“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alec whispered.
Yalena didn’t pay attention to how odd this must seem to him. It had to work. A race of aliens so intelligent and so obsessed with Novofex had to value it above anything else. Novofex was like an entrance ticket.
Humid, thick air coming through her slightly open lips, Yalena touched the bandages to the sensor, bloodied end first. It glowed stronger, but it didn’t change from its blue hue, nor did any doors open. Intuition screaming at her to try her last idea, Yalena moved the bandages, leaving a bloodied trail behind. She formed the lines of the Novofex symbol as best she could.
The popping sound of an airtight container opening startled her. A light creeping from inside the corpus cut through the gloom of the cave.
Stanley approached the crack in the corpus first. “Stand behind me.”
Even an experienced Fian like him couldn’t keep a cap on his emotions through the vibe now. Yalena felt awe and caution and jubilation and wonder all at once. Stanley dug with his fingertips into the crack of light. Pushing with a grunt, he managed to get the panel open wide enough for them to walk in.
Yalena peeked from behind Stanley into what looked like a decompression corridor. On both sides hung bizarre exo suits. They seemed to be made of a reflective gray-green metallic fabric—like tiny honeycomb pieces woven together. This was the kind of exo suit Yalena expected would fit whoever was meant to wear it like a glove. Judging by the dimensions of the suit, that would be someone at least two heads taller than Yalena and about half as thin.
Stanley stepped through the entrance into the corridor. He sought for a panel by the next door, but the gate split open on its own, revealing the corpus. The hull was bathed in mellow amber light, coming in waves from a round, glowing core on the floor. As the core pulsed, the room darkened and then glowed. Darkened and glowed.
Alec made a low whistle. “It’s a thermal energy source.”
Feeling the thump of her heart at her temples, Yalena forced herself to make a sound. “Does that mean the ship can fly? It’s been here for three hundred years.”
“That’s why thermal energy is such a great solution,” Alec said. “If it’s stable in the core. It could be accessed at any time.”
“Wait here,” Stanley warned. He headed down a corridor on the other side of the corpus.
Yalena took a step after him, but Alec caught her hand and pulled her back. “If someone is still here, they’d be happier to see Stanley than us.”
His whispered warning stilled her for a second, but internally, it felt as if each of her organs was having its own panic attack. Yalena could only imagine how that transmitted through the vibe. And then the worst thought hit her. The memory of the raptors made her want to retch.
“Alec.” Still holding his hand, she tugged it down. “These aliens must have the vibe, too.”
“So, does that mean Novofex gives the vibe?”
Yalena was too stunned to nod. “What if it doesn’t stop them from killing? The Fians can’t manage the vibe well enough to kill each other, but the raptors could.”
“You can’t know that,” Alec said. “They hunted us—humans.”
Yalena pursed her lips. “And me, and I was barely able to slow them down.”
Panic closed her throat. What if Felix had been right? What if these aliens thought themselves superior overlords, deciding which creatures in the universe got to live and not caring if they ended up wiping out the rest by planting Novofex on their planets?
Stanley’s steps sounded in hurried thumps. “Are you all right? Your vibe...”
Yalena’s face flushed. “Sorry.” She swallowed. “I panicked.”
Stanley gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. “This place is empty.”
Yalena rolled her shoulders back like she needed to shake off the jitters. Then, the next breaths came in slower, calmer.
“There’s a small lab, and a storage unit that’s entirely empty,” Stanley said. “We could equip it with mats and bedding. There should be enough space for everyone we’ve got with us.”
“That’d be great if we were facing a housing problem,” Alec mocked.
“He’s right,” Yalena said, turning to Stanley. “Getting in is good. Getting away is better.”
“Well,” Stanley dragged out with a smile. “That’s where you come in.” He clapped a hand on Alec’s back.
Yalena swooned. There was no way she could help it. Her father recognizing Alec as the perfect fit for the job was everything.
He must have not truly believed he’d have to do this when Yalena had asked him the night before, because Alec blanched, excitement draining from his expression. “You mean me? To fly this thing?”
Yalena beamed at him. “You are the best pilot at STAR Academy, possibly the near worlds.”
“I can’t,” he said. His hands made an exaggerated gesture Yalena had never seen before. “It’s an alien spaceship.”
“You can figure it out. You’re a natural.” They’d been together so long, it felt silly to bat her eyelashes quite so energetically at him. “Don’t you want to figure out how it works?”
As soon as she’d said it, Yalena knew she’d turned things around.
Alec paused to mull it over. “Aren’t you the devil?” His grin returned at last.
He walked past the energy core and stood in the spot where the pilot seat would be in a similar human ship.
“It would be nice if there was a chair.” Alec’s bushy eyebrows were raised high on his forehead. “Or controls.”
Yalena scanned the smooth walls. There had to be more, but apart from the two sensors by the doors, she hadn’t seen anything to indicate this was in fact a spaceship and not a mobile room.
After another moment of silently searching, Stanley beckoned for Yalena to follow him out of the corridor they’d entered from.
“I need to check on the tests above ground,” he said. “We have to find a way to unearth this thing.”
The muscles on Yalena’s face tightened. “How? We don’t have any equipment, do we?”
“We have explosives,” Stanley whispered. “We can break the integrity of the caves leading down here. The ship should be strong enough to emerge.”
Yalena didn’t like the sound of that and she must have transmitted it through the vibe.
“Don’t worry.” Stanley stroked her cheek. “Stay with him and try to get the engine roaring.”
Yalena doubted the flawless alien machine without any controls would roar, but she nodded.
Stanley handed her a small communication device. It had only two buttons—to start and stop transmission. “Take this. Radio over when you figure it out.”
Yalena took the device. “What makes you think we will?”
Stanley smiled. “You’ve got the best pilot in the universe at your disposal.”
“That we know of,” Yalena said, thinking of the hive engineers.
“That we know of,” Stanley repeated. Then, he turned around and disappeared up the faintly illuminated tunnel to the surface.
Yalena returned to the alien ship. The slow pulse of the core was starting to irritate her eyes.
“Any luck?” she asked Alec.
“Of course not.” Alec ran his hand down the floor panel, then jumped back up from a crouching position. “It’s like it’s all one piece. No hinges. No gaps. No sign of where they hide the equipment.”
He was right. The ship was one smooth, hollow shell, bathed in the glow of the core. Yalena walked closer to the sphere. It strained her eyes to watch it pulse with light. If she were to close her eyes now, she’d see that sphere burned into the blackness. But she didn’t twitch. She didn’t blink. Her eyes grew watery, but she could finally distinguish something. A little round circle on the core faced the ceiling. Rimmed by the faintest, hair-thin hinge, it reminded Yalena of a miniature version of the sensor that opened the ship.
“My, my, how do they keep any blood in their bodies with all the sensors?
” Yalena’s face contorted with disgust. It wasn’t exactly sanitary to request blood at every turn.
“What?” Alec asked, nonplussed, but Yalena thought she’d best demonstrate what she’d discovered.
She was still holding the bandage with Stanley’s blood on it. Not daring to blink and lose sight of the sensor, she brought the bandage closer and pressed it against the core. The entire hull flooded with faint blue-purple light.
Yalena spun around to take it all in and gasped. A hundred-and-eighty degrees curved holo screen had appeared around Alec. Wide and translucent, it was blinking in different colors, showing unfamiliar signs.
Its glow reflected in Alec’s eager eyes. “This is wicked.”
He’d been rooted in place in front of the screen by light beams that looked like force field tentacles. Falling from the ceiling like lianas in a jungle, the electric blue beams wrapped around his body and connected to the floor. It was a customized secure seat.
Yalena stared at the sight wide-eyed. “How does it feel?”
Alec relaxed himself into a sitting position and the force field tentacles adjusted around him.
“It’s stable,” he said in awe. “This has got to be the best way to keep a pilot safe. I bet if there’s a crash, these things form an entire force field around the pilot for protection. And once the crash is over, they might retract, leaving you free to move and get out fast. No chance of any heavy equipment pinning you down. This is great.”
He motioned for Yalena to join him. It was the weirdest feeling. When Yalena stepped closer, new tentacles of electric light swirled around her body. They didn’t pin her down yet, waiting for her to get in position next to Alec. Then she felt them press against her. She lowered herself as if to sit, and to her surprise the forcefield was stable. She tried to relax, but it wasn’t easy. It was like sitting in a translucent chair, no matter how comfy.
Yalena’s smile of excitement faded when she focused on the curved holo screen. The symbols on it didn’t seem any more intelligible than the ones on the door sensor. She doubted blood would magically help them fly this ship. Novofex was the key that got them in, but it wasn’t enough.
Leaving Alec to study the writings on the screen, Yalena radioed back to Stanley. “How’s it going up there?”
“All under control,” Stanley said. “Your friend Natalia seems excited to blow up stuff.”
“I’m not surprised.” Yalena almost smiled. “We were able to trigger the pilot station, but we’re still not sure how to fly this thing.”
“Speak for yourself,” Alec interrupted. His eyes had that hunting look he got when he was seeing past the obvious.
Stanley laughed on the radio. “We’re in position. Tell us when you’re ready and we’ll reduce the rocks to rubble.”
Yalena turned sideways to Alec. His lips were moving as if he were muttering to himself, but no sound came out.
“That’s the core’s charge.” He pointed at a golden circle that seemed about ninety per cent full. Then he guided her through the rest of the screen. “That’s the engine and life support status. It’s all pretty intuitive.”
Yalena fought a grimace when he reached out to the screen and tapped it. Graphs and signs rearranged and danced in front of their eyes. Between their seats and the screen, a forcefield of light looking like a holo joystick reached out to Alec.
He grabbed it and flashed a smile to Yalena. “Here we go.”
Yalena’s trembling fingers found the radio buttons. “Blow up the cave. Now.”
“On it,” Stanley said, and excited chatter died out in the background as the connection was interrupted.
“Let’s get the hell off this world,” Alec said.
Yalena took a deep breath, but it was strangled out of her when the hull shook.
With purely intuitive movements, Alec was bringing the ship to life. The cave around them cracked as small pieces around the ship were reduced to dust. It all must have been forming around the ship for years after the hive engineers had left.
Loud booms echoed through the cave. Everything shook violently, and Yalena couldn’t tell if it was the cave coming undone, or the ship responding to the slightest tremble in Alec’s hand.
Alec’s grip tightened around the forcefield joystick. Slowly, he pulled it upward. Outside, red sand stormed down like water in a flood. When the ship wavered, Yalena’s eyes shot to Alec, but he wasn’t losing control of it. He was nudging upward, first one side, then the other. Bit by bit, letting the sand fill the gap below and lighten the load on top of the ship.
It worked. Centimeter by centimeter, the alien ship was crawling up, like a giant that had been buried alive, waking up at last. Through dust and sand running down the sides of the ship, Yalena could finally distinguish vegetation.
“Woohoo!” Alec shouted.
Yalena wished someone crazy about flying, like Heidi or Cooper or Dave, had been there to witness this too.
Then, the nose of the vehicle poked up, letting all residual sand and soil on the ship’s surface slide down its back. Yalena fought a wave of nausea. “Can you land it?”
“Land it?” Alec laughed wholeheartedly. “I’m taking it for a spin first.”
“Holy stars,” Yalena squealed as the ship built up momentum and dashed ahead at gut-wrenching speed.
Chapter 32. Engineered Chance
When Alec finally landed the Sleeping Giant, as they officially named the ship, Yalena was maxed out on holding her breath from his crazy stunts in the air. Alec laughed as they opened the gate from the inside and were met with at least two dozen stunned Fian faces.
Stanley looked proud; the vibe transmitted that even more clearly. Blaine hurried to give Alec’s shoulder a violent shake that seemed to be a celebratory gesture. Even Natalia couldn’t suppress a smile—although that might have been satisfaction from having blown up the cave.
“Load it up, boys,” Stanley shouted to the rest of the group, then came toward the little circle Yalena, Alec, Natalia and Blaine had formed. “Can I steal you all for a second?”
Yalena felt on edge at once.
“What’s wrong?” Blaine asked. Apparently, Yalena wasn’t the only one who’d picked up on his tone.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Natalia frown as she tried to detect the emotion in his vibe.
Stanley’s deep breath was a resignation. “I don’t mean to spoil the victory here, but we have an important decision to make.”
The sticky humid air turned into cold sweat on Yalena’s forehead. “I don’t get it,” she said. “We needed a ship. Now we have it. This is all we’ve been asking for.”
Stanley blanched as much as that was possible, given his deep coloring. “That’s right—we have a ship. Now the question becomes, where do we fly it to?”
Yalena fought the urge to snort—something about Stanley was making her want to act mature.
“To Earth,” she said. “To the near worlds to stop Felix and save Alec.”
“Can we?” Natalia asked in a low croak. “Stop him, I mean. This is not a huge army.” She threw Blaine a quick glance. “No offense.”
“This is ridiculous,” Yalena snapped. “There’s no choice to make. It doesn’t matter that we’re not a big army, we have to go and help. It’s what we do.”
Stanley scratched his stubble with a calculating expression. “What if we could get more help?”
Yalena frowned slightly. “Unless you know how the set the raptors on Felix, I don’t think we’ve got any help available.”
Stanley fixed her with a long, meaningful stare. “The helpers I have in mind are not here. Not yet. But they’re coming.”
Everything slowed down. Yalena felt a lump in her throat as her mind raced. The hive engineers returned roughly every three hundred years to monitor life on Nova Fia. The Sleeping Giant had been buried for three hundred years.
Yalena jerked her head back. “The hive engineers are coming now?”
“Within a week, according to our be
st calculations,” Stanley said.
“We don’t exactly have a week to wait around.” Alec was trying to mask the tremble in the word ‘we’. It was he who wouldn’t last that long.
“I’m not suggesting we wait around for them,” Stanley said. “I say we go find them first.”
A tremble went through Yalena, but she couldn’t say a word.
Stanley must have interpreted it as indecisiveness, so he went on. “The way we opened the ship confirms it. They want any species intelligent enough to find the ship to get back to them.”
“But how do we even find them?” Yalena felt the need to reject this. Not for herself, but for Alec.
“Engineered chance, we call it,” Stanley said.
Natalia pouted at the sound of that. “You’ve calculated where they’d be?”
“It’s a complex model developed by the Troian and Morgan founding families over the years,” Blaine explained.
“And they didn’t invite you because you’re not sharp enough to get it, huh?” Natalia teased him.
Blaine continued without even glancing at her, although his jaw set as he struggled to contain what must have been one of his signature retorts. “The wormhole leading to your solar system isn’t the only one of its kind. There’s another.”
It felt like a sweep of wet hair had slapped Yalena across the face. “What?”
“It’s at the end of our solar system,” Stanley said. “It was only discovered years after Fia Jones’ mission. A party sent to examine it only traveled through it and back once.” At the unanswered question on their faces, he continued. “We didn’t have enough ships. Ours are slow and ancient and we didn’t have the industry to build many more.”
“Besides,” Blaine said. “The focus was on monitoring the link to the near worlds for any further ships coming to expose us.”
“Where does it lead?” Alec asked. “The other wormhole.”
“Another solar system. Unpopulated,” Stanley said. “None of the worlds there could support life, but my theory is that the hive engineers may be terraforming some of those worlds. It’s a long process.”
The Hive Engineers Page 22
