine Francie crying.
But it does feel like she’s blaming me for our plight. And maybe she’s right. If we had stayed put, we’d be dead already. This way, we’ll die slowly, seven kids riding a small bronco, slowly running out of air. Which is worse? I don’t know. My only consolation is that at least my egg did not fall into the Offense’s clutches. I was going to throw it away, but if I’m going to die, I’m glad it’s here with me. I’m floating with one glove on the cover of S2X458’s backup battery compartment. I imagine I can feel the egg’s warmth in my aching fingers.
“Heads up,” Patrick says wearily. “Six o’clock high.”
At first I can’t see what he sees. Then Noob One breaks into an ululating war cry. “Ah, dey come fi fight. Mi ready, mi ready! Gwan mash up dem ship!” He’s wheeling around on the end of his tether, unslinging his rifle. Everyone yells at him to quit unbalancing the mecha.
Because a rifle is going to be no use at all against an Offense warship.
It heaves out of the blackness, a pearly beluga whale crowned with spikes. It’s probably not much bigger than the Tancred was, but it fills my entire universe. Those spikes are antennas, sensor stalks, and guns.
Why did I ever think we could get away?
They’ve probably been watching us ever since we left Beachy Head. They fixed their spacesuits, had some coffee or whatever the Offense equivalent is—fresh human blood, I expect—then climbed into their ship to mop up the seven little loose ends floating around their neighborhood.
The ship edges closer, panting ghostly plumes of gas from the engine nacelles that stick out on fins from its sides.
Patrick says, “I just want to say, this is the best team I’ve ever been a part of. You are fucking excellent soldiers, and it has been an honor to lead you. I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job.”
Milosz touches his arm. “I’ve never talked about this, but I believe in Heaven. I know I will see you guys there.”
And all this time the Offense ship looms closer to us, until I can see the weird swirly Offense script on its bows.
“Spread out,” Patrick sighs. “Might as well make it a little bit tougher for them.”
We untether from S2X458 and scatter into the blackness. Only Paul remains with the Alsatian, tied across its torso behind the blast shield. I feel that bone-deep pang of loss I had expected to feel when S2X458 vanished into space. My egg’s lost to me forever now.
The Offense ship shoots at the mecha. Smart thinking: take out the potentially dangerous machine first, then the helpless humans.
A brilliant spot of light appears on S2X458’s back, inches from Paul’s limp body. It’s a powerful energy weapon. You can’t see laser beams in vacuum. You only see their targets coming apart.
S2X458 breaks in half.
Out of the vaporous chasm between her hindparts and forequarters, a pale green shape rises, glowing, growing at an astounding speed, uncurling handkerchief-pointed wings.
Within seconds it’s bigger than the Offense ship.
Ghostly silver claws grab the ship like a kitten playing with a ball of wool, and toss it 180 degrees.
The Offense pilot panics. The ship engages its drive. Blue-hot plasma gushes from the engine bells at its tail …
… straight into the Void Dragon’s mouth.
My baby dragon drinks the Offense ship’s fiery exhaust. It sticks its tongue into the main engine bell, licking it out, sucking the fire out of the combustion chamber in the ship’s belly.
The ship is moving away, but only very slowly. The dragon is draining its thrust at the source, while holding onto it with all four legs, flapping its wings ecstatically.
The last flicker of plasma goes out.
The dragon bats the ship away, stretches out its neck, and engulfs it in a stream of emerald fire.
The Offense ship doesn’t blow up. I suppose its reactor has already shut down, and its liquid hydrogen tanks are drained. There’s nothing left to explode. It just turns black and bubbly all over. Its sensor stalks and gun barrels wilt.
The dragon noses around it, as if making sure there is nothing good left to eat, and then wings back through the void to us.
To me.
As it comes it shrinks, digesting all that fire, or tucking it away inside the hidden quantum dimensions of its impossible body, until it is the size of a kitten. In fact, it’s about the same size as the egg it just hatched from. It no longer glows. It is malachite green with silver claws and eyes, and beautiful silver veining on its wings.
It lands on my shoulder and rubs its head against my helmet. I’m not sleeping, not dreaming—at least, I don’t think I am—but I hear its voice in my head: Daddy! Daddy!
The voice is not the plaintive whine I’m used to. It’s a contented coo.
I drink good?
“Yes,” I say in a strangled voice. “You drink good.”
Sleep now.
The baby dragon folds its forepaws over its face and digs its hind claws into my suit, so it’s floating from my shoulder like a bat. Those claws are extremely sharp. They might puncture my suit. I gently unhook the tiny thing and cradle it in the crook of my left arm.
No one’s cheering.
No one’s saying a word.
Even Noob One is silent.
Patrick and Francie retrieve the halves of S2X458.
Paul is still tied to the mecha, still unconscious.
The dragon fights out of my grasp, flaps to the mecha. It claws something out of the wreck and returns to me. It’s got the solvent-stained cloth that I packed around the egg. It goes back to sleep in the crook of my arm, clutching the filthy rag in one claw.
Patrick says, “Everyone says they don’t breathe fire.”
“Guess everyone is wrong,” I say. It comes out in the impatient, superior tone I struggled to drop so that the squaddies would like me.
“Guess so,” Patrick says flatly.
And these are the last words anyone speaks to me until we regroup on board the Joscelin, a corvette that happened to be inbound from Ceres.
The Joscelin detected the explosion of the Tancred and raced to investigate. It finds us about five minutes before we would have run out of air.
We’re given liquids, first aid, sympathy.
While we’re waiting to see if Paul pulls through, Francie says to me, “Where is it?”
I know what she’s talking about. I touch my stomach. I tucked the dragon inside the sweatshirt someone on the Joscelin’s crew lent me. It’s sleeping, with its blankie clutched in its claws.
I know I should have ditched it in space, but I just couldn’t.
“We’re gonna have to turn you in, you know.” Francie’s staring straight ahead. Her beautiful profile is drawn with shock and sadness.
“I know,” I say.
She nods once.
No one speaks to me or even looks at me again until we reach Ceres.
7
Ceres is a world of briny puddles.
I walk along the shore of St. Jude’s Lake. On account of the micro-gravity, my gait is one continuous stumble. It doesn’t help that my hands are cuffed in front of me, steel handcuffs pinching my wrists.
The sky is gray, the roof of the dome hazed with dirt. Updrafts ruffle the water. There’s a tang of ozone in the air and the pressure is headache-inducingly low. Either a storm is coming, or the dome’s atmosphere maintenance AI is trying to do too much with aging equipment.
We built thousands of these domes in the century before the Offense crashed our party. Now half of them lie in ruins, and people on Earth complain about how much it costs to protect the surviving half.
Mom used to forward me photos from Elsa, which contrived to make Ceres look a bit like Kenya—dun vegetation, hazy skies, windsurfing in the blue Indian Ocean. But that’s not what it looks like at all in real life. The lakes are only a few tens of meters deep, and the pockets of vegetation around their shores are as sparse as the population.
I think about veering away from the military policemen who are escorting me on this walk to nowhere. I could run into the water and drown myself.
Then I see a group of fly fishermen bounce-hopping across the lake, literally walking on the water—the AG is off in this dome, to save money, and Ceres has such low gravity that the surface tension is enough to hold a person up. So much for that idea. I couldn’t drown in this lake even if I tried.
Anyway, the cops wouldn’t let me try. They have orders to execute me in a place and at a time of their choosing, not mine.
That’s my theory, at least. They haven’t told me where we’re going, which is a bad sign in and of itself.
They arrested me as soon as the Joscelin touched down. They found the dragon nestling in the debris of S2X458, where I had told it to hide in the stupid hope that it wouldn’t be discovered.
Guardians of Jupiter Page 5