by Cam Daly
The last of the sixteen took over two second to reach the Louse, and it was so confused about the state of its target that it held its fire. Like its brethren, it started a long jittering arc back to Keryapt.
An energy beam from the far side of the Louse caught it and blew it to glistening shards.
Keryapt was shocked. She could see daylight through the Louse in several locations, but it was still operational. It began to turn its intact side towards her, ignoring the Dragons below.
#
“Look, sir, we can’t just give her treatment based on what you tell us. That would be criminal negligence. You have to let us run these tests first.” The nurse blocking the door meant well, but Connor knew that every second spent talking meant more of Park's brain cells were lost to the Tumorish. She was on a bed inside the hospital’s emergency room, having her blood drawn and machines attached. Sousa watched as Connor argued fruitlessly.
Connor made a move to get into the room but the nurse, a hefty man in yellow scrubs, blocked his path. Connor tried one last time to be diplomatic. “You don’t understand. This is…a new version of rabies. From Asia. It works more quickly than normal rabies. You have to induce a coma right now or she’ll die.”
“A new version? Of rabies? I’m sure that we would have heard about that. I’m gonna have to ask you to go back to the waiting room.”
Something in Sousa snapped and he tried to get around the other side of the nurse. “You have to do it right now! She’s dying! Where’s the head doctor? Tell me!”
“Security! Security!” The nurse was up against the door to the ER. Heavy footsteps immediately sounded from the hallway.
“We tried to do this the easy way. No more Mister Nice Patient.” Connor reached around and pulled off the winglet stuck to his shirt. It came free into his hand and he held it up towards the nurse. “Tell the doctors to do it, or I'll have to use this.”
“You’re going to hit me with a boomerang?”
A blue clad security guard came running around the corner into the ER area. Connor looked at the winglet with uncertainty, then decided to just try giving it orders directly. “Get me the guard’s weapon.”
The nurse looked at him like he was a madman. “Why are you talking to it?”
“Because…” Connor released the winglet. It hovered for a moment then streaked towards the guard, its gravitic field causing everyone in the room to stumble. A second later the guard’s pistol was dropped neatly into Connor’s hand. “…it is a very smart boomerang.”
Connor didn’t point the gun at anyone, but the nurse’s eyes widened and he stepped aside anyway. “Doctor Meade! I think the patient’s friend needs to talk to you about her treatment!”
“Finally. And - my friend needs a shirt.” Connor motioned towards the still half naked Sousa. The nurse merely nodded. “And we both need some coffee.”
#
Kery was almost glad that no one back at Fleet Four had witnessed her first attack with Horseplay. Her euphoria at her increased power led to her underestimate the Craven mech. Clearly they had made the same decisions about the importance of this operation. Just like Fleet, they had deployed their most advanced technology. For them that would mean defensive measures.
She had destroyed all of the Louse’s weapons on one side and several on the other, but it was somehow still operational. Her winglets had a very finite supply of micromissiles and she didn’t want to have to expend many more to end the battle. She had them circle the target and use their sensors to figure out the best locations to attack next.
In her vision, each of the remaining barrels, emitters and beamcasters on the Louse was the base of a red cone or line indicating where it could fire. A supersonic somersault kept her out of the red as a particle cannon tried to line up on her, then went back to targeting the winglets. She had been struck by lasers a few times but the armored coating on Horseplay’s skin had reflected or absorbed the energy without any real damage done.
Below the Louse, the Dragons continued building their cloud into a cone that reached towards the Craven platform. A few of the Molu mechs had been destroyed, but the oily smoke they deployed was blocking her spectral imaging systems. Her eight winglets down there took turns making swooping passes through the cloud, spitting data back to her as they emerged. She made sure that they did at least a little bit of damage to each Dragon so that she could track which was which.
“Should I take out the Louse first or the Dragons?“
No response. Of course. The advisor system created by Ruut had been running in the Interloper body, but he hadn’t been in charge of finalizing Horseplay. She would have to decide for herself. She felt a moment of fearful loneliness and wished that she could talk to her daughter.
Maybe she could. The winglets had gathered complete schematics for the collider and there was no more data to be retrieved.
She sent the winglets flying high again. The Louse, perhaps predicting another slingshot attack, began to slip towards the dark cloud below.
#
“Seriously? I have this and you won’t do what I am asking?” Connor waved the gun around like a prop in a play.
Doctor Meade stood with his arms crossed, calm in the face of Connor’s threats while the nurses continued their tests. At least Sousa had a pair of scrubs to change in to.
“Shooting me won’t help Miss Park. You didn’t even know her blood type - thankfully we could pull up her records and not kill her with a transfusion. Now why don’t you give that gun back to Juan over there?” The security guard was still sheepishly standing a few meters away. “I’m not going to give her a massive dose of barbiturates until I know what I’m looking at.”
A familiar voice sounded from behind Connor. “Actually, Steve, I think that might be the most appropriate course of action.” Connor whirled around. It was DeVries, burned face and all, walking in like he owned the place. “And she might not be the only one.”
“How did you find us?”
DeVries noticed Connor’s gun. “This is the only hospital in the area. I was on my way here when I received notification that someone made a records search for Doctor Park.”
The doctor headed to look at DeVries’ burns before Connor could object. “Jason - what the hell happened to you? And what’s going on over at VSE? My staff has been talking about some big accident or something.”
“Jason? Steve? Does VSE own the entire town?”
“Not quite, but we have been here for years, and Steve and I play golf together.”
Meade cautiously tilted DeVries’ head down to get a better look at the burns. “So, this guy claims that his friend has been infected by some new type of Asian rabies. You’re telling me that he’s for real?”
The tall man’s eyes never left Connor. “It’s more complicated than that. I can’t really explain it. But a medical coma might buy her some time.”
Meade’s surprise was evident in his voice. “And there are more cases coming in like this? More of your people?”
DeVries sighed heavily. “I hope they’re coming in.” He gestured towards Connor. “It would be up to his friend at this point. Do you have any way to ask her?”
Connor was surprised to hear concern in DeVries’ voice. It had been clear that he didn’t like the Tumorish, but Connor had been under the impression that it was a result of his allegiance to the Molu. Connor couldn’t recall any expression of empathy from the tall man when they first met at Alcatraz. “I haven’t talked to her in a few minutes. I was planning to call once I stopped hearing things explode.”
DeVries looked at his phone to read an incoming message. “Speak of the devil…my friends think its time to talk to your friend.” He paused for a moment. “If she’s disinclined to take their call, tell her that it concerns Mezerello Varell Aarstop. That should get her attention.”
#
“I’m a little busy. What do you want?”
She held off on her attack momentarily. Connor, Ormlan and DeVries were all on
the line together. None of the other parties could think and act as quickly as she could, so she took a moment to understand what her combat control system was telling her about the Dragon’s overlapping flight patterns.
Ormlan spoke first. “Keryapt, we have an offer for you. Leave the collider running and destroy the Craven weapons platform. We will give you assistance in curing Park and the details of the decoherence field technology. We know that you must have already figured out some of it.”
“Give us the technology first, then we will help you.”
“As you have realized by now, we have remotely wiped the data from the SSC facility. It isn’t even set to its optimal configuration, and Sousa isn’t going to be of any help until Park recovers.”
“Why can’t your Deep Thinkers or Mez take care of it?” Keryapt was fairly certain that the Louse wasn’t able to detect objects in the Dragon’s protective smokescreen any better than she could. It was doing its best to hold off the Molu mechs’ weapons with its own defensive fire but seemed unwilling to enter the black smoke.
“Because Broaalg’s forces are laying siege to ESWAT here at Alcatraz. They have established a considerable air defense perimeter. We are at a stalemate. Your friend is busy with the Tumorish in San Francisco.”
Connor chimed in. “Yeah, Kery, the news just showed a video of a heavily armed woman blowing up a dump truck. There were some construction workers in it.”
So they had managed to get the Interloper running again, presumably with Mez inside. “If I take out the Craven platform then you give me the decoherence tech.” She was fairly sure that between what Sousa and Park had told her and the winglet’s imaging of the collider that Fleet could figure things out, given enough time. But Ormlan didn’t need to know that. “Then I fly to San Francisco, pick up Mez and bring her back here, she cures Park and any others.”
“When you get here, you will need to help Mezerello with one thing first. Then we will give her to you.”
“What’s the ‘one thing’?”
“We will explain when you are en route. The task should only take a minute or two for you in that new body.”
So - there was something which Ormlan couldn’t do for himself. Themselves. Something which was so important that he would give up his hold over Mezerello. But what?
The Dragons lost another of their number to the Louse, and again there was no antimatter detonation. She could predict the pattern of their movement now that each of them had some identifying damage from her winglet’s missiles. They were expanding their cloud but also keeping certain units hidden under cover.
DeVries now. “Dr. Park is being medicated, which should buy you a couple more hours. But I would hurry.”
“Connor, the winglet with you should be able to take care of anything that DeVries tries while I am getting Mez.”
“Uhh - they have all those Dragon mechs and who knows how many Knights left over there. What do we do if they come our way?”
She ordered the few winglets inside the collider complex to evacuate. “Ormlan, about your desire to keep the collider running…”
The Dragon mechs’ thrust came from a turbofan in each of their six legs. The black cloud blocked almost all forms of visible light, including infrared, but not sound. The winglets around the Dragon cloud had more or less pinpointed their locations within it.
“Zess - we need that field to remain up!
“…I’m sorry, but there's someone I need to talk to before I risk my life to help you.”
“Who? Kery, what are you doing?”
She didn’t have time to explain to Connor. “Tell everyone in the hospital to get away from the windows, and not look towards the collider complex. It’s about to get loud.”
She positioned the winglets for another slingshot attack. As expected, the Louse dove towards the black cloud to avoid the strike. Good. Her next words were for Ormlan. “That was a clever trick, including a couple of non-combat Dragon variants in with the others. They didn’t seem like much of a threat.”
Her winglets raced down again and she arced up to meet them, the morning sun reflecting from their bodies. At the hospital they wouldn’t hear the sonic booms for a few more seconds.
“But that is the perfect place to keep…”
She only sent the first two winglets streaking into the Dragon cloud at slingshot speed. The others veered off at the last second, using the gravitational pull of her drives to orbit around her and fly away. She followed them.
“…the biggest surprise.”
The two winglets launched all their micromissiles as they entered the cloud, each creating a spray of hypervelocity projectiles across a twenty meter wide swath. One was aimed at the general location of the yellow and black construction Dragon, the other at the rescue variant. All the remaining winglets hurled themselves away from the collider facility.
There was no way to know which of the two Dragons had been carrying the antimatter missiles, but it didn’t really matter. For an instant that only Keryapt could appreciate, the black cloud had a glowing silver heart. Then it was replaced by a searingly bright pulse of energy which disintegrated everything around and above the entire collider complex. A roiling torrent of fire and sound exploded outwards.
Keryapt and her winglets raced ahead of the expanding shockwave, the silvery chevrons rearranging themselves as they flew to create a wedge shaped barrier between her and the explosion. But her attention was already elsewhere.
The decoherence field disappeared along with the collider, restoring her connection to Fleet Four. The walls of her Planning Stage became transparent as information flooded in. The Terran Labworld War Room was too vast to all be displayed in detail but she could tell immediately that things had changed again. Shadow appeared before her, a human expression of immense relief on the face of her Interloper body.
“Mother! You’re alive!”
Keryapt gathered her only daughter into her arms for a moment of simulated physical contact. Now everyone in the War Room knew, but she didn’t care. She had earned this moment.
The Fleet equivalent of gasps could be heard as onlookers realized one of the oldest rules of Active-Shadow interaction had been abandoned. Ruut, who had worked with Keryapt the longest, looked especially aghast.
“Yes. And I have information about the decoherence field.” She looked up at the displays as more data reached Horseplay over its restored tanglecomm link. “But - what’s happening here?” She couldn’t make sense of the chaotic data display representing the status of Fleet Four. Normally the green dots representing the location of ships made a tranquil sphere, slowly orbiting in their own collective gravity. Now the overview looked like a slow motion view of a giant balloon popping.
Shadow looked back over her shoulder at the displays, released Keryapt and straightened. “A Craven armada is approaching Fleet Four, armed with decoherence missiles. We won’t be able to stop them. The entire Fleet is starting to retreat, but we won’t all be able to escape.”
She didn’t consciously notice as the shockwave from the collider explosion buffeted her body and swept onwards, spreading and dissipating as it went. She didn’t care about the buildings being flattened and the cars skidding off the highways. Those things were suddenly unimportant. The carnage on Earth was nothing compared to the devastation approaching her home.
She managed a whisper to her daughter, unable to take her eyes off the display.
“Show me.”
CHAPTER 14
The Fleet’s spherical shell of automated scouts, long range gravitic distortion sensors and fast picket ships was intended to detect an attacker long before it could cause any real harm. A large force traveling quickly would be detected at a great distance, giving the Admiralty time to decide whether to engage or retreat. A slower attack would leave even more time, while a force small enough to get closer before detection would not normally be dangerous.
Before the invention of the decoherence field, an attack by a mere twenty thousan
d ships was essentially suicide. And the Craven were the last race to waste lives or resources to antagonize their galactic neighbors. So when an automated scout 25 light hours away from Fleet Four detected the Craven armada, the Admiralty immediately realized that it represented an existential threat.
The attackers were traveling well above the normal speed of light, which meant that they had been accelerating on gradient drive for at least several days. Most of the armada was Abdicator class or larger, a collection of ships which could not have been assembled and dispatched without considerable planning. Assuming that they had begun manufacture of decoherence field missiles as soon as the technology was proven to work, the armada would carry enough to effectively eradicate Fleet Four.
Kery was stunned by the brazenness of the attack. The xenophobic Craven had never moved on this scale before, but obviously they had contingency plans ready if the opportunity ever arose to wipe out their unwanted neighbor in one massive strike. They would not act unless they were certain.
Without effective defense, the million ships of the Fleet would twist and scatter. They would drop antimatter particles in their wake, trying to create a mine field to wipe out pursuers. But space was vast, and most of their efforts would be in vain. A rendezvous would be set for years in the future and any survivors would probably decide to give up this region of space, heading for one of the other far-off Fleets.
Unless the data that Kery had gathered could somehow allow them to counteract the decoherence field. Every mind, Active or not, which could assist in the research would be focused on it. Shadow and her team would stay tasked on the other events on Earth, leaving the Admiralty to concentrate on the coming battle and retreat.
Shadow cut through Keryapt’s dark thoughts. “There’s something else you need to know. The Admiralty has revoked my command authority for Earth and the Sol system.”
“Why?”
