by A. K. DuBoff
It’s wrong on so many levels. Kira tore her gaze away from the storeroom. “Why not just drop a bomb at that point, for such indiscriminate destruction?”
Nia’s face looked pale. “Because it’s not about who’s getting attacked. It’s about the suffering on both sides.”
Kira’s stomach dropped. “Shite, you’re right.” She shook her head. “I kept looking at it from a Taran vantage—what they’d have to gain, what they’re working toward. But no. We’re just like food to them.”
“And now they’re getting ready for the harvest,” Ari murmured.
“How very poetic.” Nia gripped her handgun a little tighter.
Kyle scowled. “No, we’re missing something. Why go through the effort to develop Robus?”
“Maximum killing potential equals maximum suffering inflicted?” Kira speculated.
“Not buying it,” Kyle said. “This is a race that can construct an artificial planet. They must have a larger play than watching a single system tear itself apart through civil war.”
“Whatever their aim, we’ve learned what we came here to find out,” Kira continued. “It’s clear they mean harm, and this facility is where they mean to bring soldiers to retrofit them into killing machines.”
“Time to go?” Nia asked eagerly.
Kira nodded. “Yeah, come on.” She turned to head back in the direction they’d come from.
“What about locating the alternate exit?” Ari reminded her.
“Oh, right.” It wasn’t like her to forget a lead like that.
That was true. “Mapping out that exit sounds like a great excuse to avoid going through that center chamber again,” Kira told her team.
Nia picked up her pace in the direction of the suspected exit. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“Wow, Nia, you really don’t like it down here.” Kira chuckled.
“How are you even remotely okay with this place?” the lance corporal shot back. “You said yourself that there were alien voices taunting you in your head.”
“Jasmine’s keeping me in a happy place,” Kira replied.
Ari led the team along the path he’d mapped out toward the likely alternative exit point.
Based on Kira’s own evaluation of the map, his guess looked sound. Most of the corridors seemed to feed into one central pathway, which extended the full length of the map their suit sensors had been able to populate. The far end, however, appeared to terminate in a shielded door.
Ari was the first to reach the barrier. “It’s locked.”
Kyle joined him by the control panel next to the door. “We have the encryption protocol saved from before. This shouldn’t take long.”
He synced with the panel and input the necessary commands. The door bolt slid open with a satisfying clang, which was followed by the hiss of the seal releasing.
The two men braced on either side of the door with their weapons pointed ahead. Kira took up position next to Ari, with Nia on the other side by Kyle.
To their relief, only an empty, four-meter-wide tunnel was waiting for them on the other side.
Nia lowered her weapon. “You know, after our experiences over the last couple of weeks, it’s really nice to walk through an entire facility and not get shot at.”
Kyle groaned. “Fok, Nia, now you’ve jinxed us.”
“We’re not out of here until we’re out of here,” Ari reminded them.
Kira nodded. “Don’t let your guard down.”
They forged ahead.
The floor sloped upward at a shallow angle suitable for transporting materials on a hover cart. Kira expected it to switch back on itself and exit somewhere close to the control room, but their HUDs showed the trajectory was a straight shot for eight hundred fifty meters ahead.
Thanks to the low gravity, the team was able to lope up the hill and cover the distance quickly. Kira kept watch on the shadows playing on the rough stone walls of the tunnel.
They slowed their pace as they neared the end.
Kira paused to look back down the tunnel while the others continued ahead. The lights had turned off down in the lab area where they’d come from.
She turned back to face her team. “All right, let’s see where this dumps us out. Then we can circle back to the control room to retrieve that data drive.”
Kyle nodded. “Sounds good—”
“Shite!” Ari shouted.
Kira’s jaw dropped. The tunnel walls that had seemed solid only second before were now a swirling mass of particulates.
“Run!”
CHAPTER 11
Kira raced forward through the flurry of sand-like particles. “What the fok is this?!”
“I’ll make sure our exit is clear. Get Kira!” Kyle surged ahead.
Ari and Nia tried to get back to her three meters behind them in the tunnel, but the particles bound together to form a lattice barrier in their path.
Ari struck it with his arm. The latticework flexed to accommodate the blow. “Sneaky bastards waited until the rest of us were at the exit,” he spat.
The particles glommed onto Kira’s powered armor and attempted to stick her boots to the floor. She trudged forward, but each step was more labored than the last as the particles congealed around her. After four steps, she may as well have been walking through hip-deep cement.
“It’s got me!” she shouted.
“I already hate these things.” Nia readied her multi-handgun on the sonic setting. “Mute your suit,” she instructed Kira.
Jasmine completed the action for her.
Nia fired three blasts. The particles shuddered as the high-powered sound wave passed over them, but the latticework remained intact.
I need to be stronger! I need to break free.
The Robus within Kira stirred, begging to be let out. Her mind felt clearer and sharper than it had since they landed on the world. So much power was right at her fingertips.
Kira tried to hold back, but her pulse was quickening. The power called to her.
The sweet call to transform began to fade.
Kira looked down in horror to see what looked like stone solidifying around her feet and shins. She couldn’t take another step.
“Kinetics!” Kira shouted over the comm to her team. She managed to get her multi-handgun in position and started firing at her feet.
Ari joined with Nia in unloading a magazine at her legs.
Impacts registered on Kira’s HUD as the suit absorbed the fire.
Kira sensed a shift in the controls as she took another step. The next came easier as she gained some momentum. “Find out where we are. Get the shuttle!” she ordered.
“Already in progress,” Kyle replied.
Ari and Nia continued firing well-placed shots around Kira’s feet to keep the particles from regaining a hold of her.
“Stay, Kira,” a voice beckoned inside her head. “This is where you belong.”
“Leave me the fok alone!” She blocked out the aliens’ calls, focusing on each step to the exit.
She made it to Ari and Nia’s position.
“Get her outside, Nia,” Ari said.
He took up the rear while Nia and Kira cut through the path Kyle was helping to keep clear from the outside.
The tunnel exited into a small clearing in the forest. A rock cliff towered behind them, but it was no longer solid stone; particles swirled above the surface.
“Shite! Is this entire place going to come after us?” Kira checked her multi-handgun and saw that she was on her last magazine of kinetic rounds.
“We’re two kilometers away from the landing site. Pod will be here in a minute,” Kyle reported.
They’d need more than bullets to make it that long, if the entire cliff face disintegrated.
“Hold them off!” Kira grabbed her plasma rifle off her back and sent a spray of fire across the sky.
The particles glowed red for an instant as the plasma passed over them, and then they dropped to the ground as blacked specks.
Over the tree canopy, Kira spotted the shuttle approaching.
“Take off as soon as we’re all on board. We’re getting out of here!”
“What about the data drive?” Nia asked.
“Forget it. I have all the evidence I need that this place is hostile.” Kira sprayed her plasma fire into the swarm of particles, hoping to keep a clear a large enough area for the shuttle to land.
The swarm gathered around the shuttle as it descended, coalescing into chains that extended toward the ground.
“Little fokers think they can tether it!” Ari shot at one of the chains.
“Get inside.” Kira ran for the back hatch as soon as it dropped open. “There’s no way they’re stronger than the engine.”
The team piled into the shuttle while trying to hold off as many of the particles as they could. When everyone was inside, Kira slammed her hand on the button next to the door to close it.
Kyle dove to the cockpit and activated the liftoff.
“Shite, some of them are inside!” Nia flailed her arms in a vain attempt to shake them off.
“Get us off the ground!” Kira urged Kyle.
The shuttle rocketed upward a second later.
Kira looked out the viewport and saw that the swarm hadn’t been able to keep up with the shuttle.
“Everyone strap in,” she instructed.
They all took their seats and secured the harness. As soon as everyone was ready, Kira hit the door control to open the back hatch.
Intense wind ripped through the craft’s interior, rippling the belts and anything with a loose end. The little particles didn’t stand a chance.
Kira left the hatch open for thirty seconds, but she was forced to close it when the shuttle reached the upper level of the artificial planet’s atmosphere. There could be some particles in the craft but not enough to do any damage.
“Message the Raven that we’ll need to go through decontamination procedures,” Kira instructed. “I don’t want to take any risks that these things can replicate.”
“Aye,” Kyle acknowledged.
“That was really close.” Nia let out a long breath and slouched in her seat.
The AI was silent for a moment.
Kira’s heart dropped.
Kira slumped in her seat. This may be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.
They rode the rest of the way to the Raven in silence.
After the shuttle docked, the vessel and the team underwent a thorough decontamination and nanoscopic scan to make sure all particles had been removed. Several hundred were found in crevasses within the shuttle and powered armor, and the samples were promptly incinerated.
Once cleared, Kira and her team went up to the residential level to meet with Sandren.
He was waiting for them in the galley. “What happened down there?” Despite his sharp tone, his expression was one of fatherly concern.
“I feel like we simultaneously know more and less about what we’re up against, sir,” Kira began. She filled him in on the events leading up to their hasty retreat.
“What a shiteshow,” Sandren muttered when she was finished.
“Yes, sir, it really is.” Kira glanced at her team. “We’d like to make this right. I need to.”
Sandren crossed his arms. “Well, you weren’t able to make contact with them in a meaningful way. That was our main hope—to resolve this conflict in a civil fashion.”
“I didn’t get the impression they’re interested in talking. Reya and Nox sure talked a big game, but the chorus was different.” Kira paused. “Huh, I just thought of something. Reya and Nox were paired in a person for an extended time. I wonder if being around Tarans changed them?”
The major tilted his head. “How so?”
“Well, Nox and Reya spoke in Taran terms about their motivations when I interrogated them. And I was able to get inside their minds—maybe that’s because they had a frame of reference from their time in a Taran body. They had integrated our biological and social experience into their being, just like the race integrates technology,” Kira explained. “But what if I couldn’t force a connection with the other beings because they’ve never been in a form like ours? They didn’t have that frame of reference.”
“Hmm.” Sandren stroked his chin. “How might we go about establishing that common vocabulary?”
“Slow, dedicated outreach.”
“We don’t have that luxury.”
“I know, sir.”
Sandren rose from the table. “I’ll talk to Kaen. Stand by.”
— — —
Waiting for news from field teams was always one of Kaen’s least favorite times as a commander. Situations such as this, when so much was on the line, made the waiting that much worse.
He’d tried to keep himself distracted with the various administrative tasks his position demanded, but as the day stretched on, he found his task list looking a little thin.
To his relief, a call from Major Sandren illuminated on his desktop. Finally!
“Major, good to hear from you,” he greeted. “What news do you have about Gaelon?”
“I wish the report was better. We found a gas giant in the system, and a dwarf planet, which by all measures is an artificial creation,” Sandren explained. “Kira and her team went down to the surface, but they were unable to enter into a me
aningful discussion with the aliens. They were attacked on their way out, and… we may have a situation.”
Kaen braced. “Which is?”
“They were forced to leave behind an external processor.”
Fok! Kaen fought to retain composure. “They left it there? This race is known to appropriate technology! How could they be so careless?”
“They were under attack. There was no way to go back.”
Kaen wiped his hands down his face. “We have no choice but to reformat our entire computer network now.”
“That’s a drastic move, sir. Kira would like another chance to interface with them.”
“If that route had any chance of success, it would have come about on this first visit. No. They could neutralize our defenses at any time. We need to act while we can.”
“Yes, sir.” Sandren gave a grim nod.
“Get back here to base. We’ll figure out our next steps.” Kaen severed the connection.
As if these aliens weren’t going to be difficult enough to beat. He would have liked the opportunity to learn more about the technology they used, but knowing that the adaptive algorithms on the external processor were now in the aliens possession, there wasn’t time to figure out a long-term strategic play. They needed to hit the enemy hard and fast. If only we had some inside information of our own…
— — —
Ellen was still agitated after her field trip to the valley. What are they hiding down there?
She hated having information dangled in front of her face and not knowing how to interpret it. The records they’d obtained from the facility were a disorganized mess. Only one bit of information stood out to her.
She flipped through the items again on her temporary workstation in the Mysaran government office. The mining records stored at the remote site had to be significant. But why?
Ellen looked at the production logs again. Not working in the mining industry, the volume number was meaningless to her in isolation. She brought up a calculator app on her desktop and divided the numbers by days in the year to get a feel for daily output.
