Friendly Fire

by Michelle Levigne

  "We still have a mountain of data to gather on dracs, on all the other lifeforms on this planet," Genys continued, "before we can deliver even a preliminary report. Then the various governing bodies have to send their own people to study and make their judgment. Dracs are adorable, from everything you've sent up here, and I'm starting to get jealous -- off the record."

  That earned grins and snorts and a few chuckles from the crew gathered around the table for that evening's report.

  "But right now, the potential for the damage they could do to Human bodies and lives might end up with their world under quarantine, to protect them from being taken off-planet and enslaved as a living weapon, plus protect unwitting visitors from stumbling on them and getting themselves fried. Or worse, trapped in a mental bond." She sighed. "The examples of Cobalt and Flinders, and Dulit and Poki have already taught us that what affects one side of the bond affects the other. The Human half of the bond could be crippled by a drac's injury. What about a bad reaction, allergic or otherwise, to some element of our environment that we take for granted and ignore, but turns out to be deadly for dracs? There are just too many unknowns right now."

  ~~~~~~

  Granny’s tactics intensified. By mid-afternoon the next day, M’kar sensed the focused attention of the dracs was going to drive her over the edge into violence soon. They never left her alone. They even teleported into the latrine after her. When it came to teaching her about drac culture, they were even more pushy. She tried to be grateful they took turns, not all talking to her at once. She tried to be grateful she only had three dracs who stayed with her day and night, and all the information and answers to questions she never asked came through them. Gratitude was hard. They filled her head with images explaining drac society and interaction and biology. Never organized, but in random bits and pieces.

  Everywhere she went, one drac rode her shoulder, crooning to her the entire time, and the other two flew escort. Waiting their turns.

  She considered asking Brea for a sedative to turn off the brainwaves most often involved with psionic Talent, when she went to bed that night. She didn't, because any pause in having everything anyone would ever want to know about dracs downloaded into her brain would just extend the irritation.

  When she went into the tent to get ready for bed, the trio settled in to spend the night with her. Each one took a cot belonging to her tentmates. Their eyes flared red with black sparks and they hissed like cats when Brea came in and saw the cream-and-rainbow-smeared drac sitting on her cot.

  "My condolences," Brea murmured with a glance at M’kar that had a little too much humor in it to be entirely sympathetic. She watched the glaring drac and reached blindly for her personal items, kept neatly packed away in a bag and hanging from the center pole. After a moment's hesitation, she took the bags for the other two women who slept in the tent and fled.

  M'kar sighed and finished preparing for bed. Having only three mature, disciplined dracs bombarding her brain all night, as opposed to the entire camp's worth, might be an improvement.

  She woke in the morning with a slight headache, but a stronger understanding of drac life. Most important, questions about the treatment and growth and training of young dracs had answers. All the images that had spilled into her mind during the night were like fragments of a vast puzzle, and once she had enough of them, the picture clarified.

  Hatchlings emerged from their shells equally starving for food and mental contact. They could suck the sanity out of an adult with their voracious need to understand, to communicate. The most mature adults attended the hatchings, because they had the mental strength and discipline to overrule the indiscriminate "latching" instinct. For several days, the hatchlings and their adopted parents didn't leave the underground chamber where they hatched. Fortunately, there were never more than three hatchlings at a time. The mental chaos just from three newly hatched dracs could be overwhelming. Only the mentally strongest adults were chosen for the parenting duty as the babies worked through their chords and learned to find their one true note. When they could limit themselves to one note, having found their mental identity, they began the process of shaking free of the group mind. Until they passed out of adolescence, however, enough of a group mind remained that they felt what the others felt, saw what they saw, experienced what they experienced. If one was injured, all felt it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "If dracs are ever taken off the planet," M'kar reported to Genys and Treinna and several others who responded when she sent her report up to the Defender, "we have to wait for them to graduate from their group mind. They can't be separated from each other, and they can't be separated from their parents. Separation could be as deadly for them as physical death of one member of the mind."

  "That doesn't strike me as being unreasonable, or even prohibitive," Genys said. "Not like the trouble with Fleet trying to reassign two dozen people who all bonded with hatchlings from one group."

  "Wait a second," Treinna said. "We calculated the ages of the dracs we took off the Corona, just based on their sizes. There were a lot more than three of the smaller size, and they bond when they're babies, right? Not when they're adolescents or adults. So why did they all go sleepy-time when their Humans were cocooned?"

  "Might have the answer for that, because I know who made the first bonding," M'kar said. "My trio showed me Flinders is to blame. He was exploring and fell down into a cavern and was there when Cobalt's egg broke. I get the impression that his presence made Cobalt hatch faster than the others. He was knocked lightless by the process, so when he didn't report in on time, Dulit and a couple others came looking for him, they got snagged by the other hatchlings, and the whole thing just escalated. The hatchlings reacted to the presence of available minds. Which explains why adult dracs attend the eggs in very small numbers."

  "Hold on a second," Tahl said. "I have a theory …" The faint sound of keys tapping and the louder humming of the ship's data system came over the link from the Defender.

  M'kar closed her eyes, trying to ignore the faint strain headache pressing at her temples and the base of her neck. She knew from unhappy experience that while her bio-control helped her dampen most pain and even slow the flow of blood to wounds, trying to mentally reduce this kind of pain only exacerbated it. Her trio of dracs hummed three-part harmony and scooted off the table where they had perched, listening to her talk to the ship. One slid off the table into her lap and pressed against her abdomen, its head resting against the juncture of her ribs and its wings encircling her waist. Another settled on her right shoulder and rubbed at her temple. The third did the same on her left shoulder. Then they hummed.

  "You're hired," M'kar murmured as the harmonics soothed the aching. She grinned, still not opening her eyes, as she imagined one of her crewmates seeing her like that and capturing a visual.

  "Ah hah," Tahl said. "Just what I thought. Flinders has a strong psionic potential rating. Basic testing revealed some kind of blockage, most likely psychological. He was unable to access or awaken his psi, so he couldn't discover where his potential lay, and therefore didn't pursue training. He learned enough to close himself down so he wouldn't pick up stray broadcasting from undisciplined minds --"

  "That's unusually strong potential," Genys remarked.

  "For all intents and purposes, he was as head-blind as ninety-five percent of Humans."

  "But strong enough to be vulnerable to the bonding with Cobalt. He was probably broadcasting enough psionic strength to influence the drac in the shell," M'kar said. "Genys, I think we need to re-assess the guidelines for who stays down here and who needs to get off the planet."

  "As long as you don't go near any caverns or go underground, shouldn't you be safe from babies waiting to hatch?" Treinna said.

  "M'kar is right." Genys sighed loudly, so M'kar regretted sending in her report before breakfast. "Fleet considers us a ship of misfits. They like us, they like what we’ve done, but we’re still misfits."

  "W
e have the kind of weird luck that can't be termed bad or good. If something bizarre is going to happen, it'll happen to us. Yes. So?" the head linguist said with a chuckle.

  "If anything is going to happen to pitch us into a nest full of drac eggs on the verge of hatching, it will," Genys said.

  "Argh. You're right."

  "We should probably change out the crew dirtside. Tahl --"

  "Find the most headblind members of the crew to replace the landing party?" the ship's doctor said.

  "You read my mind."

  "You're lucky I can't." Tahl then muttered something in Ankuar that M'kar didn't recognize. Treinna didn't audibly react. Either she was stunned speechless -- a rare event -- or it was something so bad, she didn't know what the words meant.

  ~~~~~~

  Granny went into a full-scale hissing panic when the first crew came out of their tents with their gear packed up and headed for the shuttle. She flew circles around each person, her eyes spinning yellow and orange. M'kar made a mental note to try to duplicate those particular shades to change out for the yellow and orange alert lights on the ship, because they were the perfect tones to convey panic. More dracs popped in from nowhere, a clear indication of just how disturbed the little silver matriarch was. Usually she kept her followers to strict rules of teleporting from outside the camp. Now they appeared everywhere, latching onto "their" members of the landing party, grabbing them by their sleeves, their shoulders, the backs and fronts of their shirts, even their hair. And then pulling backwards, harder with every step the crew took toward the shuttle.

  M'kar stationed herself at the main hatch of the shuttle, focused on each drac yanking on the next crew trying to get in, and pushed with her mind. She endured multiple scratches, her face slapped with those wide wings, to physically help her crewmates tug and twist and slide free. By the time six people got into the shuttle, their clothes yanked sideways and generally sweaty, she had mentally shouted herself hoarse. Her throat hurt from the effort, along with sharp-edged throbs over her eyes and at the base of her neck.

  The dracs pried loose by her mental crowbar creeled and settled on the roof of the shuttle to rock from side to side. Interestingly, none of them tried to go into the shuttle and apply further pressure on their chosen people.

  "I'm willing to take a half-load," Decker said when the struggle went on for nearly half an hour.

  He stood far enough away, arms crossed, that the two dracs who usually hounded him stayed perched on the nearby table. Granny immediately popped out from where she had been observing and haranguing her followers and popped back in over his head. She hovered there, scolding and chirping.

  "Or not." He matched the little silver drac glare-for-glare, until she gave a chirping equivalent of "humph" and popped out.

  This time she settled down on M'kar's shoulder with enough force to knock her off balance. Her talons penetrated the cloth of jacket and shirt and even the thin layer of force-reactive body armor everyone had to wear since the incident with the hex-beast. That was frightening, because the mesh was supposed to tighten, the fibers thicken, equivalent to the amount of force and pressure that hit it. Yet those talons pierced, with almost agonizing slowness. Maybe there was something about the dracs' sub-audible harmonics that interfered with the armor.

  Save that for later, stupid!

  "Look, do you see me with any luggage?" M'kar snapped. It took more willpwer than she thought she possessed at the moment, not to reach up and grab the irritating little flying menace by her neck. "I'm not leaving. Get it? I'm staying. You're not being abandoned!"

  Her voice echoed around the camp, not a mean trick considering how few hard surfaces there were for her voice to bounce off. Granny let out a subdued chirp, extended her wings, then brought them in to fold against her body with an audible snap. The other dracs slowed their tugging and creeling, to go utterly silent. Those who could took up perches on their persons' shoulders, while the others found tables and branches and the shuttle roof to settle on.

  Granny leaned forward and stretched her neck around so M'kar's neck hurt just imagining what that had to be like. She watched the lieutenant without blinking. The tableaux held for more than two minutes. Then the silver drac looked at the shuttle. Her head pivoted back to watch M'kar for another ten seconds. Then back to the shuttle.

  "Look," Decker said, "I sure don't speak drac, but that's pretty clear to me. She doesn't trust you any farther than she could kick you. Take one step toward the shuttle hatch, and it starts all over again."

  "Yeah." M'kar sighed. "You got that right. So much angry, panicky static inside that fuzzy little brain of hers. The message is clear. Okay, prove it." She gestured at the table with the folding camp chairs still settled around it. "I don't suppose it does any good to point out we'd have packed up the furniture and folded up the tents if we were leaving, would it?"

  Granny blinked once but didn't make a sound. Decker snickered. Just once. He backed up a step when M'kar glared at him. That bit of success did not mollify her. She gestured again at the table, then took a step away from the shuttle. Granny didn't move. Another step. Her head raised a little. A third step.

  By the time M'kar got to the table and pulled out a chair to sit, Granny had resumed her normal shoulder-riding position. She stayed there while most of the landing party loaded into the shuttle. Decker and Sh'hari stayed. They were part of the list Tahl sent down, of people who should theoretically be safe from drac-induced bonding, because their psi quotient was low enough to be almost non-existent, while providing basic shielding. Not that it would save them from being taken over by psionic invaders, but they would unconsciously resist long enough to become aware of the danger and warn someone.

  M'kar fully expected the dracs to retain their forlorn perches on the roof of the shuttle when Quimble did his best to rev the engines and warn of impending takeoff. Basically, he built up force in the thrusters slower than usual. Wind tore through the camp and the shuttle shook a little. Granny keened and all the other dracs in the camp lifted into the air with an almost unison thunderclap as wings snapped open. They hovered until the shuttle had risen a good fifty meters, then popped out when the forward thrusters kicked in. Granny waited until the shuttle receded into just a spot of light, then she jumped off M'kar's shoulder and landed on the table. She squatted down and glared up at her.

  "She's calling you a dirty dog liar," Decker offered.

  "Thank you, Mr. Translator." M'kar rubbed her aching shoulder. "For your information, we have a whole new shuttle of people coming down for you to slam your brains up against. They might be suckers for your cuteness. But getting inside their heads is not going to be so easy."

  Granny chirped, the tone clearly sullen, and turned her head back and forth between M'kar and the indentation in the ground where the shuttle had sat.

  "She doesn't --" Decker began.

  "So help me, if you don't shut it, I'll unlock those images JM got when you were kidnapped by those three-meter-tall female pirates."

  Sh'hari's eyes got wide, but she held perfectly still and did not look at her commanding officer. Decker went white. M'kar didn't feel even a flicker of remorse. She needed another dose of that awful anise stuff Brea had been giving her. Hopefully, the medic had prepared a dozen doses when she packed up to leave.

  M'kar was still looking through the sickbay area set up in the biggest shed when two shuttles landed with the replacement landing party and more supplies. On her way out the door, she saw the bottle, sitting on a shelf in plain view, labeled "M'kar's mix." She made a mental note to find out if Brea thought that was funny. If so, she would deal with her appropriately. She almost took a swig straight out of the bottle. It smelled incredibly strong, however, and she suspected it was concentrated. Not a smart idea to make up her own dosing. She clutched the bottle close against her side as she went to greet the newcomers.

  Tahl was the first to climb out of the shuttle. Granny fluttered around her four times, not making a sound, then
moved on to the others as they climbed out, hauling their duffles of personal items and equipment and supplies to replace what the previous landing party had used up. No other dracs showed up, and Granny ignored each person, despite repeated attempts to make friends.

  "Interesting," Tahl said, when Granny let out an irritated squawk and popped out.

  "That ain't the half of it." M'kar held up the bottle. "How much do I need to make me incommunicado for the night?"

  Tahl, unfortunately, held to the medical code of ethics as if it alone held all of civilization from falling into permanent chaos. She took the bottle away. Even though she looked like a spun sugar sculpture most of the time, with her white hair and silver-blue eyes and sharp cheekbones, she was Ankuar, after all. M'kar knew better than to try to snatch back the bottle and run the risk of having several vertebrae snapped without even seeing Tahl move. She grumbled a little, sympathized with Granny, then settled down with Decker, Sh'hari, Tahl and Klipson, the new co-leaders of the landing party, to update them on the situation and get the replacements oriented to the camp.

  ~~~~~~

  Granny broke into M'kar's sleep that night, trilling relief and an understone of smug. How did she sing an entire chord?

  Warmth pressed up against M’kar’s chin and settled into the hollow of her throat. She woke just enough to consider rolling over and putting her back to the little intruder. She usually curled up on her side, facing the opening of the tent, just because it had been ingrained into her since infancy never to sleep with her back to any door. She tried to sink back down into sleep. However, experience had proved that consciously trying to go back to sleep just made her wake up more. Why did Granny decide to get affectionate in the middle of the night and curl up with her on her cot?

  "Jus' go 'way, 'kay?"

  No response, other than the deepening breathing of the other three tentmates. No movement from Granny.