Her Robot Wolf: Gift of Gaia

by Jenny Schwartz

  “The chocolate mousse is good,” Vulf said.

  “Would you like one?”

  “No, thanks.” He got up and refilled his coffee mug, and waited with me for the mousse, his arm warm and solid against mine.

  “I need something sweet,” I said lamely as I collected the mousse. It looked good and tasted better, and I wondered in the back of my mind if I’d ever be able to eat mousse again or if it would recall this nightmare too vividly. It would depend on whether we could save the Meitj. “I think Ivan found a way to create tiny wraiths, too small to draw non-shamans’ attention, and he set them up around Shaidoc. Tiny or not, each wraith required the same amount of sha energy in their construction as a full-sized one. That’s why he arranged to meet me on Tyger Tyger. He needed the sha energy I’d collected over five years because he couldn’t draw enough of it on Shaidoc to create multiple wraiths.”

  I let a spoonful of mousse dissolve on my tongue, but its sweetness failed to counteract the bitterness of Ivan’s actions. “I suspect he also needed the sha crystal to act as a key to trigger the wraiths he constructed. The only way I can see this working, and I’m not clear on the mechanics underlying it, is if my crystal enabled him set things up to pulse sha to the wraiths at a distance, pushing them instantly to full-size and to the tipping point at which they will grow and coalesce, thereby creating the monster black hole he’s threatening the Meitj with.”

  I waved the spoon at Vulf, as if he’d criticized the highly speculative nature of my theory, when in fact he was sitting with the patient alertness of a predator on the hunt, waiting to act on whatever I told him. I was the sha expert here. The responsibility for stopping my grandfather and saving the Meitj was crushing.

  The chocolate mousse kind of helped. It was normality and comfort in a crazy galaxy. I dug my spoon in for more. “Ahab, was there mention on the network of an explosion of light on Shaidoc a week ago, something similar to what was reported on Station Folly?”

  Vulf swallowed some coffee. “You think Ivan had a portal set up there. He chose Shaidoc rather than Naidoc to place the wraiths since it wasn’t guarded against his return in the way the Meitj would have been guarding the Imperial Crown from him on Naidoc.”

  “He did have a portal on Shaidoc,” Ahab said. “There was a light explosion reported in the commercial continent on Shaidoc one week ago. The Meitj media attributed it to an illicit still exploding.”

  “They were wrong,” I said heavily. “Or perhaps, their government guessed that it was a portal, but chose not to tell people. It doesn’t matter. It’s confirmation enough for me.”

  “Why didn’t Ivan act immediately?” Vulf tapped a frustrated rhythm against the edge of the table.

  “You’re forgetting the other shamans,” Ahab said. “Ivan had to arrange for them to be beyond reach of Shaidoc for his threat to work.”

  Vulf grunted acknowledgement of the point.

  “I have visual contact with Ivan’s starship,” Ahab said.

  I dropped my spoon. Vulf had ordered Ahab to overhaul Ivan, preferably before he entered the nearest wormhole, which seemed to be his direction. “If I have visual contact, I can shape sha energy around Ivan’s starship.”

  And he could do the same to us.

  The screens on the bridge provided images of the space through which the Orion flew, but to use sha energy, I needed to see its flows and no video feed could provide that. “Ahab, bring the Orion around so that I can see Ivan’s kite through the one-way glass of the viewscreen in the recreation cabin.”

  Warring shamans in space was a recipe for disaster, but so was letting Ivan remain in possession of my sha crystal. “If something goes wrong, you’ll be safer in your robot form,” I added to Vulf.

  “At the moment I prefer to keep my hands and a voice, but I’ll be ready.” He remained at the table while I approached the one-way glass of the viewscreen. “I don’t think Ivan is ready.”

  “What?” I spun around so fast that I had to grab the back of the sofa to steady myself.

  Vulf was flicking through star maps on the table screen again. He was big and serious, and if I hadn’t tripped him on Tyger Tyger, would he have caught Ivan then? He’d had a disrupter. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t intervened out of mistaken loyalty to my grandfather, who was clearly insane.

  “I don’t think Ivan intended to trigger the wraiths yet,” Vulf said. “He was lurking on Earth for a reason.”

  “Like what?” I reached the one-way glass and stared through the viewscreen. The flows of sha energy looked normal, or as normal as sha energy could be in the vicinity of an unstable wormhole.

  Ivan had nearly reached the “do not attempt” wormhole that I had recently guided the Orion’s jump through, which meant we had almost reached it as well.

  “No idea,” Vulf said unhelpfully. “But if you’re right and he used the energy in your sha crystal to construct the wraiths on Shaidoc and key them to the crystal, and then, he drew on the same crystal to trap you within a shield on Earth—and you consider wraiths a form of shielding, so there’s a similarity there—when you broke that shield trap, could the backlash have hit the sha crystal powering the trap and jumped through it to trigger the wraiths on Shaidoc?”

  I pressed one hand against the cold viewscreen and stared at Vulf. “That makes a scary amount of sense. So Ivan’s plans have had to be accelerated. To some extent, he’s making this up as he goes along.”

  Vulf was more cautious. “We should assume that eighty percent of his plan is on track. He didn’t expect you and me to show up on Earth or for you to trigger the wraiths ahead of time by exploding his shield trap.”

  “Okay, but that explains his tight timeframe to get from Earth to Hades.” Reminded just how tight that timeframe was, I turned back to the one-way glass. “He’s entering the wormhole.” I not only saw the starship vanishing, but I glimpsed the alteration in the jagged streams of sha as Ivan pulled a couple toward him. “Ahab, close the distance, we need to stay within a click so that I can follow Ivan’s starship’s sha pattern through the wormhole’s chaos. With a wormhole as dangerous as this one, he won’t be able to let his ship’s autopilot handle the journey. He’ll be guiding the jump.”

  Vulf had another command. “Ahab, ready the Orion for defensive maneuvers.”

  “Ivan won’t have concentration to spare for an attack, not in this wormhole. I’ve never travelled through one as unstable.”

  But none of us suggested cancelling the pursuit.

  I pulled on sha as the Orion entered the lip of the wormhole. The familiar action calmed me. This was sha energy use that I’d trained and worked with for years.

  There was no communication inside the wormhole. Transmissions had to wait till the starship exited. We could neither send nor receive messages, which meant we couldn’t communicate with Ivan to plead with him—or threaten him. But we could ready ourselves for action when we cleared the wormhole.

  I was vaguely aware of Vulf and Ahab talking before Vulf vanished into the cargo hold. The sha energy in the wormhole had ragged edges and wove itself into sudden energy storms that battered the Orion. If I was forced to sit down on the sofa rather than try and brace myself by the viewscreen, then Ivan’s decommissioned military kite would be throwing him around even move violently. When we exited the wormhole, Ivan might be at his most vulnerable.

  I looked around for Vulf, to inform him of what he had probably already guessed. He’d seen how worn out I’d been the first time I guided the Orion through this wormhole to Earth. “Ahab, is Vulf readying to attack Ivan’s starship?”

  There was no answer from the AI.

  “Ahab?” I stared through the one-way glass of the viewscreen. The sha energy in the wormhole was chaotic, but even in chaos, there are patterns. My intuition, honed in thousands of wormhole jumps, shouted that something was wrong.

  Ivan’s ship was veering left when the sha flow led straight ahead, into the concentric heart of the wormhole.


  “Ahab!” I said urgently. “Follow Ivan. Either there’s something wrong with him or his ship…or he’s planning something sneaky.”

  “Following,” Ahab acknowledged.

  The Orion lurched.

  “Tell Vulf to strap in, wherever he is,” I added.

  “I’m here.” Vulf emerged from the passage to our cabins and the bridge.

  I had a second to observe his daunting appearance. He wore a spacesuit, one that looked older and rather more lived-in than the suit Ivan had destroyed, but which was still combat-grade. Weapons were strapped at his waist and slung on his back. He carried the helmet for the suit in one gloved hand. “What are you—hellfire and damn!” A sudden swerve in the route taken by Ivan’s starship coincided with a gathering of the sha that moved around it. I had to give it my full attention. Ivan was no longer racing through the wormhole to the exit, but sideways. “No one but a madman…” But what else was my grandfather? “Vulf, strap in.”

  He put the helmet down and buckled me in with the straps that appeared from the back of the sofa. “I have magnetized boots.”

  “Your choice, but it’s going to get wild. Ivan is trying to duck out of the wormhole. It’s unstable, which means there are chasms in its sides. Theoretically, they can be used as unofficial exits,” I explained quickly, my focus on the sha energy bucking and rioting around and through the Orion. “There’s a risk in following him through one.”

  “Do it,” Vulf said.

  “I don’t know where we’ll emerge.” But I was already pulling on the sha, guiding the Orion through a looping rollercoaster as the seething energy of the wormhole blasted against the starship.

  Ahead of us, Ivan’s starship vanished. Either he’d made it out or the energy that warped and wove the wormhole had destroyed him.

  An endless minute later, and we’d bullied our way through the side of the wormhole, through a nausea-inducing spiral, and out into ordinary space.

  “We’re at the edge of Andromeda Sector, near the relay station Ixney,” Ahab reported.

  I was slumped against the straps that held me in.

  Vulf was the opposite of slumped. He was primed for battle. Still, his hands were gentle as he unbuckled me. “Ivan wants information. Ahab, record any mention of the Meitj, shadow forms, wraiths or shamans.” He bent and kissed me briefly, his spacesuit compressing against me.

  I was wiped enough that I managed little more than a “mma?” questioning sound.

  He understood my curiosity. “Ivan will be feeling like you look.”

  “Ugh.” I rolled my eyes to express how bad I felt.

  “So now is the best time for me to board his ship. Ahab, activate Hostile Boarding, Scenario 13.”

  Vulf’s order startled me into opening my eyes fully. Through the viewscreen I could see Ivan’s starship barely puttering in front of us. The old kite appeared to have taken some damage in the rough jump out the side of the wormhole.

  “Jaya.” Vulf hesitated with his helmet at chest height. “Are you capable of manipulating sha at the moment?”

  “I need coffee,” I groaned.

  “You deserve it.” His tone changed, gaining finality.

  My stupid, tired brain caught up with the implication behind his question, given the context of him readying for a hostile boarding of Ivan’s starship. “I broke your disrupter!” I’d forgotten.

  “I’ll manage.” He fitted the helmet.

  “You can’t fight a shaman…” I paused. That wasn’t true. Vulf could and would fight a shaman, or anyone he had to. “I can’t scatter sha energy patterns the way a disrupter does. But I think I can block Ivan from reaching all sha bar his personal sha.”

  “Even what’s stored in the sha crystal he stole from you?” With the helmet sealed, Vulf’s voice emerged with a mechanical tone from the headset.

  “Maybe. I’ll pulse sha energy at him to distract him. Just…attack as quickly as you can. The sooner Ivan’s unconscious, the better for everyone.” Even after everything Ivan had done and threatened to do, it hurt to know that I’d be attacking my grandfather.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” Vulf said. “Can you begin blocking Ivan’s access to sha, now?”

  I nodded. “Be careful.”

  Chapter 10

  Vulf exited the recreation cabin, moving fast without looking as if he raced.

  I had my own job to do. I turned to face the one-way glass of the viewscreen again. The Orion was already accelerating, moving with a starship’s equivalent of a pounce, to close with Ivan’s kite.

  At the Academy they’d taught us that it was wrong to steal the sha energy that was under another shaman’s control. I focused on the sha energy streaming through and around Ivan’s starship and pulled it back into a shield between him and us. Tendrils of it frayed from the major energy flows as Ivan snatched at it.

  His kite loomed larger and larger. It fired its weapons in a pattern so regular as to be automated. Just as swiftly, Ahab countered with the Orion’s defensive weapons. Both starships shuddered.

  Soon shielding Vulf would become impractical. He’d be moving fast, sprinting down the locking tube and blasting into Ivan’s kite. I needed a new, robust way to expend the sha I stole from Ivan; one that prevented him from reshaping it.

  As a bounty hunter and raised by pirates, Vulf would be experienced in hostile boardings. The wildcard was Ivan’s shamanic talent. That was a battle between him and me.

  Sha energy exploded against my shield, instantly reforming as a drill, trying to pierce it. Ivan understood that I was the greater threat.

  Grandfather against granddaughter. If I allowed emotion and what-should-have-beens to distract me, Vulf would suffer. Perhaps die. A whole civilization could be destroyed.

  I wrenched at the sha energy suffusing the area and shaped it into a miniature replica of a wormhole. Even with all the sha I could control, I’d never be strong enough to create a wormhole, but I could siphon sha energy into its chaos, making it too unstable for Ivan’s immediate use.

  The locking tube from the Orion made contact with the smaller starship despite a minor missile bombardment and short-range laser strikes. Ten seconds later, a bigger blast shook the kite.

  “Target breached,” Ahab reported. “Vulf is inside.”

  I flung my arms forward, fingers outstretched, my whole body committed to keeping Vulf safe and ending this situation before anyone got badly hurt. I sent a storm of sha energy to dance through the kite, letting its attraction to the personal sha Ivan drew on reveal his location. I circled my sha pattern around him, tighter and tighter. I’d never been so violently connected to the sha energy that I used. It felt as if I was on the starship in person.

  Is this what Earth’s shamans had called an out of body experience? I couldn’t see what was happening on Ivan’s starship, but it felt as if I was there.

  The power of Vulf’s personal sha signature hummed fiercely. Ivan’s personal sha stuttered and flared as he struggled. The sha energy I guided flowed through both and returned to me in an intensifying loop.

  Then Ivan’s personal sha abruptly ceased surging and settled into a sluggish flow.

  “Ivan’s contained.” Ahab fed Vulf’s voice through the Orion’s communication system. “I’ve sedated him. Bringing him back with me. Ahab, visual connection.” Ivan’s slumped body showed on the viewscreen. Vulf’s gloved hands pried a crystal from Ivan’s left fist. “Jaya, is this your sha crystal?”

  “Yes.”

  Vulf pocketed it, and picked up Ivan, slinging him over one shoulder.

  Adrenaline raced through me, but there was no time to relax. We had Ivan and we had the crystal, but unless I could use it to deactivate the wraiths on Shaidoc, we were no further ahead. I very much doubted that my stubborn grandfather could be convinced to act responsibly. Relying on convincing Ivan to undo his threat against the Meitj would be our desperate Plan B.

  A robot beeped by my feet.

  “Coffee,” Ahab said. “An
d chocolate.” The tiny server robot held a mug of coffee and a bar of chocolate.

  “Thank you.” Ahab’s kindness made my eyes burn with tears I refused to shed. However, the caffeine and sugar helped prepare me to face the emotional hurt of seeing Vulf carry Ivan unconscious into the cargo hold of the Orion where I’d originally been held.

  Ivan looked scrawny and helpless slung over Vulf’s shoulder.

  The combat-grade spacesuit Vulf wore made him even more intimidating. Nor had he paused to remove his helmet.

  I hesitated in the doorway between the recreation cabin and the cargo hold as Vulf lowered Ivan onto a bunk. It wasn’t the same bunk I’d used. This one was on the opposite side of the cabin.

  The medbot that had treated Kenner emerged and assessed Ivan.

  I crept closer as Vulf removed his helmet.

  “Regrets?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. “Only for what Ivan’s done. Why? Why would a stupid crown matter so much?”

  “We’ll ask him, later.” Vulf stripped out of the spacesuit and a robot took it away, but not before he extracted the sha crystal from a pocket and gave it to me. He stood in his utility suit and socks and watched me watch Ivan while I gripped the crystal my grandfather had stolen from me and used to threaten an entire civilization.

  Ahab reported the medbot’s findings. Ivan was dehydrated, exhausted and in need of rest and supplemental nutrition. “The medbot will make him comfortable, then ensure he remains sedated till we reach Naidoc.”

  “Assuming there is still a Naidoc to reach.” I squeezed the sha crystal. I frowned at Ivan’s face. He looked so peaceful in unconsciousness. It was impossible to believe he’d initiated the annihilation of a civilization. “I need to examine the crystal.”

  Choking down all emotion, I left Ivan to the medbot’s care and returned to the recreation cabin. It felt like home, now. The faint aroma of coffee, the comfortable sofa, the table with its bench seating that I swung a leg over absently as I sat.