Ellimist Chronicles

by K. A. Applegate

  “This time we got lucky. The alien craft fired at the drone but before it could adjust to the defensive system, the drone had glue-docked to the alien vessel and was draining its computer of data.

  “Just one problem: As the drone detached for reentry, the vessel fired again and damaged the drone. We recovered it but were only able to save a part of the data.”

  “How much do we know?” Aguella demanded.

  Lackofa hesitated. Then, “You two understand this clearly, I hope: None of this ever becomes known to the people at large. I mean that on penalty of closure.” He repeated it slowly, deliberately. “On penalty of closure.”

  That rocked me. Closure? For revealing a secret? They would undock me? Cut me off to free fly till I died of starvation and loneliness and finally augered into the lava fields below?

  “Every alien race we’ve encountered has been benign,” Lackofa said. “But this race, the race that built this ghost ship, was not. The evidence is that they respond with extreme violence to even the slightest provocation. Extreme violence. They call themselves Capasins. Since the ship emerged from the direction of Quadrant Three, we assume the Capasin planet is there. The mission of the MCQ3 is to contact this race and attempt to reach terms of peace.”

  “What if these Capasins are not interested in peace?” Aguella asked.

  Lackofa smirked. “Then we’ll hope to get home with enough information to allow us to meet the challenge. One thing we know: The Capasins don’t know we exist. If we meet them we will keep our location strictly secret. Sometimes,” he added thoughtfully, “the things that seem to be problems are actually blessings in disguise.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Generation 9561’s home planet has such low background radiation that they communicate regularly through transmission and reception of radio waves. Those waves propagate, you know.” He waved his hand vaguely skyward. “Generational waves spreading endlessly through space. Who knows who will receive and perhaps comprehend those transmissions? Who knows what attention the Generationals may already have attracted. We, on the other hand, remain invisible to the galaxy. Maybe not such a bad thing.”

  Within three weeks I knew the actual MCQ3 as well as I knew the sim. I knew every mast, every spar, every perch, every backup system. I even knew the engines, as well as anyone can know a Z-space engine.

  I had met many more crew members, essential and non. I’d even been introduced to one of the three Wise Ones who would be commanding. He was a grim oldster who managed to grunt indifferently at me before going back to his work.

  I spent every free flight on the vessel. And my free-flight time had been tripled. (We were days away from launch and I’d already been discounted as a lift factor.)

  I had very little time for gaming and I’m afraid that Inidar resented that. Our old relationship was strained now. Not just because I couldn’t play, but because of why I couldn’t play.

  We kept exchanging memms, talking about scheduling games, but they never happened.

  Instead, I saw a lot of Aguella. I kept waiting for her to mone me again, but to my great relief it never happened. Very relieved.

  Although I kind of wondered why she didn’t. Had I done something wrong? Was it the way I’d reacted? Basically like a panicky juvie?

  Didn’t matter. There was no place for that kind of thing on a vital and dangerous deep-space mission.

  Just would have liked to know why, that’s all. And I got a hint as the two of us were assisting in the installation of the last few docks.

  It was the two of us, and a female with the chosen name of Jicklet. Jicklet was essential crew — fifth technician. She knew what she was doing but unlike lots of people who are experts, she wasn’t impatient with our relative stupidity.

  “It’s the whole point of nonessential crew,” she explained, tightening a collar down till the adhesive oozed. “You’re here to learn a little of everything. That way we’ll always have backup. Okay, now you, Toomik, use the scrape-saw to slice off the excess glue.”

  “It’s Toomin.”

  “Yeah, whatever you say, Toomid. Careful. Leave a bead.”

  I sliced the already half-dry adhesive, carefully leaving an eighth-inch bead. I was less successful at cupping the curling excess into the slop pit.

  “You have to be careful not to drop any,” Jicklet said. “We’re right above the engines. You don’t want to be down there in an en-suit burning it off the pods. There you go. Good work. Now polish it down and give me a yell when you’re ready for me to look it over.”

  She beat wing and elevated to the other pair of amateurs she was supervising. Aguella and I shared a sigh of relief that she was gone.

  And then Equatorial High Crystal blew apart.

  A hammer blow on my head. Wings snapped back by the concussion. Spinning. Fire, fire everywhere!

  One second I was working and grinning at Aguella, and in the next instant my ears were bleeding, my eyes swimming. My mind was a mess of shattered bits and pieces.

  What was happening?

  I was cut in a dozen places by flying shards. A six-inch spike of crystal was lodged in my left pod. I pulled it out, yelling and crying and falling through the air as I did so.

  What was happening?

  Aguella — where was she? Nothing I saw made sense. Debris still flying all around me, falling away now, but twirling and glittering as it fell.

  The MCQ3 still held station. Where was Aguella?

  “Aguella! Aguella!”

  I heard a moan, barely audible past the ringing in my ears. I looked up and saw her. She was using her talons to cling to an unpolished bit of spar.

  And then it happened again. And this time I saw it. I looked up at my friend, at the streams of dull, burnt-orange blood coming from her face. But past her, above the MCQ3, up through the masts and spars I saw the raked cylinders, the arched neck, the dagger points of an alien ship. It cruised slowly through the atmosphere, taking its time. Nothing like a Generational or Illaman ship. Nothing like anything I’d seen or imagined.

  It seemed to circle slowly around my home crystal, watching, waiting, and then it fired again. A beam of energy, pale red. The beam lanced down into the core of my home crystal, my poor damaged home. This time I expected the concussion as overheated crystal exploded, blew apart.

  My world dropped, fell away. It was in two pieces now. A fragment equal to a third of the whole spun, spiraled down. Wings beat frantically but the balance was lost. And too many wings would never beat again.

  The remnant of Equatorial High Crystal was scarred and burned. Ends broken off. Jagged and rough. But it still maintained lift. I could see thousands of my brothers and sisters, all straining, all lifting together. Free flyers were rushing to dock anywhere they could, anywhere to provide lift.

  But the alien ship wasn’t done with its work. This time no beam weapon. This time it sprayed a cloud of flechettes. Small, so small they could barely be seen with the naked eye, millions of tiny shredding metal hooks. The sound was like a volcano blowing. The flechettes sprayed for five seconds, no more, but at the end of that time every unshielded Ketran was torn apart. The entire crystal might have been dipped in blood.

  The bodies began to fall away. The crystal itself began to fall. Straight down, down, and gathering speed, with no one left to hold it up any longer.

  It would take a long time to fall three hundred miles.

  “Aguella!” I flapped to her. She was conscious, but barely.

  “Dock you fools! Dock now!” a voice yelled. Jicklet. “We’re powering up!”

  I heard the low whine of the engines warming. I grabbed Aguella as well as I could; her wings were beating but weakly. I grabbed her and steered her, hauled her to the nearest dock. The dock we’d just finished installing. I pressed her back against it.

  “Clamp on! Listen to me: Clamp on!”

  She nodded, eyes wild, wandering. I saw her chest tighten. She was docked. Now it was my turn. The nearest op
en dock was fifty feet away.

  The alien had spotted us. At first we must have looked like a part of the home crystal. But now he could see that we were still flying, that we were self-contained. And yet he was in no hurry. Why should he be? We’d been unable to resist. We were helpless.

  The alien ship drifted lazily around, bringing its dagger tip to bear on us. With numb fingers I fumbled to the dock, twisted, lined up, and the alien fired.

  The beam this time. Deadly accurate. It hit us on center.

  But the force field had been raised by someone thinking more clearly than I. The red beam glowed and a disc of bright light appeared at the limits of the force field.

  The alien sheered off. I was on the ship’s uninet now, hooked in, able to watch the readouts from the engines. At ninety-five percent of power they could be engaged. We were at sixty-five percent.

  Everyone I knew was dead. My sire and dam, dead. Inidar was dead. Wormer, dead. I looked down and saw her, my home, a bright glint still falling away. How long to fall three hundred miles? How long till it hit the lava fields, crumpled, and was burned out of existence?

  The alien ship hovered close. It seemed curious. Interested. Like a scientist studying some new microbe under a lens.

  Then a small craft, a boxier, winged version of the main ship, dropped from its belly. It hovered then flew close, probing toward us, feeling for the force field. It stopped. Engine readout at eighty percent.

  The small craft nosed forward, very slowly. It pressed against the force field, pushed at it. The field held. Engines at eighty-four percent. I could see a single shape, a form through a transparent window at the front of the little ship. He was no more than twenty yards away. I could see him, he could see me. It had become intimate now, personal.

  The small craft began to glow, as if it were heated from the inside. It glowed brighter and brighter till the light hurt my eyes.

  “It’s going to get through,” I said.

  We had nothing. No weapons. I understood weapons in the abstract, what gamer doesn’t? Besides, we knew that Generational ships were always lightly armed. But we ourselves had none. Never had.

  The nose of the ship pushed through the force field. It was slow going. It was absorbing and deflecting the force field and it was slow going, but it was faster than the rising blue bar and numbers of the engine readout. It would be in before we could escape. Once a hole was opened, the cloud of flechettes.

  Nothing. No weapon. Hand tools. The scrapers and scorers I’d been using for …

  Scoring. Score and break!

  It was absurd. A losing move. The kind of stupid move that would leave other gamers gasping with laughter.

  The only move I had.

  I undocked. I flew to a naked spar point. It was sharp, undulled by the usual safety knob. How much weight could I carry? I should know how much a section of spar end would weigh, I should know, but I didn’t, and no time now.

  I guessed. Six feet. I could carry that much. I hovered by the spar end and fumbled, nearly dropped my scoring knife. I began to cut a ring around the foot-thick crystal. Cut. Cut. Don’t worry about retaining the splinters now.

  The score came full around. I flitted back and launched straight into the spar. It broke clean. Clean enough. Not a professional cut, but it would do.

  I wrapped my arms around it and took the weight. Not so much weight, I could lift it. But it was awkward, hard to turn around.

  I tucked it under my arm on one side, got a slight supporting purchase with one talon, and beat wing.

  I flew straight for the small craft. Faster, fast as I could fly, reckless, no time to worry about it now, no time to wonder how I would survive impact.

  As if in slow motion the face in the window turned. It had only two eyes, both forward-looking. Blue. Almost pretty. The blue eyes watched me, and then widened. What alien emotion? Fear? Derision? Amazement?

  The light was blinding, barely could keep my eyes open, nothing but those blue eyes staring.

  I struck. The point of the spar sliced into sheet metal, penetrated a foot, then stopped. I yanked it back. It came free.

  I dropped, took the full weight, and this time stabbed upward directly beneath the alien crewman. Again the spear point stopped hard.

  But now the glow was dying away. The electric buzz of energy fields was weakening.

  Height, you fool, use gravity, a voice in my head shrieked. Of course!

  I beat wing to gain altitude. Up, up, the blue eyes followed me, still, it seemed to me, more curious than malevolent.

  Up twenty feet. Now! I plunged. My wings hammered the air and I dropped, spear point down.

  The spear struck the alien craft just above the cockpit. The crystal penetrated. There was no explosion. Nothing dramatic. But as I released the spar and let momentum carry me down past the window, I saw that the alien was staring with no expression at all.

  The spar point had penetrated the cockpit, and penetrated his large head.

  At that moment, with the alien ship half in and half out of the MCQ3’s force field, our engines at last kicked in.

  For a giddy, terrifying moment the entire universe collapsed around me. And a moment later I was floating without sensation of speed through the blank white nothingness of Zero-space.

  The alien small craft was with us still. The alien I had destroyed still stared with beautiful blue eyes.

  We emerged almost immediately from Zero-space. Only one of the vessel’s Wise Ones had been aboard at the time of the attack. He appeared via uninet. I had met him very briefly. His current chosen name was Farsight. It was a name appropriate to his role. A Wise One’s name.

  “It is clear that Ket is under attack from an alien species of unknown origin. We are calculating a return trajectory and hope to place this vessel at the disposal of some other home crystal. Perhaps we can be of some assistance, though without weapons …”

  Farsight’s quills drooped and he lowered his eyes. He was very old. I hoped he was very wise. I wanted to believe he was. But he seemed unaware of the fact that we had an alien craft in tow.

  Nonessential crew did not memm a Wise One. It wasn’t done. Especially not in the midst of a crisis. But I was too jangled to be very concerned with social niceties.

  I keyed up a waiting memm. He could ignore it if he chose.

  I was gratified (and encouraged) to see that Farsight responded by immediately opening a channel. His head jerked up and he seemed to be staring right at me.

  “It’s still with us?”

  “Yes, Wise One,” I replied. “It’s trapped within our force field. Or half in and half out.”

  It was not encouraging to realize that the people in charge had no real idea what had happened down here by engine three. Had no idea that the force field had been compromised. The MCQ3 had been caught more unprepared than I’d imagined.

  I memmed a very brief description of what had happened.

  The reaction was immediate. There was a flurry of wings and half a dozen people zoomed past me, vectoring toward the alien ship. Lackofa was one of them.

  He paused and yelled, “Well, come on, hero. You killed him.”

  It was a typical backhanded slap/stroke from Lackofa. But it stung more than it soothed. I had killed. It was the second of the Five Laws: Take no sentient life. Second in importance only to: Lift for all.

  I glanced back at Aguella. She was alive. But in no condition to join me. A long period of dockage, that’s what she needed. She’d be fine. She’d be fine.

  Had to be fine. Her survival had become vital to me. She had to live. No one else had.

  I undocked and flew to catch up with Lackofa. Jicklet was with him. Seven of us flitted before the nose of the craft, nervous, jumpy, unsure of how to proceed.

  “It’s a container,” someone said. “Everything that matters will be within. We need to get inside.”

  Of course the word “inside” filled us each with dread, though we had surely just survived worse than mere en
closure.

  “The sheet metal’s pretty thin,” Jicklet said. “If it wasn’t then the spar tip wouldn’t have penetrated. But see? There are wires and other sorts of primitive conduit running through the skin. I can peel the metal easily enough. The wiring will take a bit longer if we’re to save what’s here. And if you want me to open the hatch, well, I’d first have to trace each wire.”

  She waited for an answer. For orders. It occurred to me that no one had any clear sense of who, if anyone, was in charge.

  Finally Lackofa said, “Preserve the function of the alien ship. But hurry. Get us an opening.”

  Jicklet went to work, and two of the others zipped in to help her. They were experienced techs, Lackofa and I and the remaining members of our strange rescue party were not.

  Lackofa looked more worried than I’ve ever seen him. Me I didn’t need any help feeling grim. The memory of my home falling away trailing a mist of Ketran blood behind it was still fresh. Would always be.

  I could see the alien too well now. His lidless eyes were darkening. As if some deeper blue pigment were seeping into the iris. His head was bulbous, large by our standards. He had no wings. He had a beak for a mouth, a sharp, downturned thing that gave him a sad, disappointed expression. A number of long, thin, multiple-jointed arms hung limp. His skin was a green so dark it might almost have been black. The long crystal spear entered his head from directly above.

  “Capasin,” Lackofa said in answer to my unspoken query. “I guess our mission of peace is canceled.”

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “You tell me, gamer.”

  Jicklet wiped her face. A nicked conduit had sprayed her with some pressurized fluid. She had closed it up. “That’s as much as we can do. There are main structural supports back of this. If we cut those we’ll never get her closed up again.”