Jorgen felt helpless as he watched the two battleships glide into position, then open gunports.
“No response to our requests to speak to them,” someone down the row said. “Doesn’t seem like they’re going to give us a warning shot first.”
That had always been the Krell’s way. No warning. No quarter. No demands for surrender. The DDF knew—from the information Spensa had stolen—that much of what the Krell had done so far had been intended only to suppress the humans. Six months ago, however, the enemy had moved to attempting full-on extermination.
“Why now, though?” Jorgen asked.
“They had to wait for an alignment of the platforms,” Nydora said. “This is their first clear shot at Alta in weeks. That’s why they’re moving now.”
Indeed, Jorgen watched the screen as the inscrutable motion of the many platforms that made up Detritus’s shells lined them up, providing an opening. The battleships immediately started firing hefty kinetic shots, projectiles that were the size of fighters. Jorgen sent a silent prayer to the stars and the spirits of his ancestors who sailed them. For all his skill and training in a cockpit, he couldn’t fight a battleship.
The fate of humankind rested in the hands of the Saints and the DDF engineers.
The room grew so silent, Jorgen could hear his own heartbeat. Nobody breathed as the rain of projectiles dove toward the planet. Then something changed—one of the platforms at the side of the opening started moving, its ancient mechanisms lighting up. Data started streaming across Nydora’s secondary monitor—reports from engineering and DDF scout ships.
The planet Detritus was no easy target. Nydora’s main screen highlighted the platform in motion, a flat sheet of metal. It seemed to move slowly, but so did the bombs. Jorgen was watching from such a distance that his brain had trouble comprehending the scale of the encounter—that section of metal was a hundred kilometers across.
As the bombs approached, sections of the platform opened up and launched a series of bright energy blasts into space. The blasts crashed into the projectiles fired by the battleships, meeting force with energy, blowing them away and negating their momentum. A shield sprang up around the platform, intercepting the debris, slowing it and preventing it from raining down upon the surface.
Everyone in the room let out a collective sigh of relief. Nydora even whooped. The battleships slowly withdrew, indicating—although they’d fired on Alta itself, and obviously wouldn’t have minded destroying it—that this had been a test of the planetary defenses.
Jorgen patted Nydora on the back, then stepped to the side of the room, breathing in and out to calm his nerves. Finally some good news. One of the vice admirals called in over the main comm line to congratulate the engineers on their work.
Oddly though, Admiral Cobb himself remained in place at his monitor, limply holding an empty coffee cup and staring at the screen, even after all the others had gone to make announcements or offer congratulations.
Jorgen stepped closer. “Sir?” he asked. “You don’t look pleased. The engineers got the defenses up in time.”
“That wasn’t one of the platforms our engineers worked on,” Cobb said softly. “That was Detritus’s old defensive programming. We got lucky that a working platform was nearby, and was still capable of deploying anti-bombardment countermeasures.”
“Oh,” Jorgen said. A little of his relief melted away. “But…we’re still safe, sir.”
“Note the power readings at the bottom of the screen, Captain,” Cobb said. “The amount of energy that disruption drained is incredible. These old platforms barely have any juice in them. Even if we get others functioning, it will take months or years to fabricate new solar collectors.
“And even if we get that going, and the countermeasures continue to work…well, if the Krell start a sustained bombardment, they’ll cut through these platforms eventually. Our defenses aren’t meant to protect us from a long-term attack. They’re a last-ditch fail-safe meant to stall invaders so that friendly battleships can get to the system and fight them off. Only we don’t have friendly battleships.”
Jorgen gazed back across the room of people celebrating. They looked commanding in their stiffly pressed and spotless DDF uniforms. That was just a front. Compared to the enemy’s resources, the DDF wasn’t an opposing military—it was a group of ragged refugees with barely a gun between them.
“We stay trapped on this planet,” Cobb said, “and we die. It’s that simple. We’re an egg with an extra-hard shell, yes, but we’re done as soon as the enemy realize that they can’t crack us with a spoon and decide to get a sledgehammer instead. Unfortunately, our only chance of escape vanished without a trace. That girl…”
“I stand by my decision, sir,” Jorgen said. “Spensa will come through for us. We just need to give her time.”
“Still wish you’d called me,” Cobb said. There hadn’t been any repercussions for what Jorgen had done. He could argue that, under code 17-b, he’d been capable of making the call he’d made, but the truth was that he hadn’t even been the senior officer on that mission. Colonel Ng from the ground forces had been leading the security team. Jorgen should have talked to him, or called Cobb.
It was possible that, in sending Spensa away, Jorgen had doomed them all. We stay trapped on this planet, and we die. It’s that simple…
Jorgen took a deep breath. “Sir. I might need to disobey another rule.”
“I don’t know half of them anyway, Captain. Don’t worry about it.”
“No, sir. I mean…a family rule. Something we’re not supposed to speak about.”
Cobb eyed him.
“You know,” Jorgen said, “about how my family fought to keep the defect from being talked about? Kept it from being known to the general public? The one that Spensa’s father had, the…the…”
“Cytonics?” Cobb asked.
“There’s a reason, sir,” Jorgen said.
“I know. Some of your ancestors had it. Wasn’t confined just to the engine crews. You saying you’ve been hearing things, son? Seeing things?”
Jorgen pressed his lips closed tight and nodded. “White lights, sir. In the corners of my vision. Like…Like eyes.”
There. He’d said it. Why was he sweating so much? Speaking the words hadn’t been that hard, had it?
“Well, that’s something at least,” Cobb said, and held his cup to the side. An aide helpfully grabbed it and ran to get him a refill. “Come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“From the fleet Psychological Corps?” Jorgen asked.
“No. She’s an old woman with an excellent taste in pies.”
I bolted awake to M-Bot panicking.
“Spensa!” he cried. “Spensa!”
My heart suddenly pounding, I scrambled to get into position in the cockpit. I grabbed the control sphere, blinking bleary eyes, my thumb on the trigger.
“What!” I said. “Who do I shoot?”
“Someone is in the embassy,” M-Bot said. “I set up proximity alerts. They’re sneaking up on where they think you’re sleeping.”
Scud. Assassins? Sweating, my mind still cloudy from sleep, I powered up my ship and paused. Then…what? Fly away? To where? I was completely in the clutches of the Superiority—if they wanted me dead, they wouldn’t resort to assassins, would they?
I needed to know more. Determined, I fumbled in the cockpit’s small weapons locker and got out my handheld destructor pistol. So far as I’d been able to tell, personal weapons were forbidden on Starsight—but I also appeared to have some diplomatic exemptions, so I wasn’t certain where I stood.
I made sure my hologram was still active, then quietly cracked the canopy and slipped out, keeping a low profile in case of snipers. I dashed to the steps down into the embassy. Here, I crept down toward the top floor.
“There are two o
f them,” M-Bot said softly through my earpiece. “One has reached the kitchen on the top floor. The other is on the bottom floor near the door, perhaps guarding the exit.”
Right. I’d never been in any actual ground conflicts, and my training was minimal. However, as I left the stairwell and stepped onto the top floor, I felt the same calm, cold determination that I experienced before a starfighter battle. I could face an assassin, so long as I had a gun in my hand. This was a problem I could shoot. I much preferred it to the nebulous worries I’d fallen asleep to last night.
“The enemy is positioned approximately two meters inside the door,” M-Bot whispered to me. “Near the counter. Their back is to the door right now. I think they might be surprised you weren’t in the bedroom.”
I nodded, then leaped into the room, leveling my destructor. A brown-carapaced Krell turned around at the motion, dropping something to the ground that shattered. A plate?
“Ahh!” the Krell said, the voice being interpreted by my translator as female. “Don’t kill me!”
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Cleaning your dishes!” the Krell woman said. She waved her armored limbs in a sort of anxious way. “We were sent to do your housecleaning!”
Housecleaning? I frowned, my gun still leveled. But the Krell woman wore a belt full of cleaning tools on the outside of her sandstone carapace, and through the helmet faceplate I could see the panicked motions from the shrimpy crab creature. She didn’t have any weapons I could see.
A sound suddenly came from down below, on the first floor. A…vacuum cleaner?
“Hmm,” M-Bot said. “Perhaps we misjudged this situation.”
“Such aggression!” the Krell cleaner said. “I was not warned of this!”
“Who sent you?” I demanded, stepping forward.
She cringed back. “We are employed by the Department of Species Integration!”
Cuna. I narrowed my eyes, but put away my gun. “Sorry about the mistake,” I said, then left her and went to check on the other one—a second Krell, who was humming as they vacuumed the ground floor.
As I watched them, the chimes at the door rang. I frowned again, then checked the door. A package had been set by it—presumably my new flight suit.
Cuna themself stood outside. Tall, blue-skinned, shrouded in an enveloping set of dark blue robes.
I opened the door.
Cuna gave me one of their creepy smiles, showing too many teeth. “Ah, Emissary Alanik! May I enter?”
“Did you send your lackeys to sneak up on me?” I said.
Cuna stopped short. “Lackeys? I’m not familiar with the translation of that word. Minions? I sent Mrs. Chamwit to be your housekeeper, and she brought an assistant. I realized that you didn’t bring your own staff, and might need some lent to you.”
Spies. I knew it. I found and turned off their surveillance devices, so they sent their agents to the building to watch me. Had I left anything sitting out that would give me away?
“I hope you find them helpful,” Cuna said, checking their communication tablet. “Hm. I’m a little behind. You’re scheduled for pickup in roughly thirty-five minutes. We wouldn’t want you to be late on your first day as a pilot.”
“What do you want from me?” I asked, suspicious. And what game are you playing?
“Only to see that you have an excellent opinion of the Superiority to take back to your people,” Cuna said. “May I enter?”
I stepped back, reluctantly giving them space to enter. They peeked in at the vacuuming Krell, then strolled to a different meeting room, which was empty. I followed, hovering in the doorway as Cuna sat down.
“I’m very pleased with your efforts, Alanik,” Cuna said. “And I apologize for the…harrowing experience yesterday. I wasn’t aware that Winzik and his kind would use such a dramatic method of selecting their pilots. The Department of Protective Services can be reckless.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not the one who needs your apology—and the ones who do deserve it are all dead at the moment.”
“Indeed,” Cuna said. “What do you know of the human wars, Alanik of UrDail?”
“I know the humans lost,” I said carefully. “After dominating my planet and forcing us to fight at their side.”
“A political way of saying it,” Cuna replied. “Your people will fit in with the Superiority far better than some assume. I, however, am known on occasion to defy social customs. Perhaps that is due to my preference for interacting with, and learning the habits of, species that have not yet joined the Superiority.”
Cuna seemed so tall and aloof. Their voice grew soft, even contemplative, as they continued, turning their head slightly to gaze out the front window. “I’d guess you’ve never seen the aftermath of a delver attack, and for that I envy you. They can wipe out all life on a planet just by passing by it—or rather, through it. They don’t entirely exist in our reality. They sweep past, and leave only silence.”
What did this have to do with the conversation? We’d been talking about the humans, right?
“That’s terrible,” I said. “But…you told me before that the delvers left our galaxy centuries ago. So how has anyone seen firsthand what they can do to a planet?”
Cuna tapped their fingers together. And I realized the answer had stared me in the eyes not a few days before. Standing on the space station outside Detritus, watching that ancient video. I had seen what delvers could do.
“The humans summoned a delver, didn’t they?” I asked. “That’s why you’re all so frightened of the delvers, and why you hate humans so much. It wasn’t just the wars. The humans tried to weaponize the delvers.”
“Yes. We nearly lost those wars anyway. But during the second one, the humans developed hidden bases on obscure planets around small or dying stars. There, they began a terrible program. If they’d been successful, then the Superiority would have not just been destroyed, it would have vanished.”
I felt a still coldness deep inside me. The delver has turned back on us…Words spoken by the man I’d seen on that video—said right before everyone on the planet Detritus had been consumed. I’d watched those long-dead humans try this. That was what they’d been doing. They’d summoned a delver. Only instead of destroying humankind’s enemies, the thing had turned on them.
The horror of it welled up in me again, and I felt sick, leaning against the side of the doorframe.
“We are exceedingly fortunate that their own weapon turned against them,” Cuna said. “The delvers cannot be fought or controlled. The humans successfully brought one to our realm, and then it destroyed several of their most important planets and bases. Even after the humans were defeated, this delver was a scourge upon the galaxy for years until it finally left.
“I know your people have a reverence for the humans, Alanik. No, you don’t need to object. I can understand, and empathize to an extent. Yet you must understand that the task we are about here—learning to fight against delvers—is an essential project.
“Winzik and I might not agree on how all this should proceed, but we conceived this project together: a way to develop countermeasures against the delvers. Until we can do this, the Superiority is in grave danger.”
“You…think the humans are going to return, don’t you?” I asked, the pieces falling into place. “I’ve read on the local datanet that they’re supposedly all contained in preserves—but some people claim that the humans are close to escaping.”
Cuna finally turned from the window to glance at me, their alien expression unreadable. They made a dismissive gesture, sweeping two fingers to the side in front of them. “Look back through the archives, and you’ll find that the humans are supposedly always close to escaping. Indeed, flare-ups in their resistance always seem to coincide—somehow—with times when the Department of Protective Services needs to pass some important
funding bill.”
That one hit me like a punch to the stomach. The Department of Protective Services—the Krell…they were using Detritus and my people as a way to gain political favor?
“You think they let the humans grow more dangerous?” I said. “They maybe relax their guard a little, so that everyone will be properly afraid, and so that the department can prove it’s doing a good job?”
“I would not make such a claim,” Cuna said. “For a claim such as that would require evidence, not mere assumption. Let us simply say I find it curious. And it has been happening for so long, so regularly, that I doubt the humans are any kind of real danger to us, no matter what all the experts and commentators think.”
You’re wrong though, I thought. Winzik made a mistake. He let the DDF get too strong. He let me become a pilot. And now…and now we really are close to breaking out. It’s not just a convenient excuse this time. He must be panicking…
So now, he creates this space force. This special team of pilots. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“The delvers are the real danger,” Cuna said. “Perhaps I am wrong, and perhaps the humans will become a threat again in the future. But even if they do not, someone else will try to use the delvers. Dealing with delvers is foolish, reckless, aggressive behavior—and so some race out there is bound to try it. The Superiority will not be safe until we can fight the delvers, or at least drive them away.”
“I can see the logic in that,” I said. And I did. My main goal was to steal a hyperdrive…but if there was some Superiority weapon against the delvers that I could discover, then I was certain we’d find that handy as well.
But why was Cuna telling me all of this? They rose and stepped closer to me, then glanced at my side—toward the weapon sticking out of my pocket, where I’d hastily stuffed it. I quickly tucked it farther inside.
“You should not carry that about,” Cuna said. “You are under my protection, but even that will extend only so far.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought you were…Anyway, I might have frightened the housekeeper upstairs.”
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