by Robert McKay
Beatrix frequently found herself flashing back to her time connected to the Quorum. If she hadn't experienced it for herself, she wasn't sure they would have been on a mission to wipe them out.
"Penny for your thoughts," said Torch, settling into the other pilot's chair.
"I was just wondering if it's really our choice to make. If we do this, we'll be committing genocide." Her voice was distant and sounded strange to her own ears.
"Well, we don't know exactly what's going to happen. You said so yourself. It might just give the Leothen the ability to break free and remove the leeches without dying."
"I also said that I wasn't sure if it would kill all the Leothen along with them. It could be double genocide or even more. I don't know how many other races they've done this to. Don't just try to make me feel better by saying we don't know exactly what's going to happen."
"From what I gather, it might be better for the Leothen to die than to continue living with the leeches in their brains," said Torch, ignoring her biting tone. He was good at it. That's what made it possible for him to be such a good friend to her.
"But who am I to make that decision for every being out there that is living with the Anthrak?" She heaved a sigh and pulled her knees up to her chest.
"You've got four other people on this ship who have had some part in the Anthrak experience, not counting yourself. You know they would all rather die than live that way."
Beatrix listened carefully to his words and the tone that they were said in. Somehow, they rang flat. "You're not sure either, are you?" she asked.
"No," he admitted. "I don't think I'd be human if I didn't second-guess our decision. I just can't come up with a better solution. We've been fighting them for a decade. They don't negotiate, even when we have the upper hand. The best we could ever hope for is that they decide we're not worth the trouble and move on to some other planet. I don't see how I could live with that either. Especially now that I know what they're really trying to do."
Beatrix felt the tears rolling down her cheeks before she even realized she'd come to the core of her problem. "I just don't know if I'll be able to live with myself if all of the Leothen die. They didn't do anything wrong."
"The way I figure it, they all died the day they had a leech stuck on their backs. We'll just be finally putting them to rest; stopping the leeches from using their bodies to do further harm." Torch reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "I thought you would be worried about the Anthrak. We're pretty certain they'll die when all is said and done."
Beatrix's head snapped up. Her voice was raw and too loud for the small cockpit. "No, never. They are evil and completely lacking empathy. There is nothing redeemable about them. Maybe it makes me a monster, but I will never feel bad for putting an end to the Anthrak. Maybe history will judge me as the biggest mass murderer to ever have lived. I don't care. I'm not sure if genocide is right, but it's damn well what I'm going to do."
Torch smiled grimly. "Then it's decided. We're going to do this."
"Huh? I thought we decided yesterday that we were doing it?" asked Beatrix, wiping a tear from her cheek.
"We did. And then we took a day to think about it and make sure that we could live with ourselves before we put it into action." He tapped his shoulder where his rank bars would be if he were wearing his uniform instead of Anthrak grey. "That's one of the things they taught us in advanced leadership training. Make your decision quickly and then figure out if you can live with it. If you can, commit to it with everything that you've got. I think you can live with yourself, even if the Leothen die, knowing that you've saved countless others from their fate."
The ache in Beatrix's heart eased. "That doesn't mean I have to like it."
Torch chuckled. "No, it doesn't. About ninety percent of leading is doing things you don't like because it will help more people than it hurts. Even if it hurts one, it's too many, but if we tried not to hurt anyone, we would end up causing more harm."
Beatrix nodded. "If they live, the Leothen are going to need a lot of help."
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there."
"More sage leadership advice?"
"Nope, just an idiom that my wise, old grandmother was fond of."
It wasn't even funny, but they both laughed until tears were rolling down their faces.
"I needed that," said Beatrix when she could catch her breath.
"Me too," said Torch. "Me too."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
They approached the Anthrak home world and found it surrounded by an impressive array of ships and weapons. Beyond them, the planet was a sullen green orb swirling with clouds. "Well, that's just about what I expected," said Beatrix.
"Really?" asked Torch. "There weren't any defenses around the Leothen's planet. They didn't even follow us."
"You're not thinking like the Anthrak," replied Beatrix. "What we did was entirely beyond their realm of experience for the time being. They had orders for what to do if we tried to escape. Namely, shoot us. They failed at that. They will have to consult with the Quorum before they decide what to do about us escaping. That's going to take a while. So technically, they might be following us, but they could be days from actually leaving in pursuit. The hive mind has many advantages, but some pretty big weaknesses. That's why they took so long to adjust their tactics for taking over Nedra. That's why we just now ran into the Hounds. It took them a decade to decide that they needed to try something different."
"I'm betting they won't just let us fly by those defenses, though," said Torch.
"Nope. I think I'm going to have to consult Woolly on this."
"But I thought you said that he would go ballistic if we say the wrong thing."
Beatrix grinned. "Well, it's a good thing that I never say the wrong thing."
"Oh, God, we're all gonna die," said Torch, and exited the cockpit closely on her heels.
Woolly had spent most of his time sleeping in his chair, snoring rather loudly. This time, as they approached, he regarded them quietly, one eyebrow raised. The leech that controlled Arryn's body ignored them completely, staring at the wall, just like it had since they'd chained it up. She'd thought about cutting the part of the leech above his eye off again, but when she went to do it, Woolly had shaken his head, a clear warning. It made sense. There was no guarantee he would handle it well, and the leech wasn't causing them any trouble for now. It just seemed cruel to leave him completely lost among the hive mind because it was easier for them to deal with.
"Woolly, we need your help," said Beatrix. "Do you know why?" Woolly nodded and held up his shackles. He was asking to be unchained from the chair. She knew that would be necessary, but she hesitated. They were dancing awfully close to the line where the leech would take over, if they hadn't already passed it. "Torch, if he so much as twitches the wrong way, shoot him. We'll figure something else out if we have to."
Torch raised his gun and nodded. "I'm not even going to comment on how much that sounded like an order."
Beatrix looked at him sheepishly. "Sorry, Cap, too long spent outside the chain of command."
"That's okay, Sting, I'm sure when we get back to Nedra you'll have plenty of people underneath you to boss around, and you and I can go back to just being buddies."
Beatrix thought about that while she unhooked Woolly's shackles from the chair and clamped them back around his wrists. She hadn't thought about what she would do once she was free. If they were successful here, the war with the Anthrak would be over and the thing that killed her father would finally be dead. She wasn't sure how much appeal the Crown Fleet would have for her then. It was something she would have to put some thought into. "Alright Woolly, let's go up front so you can wave your magic wand and help us on our way."
Woolly grunted and walked slowly to the cockpit. Torch followed behind him so he had a clear shot if anything went wrong, and Beatrix brought up the rear. Woolly sat down in the copilot's chair and raised his hands slowly, pressing a sequence o
f buttons that Beatrix knew nothing about.
Torch glanced at her and she shrugged. "I guess since he's being so obvious, we let him continue?" she asked.
Torch chuckled. "For all we know, he just programmed our ship to self-destruct, but he's gotten us this far."
A small panel slid aside on the console and a blue orb the size of Beatrix's fist floated out. There was no doubt in her mind what the object was. It was a link to the Quorum. "Hold on," she said, sticking out a hand toward Woolly. "I'm going to need a few words before I can let you touch that."
Woolly grimaced and then looked at Torch's gun. "We must interface with the Quorum to prevent breaches by deceit. We can only slow the interface for a short time." He hesitated before each and every word, like they were causing him physical pain, then he looked up at her with raised eyebrows.
It took her a while to puzzle it out. Torch's lip curled and it made her want to smile. "He can open up the perimeter for a short time. They'll figure out he's lying after that, and be on us." Beatrix hopped into the pilot's seat and grabbed the controls.
"Everyone buckle up," called Torch into the passenger area. "This is going to be a bumpy ride." A chorus of affirmatives echoed back. "I need you," he said to Woolly, "to get up and come to the back with me as soon as you're done." Woolly nodded and reached toward the orb again.
Beatrix peered out the window at the array of enemies before them and shuddered. Any one of them looked capable of shooting their small ship down. Their only hope was to get down to the surface of the planet and do what needed doing before they discovered Woolly's deception. If he betrayed them, they stood absolutely no chance.
Without warning, a gap opened in the array of ships surrounding the planet. "Here we go," said Beatrix, and punched the throttle. Within seconds they were staring into the swirling green mist that composed the atmosphere of the Anthrak home world. She heard Torch shouting something off to her left, but she couldn't turn her focus away from her task to see what was going on. "Entering atmo," she shouted. The ship's proximity sensors weren't picking up any sign of pursuit yet. "So far so good."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the ship cleared the haze of the atmosphere and then jolted violently. There was the shriek of energy based weapons whizzing past the ship. They hadn't been hit from behind, but it had been close, and with enough energy to have vaporized the ship. Below them was a dense green jungle that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was nothing to indicate the direction she should follow. A vague thought tickling the back of her mind urged her to follow the river off to her right. It was the only break in the canopy for at least a hundred kilometers.
"Do you know where you're going?" asked Hands, now seated in the copilot's seat.
"Not really, but the little bit of the Anthrak that's wedged into my brain does."
"Up the river to the main hive," said Hands, waving his arms like he was trying to shake off a bug. "That's so creepy that I know that."
"The queen wants to make sure that all of her subjects know how to get home."
"Subjects," said Hands, shuddering for dramatic effect. "I am not that disgusting leech's subject."
"We've got a tail," said Beatrix. "I'm going down low. Hopefully they won't be able to keep up with the turns of the river."
"We've got a bunch of tails," corrected Hands. "I'll try to keep them occupied with some gunfire. You keep us from crashing and burning."
"Just make sure you save us some ammo for that hive."
"You got it. One shot, one kill," said Hands, his battle grin sliding into place. "It's much more fun that way anyway."
Beatrix weaved along the course of the river at the fastest speed she could manage. The ships trailing them didn't look anything like Colarian ships. They were a random mix of sizes and shapes. None of them were as swift or agile as the Raptors she was used to flying against, which was a good thing, because her ship wasn't half that responsive. The broken branches littering their wake could attest to that. As expected, the Anthrak piloting them still behaved the same way. Hands opened fire and they backed off a few hundred meters. Unfortunately, that wouldn't last for long.
A few of their ships tumbled into the surrounding jungle and burst into flames each time she cut a corner close, but it wasn't nearly enough. Hands picked some more, but there were dozens still behind them. It was only a matter of time before one of them got off a lucky shot and took them down. Abruptly, the river straightened out, taking their only means of cover from them. Her Anthrak knowledge told her that meant the hive was close by. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure how they were going to survive that long.
As if on cue, a shot hit them on the port side. It was a glancing blow, but it still caused them to bob awkwardly. "Lay down some cover fire, Hands. I've got to try and adjust the power in the engines to compensate for the one they just damaged."
"Initiating spray-and-pray," replied Hands. The rear guns of the ship began spewing rounds so fast it sounded like someone had kicked a hornet's nest. They wouldn't be able to keep that up for long without running out of ammo.
Beatrix lowered power on the starboard side of the ship and increased it to the remaining thrusters on the port side. It would make them a little bit slower, but at least they weren't floundering like a lame duck any more. "Back to single shots, Hands."
His rapid fire had bought them some distance. Hopefully it would be enough to get to the hive. Beatrix swerved and dodged as best she could with the wounded ship. In the passenger area there was a lot of snarling and rattling chains. "Everything okay back there?" called Beatrix.
"Everything's fine," replied Pickle. "For certain definitions of fine."
"What she means is that nobody's likely to die," said Gadget. "We finally got Woolly restrained. He went off the deep end."
"Thank you." Beatrix had to resist the urge to ask how Arryn was doing. They would have told her if he was dead. She didn't want them to know how concerned she was for him. It was hard enough for her to admit it to herself. All of their talks about books had been coming back to her on the flight to the Anthrak home world. After seeing how hard the Anthrak pushed against your consciousness, his ability to talk so freely through it was a mark of extraordinary willpower. It also made it easier for her to think of him as separate from the thing that had killed her father. Her musing cut off abruptly when the blue river below them was coated in a bubbling black sheen. "What the hell is that?"
"They've all but stopped shooting at us," said Hands. His voice was loud in the sudden quiet.
"Can you get a good look at what's going on in the river?" asked Beatrix.
"No, but it's happening on the shore too. Whatever it is, it's moving."
Since the firing had tapered off, Beatrix chanced a closer look and gasped as realization hit her. "It's the Anthrak. Thousands of them without hosts. They stopped shooting because they didn't want to risk killing that many of their own."
Hands groaned. "That's disgusting. They're everywhere. Should I open fire?"
"No, we'll need the ammo for that," said Beatrix pointing to a large shape in a clearing to their left.
"Is that it? It doesn't look anything like a bee hive."
There was no doubt in Beatrix's mind that it was the main hive of the Anthrak. Despite what Hands said, it looked a little bit like a bee hive, growing up from the ground in an off-kilter sphere. It differed because it was covered in a mottled grey flesh that throbbed like a heartbeat. It was the most disturbing thing Beatrix had ever seen. Beatrix veered toward it and their pursuers opened fire again. The threat to the hive outweighed the lives of their brethren on the ground. Fortunately, they fired at odd angles to avoid hitting the hive themselves. That made it much easier to dodge their shots.
It didn't take long before they abandoned that strategy and began to close the gap between them with astounding speed. They took no heed of Hands firing at them. He brought ship after ship crashing into the river, each one wiping out hundreds of Anthrak on impact.
All the while, the hive loomed closer and its proportions became clear. In the distance it had been hard to judge its size. It was a small skyscraper. Black Anthrak bodies slithered around it in spiraling lines.
Just as Beatrix began to circle, trying to determine the best line of attack, one of the Anthrak ships dive-bombed them. She pulled the control stick to the left and barely avoided a collision. The Anthrak ship continued on its trajectory and smashed into the ground at high velocity, sending up a gigantic plume of fire. Immediately, a second ship tried the same tactic from a different angle.
"What the hell are they doing?" shouted Hands.
"They're trying to save the hive," replied Beatrix, continuing her circuit around the disturbing structure. "Shoot it with everything you have. Aim for the center. That's where the queen is."
"Unloading into the belly of the beast," replied Hands, and again the drone of automatic fire filled the cockpit. "It would be easier if we weren't bouncing up and down like a basketball."
"Sure, I can do that, but then we'll all die," said Beatrix, dodging two ships that dived at the same time. "So, are you sure you want this to be easy?"
"I guess they do say that hard work always pays off in the end. Hard it is."
Hands continued firing into the center of the hive and it wasn't long before the Anthrak responded. They were much more versatile in their tactics than the Raptor pilots ever had been. Now, the Anthrak ships had divided themselves into two groups; one was still dive-bombing their ship, the other was surrounding the hive and mostly just taking hit after hit, using themselves as shields for the hive. Unfortunately, both Anthrak groups kept growing as more ships arrived on the scene. It was only a matter of time before Beatrix's ship sustained a critical hit. "Hands, I'm going to come in straight and slow. I need you to concentrate your fire in one area. I want a hole as big as this ship in the side of the hive."
"You got it, Sting," said Hands. "One big-ass hole, coming right up."
Sometime during the battle, Gadget and Pickle had crept up behind them. It was a stupid move with all the wild maneuvers Beatrix had been pulling, but she couldn't blame them. There was no way she would have stayed in the passenger area and missed all the action. Gadget said, "That's stupid, we're going to get blown out of the sky."
