by Craig Allen
“Marie!”
The bat above us dove toward her like a sinking stone. It passed through where she was, and then she wasn’t there anymore. For a split second, she was in front of me. The creature had a mouth behind it, a mouth full of dark teeth. It clamped down on Marie, leaving only her arms and head visible. For a moment, I could almost touch her. Her lips moved but made no sound. In the next second, the bat disappeared below, taking Marie with it.
“Marie! Oh, Christ, Marie!”
I ignored the other bats that flitted in and out of formation. Another vulture fell, its wings broken. The remaining vultures attacked once the element of surprise had passed. They picked apart the bat creatures as they gained the upper hand. Finally, the bats fled, and the vultures let them go.
I stared at the ground far below me, trying to make out where Marie had gone. My head shook back and forth. My mind wouldn’t accept it. Slowly, reality set in. She was gone. Everything we had done was for nothing.
I stared off into the yellow sky. She’s gone. The words repeated over and over in my mind. I still shook my head, as if that alone would change what had happened. The truth became more and more clear. Whatever I did from that point on would be without her. There was no point. Not any longer.
Slowly, I reached for my harness and pulled the straps. The vulture carrying me reached over with its central claw and reconnected them. I started to undo them again. Another vulture altered its course until it was under me. I kept struggling with the straps, but one of my hands didn’t work. All that was left of my left hand was a bloody stump. A bat creature must have bitten it off so quickly when it sailed past that I hadn’t even felt it. That didn’t matter anyway. I pulled at the straps with my remaining hand, only to have the vulture carrying me push my hands away. Finally, I gave up. The vulture under me stayed there for half an hour before flying back into formation.
I hated them. Why would they curse me to live? Blood still poured from my wrist. I might die of shock. That was a nice thought. Everything got hazy as I grew weaker. My eyes closed, and I hoped that when I passed out, I would never reawaken.
But I did.
~~~
That was two weeks ago.
We live on this plateau overlooking the landscape. The red grass is everywhere, waving back and forth. Occasionally, trees wander by in the distance. It takes them a day to cover three or four kilometers. If Marie were here, I might actually be more interested.
The vultures keep an eye on me. Every time I take a step near the edge, they get anxious. At first, they wouldn’t leave my side. I asked why, and one scribbled out a message.
We are like you. We have mates and when we lose a mate we wish not to exist but it is better to exist.
I couldn’t disagree more.
My food ran out a week ago. They bring me roots and plants, all red in color. They always remind me that the plants were already dead when they found them. I eat the bitter things, out of respect more than anything else. They don’t kill me, but they don’t seem to nourish me very much, either.
They bring me water that contains some sort of algae. I drink as little as I can get away with, and now I feel sick.
Periodically, they ask me about where I come from, and I tell them about human society. I’m not sure how much they understand about home, but they keep asking me if they can go there. I could be wrong, but I think they want asylum.
I managed to hack the commander’s tablet. I told the bridge-sat to send a signal to any UEAF devices on the planet. I also set up the bridge-sat to transmit the Kali’s coordinates to those devices. But I can’t send for help beyond that. Even the commander’s access codes won’t allow it. Someone completely locked out the bridge-sat from communicating beyond the system, and I have no idea who it was. Even if I had saved Marie, it may not have mattered.
She’s dead because of me. I should have tried harder. I should have made different parts and constructed my own coil gun, as they had planned, and then shot the bastards. Sure, they probably would have taken it from me, but I should have at least tried. I thought I was saving her by doing things the way I did. I should have tried harder, but I didn’t. And now she’s gone, and it’s my fault.
Oh, God, Marie, I’m so sorry.
It doesn’t matter now. I’ll be dead before long. Between the malnutrition and sickness, I don’t have a lot of time. The vultures know this, and they’ve told me what they’re going to do with me when I’m gone.
They say I will be with them always, that they will never forget. When I’m gone, when I die, they’ll let me sit a while, to ripen. Then they will divide me up among them. A piece of me will be inside of them forever, always a part of their tribe.
It’s meant to be an honor, but it scares me so bad.
Chapter Nine
Cody set the viewer down and stared out at the sea of red reeds that danced against the wind two hundred meters below them.
He had been on the plateau for a week. The fliers had said it was one of many homes. They were nomadic and had flown over much of their world. From what Cody could tell, they’d been everywhere but the poles. They had told him stories of a time when their numbers filled the skies. Their population had dwindled since. It was unusual for them to come across another tribe. They did their best to stay clear of all other species, particularly those that saw them as a delicacy.
The plateau had one major feature: a large hook-like protrusion just off center. Sonja had started calling it “hatchling rock,” for obvious reasons. A clutch of eggs sat close to it, protected from the wind. The little guys had hatched the day before. Tiny beaks poked through the leathery eggs. A few minutes later, they chewed their way out of their shells. As soon as they were free, they squealed, sounding like a collection of high-pitched whistles.
A flier hobbled over. Cody assumed it was the mother. She hovered over the crying young then vomited her digestive juice onto the remains of the shells. The acid ate through the shells quickly. The hatchlings slurped up the meal. Once finished, they cried out for more. The mother dropped some rotten meat near them and regurgitated onto it. The three hatchlings sucked up the meal in seconds then cried for still more. It went on much of the night.
Sonja sat near the hatchlings all morning while they slept. She even smiled a few times. After a while, she stood and went to Cody. When she gestured at the place next to him, he nodded. She sat down and leaned against the rock. “How many times are you going to watch that?”
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“What’s to understand? It’s just awful is all.”
“Yeah.” Cody stared at the final image where he had paused the recording. A broken man looked at him from the screen.
“Matthew vented the deuterium,” Cody said. “Where did the toads get more?”
“Everywhere,” Sonja said. “One hydrogen atom in seven thousand is deuterium. All ships have systems to separate deuterium from hydrogen.”
“But they need power to get it, right? How could they if the reactors were dead?”
“The hopper’s batteries were removed,” Sonja said. “They must have used those.” She tossed a small rock off the edge of the plateau. “They probably read every technical file available. They learned everything. Christ.”
“They must have created more readers.” Cody gestured at the fliers. “They can fly over the whole planet. I bet they and others helped spread these and other technology. Who knows what has been created, how much, and where it is?”
Sonja shook her head. “God help us if they ever get space under them.”
Cody looked at the image on the screen once more before shutting it off. “If they were still alive, do you think—”
“It doesn’t matter. They’re not alive. There’s no point in thinking about the dead. It just hurts.”
Cody sat with her for a moment. Together, they watched the sun rise in much less time than it would’ve taken on Earth. When the sun was well above the horizon, Cody spoke. “What ha
ppened?”
“Nothing.”
Cody just nodded. He glanced at the sun again. His HUD polarized just enough to prevent the glare from blinding him.
“It was a long time ago, okay?” Her voice broke. “I was working on a run, flying ship parts to Earth. I was supposed to be back the next day. The next day. And then he was gone.”
He faced her again. “Gone?”
“They attacked—the goddamned Spicans. The ASEB hit, and he was gone.” Her lips trembled. He saw something in her he had never seen before—vulnerability. “They said it was so fast, he didn’t know it, but I don’t buy that.” The tears started suddenly, rolling down her cheeks. She reached up to wipe them away, only to smack her hand into her helmet. She pounded the helmet once with her fist in frustration. “They lied. Goddamn it, they lied to all of us. There’s no way everyone on the planet didn’t know what was happening to them. It had to hurt, right?” She slammed her fists into the ground, causing clouds of dust to billow up. “When he died, he knew, and he…”
Cody almost asked who she meant but thought better of it. He reached for her. “Sonja, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
She jerked away from him. “Forget it.” She sniffed and stood. “I just can’t right now. All this, I just…” She turned her back on him. “I can’t.”
She left, tilting her head to the side to shut off her comm. She sat on the edge of the plateau, away from everyone, shaking.
Cody wished he’d left well enough alone. Everyone had lost someone in the Spican War, but some had lost more. Whole families died in that war, especially in the early days. Having never signed the Sol Conventions, or having ever heard of them, the Spicans had no issues with using Alcubierre-based weaponry banned by those documents.
The Daedalus drives, based off Alcubierre’s FTL designs, had a peculiar side effect. Even in the vacuum of space, debris, often microscopic, existed. The Alcubierre field that surrounded a superluminal spaceship picked up the particles and held on to them. When the field was deactivated, the particles would discharge in an energetic burst like a giant ion cannon. In theory, there was no limit to how many particles the Alcubierre field could collect. That meant there was no limit to the damage they could cause.
All Daedalus drives cleaned up the collected particles before deactivating their waves, greatly reducing the chance of energetic bursts. To be safe, all interstellar ships parked in designated lanes well away from population centers, just in case the Daedalus drive’s “Sweepers” didn’t clean up all the particles. The ASEBs didn’t bother with safety procedures.
ASEBs charged through deep space at tremendous speeds and across vast distances, collecting the particles. Sometimes, they went in endless light-year-wide circles just to collect particles. After gathering enough debris, they deactivated their Alcubierre field right on the cusp of a planet’s atmosphere, creating what was known as an Alcubierre superluminal energetic burst—an ASEB. Some were powerful enough to vaporize a few hundred meters of the planet’s surface. In all cases, it was powerful enough to annihilate the planet’s atmosphere.
The Spicans killed several worlds that way. Billions died before humans found a way to detect the ASEBs and shoot them out of the sky. Cody agreed with Sonja. He couldn’t imagine those people had died quickly.
Bodin normally moved like a cat, but he’d made a point of making a little noise as he walked so Cody could hear him coming. He sat down on the opposite side of Cody, as if not to defile where Sonja had been.
“She tell you about the ASEB?” He pronounced it like “Ay-Seb.”
Cody nodded. “It’s horrible.”
“Sure is.”
“Who was…?”
When Cody didn’t finish, Bodin guessed at the question. “Her husband. They were together thirty years before he died from the ASEB. They had four kids.”
“Really?” Rejuv was a blessing to humanity. People lived two hundred years or more without looking a day over twenty-five. It was almost a game, sometimes, trying to figure out whether the person was a kid or already had great-grandchildren.
“Did her kids also…?”
Bodin shook his head. “She got lucky there. Her kids were off world. Her oldest boy is in the UEAF navy. He’s a commander, but she don’t hold that against him. The others are married and have their own kids.”
Cody smiled. “Gunny’s a grandma?”
“Say that to her face, and you’ll have a fight on your hands.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t intend to.”
“Smart man.” After a minute, Bodin pointed at the viewer. “Learn anything new?”
“Matthew left records of everything here. He kept recordings of the magnetic waves the fliers made. I might be able to analyze them, somehow.”
“You could speak to them?”
Cody shrugged. “Well, if I can nail down patterns, maybe I can get a rough idea of what they’re saying.”
“You did it with the Spicans.”
“True, but I had help. I can probably use that as a starting point. But this is another world with completely separate species. It may still take awhile.” Cody held up the viewer. “Something to pass the time, anyway.”
Cody kicked at a rock. Deveau sat on the other end of the plateau. Pus continued to run out of his nose. The red mucus worried Cody. Deveau’s suit had indicated the substance wasn’t blood and had labeled it as mucus.
Bodin frowned and shook his head. “He ain’t getting better. Suit can’t nail it down. Damn bug he’s got is probably smart like everything else. Probably fighting the nanos in his suit.”
Cody felt helpless. “He did all right, didn’t he?”
Bodin nodded, looking back at Deveau. “He sure did.”
The beetles surrounded Deveau. At first, he had shooed them away, but then he relented. Sometimes, he talked to them. They spoke back, forming words with their bodies. At that moment, they spoke to him again.
We sorry.
Deveau coughed repeatedly, spitting more phlegm on the inside of his helmet. His suit cleaned it up, but it took longer than normal. Cody hadn’t noticed any issues with his own suit, but maybe Deveau’s suit had to work harder due to his illness. The batteries theoretically lasted for a year of constant use, but wear and tear was always an issue.
Deveau steadied himself after his coughing fit. “Sorry for what?”
We remember always.
“Why do you guys keep saying that?”
They’d had that conversation before. Cody stood, and the flier standing nearby faced him. Cody held the viewer up to the flier. “What do the beetles mean?”
The flier tapped out a message on the viewer.
Messengers are grateful for the exchange.
“Messengers?” The beetles circled Deveau. “What sort of exchange?”
For a moment, the flier did nothing, and then it tapped out another message.
We thought you knew all here make exchanges. They help you in exchange.
“But in exchange for what?”
The flier fluttered its wings. Two others came close by and did the same. Cody’s HUD showed magnetism increasing as they spoke to each other. Their body language was alien to him, but he could’ve sworn they were upset.
“Oh, shit.” Bodin tapped his wristband, pinging Sonja.
Her comm popped on, and she made a sound almost like a growl before she spoke. “Yeah, what?”
“You need to see this, Gunny.”
Cody scanned the countryside. There was nothing but reddish dirt where a sea of red reeds used to be. The reeds had retreated a kilometer away from the plateau.
“They’re gone.” Deveau’s voice sounded harsh from all the coughing he did.
“What’s going on?” Cody asked.
“Everything around here is smart, right?” Bodin held his hand up to his helmet as he scanned the plain below them. “So where’d they go? They must have a reason.”
To the northwest, the reeds retreated even farther, leaving a path
all the way to a distant opening in the hills. Cody marked the valley’s location on his HUD and shared it with the others. “They’re disappearing.”
“It’s the same to the east.” Deveau spoke through a coughing fit. “And southwest. Christ, something’s coming.”
The fliers shook their wings. One hobbled over, carrying the viewer.
We leave before they get here. They climb here and get us unless we leave.
“That might not work,” Sonja said. “Guys, zoom in on this bunch here.”
Cody did so. Toads, more than had been in the village, approached. They were still pretty far away, but they could move quickly. Many of them carried long cylindrical objects in the central arm on their backs.
“Oh, fuck me.” Bodin unslung his rifle. “They got Gus Aces.”
Cody zoomed in with his HUD. The toads readied their weapons, rifles that had been modified to fit more comfortably when wielded by their single main arm.
“Toads are coming at us from different angles.” Deveau looked at the fliers. “They can’t fly without getting waxed.”
The fliers quivered. Some of them spread their wings, ready to leave the plateau. One gathered the sleeping young from the rock. The hatchlings screamed in protest as the flier collected them in its central claw and held them close.
Cody waved at them. “Wait. They can kill you in flight.” He pointed at the coil pistol at his side. “They have some of these. They’ll kill you while you fly.”
The fliers hesitated. Magnetic waves registered as they communed with each other. They stayed where they were, though they continued to bounce around in terror.
“At least we have the high ground,” Sonja said. “Maybe we can do this.”
Bodin frowned, gripping his weapon as he shook his head
Deveau pulled out his coil rifle and slid the power capsule into place. The rifle hummed to life. “Lock and load, people. I’ll take the eastern ridge. Bodin, you—”