by M. G. Herron
The man held up one finger, then dug around in a bag and pulled out a round, peg-like piece that, while clearly not a foot, ended in the standard round joint which could be attached to where Hedgebot’s missing limb would go.
At the sight of it, Hedgebot did donuts, pulsing blue and green and purple in rapid succession.
“Seems like it meets his approval.”
“Guess so.” Elya sat on the ground, joining the man in a cross-legged position. It only took a few seconds to snap the foot into place and secure it by engaging and syncing the internal magnets. Hedgebot jumped in the air a few times off his back legs, testing the new foot—or peg. Then he scurried happily around the cavern, causing even the most suspicious of the priest’s followers to grin at the bot’s antics.
“’Fraid I can't help you with that,” the man said, nodding at the cube.
Elya set it face up so that the irritating blinking light illuminated the distant stalactites.
“I’m Elya. What’s your name?”
The man’s calloused hand took Elya’s in a firm grip. His knuckles were like knots on a tree, telling Elya that the man worked with his hands and, perhaps in a former life, was a machinist or botsmith of some kind. He had an open face and green eyes crowned with thick eyebrows like caterpillars that knit together in the middle. “Thom.”
“Nice to meet you, Thom. Thanks for your help with Hedgebot, he really appreciates it.”
“I can see that.”
“Now, about this cube… I’m not sure I can fix it, but I need to try.”
“Even if you could get one of those cubes open, I don’t think you’re likely to get it to connect.”
Elya looked up sharply. “Why not?”
The man reached back and picked up an old-fashioned communicator that used radio waves to broadcast over long distances—the ancestor from which the tightbeam technology in his cube descended. Thom cycled through a range of frequencies. All he found was a uniform static.
“Because that cube isn’t the problem,” the man said. “All of our communicators stopped working about six hours ago.”
A chill washed over Elya’s body. He cast his memory back. Had he really crash-landed on the planet six hours ago? It seemed to fit. He had been so busy trying to survive, and then run from the Kryl, and then the hike took ages and he lost track of time but… Night fell and, yeah, he supposed it could have been about six hours.
“Earth,” Elya swore. “What’s causing it?” And why did it start at the same time as I crash landed on Robichar?
“That, I can't tell you.”
Elya wondered if those Kryl drones could have dropped some kind of signal jamming device either before or after they shot down that shuttle. His mind scrambled back over all the training he’d received, recalling some intel about the Kryl that was taught to him in one of his groundschool classes.
The major difference that separated Kryl technology from that invented by humanity was that Kryl tech was grown from organic parts. The Kryl, for instance, didn’t need space suits to survive the vacuum. They planted and grew their spawn using specific types of radiation and heavy metals to produce a creature whose exoskeleton happened to be vacuum-resistant. The drones were one such example.
He supposed that if the Kryl were able to do that, they could certainly grow an organism capable of jamming radio signals and other communication devices. Such a thing would be difficult to use in a space battle because the distances were so great. But on the ground, something like that would give them a tactical advantage.
“What did you just think about?” Thom asked.
Elya shook his head. It wasn’t that what he learned from his training was top secret. But he knew from his time as a refugee that people didn’t like to talk about the Kryl, so he was hesitant to speak of it.
“It’s the Kryl, ain’t it?” Thom asked.
No fooling him. Elya dipped his chin.
“Yeah. We figured it was them. I was keeping in touch with a couple different villages with this radio. We got news that a few Kryl ships had landed right before the signal cut out. Then, nothing but static.”
“Do you think they have some kind of jamming device?”
“Seems logical. Only, I wouldn’t know what to look for. But,” Thom said, reaching around behind him. He came up with a device that looked like a Geiger counter, designed to read radiation levels. Its meters didn’t seem to be counting in curie’s or becquerel’s, but some other unit. “This might help you locate the source.”
Elya took the device with a nod right as Father Pohl limped up beside them and lowered himself clumsily to the ground, massaging his bum leg with his long, thin fingers.
“That what’s gonna take you home?” the priest asked, pointing to the black cube and its blinking light.
“Not unless I can disable whatever’s jamming the signal.”
“Hmm,” the priest said. Elya could tell that the idea of getting him out of their hair appealed to him.
“You know I don’t mean you or any of your people harm, right?” Elya said. “I just want to get back to the Fleet.”
“I know,” Father Pohl said, glancing over his shoulder at Charlie, who sat warming his hands by the fire. “But, still, you make some of them nervous. We’re disobeying direct orders from the Emperor to evacuate Robichar, so we’re outlaws.”
“The Fleet is trying to save your lives, priest.”
“I already told you, we don't need to be saved. Regardless, you’re one of them, and if we continue down this path, it won’t be good to have you around.”
“What are you saying?”
“Don't worry,” Father Pohl said, holding up a hand and making a placating gesture. “You can stay the night, like I promised. I’m a man of my word and Animus will protect us here.” The priest seemed so sure of this. Elya swallowed a sarcastic retort. “But the sooner you’re gone, the better.”
Thom was suddenly very busy looking for a tool in his kit. Not sure what to say, Elya merely bobbed his head. He’d been planning to leave in the morning anyway, but now it looked like he would be forced to.
But the priest looked so kind and sympathetic as he said it. Elya tried to put himself in the priest's shoes. He supposed, if he was hell bent on staying put, Elya wouldn’t want some Imperial flunky hanging around either. There was wisdom in what the old man was saying, even if Elya and his Imperial uniform happened to attract the brunt of the anger.
So he was surprised when Father Pohl said, “I’ll go with you, in the morning. Help you find this jamming device. We’d like it gone, too, so our interests are aligned there. Besides, there are bound to be more Kryl out there and I’m worried you won’t make it if you go on your own.”
“That’s kind of you, but you don't have to do that.”
“We do. Besides, I suspect I know where the Kryl are keeping this jamming device. There’s only one strategically defensible place nearby that an occupying force would find attractive. You better get some rest. We leave at first light.”
Twelve
“The last Kryl drone has been eliminated, Admiral,” Harmony reported. Her face-shaped cluster of starburst neurons smiled serenely and blossomed the body of a woman, drawn in light, who gripped her fist and pumped her elbow at her side as if celebrating victory.
The shipmind liked to form shapes when she was pleased with herself, and sometimes also when she was bored. Often, these shapes mimicked living things. Only rarely did she imitate people.
It amused Kira that the shape Harmony had chosen to take this time was the exact height and build of Captain Osprey. Harmony must have taken a liking to the captain after the conversation in the war room. The shipmind hadn’t made herself known during the conversation, but Kira knew she’d been present throughout. Rarely did anything happen on this ship that escaped the AI’s notice.
“Good,” Kira replied.
When she sat down, the officers manning their stations on the bridge seemed to sag. They’d been chasing Kryl d
rones around the moon for the past six hours and they were all tired. Colonel Volk, who had been leading them while she dealt with Captain Osprey, fell heavily into his chair. He spun around to face a screen and counted under his breath. “Admiral, twelve packages made it through our patrols and landed on Robichar. I’m having the Search and Rescue pilots flag their landing sites. Some forty more were eliminated en route to Robichar.”
In response to the colonel’s report, Harmony zoomed into the forest moon on the bridge’s main viewscreen. The twelve packages were clustered around the area where Captain Nevers’ Sabre had gone down.
What are they up to? Kira thought furiously.
She had seen such tactics before. Kryl drones liked to drop groundlings on planet as scouts or diversions. Ultimately, the groundlings weren’t tactically effective against a well-prepared infantry—and back during the Kryl War, this tactic was so common she got the impression they frequently did it just for fun. In this case, with only a handful of people left on the surface, none of whom had seen real battle before, she feared to imagine the havoc they’d cause. Not to mention she was still pissed about the shuttle their drones destroyed. Harmony estimated the casualties at three hundred and fifty. How many more had been caught in the pathway of the carnage, injured… or worse.
“Have Search and Rescue managed to locate our missing pilot yet?”
Colonel Volk frowned and shook his head. “No, sir. The SAR leader reported that they found his scuttled starfighter, slagged by a thermal charge.”
“Then we have to assume he’s alive. We have roughly twelve hours left before the evacuation is complete. I want that pilot found.”
”Yes, sir.” Colonel Volk spoke to the comms officer and dispatched a second Search and Rescue team to widen the range of the first. After a short conversation, he turned back to Kira. “They’re still trying to home in on Captain Nevers’ tightbeam. They’re also reporting trouble with their own comms, so it’s likely the Kryl are interfering with the signal somehow.”
Night had fallen on the portion of Robichar facing the Paladin. If the captain’s tightbeam broadcast hadn’t been located, they likely wouldn’t find him until they had better visibility.
“Harmony, how are the repairs to the damaged Mammoth coming?”
Harmony opened one of the private channels. Data streamed back and forth. “They’ll be ready to go in just a few hours, Admiral.”
“Good. I want the longhaulers to be ready to jump at a moment’s notice.”
“Why not send some ahead?” Volk asked.
“I would if we had a full armada and could spare a security escort. But it takes multiple jumps to get back to Ariadne and I don’t want them floating out there without any firepower.”
Volk chewed on the inside of his cheek, which made his mouth twist in distaste. He knew she was right. “Send a few squadrons of starfighters?”
“Only if we have to. I’m not risking splitting the group up until I have no other choice.”
He grunted. “They’re safe for now. I’ll prep a backup plan.”
“Thank you, Volk.”
She just had to hope that Captain Nevers made contact before they jumped. If not, she’d be forced to leave him behind. She wouldn't like it, but the safety of a million civilians was far more important than a single starfighter pilot. She hated the idea, but steeled herself to make the decision anyway. She’d been forced to leave a man behind once. A decade later, the memory still burned like salt in an open wound. She pushed the foul thought aside.
“Admiral, bad news.” Harmony turned Captain Osprey’s body-shape toward her and came to attention. The shipmind mirrored the captain’s body language perfectly.
“Stop that.”
Harmony’s lights flew apart and reformed as a bodiless face, looking once more like the AI Kira was used to. “Is that better, Admiral?”
“Yes. Now, spit it out.”
“The Kryl hive is no longer in the asteroid field.”
“Where are they?”
“Attempting to locate them, Admiral.”
“They must have jumped to hyperspace,” Colonel Volk said.
“Nothing’s ever easy,” Kira muttered under her breath. Then, louder, “Contact Fleet Command and ask for reinforcements.”
Colonel Volk raised an eyebrow and caught her gaze.
She didn't have to exchange a word with him to know what he was thinking. They were out here on the galaxy’s edge, at the far end of an outer spiral arm beyond which there was nothing but vacuum for hundreds of light years. Reinforcements, should the Empire deign to send them, would come from Ariadne at the core of the Empire’s strength, and take several days to reach them—if they left immediately and jumped the maximum distance on each leg. And that didn’t count the time it took to muster troops and gather starfighters. At the earliest, those reinforcements wouldn’t make it here until long after their timetable to evacuate Robichar had expired.
They were on their own. The only reason reinforcements would be needed would be as witnesses to the Paladin of Abniss’ failure to complete this mission. To verify that the Kryl had taken Robichar, and sweep up any survivors.
Kira kept her face impassive. After a moment spent looking into her eyes, Volk drew up and saluted sharply. “Yes, sir!”
Her eyelid twitched. Kira shoved down the phantom memory that threatened to foam over each time someone brought up the topic. The days she spent isolated in her room after Ruidiaz died… there had been rumors. It still smarted, over a decade later, despite how she’d moved past that time in her life. When her nightmares startled her awake to the salty smell and sticky feel of sweat-soaked sheets, Kira would calm herself by reciting the symptoms of space madness. To remind herself that the fugue state into which she’d fallen after the man she loved killed himself in a nuclear blast had been a different kind of psychosis.
A high-pitched warning signal emanated from the surround sound speakers embedded into the walls of the bridge.
“Enemy detected,” Harmony reported. “The Kryl hive is back in-system, moving at maximum sub-light speed in the direction of Robichar.”
“Colonel Volk!” Kira barked over her shoulder.
“Charge the defensive array to full power!” Colonel Volk shouted. “Prepare the torpedoes! Scramble the starfighters and order them to make a blockade and cut off any attempt on the Mammoths.”
“How many ships have they got?”
Harmony’s nodes exploded and re-formed themselves in a diagram beside her command couch. It showed the entire Kryl hive in three dimensions, measured by the lidar system and rendered in detail by the AI. At the center of the Kryl hive was the bulging, top-heavy mothership. Grotesquely shaped, these massive warships always looked like they were about to topple over but never did. The mothership contained the Overmind directing this hive. Several warships with knife-edge noses, the equivalent to her destroyer, fanned out behind it. And all around them, a thousand tiny gnats buzzed—drones. There were easily a hundred times as many drones as they had destroyed in the advance party.
“Protect the Mammoth fleet at all costs,” Kira said. “I don't want that mothership to come within a hundred thousand klicks of Robichar.”
As if reading her mind, Colonel Volk reported from across the bridge. “Admiral Miyaru, Fleet Command recognizes your request for reinforcements,” he said “they're sending a dozen more destroyers to us. They say they’re three days out.”
Better than she expected, but still not close enough to make a difference.
“Dispatch an extra repair crew to fix that Mammoth. Now. I want it hyperspace-ready within the next thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
A communications officer pulled headphones down around his neck and glanced furtively in her direction. The whites of his eyes were wide.
“What is it, man?”
“The hospital wing, sir. There’s a situation.”
“What kind of situation?” Kira demanded. Like she didn't have
enough to deal with right now?
“I… I can't tell, sir. The nurse who called was panicked. She said one of the pilots woke up. He started going crazy, throwing chairs at the nurses and calling them ‘voidborn hellspawn.’”
“Harmony, get me Captain Osprey.”
Harmony immediately established a connection. The young captain’s face appeared on a viewscreen. She seemed to be in the hangar, talking to a group of mechanics. She’d stepped away from them to take the call on her tab, but Kira could see them in the background with worried looks on their faces.
“There’s a problem in the sick bay. I think it’s related to your investigation.”
Captain Osprey inhaled sharply. “Is it—”
She didn't even finish the words before Kira barked out, “I don’t know, but you’d better hurry, Captain.”
Osprey turned and sprinted out of the hangar, disconnecting the call as she careened around a corner at full speed.
“Colonel Volk,” Kira said. “Meet her there. I can’t afford to fight battles on both fronts. I’ll deal with the Kryl. You make sure to keep the peace on the ship. We don’t need another incident like what happened before.”
“Yes, sir!” Colonel Volk sprinted out the door. He wasn’t in the same shape as the young captain and would be hurting by the time he got to the sick bay.
Kira then turned her attention back to the holograms of the Kryl hive. “Come on, you ugly bugs. Just a little further…”
On the hologram, a knife-like vessel flanking the mothership rocked sideways as it triggered one of the floating stealth mines her starfighter pilots had scattered around that side of the moon’s gravity well, in the region where the advance squadron of Kryl drones had appeared previously.
A whooping cry went up around the bridge. Even Harmony materialized a hologram fist and attached arm to raise in celebration.
“Gotcha. Now, tell me all your dirty little secrets.”