by T. Y. Carew
They found Drew leaning against Mattie’s door. Tyra did her magic with numbers and they all walked in.
Mattie’s place was as neat and tidy as Xander had always known it to be. Tyra went to the bedroom while he went into the kitchen. The picnic sat half-assembled on the table, obviously missing the ingredients that needed to stay chilled. Xander checked the fridge to confirm that. Nothing else looked out of place. Judging by the clean empty bowl on the draining board, Mattie had eaten breakfast there that day.
He went back to the living room. Tyra emerged from the bedroom about the same time, saying, “Well, she slept here last night.”
“This is all I could find of any interest,” said Drew, holding a digital diary up to the light. “Seems like her list of assignments—”
Xander snatched it out of Drew’s hand, remembering his manners a moment too late. “Sorry,” he mumbled to his crew as he scanned the list. Four assignments she’d attended that day. His eyes strayed to the bottom of the list and he felt a ball of ice settle in the pit of his stomach.
“Tyra, what was the name of that cruiser that’s just made the news?”
“The Andromeda?” she and Trey said in unison, then smiled at their twin-sync.
But Xander didn’t see their smile. He didn’t see anything but red. Mattie was on that cruise ship, he just knew it. And the ship was in trouble.
“As of right now, we’ve got a new mission. Mattie’s on that ship. She’s got to be. Everyone on the Contessa, double-speed. I’ll clear us with Kelton on the way.”
“But—” Drew started.
Xander shot him a glance that made Drew’s face lose all color.
The techie swallowed convulsively. “Bathroom. I’ll just be one second.”
“Lock the door behind you,” Xander ordered Drew as the rest of the crew scrambled out the door and back to their transport pod. Xander pulled out his comm and punched in Kelton’s direct pager, praying he would get the go-ahead. Mentally, he ordered his aces, ready to present them to the general one by one. If it came to it, he was not beyond taking off without his approval, but it shouldn’t come to that. High command owed their Adamanta mascot at least that much, especially since they seemed incapable of guaranteeing her safety.
***
Doctor Cardew was in a quandary, and she despised quandaries. She’d designed her whole life in a way that allowed no wavering, only flawless straight lines and complete control. And now some stupid idiot’s interference was threatening her level.
It wasn’t her fault; she knew that. But if the media got hold of it, it would still make her look like the villain, and she was too savvy not to know what mobs could do to even unconfirmed villains.
No, she had to do something that could later be used as evidence of her goodwill. Limit the damage before it was even acknowledged as such.
She drew her shaky hands through her now brick-red hair and sat down in front of her plasma screen.
“Comms on,” she commanded. “Coordinates for The Lady Contessa. Start recording.” When she finished the message, she called General Kelton, too.
***
The storeroom door slid open and Mattie stared into the eyes of a boy whose eyes were level with her chest.
“What’s the emergency?” she asked him as she sprinted towards the cockpit. “Do you know?”
He ran beside her, looking over his shoulder at the scorch mark her mini-arson attack had left behind. “Coooooool! Are we allowed to do that, too?”
Mattie smiled despite herself and grabbed hold of his shoulder to pull him closer as two of the crew rushed by going the other direction.
“What’s happening?” she shouted behind them.
“Hive!” she thought she heard one of them say. But that couldn’t be right. All civilian cruisers were bound for safe areas, with a good band of space controlled by humans all around them. No way would a Beltine ship happen to be in the neighborhood. They’d have to have the coordinates of the cruiser’s intended journey, and they’d have to miss all the other human ships that roamed the vicinity.
She rounded the corridor to the cockpit and skidded to a stop. Vast, covering three quarters of the cruiser’s viewing screen, was a Beltine hive. It wasn’t coming closer, and no Beltine fighters surrounded it. It was as if it was just as surprised as the humans at the encounter.
“Shit!” Mattie pulled herself in the empty co-pilot’s seat and sagged against the console.
“Hey, Torg. Sorry to get you outta bed, man—” The pilot’s words died on his lips as his gaze fell on Mattie. “You’re not Torg,” he said.
Mattie stared back at him. “Nope, sorry about that.”
“You’re much better!” The pilot grinned and thrust out his hand. “Vinty Chase, pleased to meet you.”
“Matilda Adair. Captain Matilda Adair,” Mattie said shaking his hand. “But just call me Mattie.”
Vinty clicked to life the on-board comm system and announced gleefully, “Hey! Hey, guys! Listen up! You won’t believe our luck!” He glanced sideways at Mattie as if making sure she was still there. “You won’t believe who’s just joined me at the cockpit. Adamanta. Yes, siree. Adamanta herself. We’re saved.” He looked once more in her direction, then clicked the comm on again. “Torg, mate, if you’re listening… Go back to bed.”
Mattie shot an arm over to the comm and clicked it off. “What are you doing?” she admonished him in a low voice. “Just because I’m here it doesn’t mean we’re safe. We’ll probably still die before we even get to tell anyone what’s happening.”
Vinty blanched by her side. “That’s a bit harsh.” Then he shrugged. “True but harsh.”
“Sorry.”
“’s okay. I did send a May Day, though. Someone will know.”
“Can you send an urgent message to another ship if I give you the coordinates?” Vinty agreed, and a minute later Mattie had made contact and sent a recording to the Contessa, though how much good that was she really wasn’t sure.
Eyes wide, Mattie and Vinty watched three Beltine fighters peel away from the hive and proceed in their direction.
***
Drew checked Mattie’s weapons pack one last time and slung it over his shoulder, turning for the door. A clatter behind him made him glance over his shoulder. In his haste, he’d knocked a tri-fold photo frame from Mattie’s bedside table onto the floor. He lifted it with the intention of placing it back, and his eyes were drawn to the picture on the left—a younger, carefree-looking Mattie smiling from between her parents. The picture in the middle was of the Contessa’s crew, and the one on the right showed Mattie alongside Atum and Naira. It was green-lit from behind, probably taken on Iridia. The light made Naira’s eyes shine with an eerie hue, and not for the first time Drew wished she could still be there, alive and at his side. But it wasn’t to be. Life was cruel like that.
Drew rubbed away the stab of pain in his chest and hastened to put the photo frame down and get out of there, but he fumbled again, and out of the back of the middle piece he dislodged a smaller version of the digital diary Mattie favored. It flickered to life and displayed the last page she’d had open, with the words ‘I wish I knew for sure that what my heart is telling me is true. Is this how love feels? And will I ever know if Xander feels the same?’ written in cursive right at the top. The words seemed strange enough, and he might have consigned them to his vast mental trash container were it not for the minuscule love heart etched at the top of the X in Xander’s name. What was that about? Did Mattie have a crush on their colonel?
Drew’s comm blipped, alerting him to the urgency of the situation they were dealing with. He dropped the diary in the top drawer of Mattie’s night stand and ran out the door, locking her condo behind him. Whatever was going on between those two was none of his business, and he had no wish to make it his business anyway.
Xander’s thunderous expression softened when he noticed Mattie’s pack over Drew’s shoulder.
“Hadn’t thought of that mys
elf. Good thinking, man,” he said, and Drew smiled in response. His head was still spinning; he didn’t trust himself to speak yet.
The journey to the Contessa was just long enough for him to put aside any issues other than the strategies required to find the Andromeda and Mattie, if she was on board the cruiser. When they arrived on the docking bay, they got another surprise. A team of auxiliaries were winching Porteus to the Contessa’s hold alongside the smaller transport pods they used for dropping planet-side.
Xander went to talk to the auxiliaries and came back looking confused but resigned. “Turns out General Kelton set them to it. Doctor Cardew lent us the shuttle in case we need to use it or something.” He shrugged. “At least he didn’t make our lives difficult. We’re free to go to the Andromeda’s aid as soon as we’re ready.”
“Great,” Drew heard himself saying. He’d always wanted to have a little play with the electronics of the small craft but hadn’t thought he’d ever get the chance, especially after Mattie crashed it into the good doctor’s back yard, so to speak. Come to think of it, he hadn’t noticed the slightest sign of damage to the ship’s hull. It was smooth and shiny, gleaming in all its golden glory.
Drew sauntered inside Contessa and sealed the hatch behind him.
“…and was wondering whether you might want your tech guy have a look at it and see whether he can determine what went wrong. I sure hope this gesture of goodwill will convince you of my sincerity and leave no room for hard feelings between us. At the general’s suggestion, I have also instructed one of my transporters to accompany you in case the Andromeda is no longer suitable for travel. Captain Carlisle of the Quasar V can be found at this number,” and she reeled off a string of digits.
Drew dropped Mattie’s weapons pack at the foot of the console. “Was that—?”
“Doctor Evelyn Cardew’s pre-recorded message,” Xander finished for him. “Who was kind enough to lend us Porteus and a transporter for the trip. Sweet of her.”
“Sweet? That woman’s a snake,” exclaimed Drew. “She dropped Mattie in it that evening with no notice.”
Trey put an arm on Drew’s shoulder. “Relax, my friend. Chill. Until you’re able to pick up on Xander’s sarcasm again. Her voice might be dripping with sugar and spice but we all know what she’s capable of.”
“Exactly,” said Drew, still incensed.
“How long, Tyra?” Xander asked as another message started playing back.
“Ten minutes at the most.”
“Shh,” Xander said unnecessarily because everyone was already quiet. Mattie’s voice came out of the speakers and confirmed their deductions. She was onboard the Andromeda, with a limited crew and a bunch of kids, and she said that as she was recording the message she was looking at three Beltine fighters that were advancing on the cruiser, and a hive. She’d just managed to send the Andromeda’s exact position when the first boom sounded against the cruiser’s shields. The message ended in a spark of static.
“Fffff-uck!” Drew said, and the rest of the Contessa’s crew nodded in agreement.
Chapter 13
“They don’t have that much of a head start,” Tyra said, engaging Contessa’s engines. “With FTL, we could be there in minutes.” Xander looked at her sideways. “Okay, an hour then. Tops,” she corrected her estimate.
“How the hell did the Beltine get that far inside the human-controlled area?” Trey voiced the question on all their minds.
Xander punched the numbers for the Quasar V’s captain into the ship’s comms, muttering as he did so, “That’s what I want to know. Let’s see what Captain Carlisle has been pre-programmed to tell us first, shall we? Be nice to him, guys, and we may get a snippet of the truth.”
“Haha,” laughed Trey. “One way or another.” And he winked at Xander.
Drew turned for the doorway thinking he didn’t want to be in the Quasar V’s captain’s shoes. When Xander was digging for the truth, he had a feeling the man would go to any length to get it. Especially for one of the team.
“If anyone needs me, I’ll be giving my new toy a tech-medical,” said Drew.
Trey and Xander acknowledged his announcement and they all got on with their tasks—Tyra was inputting the coordinates for FTL travel, Trey was already in the gunner’s chair, checking his lasers and ballistic rounds, and Xander made contact with Captain Carlisle and gave him strict instructions to follow in Contessa’s wake.
For now, that was all they could do. As the cruiser had less than 12 hours’ lead time on them and would be travelling slower than pretty much any other ship out there, they would indeed be able to reach it in just about an hour… but would they find a ship when they came out of FTL? Or mere stardust?
Xander swiped a hand over his face and groaned into his palm. He’d always been shit at being patient. He crossed his arms over his chest and began counting the seconds.
***
“Time,” Mattie shouted. “We need time.”
Though how much time they needed was impossible to quantify. She’d sent the message no more than ten minutes prior, and she’d received confirmation of receipt pretty much straight away, but she had no way of checking whether that was the automatic type of message the Contessa had been programmed to send with every message received, or an actual human being had listened to her call for help.
Having circled the cruiser and bombarded it with a few rounds of heavy fire, the Beltine fighters were now circling it in silence. Mattie wondered what they were waiting for. This was a cruiser, after all, and as such it didn’t have any ranged weapons. It was no more than a lumbering, defenseless lump of metal that wasn’t expected to do anything more strenuous than taking off and landing.
Mattie closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her temples trying to settle her aching head so she could think more clearly. The console chirped with an oncoming message and Mattie found it hard not to whoop with joy. “We’re on our way,” were the sweetest words she’d ever heard in her life, she could swear. Vinty Chase was already busy relaying the good news to the Andromeda’s passengers.
“Keep an eye on that hive and let me know if you detect any change at all,” Mattie said to Vinty and began extending her mental feelers towards the hive, searching for Adamanta. To her surprise, she felt the tug of three separate components closer to the cruiser. She knew the Dairos piloting the ships would be controlled that way, but the Beltine fighters themselves? Where, and to what purpose?
She latched onto one of them and followed it around until its trajectory brought it within sight. Mattie peered at it, straining to see anything different, but the hull looked exactly like all the other Beltine fighters she’d seen before. The tug of the metal made her think of something long and thin, and though she wasn’t sure what that might be, she pulled at it until it bent downwards slightly. She did the same with the other two.
Then she worked her way over to the hive. It was just at the edge of her reach, and focusing on the unattuned Adamanta at that distance always gave her a headache, even on a good day, never mind when she was already fighting the after-effects of a knock to the head. But now was not the time to allow self-doubt to mess with her head. Mattie pulled in a lungful of air and began molding the outer walls of the hive in subtle ways. First, she worked her magic on the hatch through which she’d seen the fighters emerge. A small dent in the door would jam it for long enough to cause a little delay to the deployment of further fighters.
Then she felt around for the visible weapons. The ballistic cannons themselves had no Adamanta components, but the bases they were affixed to did. She dislodged a nut here, shifted a plate there, and generally messed with everything she could reach, but only slightly.
Vinty pulled her out of her focus. “They’re on the move,” he said, his voice wavering slightly.
Mattie’s eyes snapped open, and what she saw made a scream curdle in her throat.
“They’re reeling us in. They mean to take us alive,” she said, meeting Vinty’s gaze with ho
rror. “The children!”
***
“Almost there,” Tyra said through gritted teeth. Xander glanced at the console just long enough to figure she was cutting it fine coming out of FTL travel. If she wasn’t careful, they were going to overshoot the Andromeda’s location, and they couldn’t afford to waste any time.
Deciding against telling Tyra how to pilot the ship she’d been piloting for years, he messaged Drew and told him to get ready. The techie had been tinkering with Porteus since take-off but couldn’t find anything wrong with the ship.
Then he checked on the Quasar. Give him his due, Captain Carlisle knew how to do his job well. The Quasar was virtually the Contessa’s shadow. At least he didn’t have to teach a rookie how to pilot, Xander thought as he felt the deceleration of his ship. Just another minute and they would be on site.
“There!” Tyra said, adjusting course. “The hive is almost on top of them. What are they doing?”
Xander couldn’t see what was going on exactly, but it looked like a spray of tubes were flowing from the hive towards the cruiser.
“It’s a net!” Tyra shouted. “They are binding the cruiser to tug away. They want the humans alive!”
“Well, they can’t have them,” said Xander coolly. “Trey, let them know we’re here.” He clicked on the comms as Trey let fly a long volley of powerful lasers towards the hive. Tyra began leading the Contessa in a wide loop, drawing the fighters away from the cruiser.
“Captain Carlisle,” Xander continued, “position yourself at the aft of the cruiser, and make sure you keep the ship between you and the hive at all times.”
“Yes, sir,” came the immediate response.
“Now let’s see if we can get a response out of the Andromeda.”
***
“Yes, yes, I’m here,” Mattie said as soon as she heard Xander’s voice.
“Do you have any casualties?”
“No. Not yet, anyway.” She watched a tentacle suction itself onto the cruiser’s hull and cursed out load. “I don’t mean to rush you, Xander, but I don’t think we have long. And there’s no Adamanta in these tentacle things so I can’t remote-disconnect them.”
