Another alien came up the ramp, carrying a small cylinder in its hand. It popped the cap off the thing as it came up toward Dan. He tensed, unsure what this new Naga had in mind. But he relaxed a bit when it poured the contents into its palm: a Cyanaut. He hadn’t had one of the things in his ear before, but both Andy and John had been able to deal with it. So could he.
The Naga said something to the guards, and two of them grabbed Dan, one by each arm. They were a hell of a lot rougher than they needed to be.
“I understand what you are doing,” he said. “I will not resist.”
They looked at each other, eying Dan with suspicion, but they relaxed their grip on his aching arms. Dan turned his head sideways, revealing his right ear for them. His left had an ear-bud hidden inside it, and he didn’t want them to discover it while trying to insert the Cyanaut. The little device would let Beth hear what was going on around him. There was scant hope that she and the others could get him out of this place, but communications would improve his odds a lot.
The Naga slid the Cyanaut into his ear. It slid partway in, and then began inching its way deeper until it rested someplace near his ear drum. His hearing felt odd, almost hollow. Like there was a big ball of cotton stuffed in his ear, which wasn’t far from what was actually going on. He winced a little at the slimy feel of something oozing into his ear, but he’d dealt with worse.
The Cyanaut would let him understand what the Naga were saying. And just maybe, it would give him more connection to the outside than they knew. The Naga might think of the wormlike beings as simple animals, but Dan knew better. There was an entire world full of intelligent Cyanauts down below them, and right now John and Andy ought to be in communication with them. If he could convince this one to trust him, he might have a chance.
Eighteen
Beth’s teeth left marks in her hand from biting it hard. It was all she could do to keep from crying out in fear as the Naga stomped through her engine room, tearing the place up in their search. She heard the metallic clatter as they dumped out her toolbox. They ripped through drawers and opened every storage locker in the place.
Any moment now she knew they were going to look into the crawlspace beneath the engine housing. She’d built it that way to gain access to the inner workings of the engine, should it ever be required. She still didn’t understand how it worked well enough to take it apart, but she’d put the crawlspace in anyway. Just in case.
Now she hid inside, and her design might just save her life. The entrance to the crawlspace was hidden. She’d paneled it over from the inside after she slid in, quickly bolting a plate over the opening. It wasn’t much of a barrier. A few strong stomps from above would knock the plate down, revealing her. She was armed with one of the captured Naga rifles, but that wouldn’t be enough to save her if she was discovered.
Maybe the worst of it was being able to hear Dan. Through his earpiece she heard everything he said. She was listening when the Naga struck him. He was helpless and it was her fault. He was doing it to protect her, damn him.
It had made sense at the time, even though she’d protested.
“No way,” she’d said. “You’re not staying out here alone.”
“We can’t both hide in there. We won’t fit, and besides, they’ll never believe there was no one aboard the ship.”
“Then I’ll stay. You hide,” she’d replied. Even though the idea had made her insides shake.
“Because I can repair the ship? Get her flying again? Rescue everyone?” he’d said. His words hurt, because she knew he was right. “Andy survived a little visit with them. So can I.”
“But you can’t defend yourself like Andy did, Dan. You’re…”
“I’m what?” he’d asked her. His voice had taken on a bitter note. “Broken? Crippled? Is that what you see when you look at me?”
“No,” she’d said. Then she’d turned and left, retreating to the engine room to hide herself away and let him face the danger alone.
What she had wanted to add was that she couldn’t stand the thought of him in their hands. Not because he was less able, but because she had never really stopped caring. No matter how much she’d tried. And damn it all, she had tried. For years. They’d split up because their careers were consuming both of them. They wanted to be the very best at what they did, and that left precious little time for anything else, including each other.
Breaking up had made sense. There were no children, so divorce was easy. Setting aside the emotions hadn’t been so simple though. She felt like she’d almost managed it, and then John had hired Dan on as the Satori’s pilot and three years of effort was washed away in an instant.
Now he was captured by creatures that would see him as nothing more than a chunk of meat, and she had no idea how she would ever get him back so that she could say those things. She fingered the little object he’d left with her, hidden away in her pocket for safekeeping.
“Just in case,” he’d said before she hid herself. “It’s the only thing I have on me that it would really hurt to lose.”
Dan was speaking to the Naga again. She stilled her breathing so she could better hear what he said.
“Yes, I’ll come with you. I want to see your leader. Is Kassresh here? Or someone else?”
She heard the Naga hissing something in reply, but she couldn’t understand them.
“No, I can’t stand,” Dan said. “An injury. Unless you want to carry me the whole way, I must use my chair.”
He was talking with them. They must have placed a Cyanaut on him so that he could understand what they said. It made sense, if you thought about it. They wanted to question him. They wanted to get information out of him. He needed to understand the questions they were asking if that were to work.
The Naga were making more noises, and gradually she realized they had to be laughing at him. At his injury, his inability to stand. The Naga prized strength. They saw Dan as weak, unfit. She might know better, but all they saw was a broken mammal.
“Yes, I’m alone,” Dan was saying. His voice had a bitter note as he went on. “I was considered expendable, so I was sent on this mission by myself. The ship was attacked in the water by animals there. I barely got away, and…you know the rest.”
One of the Naga barked a command.
“I will come. I’m not resisting,” Dan said. Beth heard the whine of his motorized chair activating. They were taking him off the ship, away to some room where they could question him.
She waited what felt like forever, even though her watch said only fifteen minutes had passed since they’d taken Dan away. She could still hear him speaking from time to time, so she knew he was alive. For now. Rescuing him was going to fall to her.
“Majel, did they leave guards behind?” she whispered as softly as she could manage. For all Beth knew, the Naga were still sitting out there ready to pounce.
The AI was still active. The ship’s systems were all down, but she was resident in the computers controlling the ship’s drive and other alien tech…like scanners.
“Two,” Majel replied into her earpiece. “One is in the main corridor, the other on the bridge. They look nervous.”
“Nervous? What makes you say that?” Beth asked.
“They keep glancing around like the place is haunted,” Majel said. “Must be something about the strange noises they keep hearing. Maybe we really are the boogeyman they think we are.”
Beth stifled a snort. “Your doing?”
“Of course,” Majel said. She sounded especially pleased with herself. “Don’t worry, I can distract them when you’re ready to move.
Beth was about as ready as she was going to get. She stilled her breathing, then slid forward to the bolts holding the panel in place. As quietly as she could, she twisted the nuts free. Then she gently lifted the plate clear. It made a faint scraping sound as the bolts slipped free from the roughly drilled holes. She winced, and froze, hoping that the noise hadn’t been heard.
The engine
room remained completely still. She peered out through the crack. As Majel had said, the place was empty. The door leading into the main hall had been closed. She heaved a sigh of relief. Unless she made a big clatter they weren’t going to hear her rising up from the crawlspace.
Beth slipped out, hauling the Naga rifle up with her. It had been that or one of their guns, and the Naga weapons were a lot quieter. She had the feeling that might make all the difference here.
She padded across the room to the hatch and peeked out through the porthole. One Naga was in the hall. Its back was to her. It carried its rifle at the ready, but it was aimed in the wrong direction. As soon as she opened the door that was going to change, though. She needed to be fast.
“I’ll distract it as soon as you open the hatch,” Majel told her.
Beth nodded, unsure if Majel could actually see that or not. It didn’t really matter. Whether the distraction worked or not, she had to do this. Dan was counting on her. Hell, the whole team was relying on her saving the day here.
She slapped the open button on the wall, and the door whooshed open, recessing into the wall. Beth was already aiming her rifle at the Naga, who was also raising his weapon - in the wrong direction. Flashes of light were appearing on a monitor at the far end of the hall, and the Naga had turned to face the wrong threat.
She fired.
The rifle barely bucked. The Naga weapons discharged a high velocity ball of force, somehow sending a bullet-like energy pellet speeding at the enemy. They could be set to a low power that was something like a big rubber bullet, or much more powerful settings. She’d cranked the rifle up as high as it could go.
The shot penetrated the Naga’s armor, sending a spray of blood out the far side. It grunted with surprise and tried to turn in place. She fired a second time, and a third. The guard went down and didn’t rise again.
She had to keep moving. Majel said there was one more of the things on the bridge, and it had to have heard the commotion. Beth kept her weapon trained on the far doorway and advanced. She’d crossed half the distance when a Naga snout appeared. It looked down and saw its fallen comrade, then looked up and saw her.
It raised its rifle and fired at the same time Beth did.
Nineteen
The sea boiled as a swarm of things came up from the depths. Charline had never seen anything like it. Most of the critters coming their way were crablike things, but there were others that looked like bugs. There had to be hundreds of them. The smaller were the size of her fist. The bigger ones looked more like soccer balls with legs.
And each of them had a little Cyanaut attached to it somewhere.
“What do we do? Linda asked.
“I don’t know… The others went down to speak with these things. Maybe this is a welcome wagon?” Or maybe not. Maybe the mission had gone sideways and these creatures were coming after them. “Let’s back up into the cave.”
Which left them trapped, but it was either that or trek out across the small island where the Naga ship would see them right away. Although if the Naga missed seeing this little parade they were blind. The horde followed them into the cave. There wasn’t any communication from them, no signs of slowing down.
Charline stalked to the back of the cave and grabbed her rifle. Holding it in one hand, she returned to the front of the cave and faced down the crabs. It was just about time to make the call, and she was pretty sure they were hostile. They hadn’t actually attacked, but neither she nor Linda had been close enough for them to so much as nip their heel, either. Well, there was one way to figure it out. She reached out a hand toward one of the leading crabs.
“What are you doing?” Linda asked.
“Seeing if these guys are friendly or not,” Charline replied.
“They don’t look friendly.”
Linda was right. They really didn’t look friendly. But she’d never forgive herself if she opened fire on a friendly species without cause. Maybe they were trying to say hello. In a very weird and scary way.
“Grab a gun. If I’m wrong, shoot them,” Charline said.
She reached out a little closer to the crab. It crawled forward toward her hand. Right before it was close enough to touch, it pulled the claw back in a little bit - and then slashed out with the claw, trying to lop off Charline’s finger.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said, darting back. That was it. She could be making a horrible mistake, but she was going with her gut on this one. If they waited any longer to act they wouldn’t have any room left to maneuver in the small cave. They’d be cut to ribbons.
Charline raised her rifle at the offending crab and squeezed the trigger. Between the loud sound of the gunshot and the bits of hell and crab which suddenly decorated the room, there was a brief moment where everyone froze. Neither the humans nor the crustacean swarm so much as twitched.
Then they advanced again, like a seething tide of living things. Charline opened fire, peppering their front row with bullets. She fired careful, aimed shots. There were a lot of critters coming at them and they were going to run out of bullets before they ran out of crabs if they weren’t careful. But she wanted to clear the front of the cave, give them a little breathing room. Then the butt end of the rifles would work as pretty good clubs.
Then Linda was there next to her, with another rifle in her hands. She started shooting too, nailing some of the bigger creatures massing near the cave opening. Charline blinked. Some of those crabs were the size of a medium dog. How big did these things get? Still, they made handy targets for Linda, who hadn’t all that much practice shooting yet.
“We need to switch to using the weapons as clubs,” Charline said. “We’re going to run out of ammo otherwise.”
“Gotcha,” Linda said.
“Let’s take it to them.” Charline took a step forward, swinging as she went. The butt of the rifle smacked into a shell with a meaty cracking sound. She brought the weapon down again and killed another one, and another. One of them was trying to climb the cave wall beside her. If the things could get above them they could flank them, even attack from behind or drop on them from above.
“Watch the walls,” Charline said, knocking the climber off. “They’re trying to sneak around us.”
“Gotcha,” Linda said. Then she added, “Oh!”
Charline turned at her exclamation. The creatures had been concentrating more on Linda’s side of the cave, and they’d tried climbing a lot earlier. Now dozens of them were on the wall beside Linda, and some had already reached the ceiling.
“Back up fast!” Charline shouted. She followed her own advice, backing up as quickly as she could and flipping her rifle around. She fired upward, picking off two of the climbers who’d reached the ceiling. Bits of their shells and chunks of the creatures inside the shells spattered down all over Linda.
“Oh, gross!” Linda said. “Yuck!”
“You rather they drop on you?” Charline said, laughing in spite of the dire situation.
“You could have waited a moment,” Linda said. Then she froze, her body locking up and her eyes staring blindly ahead for a moment before she went limp and collapse to the cave floor.
“Linda!” Charline shouted. She rushed forward. So did the crab army. They crawled over Linda’s legs, snapping at her still body. Charline slung her rifle and grabbed Linda underneath both arms, hauling her backward into the cave a dozen feet. Breathing room. They were just about out of it again. Several of the crabs had come along for the ride when she dragged Linda. Charline stomped them before they could cause any more trouble.
A living tide was coming down the tunnel toward them. Charline shook Linda gently, but the woman wasn’t moving. She didn’t know what the things had done to her, but for now at least Charline was on her own.
“Lucky I hit up Andy for a few of his toys,” she muttered, digging around in the supply crates. They’d brought along a lot of things. The supplies for Linda to set up a basic lab. Food and plenty of water, since they didn’t want to ri
sk drinking from this planet’s water source without checking it carefully first. But also a box of supplies Andy had pushed on Charline to keep them safe if the Naga decided to come calling.
She snapped one item out of the crate, setting it down on the floor in front of her and spinning out a reel of wire. Then she tossed the rest of the wire spool to the other side of the pile of crates. Grabbing Linda again, she dragged her comatose friend around behind the makeshift barricade.
Charline tucked herself down next to Linda as best she could and grabbed the clacker on the end of the reel. She was panting with the exertion, and hoped that she hadn’t missed any setup steps in her rush. Damn it, she should have thought to set the things up earlier.
The cave was filled with the sound of clattering legs and clinking shells. They were coming closer. Hundreds of the things, more than she could possibly swat with her rifle or crush under her boot. But she didn’t have to rely on those things.
“I see the light,” she said, as she squeezed the clacker hard. The world erupted on the other side of her wall of crates as the claymore mine went off.
Twenty
Dan tried to stay as cool as he could. It wasn’t going to do him any good to panic, even though right now would be a damned fine time for it. The Naga had let him bring his wheelchair along. If anything they seemed more amused by it than threatened. He wanted to show them differently, that he was still a threat. But he’d have one shot at escape, and if he blew his chance before the moment was right then he would never get out of this place.
“What was your mission here?” The Naga interrogating him was a flunky. Dan wasn’t sure how he knew, but he could tell. There was something about lesser officers and NCOs that just reeked of being the same even across their wildly different cultures. Dan knew just how to deal with someone like this.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 50
