Friendly Fire

by Michelle Levigne

  "Found it!" A male voice, an octave higher than normal, buzzed in the link.

  "Found what, exactly, JM?" Brea said.

  "Isn't there a prohibition against taking lifeforms out of their native habitat before tests are done?" the Security crewman asked.

  "Is it a dragon, or isn't it?" Tahl said.

  "You should come see it. You know, I try to be a peaceful kind of guy, but this …"

  Genys sighed loudly. "I'm getting off the link and letting you get to work. If I don't hear from you in an hour, I'm coming over and seeing what the nethers all this is about myself."

  "I don't blame you," Brea muttered. She and Tahl exchanged wide-eyed glances. They turned as one and headed down the corridor to where JM had been clearing the way ahead of them.

  "It's a lizard," Brea said, when she and Tahl had looked at the mangled body lying on the desk.

  Judging by the spatters of some orange-tinted liquid on the deck and the toe of JM's massive magnetic-soled boot, he had nudged the pieces together. She glanced at Tahl and shrugged an apology. Someone had to say it.

  "We're looking for dragons, remember? Fewmets?" JM sounded almost cheerful. Maybe the proper emotion was excitement. It was hard sometimes to tell with him, even when his expression wasn't obscured by his helmet. His voice was so deep and gravelly, he sounded angry all the time, even when he was shrieking with excitement over a zero-ball tournament.

  "That could be part of a wing," Tahl admitted, and bent to tug at a glistening, mangled bit of membrane dangling from the forelimb of the creature. It was hard to tell what its natural color was, with all the damage done to it from what was clearly a Hiver zap-shot. The weapon was based on old-style electrical current, but nearly two hundred times stronger than the level of current once used to power technology on more than a dozen Alliance worlds.

  "Dragons are huge, too big for a ship this size," Brea began.

  "Baby dragons," JM said.

  "And they're usually black or red or copper-colored, not … rainbow-streaked white," she finished on a sigh.

  "And you've seen a real dragon before, so you know for sure?" He held up a hand, stopping her from retorting. "Got the all-clear."

  "Uh, JM, you might --" Tahl gave up with a sigh as the big crewman tapped the seal controls of his helmet and twisted the neck to open it.

  "Want to brace yourself." Brea took a step back. A big one, considering the legendary force when JM’s stomach rebelled.

  For such a large, strong man, JM had a remarkably touchy stomach, especially when it came to the stench of destruction left in the wake of a shipboard disaster.

  ~~~~~~

  Brace yourself, Thyal said, as M'kar unsealed her helmet.

  "You're the one with a weak stomach, not me," she muttered.

  By this point, she didn't care if anyone heard her. She had overheard the discussion among Tahl's crew on the next deck. Something had managed to kill a drac. She could imagine the damage a Hiver could do, especially if they tried to capture a drac and it evaded them. How had they managed to shoot one, when the creatures could teleport? Brea had described the drac as rainbow-streaked white. Dulit's Poki was white and lavender, so there was still a chance his little drac was alive. But if so, where?

  The last hiss of equalizing pressure faded, and she tipped up her helmet, to let it hang down her back. M'kar inhaled slowly. If she was going to smell something disgusting, she would prefer to give herself time to acclimate. She had her tough Nisandrian reputation to protect. If JM didn't spew, then it would look even worse if she did.

  No. Thyal's voice in her mind threatened to turn into a whisper.

  What?

  She took a deeper breath. There was a taste in the air. Almost a texture. Too faint to be sure. Oddly sweet, but not the sweetness of corruption. This was almost like nectar.

  "Sweet," she whispered, as she sniffed slowly, testing the aromas. The images swirled through her mind. What had Dulit said before about a familiar smell? A sweet smell? Do you think?

  I'm afraid so. I will never forget that smell.

  You have to tell your parents. The whole Council. The Congress.

  M'kar smashed her fist against the wall next to her. The wall dented. That wasn't enough. She swung, putting her whole body into it, so her fist ached and the wall cracked in another spot.

  "How could we be so stupid? So dense? The evidence was right there in front of us. You -- what that thing did to you -- we never connected --" She dropped to her knees and tipped her head back and howled her fury, expelling the bitterly familiar, sweet aroma that filled her lungs.

  "What?" Jasper bolted out of the hatch leading to the bridge. He nearly ran into the wall and stomped over to M'kar.

  "Dymcraits," she snarled. "The Hivers are working with dymcraits."

  Jasper had studied on Le'anka. M’kar had met him and his orphan siblings there. He knew the legends and myths.

  "Are you sure?" He didn't sound like he doubted her. That was just Jasper, always double- and triple-checking.

  "I fought one. Smell. That's the stink of dymcrait venom. Believe me, I know. I remember. The Nisandrian --" Her voice cracked.

  For just a moment, she flashed back to that carefree, happy afternoon, when her classmates had reunited for a few days of relaxing and reminiscing and laughter. When M'kar remarked that the Gleaner stink had not clung to a mysterious object brought to the Academy for investigation, Taila had insisted that "The Nisandrian nose knows." They had gone to investigate, and arrived just as the dymcrait emerged from its hiding place. Taila had died in the battle.

  M'kar would give anything for her classmates to be back, teasing her, and ready to stand with her in this new battle.

  "First dragons, now dymcraits," Jasper muttered. "Give me a burping Chute any day."

  She wanted to laugh, but the sweet stink of the dymcrait, probably embedded in the cocoons, made her want to vomit instead. M'kar rocked back on her heels and pressed the tab to open her link with the ship.

  "M'kar to Defender. Get me the captain. It's bad."

  I have told my parents, Thyal said. The renewed sense of his presence in her mind soothed, warm and bracing, and somehow dulled the sharp sweetness that threatened to choke her. They thought perhaps I had had a momentary relapse. We shall find this amusing someday. I hope.

  ~~~~~~

  "The ship's holds should be full of soil samples, plant life and even some animal life samples," Genys said slowly, translating the data scrolling up a screen as the various teams reported in.

  Kyper's team had just broken through the security seals on the ship's databanks, to search backwards through the ship's log and see where it had been, what it had done. The question was whether the Corona was coming from the Chute they had discovered, or still heading toward it when the Hivers caught up with them.

  "The overabundance of plant matter in the two holds we've opened up doesn't make sense," Maora said. She and Treinna stood on either side of Genys' command pedestal, leaning against the arms of the massive chair and reading the screens sideways. "There is at least two hundred times as much as required for samples from a new, alien world. And not enough variety to be sampling all life in a regulation exploration area. It's like they were stocking up for a long voyage, but most of the plant matter we've examined so far is inedible for Humans."

  "Well, we've verified the source of all that organic material we've been following." She drew circles with her finger in the air over the holographic display of the Corona as it should look when undamaged. "An entire storage pod was blown off. What's interesting is that the recon team found clear signs that it was blown off from inside the ship."

  "On purpose?" Taggert said, glancing over his shoulder from his station. "That kind of combustive force … well, it used to be a standard trick in some older space war games. It gives you an explosive shove, as well as diffusing your energy emissions trail. Someone who doesn't know the trick --"

  "Hivers?" Treinna murmured, exchanging glan
ces with Genys.

  "Hiver. Can't imagine them playing games of any kind, nasty creeping crawling …" He cleared his throat. "Anyway, someone who doesn’t know the trick might be fooled into thinking the ship exploded. For a little while at least."

  "It was a defensive move, then, to try to escape." Veylen nodded, his mouth pressed flat. "Bought them some time, at least."

  "Left a trail for us to follow." Genys tapped the display in the right armrest and it appeared in holograph a meter out, where everyone could see. "We're going to need to study the trail a little longer, but it's matching up with what M'kar has found so far. I'm going to take a wild leap and guess they were going back to the source."

  "Fewmets," Treinna muttered. "No fewmets. Even with a dragon on the ship."

  "We can't be sure that lizard was a dragon," Taggert said. "Too damaged to be sure, and our xenobiologists are too busy with the cleanup-and-rescue efforts to do an autopsy."

  "Define a dragon," she shot back.

  "Wings, for one thing."

  "Dragon," Genys said. "Drac. M'kar saw it. Touched its mind. Dulit named his Poki."

  She had looked at everything sent over by the teams moving through the Corona. She had seen enough cocoons as their locations were recorded and they were transfered to the Defender, she thought she would see them in her sleep. Keeping up on the bits of information as they came in helped her assemble a mental picture of what had happened to the ship. The odd bits and pieces, she moved into a separate file. She opened it now, to show her team gathered around her chair.

  "I think I know why the cocoons were left behind. At least, part of the answer. But it just gives us another riddle to solve." She swallowed hard, hating what she was about to say. "We just doubled our data relating to Hivers. M'kar recognized the telltale smell inside the Corona. Look up Le'ankan dymcraits. She ran into one, during that whole ugly attack on the Academy two years ago."

  "That?" Treinna whistled softly. "I thought they were just monsters made up to scare children into behaving. If they're real … All right, we do know more, but that's not encouraging."

  "One interesting feature of dymcraits is that they make slaves of their prey. Mind control. The cocooning process might only be part of it. For all we know, the Human Hivers aren't willing partners with the insects. They're like …" She shook her head. "Like drones or remote-controlled battle 'bots or the old-style probes we used to send down into questionable environments. The dymcraits see and work and act through their slaves. Something went very wrong when they boarded the Corona."

  "The dracs?" Maora guessed.

  Genys sighed and swept her finger up the side of a screen, flinging the file into the air to become a holograph for the others to see. "Fewmets," she whispered, as the visual recording played.

  A drac sat on the edge of the control console in the ship's core, where technicians maintained and monitored the ship's nervous system. It was barely as long as the arm of the man standing behind the console. The hide was glossy black, with fringed edges on its tail and the cockscomb crest on its head. The emergency lights glistened on it. The alarm indicator lights changed from orange to bloody red and the slow flashing turned to a near-blinding, rapid strobe. The drac leaped into the air, unfolding wings four times longer than its body. Light shone through those gossamer black membranes. It flew three times around the head of the man at the console, both of them studying the door. The man's hands plied the controls, in what Genys knew now was a futile attempt to keep the door from being forced open. The drac settled on the man's shoulder. He reached up to stroke the delicate, wedge-shaped head.

  The seam of the door flared red, then it jolted open, going crooked in its tracks. Tall, broad-shouldered, humanoid figures in garishly painted helmets and vacuum suits spilled through the opening -- Hivers. The drac leaped up into the air, darting straight at the Hivers. Its mouth opened wide and flames erupted.

  Taggert let out a muttered exclamation.

  "No," Treinna moaned, as the drac dove at the leader of the Hivers, spitting flames, and three of them raised the long, bulbous weapons that were their trademark.

  "Well, at least we'll see one in action," Maora whispered, leaning forward to get a closer look.

  Fragments of Hiver weapons had been found at the sites of battles where they had been beaten back, but never enough to decipher how exactly the weapons worked. Little could be learned because when a weapon exploded, it destroyed vital components that would help reverse engineer a way of combating its effect.

  For several seconds, the three Hivers wavered between pointing their weapons at the drac or at the crewman, who staggered away. A whiplash of something long and thin and bright hit the crewman and he went down. The flames stopped, but the drac's mouth stayed open. No sound accompanied the image, showing how much damage the Corona's systems had already endured by this time. Genys could only speculate on the sound that emerged from the drac, harsh enough to make all the Hivers stagger. Two went to their knees. Another Hiver drew a beam-blaster. He shot the drac, slicing through it, sheering off one delicate wing and then its head, and kept making rapid sweeps with the blaster as the drac writhed and dropped to the deck.

  "See that?" Genys tapped the screen, so the holographic projection stopped. She waited. The others studied the holograph. "Everything changed when the crewman went down."

  "The drac reacted," Treinna murmured, as Maora and Taggert leaned closer to the image. "It changed its attack."

  "Mental bond of some kind between people and dracs. What happens to one affects the other. If we've got people in cocoons, what happened to the dracs?" She shrugged. "Just keeps getting more tangled."

  She tapped the screen and the recording resumed playing. Genys held her breath and watched the others for their reactions.

  The image flickered, like old-style static. More dracs filled the air, swooping around the Hivers, their mouths open, either shooting flame or making whatever sounds sent the Hivers to their knees. Several more raised beam-blasters and shot long streamers of bloody-red and poison-yellow energy, slicing at the lizards. They scorched lines across the walls and portions of the control console burst into flames. More flares of static interfered with the image, and each time, dracs vanished or reappeared, joining and fleeing the battle. Smoke filled the air and flashes of light. Treinna let out a few gasps as dracs fell, wings and tails and heads sheered off. Genys had the impression Maora was fighting cheers as several Hivers went down, pressing their hands against their helmets as if to block the drac cries. Several fled the room, beating out the flames on their suits.

  Genys exhaled loudly as the recording ended. "Tahl's team has found what they believe to be the remains of at least ten dead dracs in that room." She gestured down at the report now scrolling up her screen again. "Multiple colors. They aren't going to have time for an autopsy, or even attempt to reassemble the pieces for a while, but preliminary examination reveals different sizes of bodies, indicating different levels of maturity."

  She glanced up and met the eyes of the other three in turn. The silence of the bridge made itself felt. Everyone was listening, though she knew no one was neglecting their own duty stations. Rescue missions were often the most dangerous part of any ship's duty, because the distraction of tending to the injuries of other crews and damage to other ships often left them vulnerable to attack. The chance that this was a new kind of Hiver trap made everyone doubly alert. Not even the normal current of humor under everything, that made long voyages bearable, flavored the mental atmosphere right now.

  "If the dracs are tamed enough to attack someone who hurt one of the crew, chances are good," Maora said slowly, "if any are still alive and hiding on the ship, they're going to be touchy."

  "Touchy?" Taggert snorted. "These babies can shoot flames. Better tell everybody to be on double alert. Call ahead and let people know they're coming."

  Genys met his gaze and her mouth twitched into a momentary, strained, crooked smile. She tapped the controls and sent out a
brief verbal as well as written warning and update for all members of the rescue team.

  "When you promised us fewmets," Treinna muttered, leaning back against the rail of the next level up, and crossing her arms, "you really came through, Captain."

  "I wish," Genys said. Exhaustion dropped down hard on her shoulders. "Ever since the atmosphere was cleared, M'kar has been walking the decks, broadcasting as far as she can without blowing a few circuits. So far, she hasn't caught a single animal mind."

  ~~~~~~

  They're just concerned about you, Thyal said. As am I.

  If I'd blown circuits, or was anywhere near to it, you'd be the first to know. We wouldn't be able to talk, M'kar retorted. At least she remembered to think her response, instead of snarling it aloud.

  If she spoke aloud again, those twitchy young ensigns just at the bend in the corridor, giving the Corona a thorough sensor scrubbing, would probably mess their pressure suits. Then run for the shuttle bay to get away from her. Bad enough she had snarled at Treinna when her friend warned Tahl would order her back to the Defender for a rest break if she didn't stop setting off her pressure suit's bio-sign monitors. The ensigns hadn't dared continue their work until she finished checking the auxiliary science lab and moved to the next room down the corridor.

  All three ensigns were new transfers, added to the crew during upgrades to the Defender back at Sheffroab. They had come on board just after she went into the tube to sleep and hide from the mind-hunters. M'kar bared her teeth, remembering running into the three on her way to the bridge when she finally escaped sickbay. Clearly, no one had told them a Nisandrian was a member of the crew. The shorter two in the trio had actually approached her, polite and bright-eyed with curiosity, to ask M'kar what her tattoos were for. The tallest one clearly knew about Nisandrians, judging by the sudden stink of terror in the air. He nearly turned himself inside out, trying to hush the other two and stop impending disaster if M'kar took offense over the question.