Kali's Children (Kali Trilogy Book 1)

by Craig Allen

  I stared at the frog as it bounded away. When it was gone, I stood and ran for the cargo bay.

  ~~~

  “Babe, what’s wrong?”

  Both Marie and the vultures kept their eyes on me as I climbed on top of the control panel, staring at the upper corners of the room.

  Marie raised an eyebrow. “I mean, outside of being trapped on planet death, what’s wrong?”

  I leaned close to Marie and spoke in a low voice. “Do you remember where the optic for this room is?”

  Her eyes darted back and forth for a moment, and then she looked up at the corner just above the entrance.

  I went to the door. The vultures regarded me as I stood under where the frogs had cut away the door to make it bigger. Through the gap between bulkhead plates, I could reach the door mechanism. The optic itself was too small to see, but the components that connected to it were quite visible.

  Marie watched me out of the corner of her eye as she continued to run the factory. If I ripped out wires above where the door used to be, I might also destroy the door mechanism, the fire sensor, and a number of other things we didn’t need any longer. But they would know I’d done it, and then they would punish her.

  I motioned for the vultures to step outside, and they did. I pulled up the floor grates near the door. Debris from the door still lay there, including a piece of the door hinge attached to a wire.

  I fished it up and replaced the floor grate. I shaped the wire into a loop and stuck it through the gap in the wall. It hooked easily on the junction box, which was barely hanging on as it was. The vultures watched me intently.

  “You didn’t see that,” I said as quietly as I could. I hoped the microphone wasn’t terribly sensitive. “I’ll explain later.”

  When I finished, I went to the console. Marie pursed her lips. “What’s going on?”

  “Trust me.” I killed the current recipe and let the machine idle. I ran it into a diagnostics routine. One of the vultures entered. I turned to it before it could input anything on the viewer. “Wait, there appears to be a problem.”

  It stopped and regarded me. It turned to its brethren. My scanner detected the magnetic activity as it spoke to them. I pulled up every readout possible on the console, trying to make it as busy as I could.

  “Oh, God, what is it?”

  “We have a problem.” I carefully pushed her chair aside. “I can’t explain now. I need to fix this.”

  She sat quietly. I had to wait only about five minutes before the frogs realized they weren’t getting their tools and weapons.

  Two of them came into the cargo bay. The floor grates bounced up and down as they bounded toward the control. One shoved aside all the vultures and entered the control room. It bumped its head against the piece of door hanging on the wire. The frog swatted at it, but didn’t tear the piece loose. The multi-scanner alarmed as the creature’s magnetic presence went higher than I had ever seen before.

  “We have a problem,” I said. “It locked up. Some kind of maintenance routine.”

  The creature, its fifth arm on its underside, reached for Marie. She shrieked as the frog pushed her chair over. Slowly, she pulled herself across the floor away from the frog.

  “No, wait.” I put my hand on the frog’s arm. Instantly, it snatched me in its massive claw, pinning my arm to my chest.

  “I can fix this.” I had trouble catching my breath under its grasp. “It’s just a delay. Tell him!”

  The vulture behind the frog stood rigid for a moment, communing with the frog. The frog didn’t acknowledge the vulture but continued to hold me in its grasp. I struggled to breathe. Finally, the frog released me and left through the doorway, hitting the piece of the door again. This time, it tore the metal away angrily, causing a shower of sparks from the gap in the wall. The frog jumped at the exploding conduit. It smashed the nearby bulkhead, leaving a huge dent, then turned and stormed out of the cargo bay.

  I set the chair up and went to Marie.

  She punched at my chest over and over again. “Why’d you do that? How could you? Do you know what it would have done?”

  I caught a hold of her hand as she pummeled me. “I had to.” Carefully, I set her back in the chair. “I’ll explain everything, but I need to fix this first.”

  The vulture behind me held up the viewer.

  It will return with others and you will produce by then or it will consume more of your mate.

  “It’ll be fixed by then.” I killed the diagnostics and restarted the recipe. I went to the doorway. The frog had thoroughly torn out the conduit, killing the power to that section and, thus, to the optic.

  I kissed Marie on her forehead.

  She just looked at me. “Why?”

  I pointed above the top of the doorframe, where the optic used to be. “Because a frog wagged its finger at me.”

  ~~~

  I checked the conduit again. Power levels in that section were nil. I was sure there were optics down in the factory area, but the frogs couldn’t see us from those. There had been no need to install optics viewing the control room from the factory floor if there was an optic above the door. When the frogs returned, the factory was in operation. They left without a word.

  I explained to Marie about the hopper and about what the frog did when I ventured too close. “The only way they would know what wagging your finger meant was if they were watching us.”

  “Oh, no.” Marie looked up at the corner where the lifeless optic sat. “While I was teaching them…”

  I nodded. “You were teaching the frogs, as well.”

  “Good thing it was just basic grammar and not access codes or…” She tilted her head as she ran her finger along her chin. “Watching us from where?”

  “What?”

  “They have to have a viewer of some kind to see us, right?” She held up her hands. “Where would they get that?”

  I frowned. I had a pretty good idea.

  ~~~

  The next day, I wandered outside again. Frogs meandered about the camp, and mammoths stood nearby with their riders on top. A tiny beetle-like creature with four legs and a limb on top of its body darted out of one of the slave pits. A hundred or more followed. Most were about the size of my hand, but some were the size of a thumbnail. The smaller beetles rode on the backs of the larger ones as they scurried around the camp.

  I went to the hole. Several of the rat creatures lay dead at the bottom of the pit. Each had massive wounds in its side, as if something had burst out from the inside.

  The hopper sat on the east side of the camp. Not fifty meters away from the hopper stood a grove of trees that hadn’t been there before. They, like the bushes, probably could uproot themselves at will. They had a giant reddish leaf curved in a bowl shape on top, which pointed directly up at the sun. Under the bowl-leaf were many smaller red leaves hanging from branches.

  I hefted the electromagnet in my hand and made sure I had it switched off. I was pretty sure their reaction would be extreme if it were on. I hoped the shielding inside the inner hull would protect the vultures.

  So far, the frogs hadn’t recognized what I was carrying. I’d rigged the grapple with a timer. The magnetic grapple itself could haul cargo across the bay. If I was right, the grapple would affect them the way a hundred-decibel screech would affect a human.

  I set the timer on the device and placed it about midway from the stern and the cargo bay door. I strode away as calmly as I could manage. Fortunately, the frogs didn’t seem to care if I wandered around.

  I walked near the hillside along the west side of the encampment, waving the multi-scanner around. Bushes stepped aside as I passed. I made it almost to the southern hill before the timer went off.

  My scanner picked up the massive magnetic waves, as did every creature in the camp. Cries like the hopelessly out-of-tune brass section of an orchestra came from the holes. The mammoths lurched back and forth, and their riders, who never moved even a little, reared back on their mounts and
waved their misshapen arms. One mammoth threw its rider and dashed toward my general direction. I rushed east, along the southern hill, and it stormed past, squashing a rat that had escaped from a pit.

  The frogs seemed most affected by the powerful magnetic field from the grapple. They bounced up and down, flipping themselves over and then back again. They stabbed their makeshift metal spears at anything that passed, including each other.

  Provider stalked through the camp, kicking at the surrounding frogs and pushing them toward the source of the noise, but none had the strength of will to get near the powerful electromagnet. Even he squirmed. The grapple must’ve seemed like continuous thunder. The red reeds had disappeared altogether.

  Every single thing in the camp writhed in agony. Everything except me.

  I darted east along the southern hill. A group of the tiny beetles scattered about randomly in front of me. They crawled over each other, their little bodies jerking back and forth. Some fell into a nearby pit. I stepped around them and continued to the eastern edge of the camp. None noticed me.

  The hopper was positioned so that its side door was on the east side, facing away from the camp. No one could see me enter the tiny craft. I charged forward while I still had the chance.

  The giant trees with the bowl-shaped leaves fluttered, as if blown by hurricane winds although there was no breeze. They inched away from the camp, away from the thunderous noise of the magnetic grapple.

  The massive dish leaves ruffled and then opened. From between the leaves, large black shapes launched into the air. I dropped to the ground and covered my head. The new creatures looked like some sort of bat with no head. Most of their bodies flapped as if they were single giant wings. They soared for a few seconds then spiraled toward the ground, bouncing and flipping from side to side. Finally, they seemed to gain control as they flapped their wing-shaped bodies and lifted into the air. They rose to high altitudes very quickly before opening into giant cone-shaped parachutes. The winds caught them and carried them far to the east.

  I stood, hoping I would be finished looking around before those things came back.

  At the hopper, I tugged at the door. It opened easily. I went inside and closed it behind me. The perpetual rotting scent was worse inside the hopper, and I knew why.

  Lying in the pilot’s seat was a body—a human body. Something had burst forth from its chest. He had been dead only a few days. The flight suit was still intact, as was the name tag. Lt. Cdr. Roland.

  “Sorry, Commander.” I reached over him and waved my hand through the activation console. At the very least, a warning should’ve popped up saying I didn’t have access. Instead, nothing happened. That meant the reactor output was zero.

  I went to the back and opened a panel in the floor. The fusion batteries were in place, but they weren’t powerful enough to get the hopper off the ground. However, they did have enough power for communications.

  I rerouted the power and switched on the comm system. Immediately, a prompt for the bridge-sat came up on the hopper’s monitor. I grinned. The hopper had access to the bridge-sat. If only it would accept my codes.

  I input commands to short-circuit space-time. Spicans wouldn’t pick it up. The bridge-sat fired the signal through a wormhole, which meant it could only be received at its destination. Each bridge-sat had the knowledge of other bridge-sats, creating a giant network. It was possible that nearby Spicans might detect the microscopic Einstein-Rosen bridge created by the satellite, but at that point, I had to take the risk. If we stayed, Marie and I would certainly die.

  The bridge-sat responded to my request in seconds. Unauthorized access denied. I clenched my fists, resisting the urge to smash the nearest control panel. My pitiful access codes wouldn’t let me activate the bridge-sat to send a message. That meant a high-ranking officer had locked out access. I frowned. There was no real reason for some fancy-pants high-O to lock it out to that degree.

  I checked the hopper’s log files. I at least had access to that. The bridge-sat had been locked out three days before—from that console. I looked at the body before me. It had been dead for longer than three days.

  My shoulders slumped. The frogs must’ve gotten the access codes from him. A lieutenant commander would be able to access the bridge-sat. After that, when they had no more use for him, they had killed him. But why would they lock up the bridge-sat? What interest did they have? Unless they knew what it did and they didn’t want anyone to come looking for us.

  What was I going to tell Marie?

  I started to leave, but I noticed a square indentation under the commander’s flight suit. Gingerly, I unzipped it and reached inside. It was a viewer. I pulled it out and activated it. A series of files flew by. I shut it off again. If I could hack it, maybe I could get his codes and access the bridge-sat.

  His eyes, or what was left of them, stared up into the ceiling. I reached up to close them, but his eyelids were gone. He looked as if something had fed on him after he’d died, or maybe while he was alive.

  I stuffed the viewer inside my work uniform as best as I could and then exited the hopper. The trees had moved a good distance away. I let the door shut carefully and did a turkey-peek around the hopper. The creatures in the camp were still dancing around as if they were standing on a hot plate. I charged for the cargo bay. If they couldn’t figure out how to stop the magnet, then maybe we could get away. I might have to guide the vultures myself. No doubt the electromagnet would blind them, as well. The real trick was Marie. Maybe one of the vultures could carry her.

  I reached the stern of the Kali before the magnetic grapple’s barrage finally ended. The creatures stopped squirming and began to stand again. Provider stood near the remains of the ship. In his single claw, he gripped the remnants of the magnetic grapple. That meant I had only one more left.

  Provider dropped the grapple as he looked over at me. He took three bounds toward me. His central claw wrapped around me before I could get a word out. He squeezed me so hard that I couldn’t breathe. My scanner beeped at the magnetic waves emanating from the creature. He just held me there for a moment then released me. I fell to the ground, gasping. He didn’t give me much more of a chance.

  Provider flipped over so his claw was on its back. He grabbed my foot and dragged me alongside as he made short hops toward the cargo bay. At the door, Provider picked me up and shoved me inside. I collapsed to the deck, managing to land without breaking anything. From the control room, Marie stared at me with wide eyes. A vulture moved in front of her. The other vultures stood about, staring at me.

  Provider grabbed the nearest vulture, yanking it off its misshapen feet. My scanner beeped until the frog released the vulture. The vulture produced the viewer from under a wing and tapped a message.

  Provider angry at the noise. Will kill if it happens again wants to know what happened and why.

  “What noise?” I asked. “Tell it I don’t see like you do. I don’t understand.”

  The vulture regarded Provider for a moment then tapped a new message.

  The seeing you do not see blinded them and hurt them. If you did it they will kill.

  I had thoroughly pissed them off. Good.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “This ship does things on its own, so we don’t have to. Any automated system may have done it. I’d have to look at the logs.”

  We don’t understand so he doesn’t understand which means he will hurt you before long.

  “I’m trying to explain it so you can understand,” I said. “To free us to do as we please, this”—I gestured to the cargo bay—“does things on its own to save us time. Just as the factory builds things automatically, the ship around us maintains other systems automatically. It also…” I struggled with how to phrase it. “It writes down everything it does so we can read it later. I need to see what the ship wrote down when it made this noise. Then I’ll know what happened.”

  For a moment, Provider stood there. If my bluff failed, I would be dead, and Marie
would soon follow. But I had to take the risk if I wanted to save her.

  Finally, Provider stormed off, pushing aside two frogs that came too close. Soon, I was alone with the vultures. The vulture wrote on the viewer.

  It wants an answer before the darkness comes.

  That was easy enough. Getting away with a lie was another matter.

  ~~~

  I explained the situation to Marie. The vultures listened along with Marie. I tried to focus on the fact I had the commander’s viewer and how I might be able to hack it and contact the bridge-sat. When I finished, she sat quietly for a few minutes. She didn’t jump for joy or panic. Instead, she reached over to the console and opened a list of recipes.

  “We have two problems,” she said. “First, they are adding to the list.”

  I shrugged. “They want more spears or shovels or—”

  “No.” She rotated the image hovering over the console so I could read it. “You don’t get it. How are they are adding additional items to the list? They don’t use this console.”

  “The one on the hopper, probably.”

  She shrugged. “The point is they learned to interface with this remotely.” She took my hand. “Babe, they’re learning. They are using tools and technology that must have seemed like magic to them when we first arrived.”

  “How much could they learn?”

  She pulled up parts on the list. My blood went cold. The list included what looked like a fling coil. I scrolled farther. Barrels, superconductors, power casings—I knew what they were all for.

  “They’re asking for parts from existing recipes,” she said. “Parts that could be used to construct a coil gun.”