Friendly Fire

by Michelle Levigne

  While the underground creature dealt with the dracs trying to scratch at its eyes, the other dracs dove in from behind, spitting black gobs of chewed vine all over its backside and head. Then the first group of dracs swooped down and spat fire at the gobs that stuck to the creature's back. The gobs burst into flame. The creature let out a roar that shook leaves from the trees and knocked the recorder from Tynders' hand.

  "Give me one good reason why I don't pull all of you back to the ship right now," Genys said, after she had a chance to look at the cleaned up, stabilized recordings sent up to the Defender.

  "Geologic readings show lots of bedrock close to the surface around the camp, while the soil is loose and full of the local equivalent of loam, going down at least ten meters in the area where the attack occurred," Decker responded. He winked at Brea, who sat with him and M'kar at the outside conference table.

  He could afford to wink -- they were on voice-only link with the ship. Brea just rolled her eyes. While the team put together the report, they had time to prepare for every objection, every concern, every question their superiors might throw at them.

  "Meaning?" Genys said. A sigh made her voice raspy.

  "Meaning it can't tunnel up anywhere near us," Brea said, taking over. "We're guessing from the blotchy red patches that showed up on its skin during the fight, which lasted only twelve minutes, and which did not result from the vine-spit-bombs, the hex-beast is photo-sensitive. It's allergic to something in sunlight. It blisters or has some bad reaction after only a short exposure to light. Meaning it won't come up out of the ground and cross rock-filled soil to get at whatever it's hunting."

  "Hex-beast, huh?" Tahl said, joining the conversation.

  "Six legs, approximately six eyes," M'kar said. "We can't give it an official name until we have more data, but we can't just keep calling it 'that white thing the dracs royally thrashed and sent running, screaming for its mama,' can we?"

  That earned mutters and muffled laughter from the senior crewmembers in the ready room.

  "Have you gotten samples of the spit-bombs?" Genys asked. "That's pretty clever, and a little frightening, if you think about it. We not only have to be careful not to hack off the dracs so they don't breathe fire, now we have to worry about stepping in something that could catch fire at any second. I know, on the video, the dracs had to breathe fire on it, but who's to say it won't spontaneously combust without outside ignition?"

  Decker cocked an eyebrow at them. Brea crossed her eyes at him. They had discussed just that possibility. He wanted to go back to the meadow and try to get samples of any spit-bombs that hadn't hit the hex-beast, for experimentation. When M'kar asked Granny to send dracs to guide him there, the little silver matriarch had a screaming fit, scolding her and flying circles tight enough her wings slapped the top of M'kar's head. Then all the dracs in the camp popped out of sight. They came back after the report had been sent up to the Defender two hours ago, and seemed almost piteously relieved to find the landing party hadn't left. At least, that was the impression M'kar had from Granny, and from the mewling little chirps the dracs had made for some time.

  "We didn't know the dracs could spit, that anything could be done with the vine except create flames," M'kar said. "And the deposits on the latrine roof are mostly globs of mucous and ash, with nothing combustible about them. Believe me, we've tried."

  Decker snorted. The efforts to set the vine residue on fire had resulted in a stink that sent everyone staggering away. Fortunately, that had been outdoors. Breezes and the sweet aroma of the flowering vines in the nearby jungle cleared the air in a short time.

  "When are you going to ask Granny to provide some fresh-made samples for you to study?" Genys asked.

  "Tomorrow, or at least when I'm sure they've calmed down. They're royally hacked off at Decker's team for not running for their lives at the first sign of the hex-beast. Granny thinks we're dumber than newly hatched baby dracs. I get this feeling she's pissed at you because we're stumbling into trouble, and you aren't keeping a better watch on us."

  "Excuse me?" Genys drawled, her voice thick with a mixture of sarcasm and disbelief that had made some young, newly hatched Ankuar officers blanch when they faced her. "How does Granny even know about me?"

  "I've been explaining to her our hierarchy, the size of the ship, rank system, what we're doing flying through space. I don't think she's quite caught on yet, but she at least understands that you're her counterpart. She seems to think you should be controlling us the same way she controls her tribe."

  M'kar rubbed her temples with her knuckles, the discussion awakening the headaches she had earned with prolonged communication efforts. Trying to convey concepts through images alone wasn't as easy as some people imagined. When all was said and done, semi-sentient didn't mean the dracs were the equivalent of Humans when it came to abstracts and intangibles.

  "I've gotten a clear understanding that the youngest members of their tribe aren't immediately allowed out of the cave where they're born. Not until they've matured into some sense of independence from the adults assigned to them. The ones who work directly with us are the most mature, just like we've theorized. They're able to interact with us without … I don't know, gluing themselves to us, to our minds."

  "Cobalt seemed to be very young, compared to the data you've collected on the other dracs," Tahl offered.

  "That just reinforces my first concern," Genys said. "What if the Corona's crew encountered some very young dracs, who … I don't know, who had sticky minds, needing to glue themselves to someone older, more mature? What if they had to take the dracs with them because they couldn't break free?"

  "You mean," Brea said, locking gazes with M'kar, "what happens to us if we try to break the bond?"

  "I'll ask Granny tomorrow," M'kar said, rubbing her temples again. She was going to need a good night's sleep, to prepare for the mental strain ahead of her. After so much contact with the matriarch of the dracs, she suspected Granny wasn't going to like the topic of conversation, either. Maybe it would be safer to ask about vine-spit-bombs? She was relieved when Genys moved the evening report to the next item of concern.

  Specifically, images picked up from a drac's mind.

  Lieutenant Celeste Coltray had limited psi that let her pick up images from other minds and then produce incredibly life-like drawings. She usually had to be within two meters of the subject and couldn’t communicate in response. She had been included in the landing party so she could sketch what others saw when there weren't recorders turned on. A big, muscular crimson drac attached himself to her. She was one of the first who managed to coax her drac, whom she named Raspberry, to ride on her shoulder. She talked to Raspberry constantly as she worked.

  Raspberry surprised her by putting images in her head in response. The images Celeste sketched caught everyone's attention.

  "We've detected no presence of the telltale Ankuar fuel residue," Genys protested, when Decker described to her the three sketches Celeste had made. "Just Hiver."

  The first image was a dreadnaught, a design the Ankuar insisted was merely a long-range merchant and exploration vessel. It needed to be huge, heavily armed and armored, to stand up to the dangers of unexplored space and any unfriendly, aggressive cultures they might run across in their explorations. They claimed.

  The second was a landing shuttle.

  The third was a generic Ankuar male, with typical ice-blue eyes, silvery-white hair and dusky skin, square jaw and pointy, uptilted nose.

  "I'm getting nothing from Granny," M'kar reported, before their captain could ask.

  By now, most of the landing party had gathered around the table holding the communications pack. The air smelled of the spicy twigs and tree oil that, when burned, kept away the many night-flying insects so they didn’t suicide with splat-zaps against the repulsor field. The aroma reminded M'kar of Visitation celebration dishes and sweet treats eaten on Le'ankan holy days.

  "What do you mean, nothing?" Tahl asked.<
br />
  "No matter how I rephrase the questions, Granny insists the Corona crew and our landing party are the only 'big no-wings' they’ve seen. I've called up images of all the Human races I've ever seen, all the variations of eye and hair and skin color, stature, you name it. She is adamant."

  "Then how do you explain Celeste's drac seeing Ankuar ships?" Genys asked.

  "Umm, don't kill the messenger?" Treinna said, her voice starting off faint and getting stronger with each word, as if she approached the table where the audio pickup sat. "I just checked the images you sent up. The rest of you aren't involved in the children's standard lessons, but these look like the images from the space exploration history pod of Tress's lesson plan."

  Genys was the first to break the stunned silence, with laughter. M'kar took that as a good sign.

  "Want to explain what's so funny?" Decker half-growled.

  "The dracs were spying on the Corona's children when they had their lessons?" Brea said slowly, as if testing the concept as she spoke.

  "That's my guess," Genys said.

  When M'kar test their theory on Granny, visualizing Raspberry watching the children as they studied, the little silver drac erupted in fury. She scolded and flew circles around M'kar's head four times before darting to where Raspberry crouched on Celeste's shoulder. Granny flew around Celeste, chattering, her voice rising higher until it threatened to shift into inaudible frequencies.

  "I'll take that as a yes, and hazard a guess that was forbidden," Genys said, when M'kar explained what had happened. "When you get her calmed down, can you ask why, specifically, Raspberry shouldn't have been spying on the children?"

  "Specifics?" M'kar tried not to groan. "I'll try, but …"

  Brea patted her shoulder and went over to the medical supply packs on another table. By the time Granny had calmed down and came back to sit on the table in front of M'kar, Brea had mixed another anise tonic. It soothed the ache still lingering from the last intense, convoluted flood of impressions and should buffer against coming strain.

  The buffer wasn't enough, by the time Granny was done giving M'kar what amounted to an intensive lesson in drac physiology, culture, and history. However, she had learned to release pressure years ago by broadcasting the images spilling through her mind and causing "logjams," as a classmate had termed it. In this case, Celeste picked up those broadcasted images. By the time Granny chirped and gathered up her tribe of dracs to retreat to wherever they nested for the night, M'kar was blurry-eyed with a killer headache. Celeste had stacks of sketches and a hand slightly more sore and cramped than her head, from the effort. Brea dosed them both, heavily enough they didn't get up until past planetary noon the next day. Then they went through the sketches, which helped M'kar remember what she had learned, as she reported to the ship.

  Raspberry had violated the cultural taboos of the dracs by getting close to the Corona's children. The dracs understood very clearly that the children weren’t just smaller Humans, they were immature. There were strong rules about protecting children. M'kar's impression was that some rules were to protect untrained, not-quite-mature adults from the children. Or in the case of dracs, hatchlings. Only the most mature adults were allowed near the eggs when they hatched.

  The impression M'kar got was of a cavern far underground where adults took turns keeping the eggs warm. The darkness was illuminated by the colors and phosphorescent glow coming from the eggs, reminding her of opals. As the eggs matured, they changed colors, took on facets, and grew brighter. Eggs that looked like jewels fractured along the facets, releasing hatchlings. That detail was helpful, because now she had some idea when the egg Dulit had given her would hatch. Of course, until the Defender went back through the Chute and she re-established contact with Thyal, she couldn't pass that information on to him. The Interface should have brought the cocoons and sleeping dracs and the egg to Le'anka by now, shouldn't it?

  Teams of adults guarded the maturing eggs and covered them with plant matter, which was absorbed into the shells. The eggs only hatched three at a time. Drac females usually only produced three eggs at a time, and siblings hatched together. They didn't keep track of which eggs belonged to whom. Training the hatchlings was the job of everyone.

  The most mature adults gathered around the hatchlings as they emerged from their shells and sang to them. M'kar's impression was that the songs helped in pairing adults with hatchlings. The baby dracs sang in chords. The sensory memories still ringing in her head impacted her ears nearly twenty hours later, as she explained what she had learned. Celeste helped her put the impressions into words and drew the images. She was buffered by everything coming through M'kar's mind, and gave her enough distance to get a bigger picture.

  The hatchlings created chords because they were trying to find their "note," the place where each one fit into the mental song that kept all the dracs connected. Besides each drac having its own note, there was a kind of musical scale, where each individual note had a different meaning or emotion or task or even image assigned to it in the concert of communication.

  They agreed that the dracs were not a group mind. Each was an individual. They were not controlled, despite Granny's dominance of the tribe. They were a community, and each had to learn to contribute to it as they grew. The adults created a shield against the undisciplined strength and clinging power of the young minds. The young needed to learn to control their minds. The image M'kar picked up several times was of a voracious creature the length of her arm with multiple mouths and a single, needle-like tooth in each mouth that latched onto an animal and sucked it dry. The young could cause damage to minds that hadn't learned enough discipline and strength to keep from being sucked dry.

  "Which explains why Raspberry got in such trouble. He's still a teenager, essentially," Tahl said, after those on the Defender had gone over the report from M'kar and Celeste. "Granny thought he was taking too big a risk, getting close to the children."

  While M'kar and Celeste finished recovering from the intensive psionic workout, crew who had been adopted by older dracs worked on coaxing more cooperation from them. They theorized that Granny had given them permission to reveal more information. Some kind of barrier had been broken. Multiple medical scans and recordings of dracs gathering food and then repelling dangerous animals while out on scouting forays revealed that the fire came from a phosphorus-producing gland in the adult bodies. This gland allowed them to ingest the fire vine without being poisoned. Drac adolescents had immature glands. The younger dracs had longer, sharper talons, and the youngest of them all had a gland in their talons that released an irritating substance.

  "Essentially," Brea reported after compiling all the results of tests and questioning and observation, "hatchlings have talons like baby fingernails, able to shred anything organic, gouge stone, and damage metal. They can also inject a substance that causes hives in our unlucky test subjects. Depending on the size of the opponent and their body chemistry, the substance can make the local animals miserably sick or kill them. The older the dracs become, the less venom they produce."

  "By the time the venom doesn't work, they can protect themselves by spitting phosphorus, creating fire, simply tearing enemies apart, and hitting them hard enough to break bones," M'kar added.

  "Mature adults have working phosphorus glands," Brea said, taking up the report again, "and we've narrowed down the specific plants that provide the necessary dietary elements to produce the phosphorus oil. Without those specific plants, eventually their glands stop producing it. Which explains why the Corona had that hold full of plants. They needed to keep the dracs fed properly to protect themselves with flames. And get this -- the secretion doesn't ignite automatically on contact with oxygen."

  "Come again?" Tahl said, her voice sounding distant on the speaker. She wasn't sitting close to Genys and the audio pickup.

  "I got some of them to spit the oil into a beaker for study," M'kar said. "They asked if I wanted it to flame or not. Turns out they have some kind
of conscious control. My guess is, the presence of predators and other nasties activate the gland. Then pheromones produced by predators trigger something else in the dracs, and they can control whether the oil bursts into flames when they spit it. Sometimes it works best for them in dangerous situations to spit non-flaming oil in the eyes of their enemies."

  "Ouch," the ship's doctor murmured. "I hope you've warned everyone not to rub their eyes if any of the dracs get temperamental and spit at them?"

  "First of all, our dracs have great aim." Brea glared at M'kar and several others who snickered. "They have spitting contests. And second of all, we don't smell bad enough to trigger production of the oil. According to M'kar and Granny, that's why our friends don't stay in camp. They have to get away from our nice smell, so they don't run out of their reserves of oil, to protect themselves."

  "So they'd eventually be safe on board starships?" Genys said.

  "If we needed them to flame, we could cultivate the plants and make sure they get enough in their diet to produce flame when necessary. Why? Are you thinking dracs would be a fun new addition for, say, embassy duty on non-allied planets? Have them ride on the shoulders of guards? They're very good at reading people. We could use them for screening duty at diplomatic meetings and conclaves."

  "If they're ever allowed off-planet."

  She paused, and M'kar suspected her captain was thinking about the drac egg sent to Thyal. Sending a man who was still paralyzed from the chest down to an interdicted planet because he had mentally bonded with an interdicted semi-sentient miniature dragon would cause a lot of diplomatic ripples. M'kar wondered if she would be exiled for violating regulations she knew quite well and had promised to follow. She looked at the infrenx tattoo on her palm and vowed that whatever happened, it was worth it. Dulit would agree.