“I’m pretty sure I can’t disagree with you,” Spence whispered. “Are there rabbits near or anything you can hunt?”
Tobiah looked into his human’s eyes and nodded. He and the calico called Aniston padded into the nearby underbrush, disappearing in the direction of heavier woods.
Daksha continued swimming ahead, an injured Hawkoid resting on the pillow tied to his shell with two pounds of orange Hillcat kitten keeping the Marine calm.
That looks ridiculous, Spence thought. It’ll be funny sometime, just not today.
The group settled in, the Wolfoids laying with their heads between their hands/paws. Lightning spears were held tightly, facing the most likely direction from which a bot might appear.
The vision of a rabbit popped into Spence’s head as Tobiah stalked the creature. It looked like a normal rabbit to Spence, normal being determined by the ones he’d seen at New Sanctuary.
Tobiah stalked the creature and it bolted headfirst into Aniston, who readily dispatched it. She dropped it there and the two headed away. ‘Cats usually hunted alone, but Tobiah was so big that small prey was able to elude him. He was the only ‘cat to work with others, and all of them seemed happy to accommodate the lion-sized Hillcat.
Aniston disappeared into the brush while Tobiah strolled casually through an open area, catching a rabbit eating grass, seemingly without a care in the world. When it spotted Tobiah, it stopped chewing and hunched down as it got ready to run. There were foxes on Heimdall, so the rabbits knew predators.
And it recognized the ‘cats as a danger. The rabbit bolted one step toward Tobiah. He slashed with a paw, grazing the creature’s haunches as it changed direction instantly and dashed in the opposite direction from which Aniston approached.
She darted through the clearing, going for an old-style kill. She ran the rabbit down despite the heavy gravity. Tobiah left her to it and returned to the first kill. He settled himself with his prey between his paws and devoured it, leaving almost nothing behind.
***
Rand looked at the screen, but it wasn’t telling him anything new.
“What do we need to do to bring that debris on board?” he asked, impatiently drumming his fingers on his armrest.
“We’ll need to stop the spin and use the mechanical arm by the airlock to guide some of it through the hatch,” Jolly replied.
“Make it so, number one,” Captain Rand replied in a low voice, laughing to himself.
Jolly wasn’t sure what the captain was talking about. “Execute the maneuver?” the AI asked to clarify.
“Yes,” the captain answered flatly, before Jolly nodded and pointed to the ceiling. “All hands, executing zero-g in two minutes. In two minutes, we will stop the spin to bring what we think is manmade debris on board, and then we’ll resume normal gravity.”
The countdown began, and Jolly took control of maneuvering the ship.
Pace was an outstanding pilot, but Jolly incorporated all the sensors to conduct the maneuver in a concise manner and capture the debris in the least amount of time possible.
The ship adjusted slightly while the crew strapped in. The captain did a countdown from ten, and then the spin stopped incrementally as the EM drive thrusters worked their magic.
Jolly deployed the arm and opened the airlock hatch. The Olive Branch had already matched the debris’ orbit. Jolly expertly maneuvered the main section around the pattern of metallic objects. He moved the spindle section close and nudged the debris, using the arm to guide it into the airlock.
Briz watched through the round window in the internal airlock hatch as he hung on to a handhold to keep from floating away. ‘That looks like plenty,’ he told Jolly through the neural implant.
The airlock hatch closed and sealed. The mechanical arm retracted and locked into place. The final stage was to restart the ship’s spin. The captain made the announcement and a minute later, Briz was pulled gently to the deck.
Briz popped the internal hatch once the pressure had equalized and atmosphere restored. He looked at the equipment and shrugged. ‘I don’t think there’s any question this was an earth-technology science satellite,’ Briz told Jolly.
A maintenance bot appeared, started gathering the pieces, and placed them in a cart.
Briz walked with the bot to the maintenance area on the hangar deck. They spread the pieces out on a work bench. Lieutenant Commander Garinst joined Briz in looking at the collection of disparate metal items.
“Standard metals. Standard attachments. Standard electronics. Standard sensors,” Garinst mumbled as his gloved hands carefully picked up each object and spun it around.
“Jolly,” Briz called out loud, his vocalization device adding volume to the Rabbit’s internal voice. “Can you show us the internals of the bot, please?”
On the screen over the bench where blueprints and repair diagrams were usually shown, the images captured from Ellie’s neural implant played. Jolly enhanced the lighting in certain areas, blew up the images from time to time, and replayed sequences.
“Look here? Seamless transitions between two different metals,” Garinst said, pointing to the screen. Briz was engrossed by the review of the bot’s internals. Briz’s pink ears flopped back and forth as he shook his head.
“It’s not even close to the same,” Briz said dismissively.
“Look at this, Briz. How do you think this was destroyed?” Garinst pointed to markings on one of the pieces that made up the exterior of the satellite.
“Odd-colored scorching,” Briz replied, leaning close, his nose twitching as the recovered items warmed up and started to smell of ozone.
“From the outside,” Garinst noted. “Somebody blasted this. It didn’t explode.”
Jolly watched through the monitors since maintenance had not installed a holographic projection system in their spaces. He studied the objects. “Is that a memory chip?” he asked.
“Where?” Briz asked, pointing to various items. Jolly stopped him when he reached the electro-optical attachment. It would have been on the opposite side of the satellite had an attack occurred from space, or on the side, should the attack have come from a matching orbit. In either case, the majority of the sensor was intact.
Garinst carefully examined the object, then took off his gloves after confirming the metal had warmed to room temperature. He moved a toolkit from a nearby chest and looked through a lighted magnifying lens. He located a tiny tool and with four gentle pops, he removed the card from the sensor. Garinst changed tools and removed the chip from the card. He inserted it into the diagnostic computer and let Jolly take over.
“The dataset is intact; let me pull up what we have. This was a multi-sensor system, both for astrometric measurements and for planetary data collection--weather, tectonic shifts, those kinds of things,” Jolly said, lacking his usual precision.
“How was it destroyed?” Briz asked, wanting less of what he suspected and more of what he didn’t know.
“The system tracked the movement of an object into Heimdall’s space. It approached rapidly and slowed, assuming a geostationary orbit not far from this satellite. There was a one nanosecond image of a purple dot appearing on the hull of the spacecraft, and that was the last recorded frame.”
“Show us the ship,” Garinst asked.
The image that appeared on the screen was identical to the bot that attacked Cain’s group, only much larger.
“How fast did it approach and when?” Briz wondered, looking at the foreign ship.
“Nearly one thousand gravities. Converting the time stamp, verifying star map against calculated trajectories, stellar drift, let me see…” Jolly drifted off as he talked to himself. “This was ninety-seven years ago.”
“One thousand gees! Holy crap,” Garinst exclaimed. The Cygnus-12 had gotten to nearly 480 gees of speed in the system, but it slowed down well before reaching the planet. According to Jolly, the ship they saw on their screen had slowed from one thousand to zero in the space of two hours. �
��Any living being would have died with that amount of deceleration.”
“And that is your conclusion,” Jolly said definitively.
“A bot ship filled with bots,” Briz said slowly.
“How could humanity make such a doomsday weapon and then turn it loose on unsuspecting colonists?” Garinst threw his hands up in frustration. He looked at the pieces on the work bench. The satellite had been the target of the first shot in an interstellar war.
Not a single human had survived.
“I am not convinced humanity did this,” Jolly suggested.
Briz continued examining the spaceship. He’d already come to the conclusion that humanity had not created it or its bot minions, but he wouldn’t voice his conclusion, because no one wanted to hear what he knew was the truth.
The taboo word was “aliens.”
Hide
Daksha swam at his usual Tortoid speed. BJ watched for any movement from within the buildings. He reached out with his immature senses and couldn’t find any game, but he found the rest of their party ahead. They were all asleep.
It made him curious, because the major was fanatical about maintaining a watch.
‘Et tu, Brutus?’ he asked, pleased with the amount of knowledge transferred to him from his mother. He had no idea what it meant, but it sounded appropriate. The ‘cats Petey, Carnesto, and Thor were with the group, too.
‘Why don’t I just squash you like the bug that you are?’ Brutus gruffly replied.
‘Come on, Dad, be cool,’ BJ whined, shifting as Ascenti tossed in fitful sleep. BJ thought he heard Brutus roll his eyes. ‘Is everyone okay out there?’
‘Yes. Sleep has seized them all. They’re not as stalwart as us ‘cats, and that’s why we are higher on the food chain. I can see you making good progress on your way here, please continue.’ Brutus hoped he sounded sufficiently encouraging, but then he thought better of it. He knew, deep down, that he didn’t care if he encouraged his little man or not.
‘Cats were independent from the word go, although BJ was very young, physically. He needed his mother’s milk to keep growing.
‘You shouldn’t have come,’ Brutus told Billy Joe Jim Bob.
‘Of course I should have. We saved the Hawkoid. Both of us!’ the two-pound furball declared.
Brutus didn’t dignify that with a response. He sighed, relaxed, and was soon asleep.
BJ was miffed. ‘How’s it going down there, Boxy?’ the upstart ‘cat asked.
Commander Daksha shook his head as he continued forward, methodically, diligently, happy that he was unaffected by the planet’s gravity, knowing that it was wreaking havoc on the rest of the group.
‘And you wonder why your father has no patience with you,’ Daksha finally replied.
‘I think he just doesn’t like me,’ BJ replied, sensing a rabbit nearby.
‘That’s not it at all. He loves you as a father should, but wants you to be more respectful of those who have been around longer. I’ve been alive a thousand times longer than you have, yet you call me by a name I do not wish to be called. Please call me Daksha as a sign of your commitment to peaceful coexistence with all the people. You are doing well helping our Hawkoid friend, by the way,’ the Tortoid told the ‘cat.
‘Well, Daksha, do you mind if I go hunt a rabbit? I am getting hungry,’ the ‘cat asked in a respectful tone.
The Tortoid had been in contact with Jolly. Commander Daksha knew that there was no race to get back since they’d already made the initial application of numbweed to help stop the bleeding and control the pain. Food and water would give the Hawkoid’s body energy to keep him alive, although it would take the med bots on board the Cygnus-12 to print a new wing, if that was possible, and heal his injuries.
In the end, Daksha determined that they had time.
He swam to the side of the road and dropped close to the ground. BJ jumped off and was gone.
‘I’ll wait here, my friend,’ Daksha told him as he floated upward a few feet. ‘Do you sense any fox nearby?’
The ‘cat hesitated for a moment as he’d been focused on his first hunt. He stopped, checked, and reported that only the one rabbit was nearby. Then he continued his hunt, and Daksha left him in peace.
The commander waited while the ‘cat’s adrenaline surged. He’d left the mindlink open, showing Daksha everything that the small ‘cat saw. BJ stopped under a bush, moved at glacial speed to avoid upsetting low-hanging leaves. His head pushed between the last of the foliage and he looked into a small opening where grass and wildflowers abounded.
A fat rabbit, about twice BJ’s size, sat there eating a big flower.
BJ darted from cover straight for the rabbit. The creature turned and lashed out with its back legs as the ‘cat flew through the air. The rabbit kick caught BJ in the face and chest, sending him spinning away.
He hit the ground with a grunt, but he was back up in an instant, circling the rabbit warily and looking for an opening. The creature shifted with the ‘cat’s movements.
BJ hesitated as he tried to stare it down and strike fear into its heart, so it would make a mistake.
The rabbit leaned down, without taking its eyes from BJ’s, and pulled another flower from the turf. The petals whirled in a circle as the rabbit munched the stem.
Enraged, BJ drove straight at the rabbit. It jumped straight up in the air and the ‘cat slid underneath it, rolled to his back to bring all four claws to bear. The rabbit landed on him and BJ clamped his claws into the rabbit’s sides.
The rabbit launched itself ahead, dragging the kitten through the grass and into the weeds. As the rabbit picked up speed, BJ’s grip weakened. Making a sharp turn, BJ was thrown head first into the trunk of a tree.
Daksha’s view of what happened stopped instantly as the ‘cat was knocked unconscious.
The Tortoid floated above the bushes and followed the track he’d seen the kitten take.
It didn’t take long before the commander was working his way between branches to get to the kitten’s side. The little man breathed slowly, alive but out cold.
Daksha grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, taking care not to bite through the skin, and floated into the air. With a Hawkoid on his back and a Hillcat hanging from his face, he set off in the direction of the first shuttle.
He floated high to get over the last bushes, then dodged beneath tree branches to break into the open area of the former roadway. He stopped instantly and froze, the kitten swinging from his beak-like mouth.
A bot hovered in the street, ten meters away. It rotated its body in a circle. The bot’s weapons followed it as it turned, not aiming at anything in particular.
Daksha wondered if it could see him. It rotated one more time, then started moving away. The Tortoid dropped the kitten and unleashed a focused thunderclap, shattering the bot. It tumbled to crumbling pavement, toppling to its front and jamming the protruding weapons barrels into the ground.
Commander Daksha descended, feeling very tired from using his ability twice in such a short time. BJ lay in a pile, looking very much like a kitten that needed its mother.
The Tortoid nuzzled him until he could regrip the ‘cat’s neck skin, then he swam into the roadway, looking both ways as if expecting a traffic jam of bots, but there was nothing.
‘Jolly, I have to report another bot down at my position. I hope that, as Cain would say, I am not coming in hot. I don’t see any more, but I don’t know. I have the injured with me and would appreciate a hand if you could rouse someone to come help me,’ Daksha conveyed, drifting lower and having to work harder to keep moving forward.
‘On it, Commander Daksha,’ Jolly replied, but Daksha had already signed out.
***
‘Corporal Aurochs Ring, Bull, please respond.’ Jolly blinked the window feverishly, but the Wolfoid wouldn’t wake up.
‘Lieutenant Black Leaper, please respond,’ Jolly implored the sleeping Wolfoid. He was supposed to be on watch, but he’d done too much and was
beyond exhaustion.
‘Sergeant Night Stalker, please respond.’ Jolly continued trying to call all the Wolfoids first, then he tried the Lizard man, Zisk, and finally he tried calling the major.
‘Major Cain, please respond,’ Jolly said mechanically.
‘I’m up,’ the major replied without actually being up. He had learned to make do with less sleep since forming the Cygnus Marines. A half-hour usually worked wonders for him. Not this time.
He pulled himself away from where he slept, wrapped around Ellie like a protective cocoon. Cain rolled to his stomach and pushed himself upright. He made it to his knees, then the nausea hit him. He fought against it, but lost the battle quickly, throwing himself away from Ellie so he wouldn’t get any puke on her. His abs heaved as he threw up, again and again, until only bile came up.
He looked around through watering eyes, happy that no one woke up to see him looking weak. He always compared himself against the idealized Marines in the movies that Holly had played for him. Cain never felt like he measured up, as if the universe continually had to show him that he wasn’t good enough to wear the title.
Major Cain teetered as he stood upright, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve. His stomach hurt and spasmed as further warning that it wasn’t happy.
‘I’m up. What’s the emergency, Jolly?’ Cain asked.
Cygnus Arrives: Humanity Returns Home (Cygnus Space Opera Book 3) Page 11