“I guess I have to.” I made a mock-pouting face. “I’m discovering that I strongly dislike not being in charge.”
She patted my cheek lightly. “Poor baby. Feeling naked without all the pretty starbursts on your shirt?”
“Absolutely.” I shepherded her out the door and closed it behind us. “And the first thing I’m going to do when I get them back is impound this ship and throw you in the brig for being mean to me.”
“I’ll tell Mother,” Luta warned. “She always liked me best.”
“And I’ll tell Regina you want to join the Protectorate.”
Luta laughed. “Okej, let’s call it a draw. I don’t want to pit Regina and Mother against each other.”
The door across the corridor opened and Jahelia Sord emerged. She wore dark pants tucked into low-heeled brown boots that rose almost to her knees and a dark blue jacket. She’d pulled her light brown hair into a knot low on her neck, and it made her look older—or at least more serious. The strap of a small cross-body bag stretched over her chest, and in her right hand she carried the plasma rifle she’d chosen from the weapons locker. When she saw us, she grinned.
“My two new best friends,” she said. “This should be fun, going exploring together.”
So much for being more serious. “Is everything a game to you, Ms. Sord?” I asked her before I had time to think about it. I’d decided earlier that I wouldn’t respond to her baiting. I knew it was exactly what she wanted. Her grin widened.
“Everything is a game, Protectorate. When life gets too serious, all the fun goes away. And I’m all about the fun.”
“PrimeCorp isn’t, and neither are the Chron,” I shot back. “If you’re looking for fun, you might be in the wrong place.”
She chucked me playfully on the shoulder. “That depends entirely,” she said, hefting the plasma rifle, “on your definition of fun.”
I couldn’t think of a suitable reply to that, so I merely shook my head, edged past her, and followed Luta down the corridor to the hatchway. It led down past the engineering deck to the cargo pods below, where the groundcar waited for us to drive out onto the surface of the planet. Hirin and Viss had already checked it over, and Sedmamin stood to one side of it, looking put-upon.
I guessed that he didn’t own much in the way of clothing suitable for exploring, so he’d borrowed a dark shipsuit and thrown his own jacket over it. The plasticast on his injured arm extended out of the jacket’s sleeve. He looked fidgety, and I thought maybe he’d had to borrow the boots, as well. I wondered idly who would have willingly loaned them to him. No-one came to mind. Luta might have had to persuade someone to help out.
“Sedmamin,” I said, nodding to him. I wouldn’t call him “Chairman” the way Luta still did.
“Admiral.” He glanced at Jahelia and Luta but said nothing to them. Maybe they’d been shipmates long enough that formalities were no longer necessary. “Do you think this is going to take long?”
“It’ll take as long as it takes,” Luta said.
“Oh, good, we have a timeline,” Sedmamin snapped.
“Hang on!” Baden hurried down the ladder and crossed to Luta. He glanced at me before handing something to her with a few whispered words. It turned out to be a little gadget of illegal manufacture, and he wasn’t sure how I’d react to his owning one. Technically, I could have arrested him for it, but I felt it was in the service of Nearspace to let it slide. The gadget had a few functions, including some facility in disabling electronic systems easily and from a distance. It might work if we turned it on the defence systems, scrambling their signals and allowing us to take them out without too much trouble.
Baden helped me unlock the docking clamps while Luta, Jahelia, and Sedmamin climbed in. By unspoken agreement, they left the driver’s seat for me. That surprised me. I’d expected Jahelia Sord to insist on driving, but she seemed content to share the second row of seats with Sedmamin. We exchanged a few last comments and checks with the bridge via ship’s comm, and then the big pod bay door slid open and bright sunlight invaded the cargo pod. I blinked, and Luta rummaged in one of the storage compartments, finally handing me a pair of sunglasses. She slipped on some of her own, and I glanced back to see that Jahelia and Sedmamin had found some as well—on consideration, I figured Sord had brought her own. The open top of the groundcar wasn’t going to provide us with much protection from the elements. I was just glad it wasn’t raining.
Baden had reported warm temperatures in this region of the unknown continent, and I felt the sun’s heat as soon as we rolled out of the cargo pod. This region was predominantly sandy and desert-like, scattered with sparse greenery as if a giant hand had sprinkled it at random, like a garnish on an unappetizing meal. A river flowed down the side of the mountain where we expected to find the PrimeCorp setup, and ran in our direction, giving rise to a swath of verdant greenery that ended abruptly where the river’s influence trickled out. Except for this defiant patch of forest, the landscape was sand-red and dusty, studded with tall hoodoos and other odd rock formations thrusting striated fingers to the sky. I worried that the groundcar would kick up a visible dust trail, but Luta thought we shouldn’t worry about it until we were closer to the mountain.
“They’re not crazy enough to monitor the entire damn planet, I hope,” she said. “What would be the point? I’m assuming that the Chron already know this is here, so who would they even be hiding it from?”
“I’m not willing to take bets on the relative sanity of PrimeCorp,” Jahelia Sord said from the seat behind us.
I pointed us in the direction of the mountain looming red and barren in the distance, and drove.
WE DROVE IN relative silence for about twenty minutes before we came upon the first ruins. These were the shapes Maja had asked about on the projection. It was plain now that these were the configurations we’d seen, the remains of a group of structures. I slowed the groundcar as we came up alongside them, so we could all get a closer look.
Sandblasted and worn by wind and elements, partly standing and partly toppled, they spoke of a long-ago walled habitation. Great chunks of stone formed platforms and foundations. Roofing that might have come from the nearby forest had long since decomposed or crumbled away.
“Seems like PrimeCorp isn’t the first to have set up base here,” Luta said. “Do you think this was once a Chron settlement?”
The ruins looked nothing like the elegant architecture I’d seen on Tabalo—didn’t seem as if they ever could have been buildings like the ones I’d seen there. “And what happened, whether it was Chron or someone else? Are there more like this around the planet, I wonder?”
“Could have been a species we haven’t encountered yet,” Luta said. She’d pulled out her datapad to record some images.
“We’re in completely uncharted territory here,” I said, craning my neck to see more of the ruined structures. “Whatever it is and whoever built it, it’s been here an awfully long time.”
I’d slowed the groundcar to a crawl as we studied the ruins, which was probably why I heard the humming noise as soon as I did. It rose in volume and dropped in pitch, as if it was getting nearer. I looked around. “Anyone else hear that?”
Both women had weapons in their hands almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth, and surveyed the surroundings. “Better get moving again,” Luta said. “Maybe we shouldn’t have stopped.”
“I knew this was a bad idea,” Sedmamin said. “PrimeCorp would have security on any secret installation, no matter if it was outside Nearspace. There are others out here who could find it too, and they’d want to protect it from anyone.”
I urged the groundcar back up to speed, but even over the sound of its own hum the other noise grew. Jahelia had stood in the back seat, gripping the roll bar with one hand while the other arm cradled her rifle. She scanned the sky behind us. “I don’t see anything.”
“I do.” Luta pointed ahead of us and up, and if I squinted I could just make out a descending s
hape.
“Sit down!” I barked at Jahelia, and she lowered herself to the seat.
“Turn around and call the ship!” Sedmamin demanded. “You’re driving us straight into danger. I’m going to lodge a formal complaint with—”
“Survey drone? Security?” Jahelia asked, cutting Sedmamin off as she leaned forward and squinted up, too. “Maybe we should cut over closer to the treeline.”
But that was easier said than done. The ruins we had stopped to look at stretched on for some distance, the remains of blocky walls and toppled buildings creating an extremely inconvenient barrier between us and the trees. I’d have to slow considerably to weave between them, and slowing down didn’t seem smart.
The humming increased. “There’s another one!” Luta shouted as a second shadow joined the first. “Hey, maybe—” She rummaged in the pocket of her jacket and came out with the gadget Baden had given her.
“You think that might shut them down?”
She shrugged. “Possible. Worth a try.” She aimed the scrambler in the direction of the drones and thumbed a switch on the top. I waited, hoping for the sound of a change in the drone’s hum, but it didn’t come.
“I’ll change the settings, but I have a feeling it’s not going to work,” Luta said. “Drones probably have a blocker to stop exactly this kind of interference.”
Jahelia stood again, steadying the plasma rifle on the rollbar. She aimed into the sky, but she didn’t have the range.
“Too far!” I told her.
“I know that,” she said witheringly. “I’m just setting up. They are going to get closer, if Baden’s little toy doesn’t work.”
“I know. Hold on.” I took a chance and turned the groundcar into a space between two collapsed buildings, where they had conveniently fallen in opposite directions and left a clear gap.
A whistling hiss split the air and Luta yelped.
“Incoming!”
Something bit into the ground ten metres from us, throwing up a blinding gout of sand and dirt when it exploded. I swerved the groundcar, but the encroaching ruins made maneuvering difficult. I worried that we’d be stuck or hemmed in, but the ruins afforded the only cover.
“If you stop for a minute I might get a shot,” Jahelia yelled.
“Do not stop!” Sedmamin demanded. His voice was muffled and I guessed that he’d slid to the floor and had his head down.
“Risky,” Luta argued. “It’s a small target and I don’t know how effective a plasma rifle will—”
Another something punched into the ground nearby, and I realized the drone had a larger payload than I’d thought. I hit the accelerator, and we hurtled forward past a section of ruined wall that still stood three times as high as the groundcar. I could try to get in close for cover, but with the drone overhead there were few places to hide.
“Make for the trees,” Luta urged.
“I can take them out,” Jahelia argued. “There are only two of them.”
“For now.” I didn’t have words to waste as I struggled to keep the groundcar under control. It wasn’t built for chases, and the wheels dragged in the soft, sandy earth.
The hum of the drone faded and then changed pitch, circling around for another run. I swerved around a pile of rubble, looking for a path to the protection of the trees.
“Fek this,” Jahelia muttered.
“Sit down, Sord!” Sedmamin roared, and I thought he was trying to tug her into her seat. I don’t know why he was so insistent that she not shoot at the things, but maybe he thought return fire would bring reinforcements. Maybe he knew more than he’d let on.
A muffled thump and a grunt from Sedmamin told me she’d kicked him off.
She stood again, setting her back and elbow against the rollbar for stability. As the drones’ hum rose like angry insects homing in on prey, I heard the low whoomp as the plasma rifle spat a gout of crackling energy. The rising hum faltered as Jahelia whooped and a wave of heat hit the back of my head. I braked, turning to see what had happened, and one of the drones slammed into an upright section of the ruins to my right. It exploded in a burst of black smoke, and chips of stone rained down on us.
The second drone banked up and away, to circle around and return for another run.
“Can we make the treeline?” Luta asked, brushing bits of stone and dust from her hair.
“Maybe.” Another collapsed building blocked the route I’d thought would give us a clear run to the trees, and I had to turn hard left to avoid the rubble. This put us on what might once have been a road, flanked on either side by buildings in various stages of decay. If I could get to an opening—
Sedmamin had gone strangely quiet, perhaps shocked into silence by the destruction of the drone. We sped among the ruins as the sound of the second drone returning reached us.
“Keep us steady. I’ll get this one too, Protectorate,” Jahelia Sord told me over her shoulder.
“Not sure what you mean by steady,” I replied. “This isn’t exactly the boulevard outside PrimeCorp Main. If I come to an opening on the right that might lead us to the treeline, I’m taking it. I’ll try to warn you.”
“Fair enough,” Jahelia said. “Captain, get ready to back me up if I miss. You might be able to drive it off while I recharge, which I’ll have to do after this shot.”
“I’ll try,” Luta said, but she sounded skeptical. “It would be better if you don’t miss.”
Jahelia Sord laughed, such an incongruous sound that even in the circumstances, I smiled.
The buzz of the drone rose, and we’d almost reached the end of the ruins. No opening had offered itself on the right, but the left-hand line of collapsed buildings ended abruptly up ahead. Going left would put us more in the open, but we wouldn’t be hemmed on both sides.
“Slow down, Protectorate,” Jahelia called to me over the rising sound. “I’ve got it lined up. Let it get closer.”
Sedmamin moaned wordlessly. I thought he must be back on the floor again.
“You sure?”
“Trust me.”
I didn’t want to, and yet, suddenly, I did trust her. At least in this. I eased off the accelerator and let the sandy, rock-studded ground pull at the wheels, slowing us.
A burst of dust and rock erupted from the ground a mere metre from the left front wheel, peppering me with debris. The drone was too close. “Take it out!”
“Closer . . . closer . . . almost,” Jahelia coaxed. I heard the whistle that signalled another projectile from the drone, and at the same time I felt the whoomp as Jahelia fired. The dark shape of the falling drone cast a shadow over the groundcar and I realized how incredibly close she’d let the thing get before taking her shot. I felt the impact of the missile as it hit the groundcar and heard the explosion of the drone at the same time.
“Merde,” I heard Jahelia Sord swear, just before the world exploded and everything went black.
WHEN I OPENED my eyes, I couldn’t see past the edge of the ruins. Smoke and dust hung in the air in all directions, slowly settling. I lay on my side, curled in an almost fetal position; I must have been trying to protect my head. The sky had darkened, but as I blinked debris away from my eyes I realized that airborne dust had blotted out the sun. A quick inventory, flexing muscles and moving my hands, arms, and legs in tiny increments, revealed nothing broken, and I sat up gingerly. My right sleeve felt sticky, glued to my skin with fresh blood. I pulled back the fabric and saw a long gash—probably from a piece of the shattered drone. The bleeding had already stopped, so my nanobioscavengers were working. I let the sleeve fall back into place. My laser pistol had landed only inches from my side, and I snatched it up with almost palpable relief.
Silence. No sound of drones. But nothing else, either.
Luta and Jahelia. And Sedmamin, although I didn’t care nearly as much about him. I felt an immediate jab of guilt for that thought, but it was the truth. They could have been thrown any distance when the drone hit us and the groundcar rolled. No wonder so muc
h dust and smoke filled the air. I wished the wind would pick up and start clearing it away; I couldn’t see far in any direction. I risked a low call.
“Luta? Are you there?”
A low, smothered cough reached my ears. “Behind the wall. Sord’s here, too.”
But not answering for herself. Not good.
Keeping low, I scuttled toward my sister’s voice. The half-wall I guessed she meant was only metres away, and I covered the space with as much alacrity as I could, keeping the pistol in my hand. The ruined stones made crawling impossible unless I wanted to shred my knees and hands on the sharp edges. I got my feet under me and crab-walked as quietly as possible on the sliding shards and pebbles.
When I rounded the jagged end of the wall, I found Luta leaning with her back against the rubble. Dust and sand had smeared light streaks through her dark auburn hair, and smudged one cheek and her chin. Still, when she looked up and saw me, she smiled. The relief in her green eyes shone through the smoky air.
Jahelia Sord lay beside Luta, eyes closed, head pillowed on Luta’s rolled-up jacket. A dark red patch matted the hair on the left side of her head, but Luta said, “A cut, but not a bad one. Must have been a piece of flying stone. It’s clotted already, so I didn’t bother trying to clean it up any. Just start it bleeding again.”
I nodded. Luta’s weapon lay next to her knee, but I didn’t see the rifle Jahelia had carried.
I was struck again by the quiet. Only the soft settling of dust and debris filled the air around us. No sound of enemies approaching, on foot or overhead. For that I was profoundly grateful. A few moments to think, that was what we needed.
“What about you? Are you all right?” I asked Luta.
She grimaced. “My right ankle has seen better days, but hey, the nanobioscavs should be moving into position even as we speak, right?”
It was true, and I let myself breathe out a long slow breath.
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