by James Evans
She sat back in her chair.
“We wanted to be explorers, I suppose. We wanted to turn a dead world into a bountiful paradise. We can do that now, you know? Terraforming isn't a pipe dream anymore, we have the technology. New Bristol is in a race to create a fully functioning ecology capable of supporting human life. The planet has everything we need to start an Earth-like world, we just have to add a few asteroids and a great deal of elbow grease. There are far easier targets, with not much more defence in place, that they could have attacked.”
“I know, and worse than that, why bother to attack at all? There are plenty of systems out there they could have colonised if population growth or expansion was there issue. So, bearing that in mind, why did they go all that way to get away from Sol, to obtain freedom, then come back? It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, trailing off.
“What’s your ‘or else’?” she asked quietly. He looked at her, his eyes haunted by some vision he'd seen of the future. “I can tell you have one. They wouldn’t have come back unless…?”
He sighed and closed his eyes, not really wanting to give voice to his deeper fears.
“Unless they had no choice. Unless they had no choice but to leave their world and come here. Unless something so bad has happened, they can’t stay there anymore and New Bristol is the first world on their flight path that is safe.”
“And what sort of threat could that be?” prompted Denmead when Atticus ground to a halt.
“I have no idea, but if I’m right, they aren’t going to stop coming. They won’t give up just because we fight off this attack. They want a new colony world and they've picked New Bristol. They’ll get it too, unless we find a way to stop them.” He paused again. “And I’m not sure that’s possible,” he added quietly.
Denmead digested that for a while as they sat in silence. Finally, she looked up at him.
“Right, so they have more advanced clones?”
“Yes.”
“They have more of them?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“They have more advanced ships?”
“Probably.”
“They have more advanced weapons?”
“Some, certainly.”
“They have a huge population and economy?”
“Almost definitely.”
“And they have a really good reason for abandoning their planet and taking ours?”
“I think so.”
“Okay, but aside from that, what have they got going for them?” Denmead asked.
Atticus smiled.
“I’m serious, Captain. Fuck these – what was it? These crew of the Koschei the Deathless?”
Atticus nodded.
“Fuck these Deathless bastards then,” Denmead continued. “Lets you and I put on our adult trousers and work out how to send these rude buggers back the way they came with a bloody nose, all right?”
“Deathless. That's a good name for them, that'll stick.”
“Good, that’s a start then. They’re the Deathless, and they’re bastards. All those in favour, say aye.”
Atticus said, “Aye,” and Denmead followed suit.
“See, Captain? That’s one problem solved. They might have a lot going for them, but they’re just a series of small problems we have to solve, one after the other. Now, what else have we got going for us? Aside from an immobile philtrum?” Denmead asked.
Atticus looked at his notes then back up at the governor.
“We know they started out human and they’re basically still human. We know that most of their founders were Russian.”
“Which means?” Denmead asked.
“Which means we have a way to crack the code of their technology. It’s based on models from Sol, we even have the technical specifications and original data. It means we have a chance of deciphering their glyphs, translating their language and accessing their systems. They aren’t using Cyrillic, but they may still be writing in something that’s recognisably Russian, or a combination of Russian and some other languages. Maybe that’ll be enough to give us access to their computers. Which would mean we can use their captured gear properly.”
“That sounds useful, particularly with all those weapons and armour you’ve captured. Let's solve that problem first then,” she said.
Atticus summoned Barlow and gave him a brief outline of the information from the private package.
“I want you to have a look at some of the texts we think we’ve understood and try to match them to equivalent Russian words. If we can do that and work out the alphabet, we should be able to translate their UIs and, finally, get complete control of their computers.”
“Yes, sir, makes sense. We’ve got images from the dropships and other bits of short text from weapons and armour, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” He paused, suddenly aware that he’d inadvertently made a promise to a senior officer without having appropriately managed expectations. A rookie error. He coughed. “That is, I’ll get started right away and let you know when we make progress, sir.”
Barlow hurried out before his runaway mouth could get him into any more problems.
10
“Priscilla, isn’t it?” asked Wilson. “Are you the leader around here?”
The teenager gave a sullen shrug.
Bloody hell, even out here with all that the new world has to offer, they still find something to be grumpy about, thought Wilson.
“Mrs Robinson said so anyway. She said you’ve been looking after the other kids, getting them to help out, and keep the younger ones from getting upset.”
Another noncommittal grunt was the only response.
“But maybe she’s got it backwards. Yeah, sorry to bother you. I guess you can’t help with something like this anyway. Probably more the sort of thing boys are into,” he said, putting his hands on his knees then standing up with a sigh.
He called over to Elaine Robinson. “Hey Elaine, she’s not interested. Can you get me the school records? I need to find out which of your lads know their way around a racing drone.”
Priscilla’s head tilted up and she shot a sideways glance at him, which he pretended not to notice.
“Give me a second, Mark.”
“Sure, sure.” Wilson scuffed his shoe against the dirt of the cave, and whistled softly.
“What do you want with racing drones, Mister?”
“Doesn’t much matter, does it? If you’d rather be looking after the little kids, that’s fine. We each have our strengths.”
Priscilla snorted. “You think you’re going to find some boy who knows all about racing drones?”
“I heard the competition is pretty serious on New Bristol. Racing drones are the in thing for the kids on this rock. I’d heard you were a leader, so I thought you might be able to help organise things. But what I really need is pilots, you see? I’m sure Elaine, Mrs Robinson to you, can help me find the right lads,” Wilson said cheerfully.
“Yeah,” said Priscilla contemptuously. “I suppose you could get the boys to fly drones.”
“Absolutely. And you can look after the six-year-olds when they’re crying because the aliens are coming.”
The teenager ignored that and went on. “As long as you don’t need them to get the drones anywhere quickly and you don’t mind them crashing half of them.” Priscilla shrugged. “You’ll be fine with slow drones that crash a lot, right?”
Wilson frowned. “Actually, that wouldn’t be much use. Not for what we need. That would be the exact opposite of great, in fact. It sounds like my idea won’t fly in that case. No pun intended.”
“What do you need them for anyway?” Priscilla asked hesitantly.
Wilson shrugged. “Defending the colony. Pity, I thought it was a good idea, but if the drones are just going to crash because the pilots are rubbish, I guess I was wrong.” He began to walk away.
Priscilla stood up. “What if they didn’t crash?”
He turned to look back over his shoulder. “Well, in that case, my idea
would be a bloody stroke of genius, wouldn’t it?”
Priscilla gave him a long look, staring up at him with her head on one side.
“My team can pilot the drones,” she said eventually. “What do you need them to do?”
“Your team? I’m sorry, what team is that?”
“All right, cut the shit. I’m the captain of the Blues. We’re the best drone racing team in Ashton, and in our team we don’t have any boys,” she said, spitting on the floor as if boys weren’t even worth mentioning in this conversation, “because we only take the best pilots.”
“Oh? You’re the best drone pilots in Ashton, are you? Well, slap my thigh with a wet kipper. What an astounding piece of luck that I should just happen to ask you first.”
She poked her tongue out at him. Then withdrew it, blushing and stuck up her finger instead in a particularly vulgar gesture.
“Priscilla Smith!” snapped Mrs Robinson as she walked over. “You apologise to Corporal Wilson this instant, young lady.”
Priscilla blushed even more furiously and gritted her teeth. Then she turned to him all sweetness and light. “I’m sorry, Corporal Wilson, that I saw so easily through your blatant reverse psychology. Sexist reverse psychology, at that.”
Mrs Robinson put her hands on her hips and rounded on Wilson, fixing him with a stony glare. He coughed and smiled weakly. “Mea culpa. It was a cheap trick. Fortunately, despite seeing through it, young Ms Smith here fell for it hook, line and sinker and has volunteered to help.”
“I’ve done no such thing!”
He shrugged. “Boys team it is, then!” He grinned at her and she rolled her eyes.
“What do you want us to do?”
“Top secret, I’m afraid. Unless you’re on the team, I can’t tell you anything more,” Wilson said apologetically. “You have to join the team to get clearance for the rest.”
“Fine. I’ll join your team. I’m in charge, though, and the Blues are my officers,” Priscilla said defiantly. “Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it. Okay, so here’s what we need to do,” he said, grinning. He projected a low-res 3D holographic image of New Bristol from his data slate. “This shows the real-time locations of our personnel. That big spot by the hills is Fort Widley. The Deathless knocked out the satellites around New Bristol, so we don’t have surveillance data. You know there’s another invasion fleet coming, right?” he asked.
Priscilla nodded. “Yeah, we haven’t told the little kids, but all the older kids know.”
Older, he thought, she turned fifteen during the invasion, according to her file. They’re growing up fast on this colony.
“Good. We don’t have enough military drones to cover the whole area, and that’s where you would come in. We need pilots who can fly and program drones to get us data about which areas are clear, where the enemy are landing and what their numbers are. Think you can do that?”
“The Ashton Blues can handle anything.”
“Good to hear. You build your own drones? Can you program them to fly automated patterns?”
“Of course,” she said with forthright sarcasm. “How else do you think we get them? The shopping mall?”
“Haha, very funny. What about flying this?” he said, handing her a micro-drone.
Her eyes went wide as she took the tiny device. It was the size of a small hummingbird. He passed her a control slate, and she quickly synced it to her HUD, flipping down the lenses over her eyes and launching the drone. It rocketed towards the ceiling of the cave, then rolled onto its back before weaving through the stalactites at breakneck speed. Then she cut the engine mid-flight, and it dropped like a stone. She restarted the engine moments before it hit the ground, flipped the tiny drone the right way up and looped it back across the cave to land gently in her palm.
“Probably not. Seems a bit tricky,” she said nonchalantly.
He nodded. “Can you do it without showing off? Can you do it when it’s boring? More boring than you can imagine? Can you set it down on a wall and wait hours to see if anything happens? This is serious, Priscilla. It’s not make-work to keep you busy,” Wilson said softly.
She looked at him hard, her eyes boring into him, sizing him up. Then she nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. The Blues can do that.”
“Okay. Good. You’re hired. We’ll give you some drone plans to build, and you can organise as many kids as you can to build them and fly them. We can’t help you with building them, you’ll have to do it all on your own, but we’ll tell you where we need them flown and show you what you have to look for. Deal?” he asked, standing up and offering his hand.
“Deal,” she replied, a huge grin on her face as she stood up and shook it. Wilson handed her a military data slate with her name embossed along the top.
“That’s yours now. It’s coded to you and it’s got all the plans you need to build surveillance drones, which, young lady, we will be taking back when we leave, lest you get any ideas about spying on teachers or your parents,” he said with a wink.
She grinned again. “No problem. I’ll get the Blues right on it,” she said confidently.
He smiled back. “Oh yeah, just one more thing, Priscilla. You have to recruit the boys as well.”
Her smile vanished and she opened her mouth to protest, but he had already vanished out of the cave mouth. Mrs Robinson had made herself scarce at some point as well.
Boys? Yuck. Why did she have to work with those smelly dopes?
11
“Jennifer, how are the new drones coming?” Priscilla asked.
“Not bad, Captain,” the mousy girl replied. There was something in the twelve-year-old’s voice that made Priscilla stop her rounds.
“What is it, Jenn?”
“Nothing, it’s okay,” Jennifer replied.
“Jenn, what’s up? You can tell me. Something not going well? Someone giving you trouble?”
The younger girl sighed and looked at her askance through her long curly fringe. “It’s the boys from Team Rocket. They’re behind on their quota. They’re taking breaks all the time, playing games when they should be working. I try to get them to work but they just call me names and tell me to go away. We’re not going to have enough of the larger drones at this rate. I’m sorry.”
Priscilla could tell she was close to tears and she reached out to pat her on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Jenn. I’ll take care of it. We’ll get them to do their share and catch up, you’ll see.”
After seeing Jennifer, she checked in on the rest of her Ashton Blues: Sue, Pip, Debbie, Alison and Annabel. They’d grown up together on New Bristol, arriving with the first wave of colonists on a new world. Drone racing had been a way to make friends and have some fun despite the differences in their ages.
The Ashton Blues were formed and they’d fought their way to the top of the league. Terry and Team Rocket were a pain in the neck. Jealous and disruptive, they always had a ready excuse for their losses in competition when really they didn’t work as hard as the Blues.
But she was still surprised that they’d be lazy while their home was being invaded. The other boys were doing fine, but Team Rocket were older than most. They’d been tasked with assembling the larger, more complicated drones because they were supposed to be more mature. Priscilla had wanted to have some of the girls she knew to be the best engineers do it, but Mrs Robinson persuaded her to let Team Rocket have a go.
She looked across the cave to the assembly benches they were supposed to be working at. Empty, at eleven in the morning. There was no way Priscilla was going to let this stand. Team Rocket had picked the wrong war to skive in.
“Luke, I need a word.”
“Later, I’m in the middle of a game,” said the lanky teen without turning away from his vid screen.
“It’s urgent, Luke. I need to speak with you in private.”
“Ohhh, she wants a word in private, Luke,” leered one of his henchmen.
“Sod off, Prissy, you little snotrag,” Luke s
narled, puffing himself up and showing off in response to the round of sniggering from his team.
Priscilla took a deep breath before she replied, trying to calm herself before she spoke, just as her mother had asked. Then she spotted the remote control for the screen, and a second later she had his attention.
He launched himself upright and span to face her, his face turning purple. “What’d you do that for, you little bitch? I was getting a high score!”
“Doesn’t seem very likely, but whatever you reckon, Luke.” She pointed outside. “I need a word. Now!”
Luke was a couple of years older but she wasn’t going to let him think she was scared of him. She didn’t have time for bullies today. She kept her finger pointed and her eyes on him, staring him down until he shook his head.
“For pity’s sake, bloody women and their nagging, eh, lads?” He got a round of politely supportive chuckling as he slouched reluctantly from the room.
Priscilla followed him into the small cafeteria space that had been set up for the drone teams by Mrs Robinson to give them a sense of independence.
“Luke, your team is behind on the quota. What’s the problem? We aren’t going to have enough drones at this rate,” she asked, in the most reasonable tone she could manage while imagining pouring a hot pot of tea down the front of his baggy shorts.
“We’re here working every day. Check the logs, you’ll see,” he protested.
“I did. It was the first thing I did when I found out. You and your team are here every day, but you spend almost as much time in the break room, playing games and drinking coffee, as you spend making drones. You do know we’re at war, right?”
“This isn’t a real war,” he sneered, “and we’re not soldiers.”
“We might not be soldiers, but people are dying in this war, Luke. Our parents and our parents’ friends are out there right now, training to fight back the next invasion. The Deathless are only a few days away, and the Marines need our drones to tell them what’s going on. What part of this escapes you? Don’t you understand how important this work is?”
