Friendly Fire

by Michelle Levigne

  "Atmosphere reads clear. No failsafes, toxins or heavy gases," Rimson reported. He stepped up closer to the hatch as it continued groaning open and waved the sensor wand through the air streaming through the half-meter-wide gap. "More life signs coming -- down!" He stumbled backwards, clutching the panel and wand to his chest.

  A dark streak zipped out through the opening, almost colliding with the engineer's helmet before darting upwards. Several crew shouted. A chiming-chittering sound erupted through the audio pickup. The streak expanded into a cobalt blue drac as long as Genys' arm, with a serpentine, pointed tail twice as long, and gossamer wings that were nearly transparent against the brilliant work lights.

  "A baby dragon." Treinna turned to Genys. "A live baby dragon!"

  "An unhappy baby dragon." Genys gestured at the creature that shrieked and dove in rapid, gracefully fierce swoops, slapping at the engineers with its tail and wings. "Get M'kar."

  "If possible, find a time loop and get her there before we needed her," Maora commented from her auxiliary seat on the lower level of the bridge. She never looked away from the three holographic screens hovering in the air in front of her face.

  "I heard that," M'kar responded through the overhead speaker grill. "Heard the baby shrieking as soon as the hatch opened. On my way."

  Everyone on the bridge remained silent, fascinated as they watched the drac scold and badger and paralyze a crew of six armed and armored engineers. Its movements grew more frantic and wild, and its shrieks more furious as the hatch continued to groan and grind open. It didn't take much thinking to guess the blue drac was desperate to keep these strangers from whoever was inside the cargo hold. It wasn't breathing flame, and something told her that was an important detail.

  ~~~~~~

  "Nine children -- full ship's complement -- and one injured adult," Rimson reported, reading direct from the sensor display screen as M'kar skidded to a stop in the corridor.

  The drac shrieked and scolded and wove back and forth across the fully open hatch. Her head hurt from trying to penetrate its panic-streaked fury as she hurried from the other end of the ship. Who knew survey ships could suddenly quadruple in size the moment she wanted to be somewhere other than where she was?

  "Have you made contact?" She focused all her attention on the sparkling, opalescent eyes. Being physically close should help. She considered holding out her hands, hoping the little drac would smell Poki on her skin.

  No. Strike that. Who knew what kind of odor a drac gave off when it was in pain and close to death? She did not need that panic turning to vengeance fury and those shrieks turning into the skin-peeling note.

  "As far as we can tell, everyone is inside the life pod and they can't hear us. We're trying to force open a channel, but …" Abbott held out his helmet. "Thing's got some nasty claws. Might want to protect your eyes."

  M'kar shook her head, offering a thin smile of thanks. The helmet would protect her from the drac's claws and the slapping of that long tail that certainly seemed prehensile, but it would also muffle the energy of emotions in the mental atmosphere. She needed to be as clear and open as possible to the frantic, terrified, and if her impressions were correct, very young creature.

  "Enlo, use me," she whispered as she stepped forward and stretched her arms out at her sides, displaying her open, empty hands. "Make me an instrument of your peace. Make me a bridge of understanding. Make me a light and a shelter to your creatures."

  A crooning song from her childhood among the Le'anka bubbled up in her throat. She let it come out, though she usually avoided singing among her crewmates. M'kar had learned long ago that when it came to dealing with creatures that might be closer to sentient than some Humans, it was wise to listen to her instincts and follow even the oddest impressions and notions. Such as singing a child's morning prayer song.

  The tune was one of the first she had learned to help her focus her animal-oriented psionic gifts. She half-lidded her eyes, so the drac wouldn't be intimidated or even offended at direct eye-contact. Many of the higher species of animals, especially predators, considered full eye-contact a threat.

  "Good job," someone whispered behind her, when the drac's chittering and squealing slowed. Its passes across the hatch opening slowed as well.

  She sang louder, holding to Le'ankan, so her crewmates wouldn't hear the childish, delightfully silly words, asking if Enlo liked to play the same games she did, and eat the same breakfast food. M'kar wasn't above reminding the doubters that she had been trained on Le'anka.

  The chittering stopped and she nearly stopped. It took all her hard-won discipline to continue her slow, cautious, calm glide forward as the drac swooped toward her. A half-second later, it darted back to the hatch. Then back toward her, closer this time. Back to the hatch. Then swooped out to fly over her head. It came to rest on the top of the hatch door and folded its wings close, regarding her with big, shimmering eyes that lost their white sparkles and took on streaks of green and brown and red.

  "Enlo's peace to you," she whispered in Le'ankan and envisioned her mind opening like the pod of an ambrosia plant, offering its thick, nourishing nectar -- though M'kar knew better than to let anything "eat" from her mind.

  White fire burst across her mind. She yanked free of the impressions that certainly didn’t feel like the touch of an animal’s mind. Blinking stars out of her vision, she found herself huddled on the floor. The drac clutched at the front of her pressure suit. Fire pulsed through her left arm and across her chest. Fever sweat burst out all over her body. She thought she would retch from the combination of nausea and pain the creature poured into her.

  "No, I'm okay," she blurted, only half-hearing the shouts from her crewmates.

  M'kar held up one hand, stopping them, while her free arm -- her uninjured arm, she had to concentrate on that to break the illusion -- wrapped around the drac named Cobalt and cradled it to offer comfort.

  "I'm getting overflow--" She swallowed hard and shoved harder against the agony and worry and fear that overwhelmed Cobalt's juvenile mind. "The crewman inside is bad off. He needs medics, fast."

  Crooning under her breath, she got back to her feet. Cobalt echoed her croon and scrambled up the front of her suit, to curl around her shoulders, wrapping his warm, supple tail around her neck for support. His long, delicate talons on forepaws and hindpaws pierced the fabric of her shirt, inside the open collar of the pressure suit, but tickled instead of prickling. Cobalt's wedge-shaped head tucked under her chin, and he shivered.

  "It's all right, Oby," she whispered as the images spilling through her mind slowed and she could make sense of them. "We'll take care of him. We'll take care of them all." M'kar followed up her words with a trickle of images, showing the crew behind her going in and bandaging the crewman's arm and helping the children climb out of the lifepod. For good measure, she showed them offering sweets to the children and a bowl of water for Cobalt to drink from. Food was always reassuring for young creatures, and every second of contact that passed created a clearer picture of the juvenile nature of the drac's mind.

  She led the way into the cargo hold, though her legs kept trying to fold from the overflow of impressions. The drac's crewman was a shuttle pilot named Flinders. The man's delirium and pain from large burns and several deep cuts made the drac frantic. Flinders and Cobalt had been hiding with the children in the lifepod inside the hold for more than two Standard days. The medical supplies were all used up, the food was running out, and the only positive in their favor was that the recycling and life support system kept the air good and filtered wastewater for their use. The lifepod was made for four adults. Nine children and one drac, who needed to move from time to time, and one injured, delirious adult, made for crowded conditions.

  "Oby?" a child asked, as M'kar came around the back side of the teardrop-shaped lifepod. A boy who looked to be about twelve Standard years peered out through the opening usually only used for entering a lifepod. The boy looked at M'kar, his eyes big, his
face grimy, and far more mature than his years. "Are you Fleet?"

  She nodded. "The Hivers are gone. Oby says Flinders is very sick. My name is M'kar. My ship is the Defender."

  "I'm Baron Trelayn." He wriggled a little until he could get his arms out of the hole and levered himself further up out of the chute. "My dad is the captain and my mom is chief engineer." The boy swallowed hard. His eyes got bigger. Cobalt crooned, sounding like he would burst into tears in another moment. "Are my folks dead? Did the Hivers get them?"

  "I don't think so." M'kar hooked her thumb over her shoulder at the crewmen coming around the lifepod. "We're finding lots of cocoons, so that's a good sign."

  She flinched, hating to tell the boy a lie, even if it was to comfort him. The sad truth was that no one had ever been removed alive from a cocoon. The standard practice for dealing with cocoons retrieved from Hiver outposts was to keep them in a moist, high-oxygen atmosphere, resting on soil with a high level of organic material. The cocoons absorbed nutrients from the soil and moisture from the air, keeping the people inside alive. No one had devised a way of awakening the prisoners before opening the cocoons. Every attempt at opening them terminated all life-support functions of the cocoons. More than forty years of studying cocoons had led to incredible breakthroughs in cold-sleep and hibernation studies, especially in medical use, but the numbers of warehoused cocoons were approaching the unwieldy point.

  "What matters," she continued, "is that you're safe, and we're going to help Flinders. Can you open up, or do you need help?"

  "Just a minute." The boy dropped out of sight.

  "You're good with kids," Abbott said, stepping up next to M'kar.

  "Not me." She stroked Cobalt's head with the tip of her finger, and the drac's crooning settled into a purr. "They trust Cobalt, and he trusts me. The sooner we get them among our kids, the better."

  ~~~~~~

  According to the Corona’s children, the crew had found the dracs eight luns ago, on the other side of a Chute. Genys still couldn't get over the fact that a survey ship with sensor equipment only one-third the strength of the Defender's had found the rare spatial phenomenon.

  "Could be part of why the Corona was so twanked on reporting any of this to Fleet or the Academy," Taggert said.

  He stood next to Genys. The command crew had gathered in the conference room, watching the four screens built into the table. Tahl and her team of medics and counselors examined and questioned the rescued children, fed and cleaned them. M'kar was visible on one screen. Cobalt flitted back and forth between her and the injured crewman, Flinders. Genys couldn't tune out the pitiful crooning and plaintive chirps from the little drac. She had to put up with it, because according to M'kar, Cobalt had very strong orders from Flinders to protect the children. He had to be there, able to see the children. At the same time, he was attached to Flinders. The bond between man and drac was very clear to Genys. Cobalt reminded her of an old dog that had refused to leave the side of its owner, an elderly neighbor of hers. The dog had curled up under the bed, whimpering and sighing the short time the old woman had been unconscious. It didn't surprise anyone when the dog died just a few hours after the woman.

  "It doesn't make sense why they didn't immediately report the find, just head straight to Le'anka," Decker said. "The finders' fees alone would have set them up for years. A new, bigger, better, faster ship. Double the size of their crew." He sighed. "Detect danger when it was far enough away to run for their lives."

  "Maybe they were on their way to report it and ran into trouble and had to dock at Sheffroab. Take into account stellar currents and gravitic forces. To avoid the more dangerous space lanes, where they could be stopped by inspection teams from planetary systems in dispute, Sheffroab is actually on a straight line between Le'anka and … well, here, and wherever the Chute is. They certainly couldn't be sure of a secure channel, even at Sheffroab. Maybe they wanted to find the nearest Academy outpost or even a Fleet ship before they reported it," Genys speculated. "Something happened at Sheffroab to frighten them. There were no mobile Fleet ships to act as escort. We certainly weren't in any shape to help. From the little we've been able to pull out of the ship's records and what we untangled from the data wafer, I can almost understand them being nervous, looking over their shoulders all the time." She tapped the button that let her speak directly to Tahl, through an earbud. "What did the ship do? Did it stop anywhere after the dracs' planet?"

  Chapter Nine

  The answer came back after only a few minutes of roundabout questioning. The oldest child, Athan, was fourteen Standards. He and Baron were allied in looking after the other seven children. The boy had already proven himself just a little too perceptive, seeing through the careful adult questions to what they really wanted to know. Genys made a mental note to have the boy tested for psionic talents. She would make sure the Defender stood as his sponsor, to get him to Le'anka for training.

  Athan answered quickly. The Corona had suffered damage when it emerged through the Chute and had limped all the way to Sheffroab. They had a hard time controlling the dracs, keeping them from popping out of the ship to explore the station. Between the long journey to the station and then the long wait while they made repairs, they had run out of vital parts of the drac food supply. Especially the herbs necessary to keep the dracs from needing to mate. Captain Trelayn had decided to risk going back to the dracs' planet to get more food before heading for Le'anka. They had been followed by Hivers and thought they had given them the slip when they entered the Chute. The Hivers hid from the Corona's sensors while the crew was loading the fresh food supply. No one realized what was happening until there were Hivers on the planet, hunting down the dracs. The Corona returned through the Chute and fled for half a day before the Hivers caught up with them.

  "This is a problem," Parys said. "Hivers, with knowledge of an uncharted Chute?"

  "Problem?" Decker made a guttural, rattling sound. His hobby was finding awful-sounding but harmless words that he could use around the children. "Call it catastrophic."

  For the next hour, everyone around the table discussed the fallout from the various possible disaster scenarios. Timetables involved. Signs and clues to follow. Possible steps to take to head off trouble, and preparations to make for responding to any of the scenarios. Genys listened to them and tried to withhold conclusions until everyone had a chance to offer their suggestions and voice their problems with each subject and tactic. The best way to give herself a headache was to constantly upgrade and modify her picture of the situation and possible solutions as more information came in. Time was the problem, however.

  "Time," she muttered after everyone had fallen silent and she felt them watching her, waiting for her to ask new questions or start giving orders. She had always felt sorry for Captain Hollis at times like this, and now she added a good dollop of guilt for not feeling enough sympathy. "That’s the question. Tahl, what timetable are we looking at for getting the cocoons to Anwesta?"

  "We haven't even begun examining them to determine what state they're in, any damage, variations from known parameters of other rescued cocoons," Tahl said after a few moments of heavy silence. "However … my best guess is we have at least two decs before we need to worry about deterioration due to lack of nutrient soil. If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, we have the resources to create a high humidity environment and generate the proper nutrient soil to maintain them."

  "What do you think I'm thinking?" Genys exchanged a tight smile with Maora.

  "We have to go to the drac world and make sure Hivers aren't still there, performing genocide," M'kar said, speaking up for the first time through the earbud link.

  "That's … pretty close to what I was thinking. Jasper, you've been scribbling for a while now. What are you plotting?"

  "Calculating." A wintry smile twisted the chief engineer's lips. "I can get a lot of information from the residue clinging to the ship's hull -- energy as well as space dust. I can give Anya
an approximate location to start looking for the Chute. The more information you can glean from those slagged ship's logs, the more tightly I can refine the search area." He shrugged. "Within a few thousand cubic Kliks."

  Genys whistled and sat back in her seat. Even with the newest and best, strongest and most sensitive sensor equipment, they might be at the task of finding the Chute for luns. She looked around the room, meeting the gazes of everyone in the command crew, questioning. One by one, each person grew more somber and nodded. Genys knew her crew well. They had been tested under pressure, through loss and triumph. Those who put their own profit above the welfare of the rest had been weeded out long ago.

  She considered the newest members of the crew who hadn't been tested, hadn't had a chance to find their place in the web of connections and bonds. This might be their trial by fire. She hoped the ones who were showing resentment at being assigned to the Nanny Ship -- forget that they had originally asked to be transferred here -- would shake off that little handicap before it crippled them all at the worst possible moment.

  ~~~~~~

  "That's not a good sign, is it?" Brea murmured.

  M'kar stepped out of the doorway in sickbay where she and Cobalt had watched over Flinders and the children. The little drac whimpered constantly now, curled up on Flinders' chest. The medical monitor screen at the foot of the bed showed all the crewman's vitals had dropped. M'kar didn't understand everything on the screen, but she had spent enough time in sickbay to understand the basics.

  "Just like with my friend, his physical condition is reflected in Cobalt." M'kar took a chair at the end of the desk where Brea worked on the reams of data gathered from examining the children.