"It's the first Drifter spaceship of any type we have seen. Except for the primary Drifter artifact itself, which is a type of huge spaceship, and that's in human hands. We are very lucky they are too stupid to unlock its secrets."
"We must have it," the commander shouted, "It must be immobilized and boarded before the Drifter we woke up can escape in it."
“You think the spaceship was summoned by the Drifter your warriors encountered?”
“Yes,” the commander said, “It might be too early for you scientists to agree, but I think the creature encountered is a Drifter, and I think it summoned this spaceship.”
The commander started issuing orders into a communication device.
“Disable the spaceship as it emerges,” the Buzzer commander yelled.
At the commander's orders the podship fired on the Drifter spaceship’s engines as it emerged from the cloud layers. To the commander's eye sockets it was a magnificent site. The target, the Drifter spaceship caught the gleam of the far away sun almost as soon as it emerged from the gas giant's atmosphere, and was further illuminated by the characteristic red beams of energy projected by the attacking Buzzer spaceships.
It was just a flight of fighters launched from a podship but they had positioned themselves to generate an impressive crossfire. The Drifter spaceship accelerated forward leaving the fighters behind it. It pulled a plume of cloud from the planet's atmosphere in its wake as it accelerated, engulfing the fighters, but otherwise it ignored them.
"It's fast," the commander mumbled, appreciatively, "And it looks to be pretty much impervious to the medium caliber weaponry on those fighters. Marvelous. It will make a worthy prize."
"I suspect it will require considerable force to overcome the defenses of this spaceship," the planetologist mused.
"Of course," the commander said, "but the spaceship is in interplanetary space now, and so I do not think you can be of any more use to me."
The scientist bowed and departed, and before he had even left the room the commander was directing his most powerful spaceships to attempt an intercept before the target reached wherever it was going. The commander strongly suspected it would be heading for the ice moon.
***
Knave, Altia and Jay were running through the corridors, no longer bothering to stop and shoot at the pursuing creature. They were just trying to escape the creature at their backs. It didn't seem designed for movement on land, it had flippers, lots of them, that were muscular and had talons at the end of them, and it was slowly falling behind.
"What kind of creature can withstand blaster impacts?" Knave asked.
"A very strange creature," Altia mumbled.
"I think it's finally tiring," Altia said, "And Jay is keeping his mouth shut. It was hearing that voice that set the thing off."
"I think, also because we aren't shooting at it," Knave said.
The creature dropped further and further back, and they were able to slow their break-neck pace.
"I'm glad I got that new hip," Jay said.
"Shh," Knave cautioned him, "We don't know how good the creature's hearing is, and it doesn't seem to like the sound of your voice."
Jay nodded, and pointed.
"I think he wants us to follow him," Altia said.
"I think you're right," Knave nodded, a smile on his lips, "But we still have the problem that we forgot our helmets."
They both kept running, following the robot.
"I'm working on it," Altia said, "I'm working on it."
She tapped the side of her head and winked confidently. Knave did feel his spirits lighten. If anyone could come up with a solution, it would be her. He hurried to catch up with Jay. It seemed unlikely, but if they did run into some Buzzers, or some other hostiles, it would be best if he was in the vanguard. He was the best shot, he judged, not least because the other two were stuck with unwieldy weapons, designed for Buzzer hands.
"Hey," Jay said, as Knave came alongside, "I think it's okay for me to talk now. I think we've lost our friend."
"Do you think Rort somehow released that thing as a diversion?" Knave asked.
Altia was just behind them, a few steps further back but within earshot, covering the rear.
"I don't think so," she said, "It would be too unpredictable an intervention."
"I don't know," Jay said, "I'm sure it is quite a formidable intelligence, capable of calculating variables that would be beyond us."
"Is?" Knave said, "Or was? The way it said goodbye sounded quite final."
"And sad," Altia said.
"All right, people," Jay said loudly, driving all their questions from their minds, "Here we are. This is the next stage of the route. But it requires that we go out through the airlock."
Knave found himself involuntarily turning to Altia.
"Yes," she said, "I've thought of something, Knave, but it's far from perfect. I think I can rig up a membrane to seal over our heads and our neck rings like a big balloon."
"Okay," Knave said, "How long before a membrane like that bursts, like a balloon."
"Actually," Jay, reminded them, "It'll go off with a bigger bang than any balloon. When the atmosphere in your suit mixes with the atmosphere of the planet it will detonate like a small grenade."
"Thanks that's very comforting," Knave said, “Thanks.”
"Ten minutes," Altia said, "tops."
"That might he enough," Jay said, "our end position is just outside the airlock. I think we just have to get outside and wait."
"Maybe we can wait inside the airlock," Knave said, "In case whatever help Rort is sending doesn't turn up instantly, like because maybe they've been dead for a few thousand years, for example."
"Another worry that just occurred to me," Altia said, "is that Rort might have taken our desire to escape quite literally. It might have decided to help us find a route from the structure, and that might be as far as the plan goes."
They all exchanged a grim look, but nobody saw fit to elaborate on this idea.
"Let's do this," Altia said, "She pulled some tools our of her utility belt, and melted and shaped some plastic. Then she used her laser to attach it to Knave's neck ring."
"That looks pretty good," Jay said encouragingly, "It might last half an hour, if you ask me."
“More like ten minutes,” Altia said.
Altia then talked Knave through how to attach a membrane for her. She checked the jury rigged helmets as best she could once he was done.
"All right," she said, "Let's expose these things to the frigid, toxic, explosive atmosphere out there."
They entered the airlock, A Buzzer design, which closed behind them and cycled. Knave felt his membrane helmet shrink to his skin in the thick atmosphere then expand as his suit inflated it. It was cold, very cold. He was suddenly a lot less sure of Altia's abilities when it came to science and engineering. But he could breath, and nothing exploded, which was some kind of relief.
"By the powers," Altia almost screamed, "the air is cold on this cursed rock."
"Will it kill us?" Knave asked, “will our ears freeze and snap off?"
"No," Altia yelled, but she didn't sound convinced.
They were both yelling now because, without helmet microphones, their nearest suit microphone was below their neck rings. It was strange for Knave not to have a chronometer readout in his line of sight either. He had no idea how much of his ten minutes had elapsed already.
"Hey Jay," Knave yelled, "Can you call out the minutes as they elapse."
"No problem, Knave," the robot called back, "the first minute is elapsing now."
Knave was shocked. One of his precious minutes before his suit would probably fail had already elapsed. He took a hurried and desperate look around the place he had ended up. He was on the slopes of an alien mountain, though the slope wasn't as steep here as usual. It was almost a plain extending away into the swirling snow. It made for a sort of natural landing pad, a big one that would be able to accommodate a huge num
ber of shuttles all at the same time. His heart leapt. This couldn’t be an accident, he was sure of that. He looked upwards, searching the gusts of driving snow for signs of a shuttle coming to pick him up, but visibility was so low that an armada could be hiding up there and he wouldn’t know.
"Second minute elapsing now, Knave," Jay said.
"By the Powers," Altia screamed, "Why bring us here. What's the point? It'll be a quick death at least. That's something."
Knave had never heard her losing it before, screaming and cursing. His eyes flicked down to catch a glimpse of her face, ashen under the influence of the cold and pressure. Her suit was having trouble keeping her alive without a proper helmet, and Knave knew he must look the same, or worse.
Then his eyes went back to the sky, searching for rescue.
"Third minute elapsing," Jay said.
"Should we go back in," Altia asked, "Before..."
She trailed off without finishing her thought.
"What's that?" she said.
She was suddenly pointing and Knave and Jay both craned their necks, to try to catch a glimpse of whatever she had seen. There was something. The snow was thicker, blowing more intensely, but there was a suggestion of a shadow.
"What is that?" Knave echoed.
"Fourth minute elapsing," Jay announced, "and that, I think, is a spaceship. And a large one. A very large one."
"I think you're right," Altia whispered, her words all but lost in the wind.
“I don't recognize the design,” Knave said, “Is it even human?”
"Come in closer," Jay said, "Try to get as close to my position as you can. Apparently this is where we should be."
They both shuffled nearer to the robot, and Knave's attention was drawn to the door of the airlock they had used to exit the building. The dark window of the door had suddenly illuminated.
"The airlock is cycling," he yelled, and drew his gun.
He tried to position himself so that his body was shielding the other two, for what that was worth, and took up the most stable shooting stance he could. He nestled his blaster into his shoulder, ignoring what was probably a descending spaceship, concentrating on the airlock instead.
"Fifth minute elapsing," Jay yelled.
The airlock door slid up. There were two Buzzers inside and Knave fired immediately. The Buzzers fired back, luckily missing as they dived for cover behind the airlock door frame. Knave saw one of his shots produce a shower of sparks, and he was confident he had scored a hit on one of the hostiles. His two friends, attempting to use him as some sort of cover, started shooting as well, knocking chunks out of the airlock frame and buckling the door. It would never cycle again, and the chances of them reaching a different one before their suits failed were vanishingly slim. Knave was aware of a presence above him, the spaceship, but he didn't dare look up to get a better idea of its design. He saw movement in the airlock and fired, more sparks, he was scoring hits, keeping the Buzzers in the airlock.
"Sixth minute elapsing," Jay yelled.
Knave was thrown from his feet by a huge impact behind him, ice was thrown into the air and rock debris sent skittering. He turned to see a giant bronze wall, the side of the spaceship, rising from the ice. It hadn't stopped to hover on gravitics, but had actually slammed down into the surface of the planet.
The wall wasn't featureless, there was a hexagonal opening, just feet away from Jay. The robot was lying prone, also knocked from his feet by the impact, and Altia was likewise struggling to find her feet again. Knave was first on his feet, and immediately went to help Altia, but she was up before he reached her. They ended up staggering towards the opening, holding each other up, just behind Jay. The Buzzers had obviously regained their feet too because blaster bolts tore through the air, forcing them to dive into the opening in the side of the spaceship, looking for cover as they dove. Knave would have preferred somehow to walk in proudly, but instead he was crawling on the floor, trying to hide behind the door frame, wind howling, his friends screaming, blaster bolts impacting all around, and then, nothing. A silence descended, so complete, in comparison to what had gone before, that it was deafening. Knave's poor ears were ringing, his face was a chaos of pins and needles as warm air hit it. They all three looked at each other. The aperture had closed, sealed by a bronze door with no windows. The chamber they found themselves in was also windowless. It was large, but it was human scale, not Buzzer scale. There was a hexagonal opening, the only exit now that the door they had jumped in through was closed, but it was sealed off by an opaque energy field.
"Hexagonal doors," Altia said, "That's new."
It was such an incongruous thing to say after their lives had just been saved, after such a strange and unlikely thing had come to pass, that Knave couldn't help but laugh. Soon followed by Jay and then, sniggering at first, Altia. The laughing took Knave's mind of the pins and needles in his face, but he could still feel the plastic embrace of their jury-rigged helmets. He popped the seals at his wrists and shook off his gloves, then reached up to touch the membrane covering his face. It was still cold from its contact with the atmosphere of the ice moon.
"What are you doing?" Altia yelled, "We haven't tested the atmosphere in here."
His fingers dug into the plastic, but they couldn't even scratch it, never mind rip it.
"Seventh minute elapsing," Jay said.
"You can stop that countdown now," Knave grinned, his fingers squeaking against the plastic membrane as he tried to rip it.
"This thing turned out to be very robust," he added, "I think we could easily have lasted another twenty, thirty seconds before it popped."
"Come here," Altia said, "I'll help you remove it."
She took some chemicals and a sharp tool from her belt, melted the bond between the neck ring of his environment suit and the membrane, then cut it away. It came sliding off his head like a lizard shedding its skin.
"Ow, those chemicals burn," Knave said.
"Shut up you big baby," Altia giggled, relief at being alive plain to hear in her voice.
She handed him the chemicals and the blade.
"All right," she said, "Now you do me. This thing feels like it's trying to strangle me."
***
The commander was watching two images at once on his bridge command screens. He was watching an incident that had happened just a few minutes ago and he was watching a live stream. The live stream showed an elegant and powerful alien spaceship boosting into orbit around the ice moon.
It was now surrounded by pod ships and fighters blasting at its shields and armor, and, to his pleasure, its shields were weakening. The commander could see the tell-tale signs of shields overloading, and his two most powerful units were on their way to intercept, just minutes away.
The other video screen showed something more troubling, a recording of the incident, on a loop. A robot of obviously alien design was leading two humans into the spaceship. The spaceship had inserted itself into the ice moon's atmosphere, descending in a terrifying blaze of reentry friction, and then bellied down comparatively softly onto the surface. It was a virtuoso display of flying that would have ripped the grav engines off even his most maneuverable units, if they had attempted anything similar.
The airlock in the spaceship's side had already been open, perfectly placed for the robot and the two humans to just hop in. Then, before his brave warriors could shoot them down like the vermin they were, the airlock had closed and the spaceship had risen, slowly at first, then faster and faster into the atmosphere. It had just reached escape velocity. It was such a perfectly timed maneuver that the commander couldn't believe it.
He watched the same section of the video over again and again. The humans and the alien robot were huddled together in the snow and ice, under the cross hairs of his warriors. It should have been just a matter of time before they were blown messily to pieces, but then they had been rescued by the spaceship, which, just minutes before, had emerged from the surface of the gas giant. I
t was impossible to believe or understand. He watched the humans and the robot jump to safety again and again.
"My best torturers will extract your secrets from you," he promised the two humans on the screen, "and we will then find out what hold you have over that alien robot."
A symbol illuminated in his control space and he activated it with a metal claw. The captain of his most powerful spaceship, the Chill Spider, appeared before him in hologram form.
"We are entering range and will commence firing in moments," the hologram said, respectfully, "if my commander so wills."
"Just disable that spaceship," the commander growled, "and don't hold back. I'm sure it will be able to take plenty of damage before the engines are knocked out. The Dread Blade will be with you in moments. Fire at will."
"Fire at will," the captain could be seen screaming at his crew as the hologram faded.
The commander felt a flush of pride and switched off the recording of the humans escaping. Something about it bothered him, but the battle to take the Drifter spaceship would require all his attention.
He watched as the Chill Spider entered a nearby orbit to their target. It's weapons were large and powerful, and mounted in broadside bays. The Chill Spider could angle its weapons on swivel mounts and had the most powerful gravitic, virtual gyroscopes ever designed by Buzzer shipwright hives, which all meant it could swiftly achieve a broadside vector against even the most maneuverable of adversary. Watching the mighty spaceship fire its weapons sent a shiver down the commander's spine. The gun ports opened in a choreographed ripple of tons of shifting armor, gun mounts briefly protruded, swiveled, fired, withdrew and the ports shifted closed again. All in less than a second. Enough energy was unleashed to burn the face of a planet to a cinder. The commander was pleased to see that his captain had followed his orders and had not held anything back.
The Chill Spider's gunners had a true aim and the Drifter spaceship turned a livid blue under the intense assault of energy as its shields tried to get rid of the terrible load they were under. The early stages of any encounter were all about shields. The question was whether any energy had leaked through the shields and caused physical damage to the spaceship. Spotters all over the fleet knew this was what the commander was looking for, and hundreds of Buzzer eye sockets were searching the target spaceship for any sign of new physical damage. Even a melted communications antenna would bring a metaphorical smile to their commander's face, because he would know that, given time and relentless bombardment, the shields could be breached.
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