by Mierau,John
"That is an accurate tactical summary," Daisy agreed.
Whish leaned down on the autoturret and slapped the glass of his helmet hard. he felt the vibration as it bolted itself down. "All of this is for nothing if Gruber can get the engines back online."
"Does it reduce your anxiety to restate known facts?"
Whish stared into the holo tank, watching the sparkling hulk pour on speed on one side, and two boomers and the tram full of his people chase each other onto the Betty and Six's vector.
"Hell no, it doesn't! But I need to talk about something," he admitted, pressing the tips of his mouth flaps together .
The human, Beacham, better be able to do what he said, Whish hoped hard. And Salix better be around when this is over, Universe!
"Here we go," Captain Travis advised, his voice slow and steady. "Keep your helmets on, and hold onto something."
Travis again, on a private channel this time. “Whish, finish up with those guns and get to Observation! If this doesn't work, the bridge is-"
"Ground zero for big uglies? I know, I know!" Whish wailed. “On my way, Cap--"
“Get somewhere safe, Whish!” Travis said, worry for the Manta plain in his voice.
“You don’t have to tell me twice!” A flicker of light in the big holo tank in the middle of the bridge drew his attention.
The Eternal had exponentially increased its speed!
“No stinkin' way!” he gasped. It would overtake the Betty and Six in just a handful of minutes, now! He started to build up a very fragrant panic, when another flare of light lit the other end of the display.
Whish stared at the medallion the Betty's navigation systems had used to ID the Guard ship on fast approach. It faded away and four letters typed themselves into the air beside it.
He read the name.
So much gas burst through the gill-vents in his suit he felt his body sink all the way to the floor.
The blurry placeholder image resolved itself, showing the ship with crystal clarity.
No. Oh, no, no, no...
“The…The Z---The Zuh!—! "He was screaming onto the blocked channel and soaring across the bridge in panicked, instinct-driven zig-zags when Daisy broadcast the words he could not make.
“Captain, I have identified the Guard ship approaching. It is the Zeus."
53
"Zeus!" Taggart hissed, whirling and staring into the void ahead of Betty and Six.
"Whoah!" Stuart Beacham jumped and looked up at the Security Officer. "Too much coffee, big guy? I'm a little busy here, saving the day? How about you sit down and relax?"
He split his attention between his suddenly jumpy bodyguard and the numbers on the screen. At Commander Montagne’s request he’d run them again…. then as he sat and waited, he ran them again, and again, haunted by the specters of the faces he’d floated past and ignored for months in the hallways of HHL-6.
He’d always considered them borderline mentally deficients. Now, though, their lives were in his hands.
That made every calculation life and death.
He squeezed his wrist through his spacesuit. Phantom pain from Captain Travis’ ID injection pestered him there-but not enough for him to take off his glove. He felt twitchy enough just leaving his helmet visor up.
He felt more than twitchy about the idea of automated weapons coming online all over Betty once the Boomer boarding parties reached them, and hoped the injection would keep him from being blasted the same as the drug-crazed Tumbler soldiers that were on their way.
He shook himself and re-read his code and math, and tasked Daisy with double, triple and quadruple checking his work. He knew the work was good. His work was always good.
But still... life and death.
No errors. They were ready.
Taggart was facing away from him, still as a statue. But radiating intense stress. Ah, so long as he's quiet, Stuart thought, and shrugged. He flinched as his arm flared with pain where Burkov's suicide bomb had caught him.
Damn it Burkov! What the hell were you thinking. Crazy mother--he breathed in little hisses until the pain eased up.
I could have died, Stuart thought. Or worse.
He looked over at the statue of Stan and the Nav Officer, Oroko, life functions suspended inside Gruber’s mysterious silver coating on the brink of death, and berated himself for complaining about getting cut up a little. He wondered if he'd ever again get to cuss Stan out for his sloppy handwriting. Suddenly he felt like he was swallowing a bowling ball.
He shook his head, shoving Taggart and ‘Zeus', Stan and the girl, and the bowling ball of doom behind a sound-proof door in his mind. He slammed it shut.
It was all about the numbers. That's how he'd help. That was his super power.
That's why Daisy was sulking and not talking to him aloud right now, he figured. She hadn’t found any errors in his math. That had to bug her, he thought, since she was basically an AI with sap instead of superconductors. He thought it would do her a little good, seeing a meat stick show her up at numbers and such.
He rubbed his hands together. So many new equations and data points filled his head, about the Universe since his arrival in Farlost—all of which confirmed his theories and life's work.
He didn't blame Daisy for being grumpy with him. She wasn't used to not being the smartest person, or thing, or whatever in a room.
He watched the simulations again, this time just appreciating the beauty of their design. "We're good," he muttered. "This will work!"
He risked a look out the illusory bubble of space that surrounded him, finding the tram and the Boomers were now swooping closer and closer to the crosshairs he and Daisy had plotted.
“Zeus!” Taggart spat again.
Man, he sounded pissed, Stuart thought. He wondered what ‘Zeus’ meant, here and now, to Ron. Then he sunk back into the numbers, wondering what other out of the box application of his life’s work he could spin. Spears instead of shields? He couldn't wait to see what he would he think of next.
Well, okay, he hadn’t thought of the spear trick…but he’d made it work! And in less time than pizza delivery.
Taggart was still radiating intensity and all but staggered, head craned to face the little gol d medallion ID'ing the Guard ship on the observation window.
Stuart tuned him out, willing the targets to reach the cross-hairs he had programmed at the exact time he had programmed.
“They’re pouring on the speed!” Beacham cried out, pointing at the blown-up view on the side of the Observation deck.
“I am ready to adjust calculations in realtime, if necessary,” Daisy assured him.
Stuart was on his feet. “Yeah?” he screeched. "You better!”
The two alien spaceships streaked closer, puffs of flame and weird heat waves appearing in the magnified windows showing the craft up close.
His eyes were glued to the scene.
Those little dumbbells on the screen weren’t just variables in a lab experiment. They were killers.
“Closer,” he whispered. “Closer, you murdering…!"
Any second now, they’d cross the lines he and Daisy had programmed in space.
Suddenly, the two dumbbells broke apart, as if cleaved in two by invisible blades. Then they further broke into dozens, then hundreds of pieces of debris, while the tram streaked safely out of sight below the Betty’s wing, bound for the cargo bay for docking.
Stuart whooped as gases and fuels from the Boomers burst into multicoloured flames. Most of the debris hurtled harmlessly away on other vectors, but acceleration was still carrying some of the wreckage straight for Betty and Six.
Stuart screwed his eyes and stared hard at several of the shapes still on course. Daisy threw yellow circles around some of the smaller pieces. Pieces that appeared to be…writhing.
“Seven of the Boomer crew are projected to survive and reach The Betty and Six. First contact will occur in 27 seconds."
Stuart's eyes widened. Seven of those monst
ers? The bowling ball was back, and cold as ice in his guts.
Helpless, he stared out the observation dome. There was nothing else he could do.
Now, people would have to fight those things, or they’d rip Betty apart or at the very least slow her down until the Guard ship that launched them caught up. He ran his knuckles over his lips, remembering they were still one miracle short: assuming they survived being boarded, they still had no engines, than ks to Burkov’s explosive suicide.
They still needed a way to outrun the bad guys.
He lost that thought, seeing beams of light grow from the surface of Six and The Betty, turning some of the incoming Tumblers into flaming sushi. Not enough, though, he saw. The beams missed several of the yellow circles.
Killer alien kamikaze soldiers were about to invade the two ships, and people were going to die.
Stuart knew it -he felt it- In a way he’d never felt before the accident that had brought him to Farlost.
“Wh-what do we do now?” he screamed, his mind racing in search of some untapped option. "How do we keep them away?!” He didn’t want to die. He di dn’t want ‘anyone' else to die.
“There are no remaining options, Doctor Beacham. You have done all you can. Now we must…wait."
Just sit back and wait, Stuart thought? No way, not with a flying coffin and the bad guys still out there, and coming. “I’m not waiting!"
Beacham began to pace, tapping his knuckles roughly on his chin. “Time to think outside the box,” he muttered, eyes fixed in helpless dread as the first of the black tumbler exoskeleton, its long tentacles stretching out, came closer and closer to the surface of Betty and Six.
Voices filled the line, calling out visuals, coordinating the defense of the two ships.
All while Stuart could only watch. “Wish we could just nuke you sonofa—“ He froze in place, eyes growing wider and wider as he tracked that thought back… then he whooped and jumped clear of the deck. H is eyes bounced around in his skull, poking his new last ditch plan for holes.
Beacham ran back to his holograms, skidding to his knees in the midst of them, fingers already flying through his reference designs. He found the one he wanted and flung it at the pile of windows that represented Daisy. “Heat shields!” he giggled.
“This is a model for deploying force fields to protect a craft from the heat and friction of re-entry, Doctor Beacham. While the Thorn has attempted to manipulate gravity to capture our vessels, it is not capable-"
“Trust me, Daisy, and do what the funny little monkey tells you to! Have Gruber let me know as soon as the tram's hitched up!"
“Captain Travis, Commander Montagne!” Stuart called out again. “I can get us out of here before the Guard Ship catches up. There is one catch, though, Commander…"
One ear open for The Captain and Commander’s response, Stuart had already dived back into the numbers. This time, though, he was the one checking Daisy’s math. He was so absorbed he didn’t hear Taggart whirl about with a gasp, staring Thorn-ward now.
“Save," whispered Taggart. Then his face broke into a beatific smile. “It’s coming to Save!"
54
Lou matched Travis’s pace as they raced, side by side, down the long corridor to the front of the Betty.
“You okay with this plan?” Travis asked. "Cannibalizing your ship?”
Lou grinned. She was enjoying the sweat beading up on her back, despite the dampness and smell building in the space suit she’d worn for way too long. The gravity hurt, but the adrenaline helped. It was shaking her headache, resetting her metabolism, this run, after so many months without the steady motion of her limbs and the warmth building in her chest.
It made the rest of the insanity a little more bearable.
“Tearing off Six's main engines? They can’t generate a fraction the Delta-V we need to get out of the Thorn's well. Betty’s can. They're practically antiques from what you're telling me.” Another breath in, her pace steady and strong. “But they’re still nuclear powered antiques, and if Beacham can use them to get us out of here, Boomer style--"
Something like a balloon careened down the hall towards them, screaming and bleating in fear. "Whish!" Travis called, moving to the side and waving it to pass, but it blocked Travis and glommed onto his suit, gibbering "Zeus! That ship is the Zeus!"
Lou ducked to the side, just avoiding a quarterback sack from the flying alien. She tried to make sense of his words as Travis struggled to free himself from Whish’s grip.
“Zeus is here?” Travis slammed a forearm against his man’s-or his being’s- helmet, stunning him into letting go. “Okay! Zeus, I hear you! Now haul ass back to Observation, raise the ramp and stay hidden! The Boomers’ll hit us any time!" Travis threw the thing down the corridor.
It turned around and flew into Travis's face. "The Boomers gonna board us any time?!" Whish squealed again.
The Betty's captain held onto the little alien, his face pained and pleading. "Then get yourself safe, yeah?" He shook the thing, and it ceased its struggling.
Through the open helmet, Lou saw a wide mouth, like a fish, but with what looked like baby's hands on either side, topped by several fine digits.
"Yeah," it finally gasped.
"Get out of here," Travis murmured, slapping it more gently on the helmet.
It turned and fled, piling on speed with spurts from chem thrusters on his suited wings.
On an ordinary day, Lou would have been struck dumb and wide eyed at the sight of the alien being, running away in the grips of an obvious panic attack. Today, it din't phase her. She stared at Travis through the open faceplate of her helmet, eyes wide.
"Zeus? Our Zeus?"
Travis nodded grimly. "Run and talk!"
He bolted forward and Lou followed.
"The Zeus Arrived in the midst of a Dragon clan war, and yes, I mean real Dragons. Or close enough." He turned sideways and hauled himself to a stop by an airlock door on the right side of the corridor. Lou barely avoided slamming into him as she stopped herself.
"Dragon babies were still bigger than us," he said as he tapped a code into the door. "Some of the oldest chose to grow bigger than this ship, become ships themselves. Clans formed around the largest of their kind."
Lou leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. "The scales on Betty's nose?"
Travis nodded as the airlock raised up and disappeared into the ceiling. "Dragon scales. Tough as any refined alloy. Plus, even after they're removed, the scales heal up if you care for 'em." He jumped down a short flight of stairs and Lou followed.
The room was long, extending parallel to the corridor they'd just left. Around her were long, narrow crates, all bolted into place. To her right, along the far wall was a train-car sized steel container. Crates were stacked along its side and filled up the rest of the space to both sides of the door. Some were open, and held an assortment of equipment she didn't recognize. Just ahead was an empty area, with several narrow, closed crates standing on end.
Gun crates, was Lou's guess.
Travis proved her right, entering a code into the closest of the crates and swinging it open to reveal a rack of long tubes. Oh yea, she thought: these things screamed 'weapon'.
Travis pulled a very familiar shape out of the crate, and clipped it to the side of his suit. A holster. He pulled a 9 millimeter pistol free, working the slide, peering inside and nodding.
"Dragons were tough as hell," he murmured, flicking the laser sight below the muzzle on and off. "They could live in vacuum-not just survive it, but live in it for the long haul."
He pulled out one of the long tubes, holding it like a rifle. Lou watched his motions carefully. "Dragons breathed honest to god flame, and they loved two things most: controlling territory and fighting each other for more."
Lou's eyes watched Travis turn a ring around the barrel, about at the point where weaponry she was familiar with would have a trigger, guard and magazine. Her inner ear buzzed as Travis turned the ring.
"Understood," she replied, running her hand along the ring carefully. It was lighter than she expected. She waved one hand in a 'more' gesture. "Zeus? Clan war?"
He nodded, removing another rifle and turning its ring. It didn't tickle her inner ear and Travis frowned, setting it back in place. "Zeus arrived at the Thorn closest to Kasti. A gas giant. Biggest planet in Farlost. Resource rich." He pulled another rifle out and turned the handle. Her inner ear almost shook from the sound. Travis smiled nastily.
"Two Dragon clans had wiped out or absorbed the other three. The five clans had had little wars before, but nobody had seen Dragon bloodlust like what happened during this last war. Nothing was going to stop the Dragons until one or the other clan owned all of Kasti." Travis rushed past Lou. "Maybe all of Farlost."
Further back in the room, he took three steps toward the train-car sized metal cage taking up half the room. "We've got a history of data traders in Farlost. They function as currency for all the states and peoples. They keep what passes for history. Ery and Martel are the only two standing, since the Guard came to power." He spun the ring and the vibrations hit Lou's ears again. "The last Dragon war was horrific. It accounted for more death, famine, loss of history and toppled governments than in all the recorded history of Farlost."
He raised the weapon and bore down on the mouth of the container. "The Guard is worse." He pulled back on the ring. A bright green beam leaped from the muzzle of the rifle. She felt the heat wave. She saw each and every red-circled target of different shape and size catch fire and quickly turn to ash.
She turned cold, and looked down at the long cylinder she held. Her hands shook.
"Zeus was big and fast enough to match up against the biggest monsters of both clans," Travis growled, tugging her by the arm to stand where he had stood, and hold her weapon the way he had held his. He stood close behind her, put his hand over hers and turned the safety ring until they both felt the click, then the thrumming of power through their bones.