They were alone. It was a race to the spire with two Oort fighters closing in on them, though neither was within firing range yet.
A new voice hailed them. “I’m coming up behind you,” the voice announced. “I have reinforcements about two minutes behind you. If you reduce speed, they’ll give you some protection.”
“Who are you?” Ollie called.
“Admiral Douglas. More Oort are converging on you from around the planet. I’ll deal with them, but if we can take out the Overmind, we’ll all be more effective.”
Ollie blinked several times, then his mind focused on what Douglas had said. “You’re right behind us?” he called.
“No. Only my fighters. I had to promise Grayson I’d stay well behind you.”
“You’re following in a baseship?”
“Yes. The Overmind has disabled most of my pilots, but one way or another, this creature is going down today.”
Cass leaned across Emily and touched keys on her right armrest to check his ship’s status. His shields were nearly gone. Automatic repairs were in progress, but this would all be over before the work was done.
Admiral Douglas’ solution called to him, but only for a moment. What, he asked himself, if this was all a ruse created by the Overmind? The more he considered, the more convinced he became that it might be. He could not trust his own mind, let alone the words of another.
He turned to Ollie. “It might be a ruse. We’re trusting no one. I’ll get us into position, but you have to hold off those two Oort. I’ll join you on the guns as soon as I can.”
Ollie nodded grimly. His seat was drenched in blood, and his shirt was drenched in perspiration. Droplets of sweat dripped from his haggard face as he evaluated the display on the screen. “Douglas’ ships, provided they’re real, dropped their cloaks on purpose,” he growled to Cass. “They’ll pull the distant Oort from us.” He studied the shifting blips again and growled, “Make your run on the spire. I’ll hold these two off.”
Cass nodded grimly, his empty eye socket making his expression even grimmer. “Okay. When we get there, we’ll stop. No matter who’s shooting at us, your only job is to take out that spire.” Without waiting for a reply, he went back to encouraging Emily. He had shrugged off the top of his flight suit, revealing great welts down his head, shoulder, upper arm, and his back. Emily, slouching in her pilot’s seat, had lost all of her hair and was just a vestige of the person he had loved for years.
He leaned across Emily again and touched more keys. He put the ship back into its normal mode, meaning they could only see ahead. All that remained on the display when he was done was their red course line and the spire. The ground was rushing up fast.
As Emily began leveling her steep descent, Cass called to Ollie, “We’re slowing. Set shields to maximum in case they have ground defenses.”
“What shields?” Ollie grumbled back.
Cass continued talking into Emily’s ear as the ship slowed. Ollie’s guns began firing as the two Oort fighters converged from the side. When Emily lined up on a brief, final course to the spire, Cass limped the few steps to the crew seat beside Ollie and took control of one of the guns.
“You take the spire. I’ll deal with the Oort,” Cass ordered.
From this point on, Emily had to hold her course steady to give Ollie his best opportunity with the guns. When they reached maximum range, Ollie shifted his fire from the approaching Oort to the spire, firing as quickly as the guns could recharge. Chips flew off the beautiful, blue spire, then small holes appeared in its sides.
“It’s taking too long. The spire is stronger than it appears. Take me to the entrance,” he shouted to Emily.
Cass was fully engaged against the two Oort who had moved into firing range. He took a moment and switched all shield power to his rear, then he re-engaged. One Oort fell, and he switched all his attention to the last one.
Emily brought the ship around the spire and stopped just outside the opening to the spire just as Cass felled the last Oort fighter. Ollie now had a stationary target, something gunners rarely had. She edged in closer until they could see inside the spire.
There it was, the beautiful, blue blob that they believed was the Overmind.
Ollie fired, then he began screaming, his body contorting in impossible positions. Cass literally heard the cracks as massive Harbok bones snapped. Still, Ollie stayed on his target, pounding away at the creature.
The compulsion began weakening. Cass joined Ollie, firing into the Overmind as small blobs began separating from the creature and rolling across the floor of the spire, clearly trying to escape.
Cass went after the small blobs, believe they might be offspring of the Overmind. Ollie stayed on the Overmind.
Suddenly, the compulsion disappeared. So sudden was the release that Emily slid out of her seat and collapsed to the deck. Ollie stopped firing. His eyes, when Cass took a moment to check, had taken on a vacant look. His body was contorted in impossible positions.
Cass transferred the pilot’s controls to his own seat and moved the ship away from the spire, then he took all the guns and slaved them to the opening of the spire, not knowing if his efforts were needed or not. He continued firing, not caring about any other aspect of the battle, only that he take out the Overmind and its offspring.
Minutes later, as the ground around the spire turned to slag from the heat of his lasers, more shafts of laser beams joined him, all of them aimed at the spot where the spire had stood.
A long two minutes later, great shafts of laser beams came from his right, most of them aimed at the spire. He did not know or care, but some of those lasers took out Oort ships as well. The immense baseship, some ten miles long, hove into view, pounding away mercilessly at the remains of the spire. Cass moved away, spent. All that remained of the area was a deep hole in the ground.
* * * * *
Aboard Douglas’ baseship, multiple shifts of pilots and gunners had cycled through, relieving the disabled crewmembers as necessary. Clearly, the Overmind had known the baseship was a major threat, and perhaps the most major threat. They would never know if his presence limited the retaliation the Overmind directed at Cass and his crew. By the time Ollie killed the Overmind, Captain Danny Lester was the only remaining pilot on the baseship. Douglas, still in his elevated fleet commander’s seat, had aged horribly. Looking like the 90-year-old man who had boarded the prime ship in the desert near Area 51 twelve years earlier, his eyes, bright and alert as ever, glittered in triumph. A steady stream of orders poured from his lips as he assigned new targets to his ships—most of those target the smaller spires.
He called to Danny Lester. “If you can hang on, we’re not leaving until every spire on the planet is destroyed.”
He had left his three prime ships orbiting the planet as reserves. Now, he called on them to add their firepower to the attack. Clipped reports began coming in from stronger voices as fresh fighters from the prime ships spread out around the planet.
He called Cass. “Well done, Lieutenant. Come aboard via my starboard landing bay. I’ll have medics waiting.”
* * * * *
Cass had, in his heart, expected the brutal physical effects of the compulsion to disappear when the spire fell, meaning that the Overmind was dead and no longer controlling their thoughts. He had been holding to the belief that the horrible wounds were only projections of their minds. He could not have been more wrong.
Under any other circumstances, his own wounds would have been disabling, but he could not—would not—give in until he reached the baseship.
Chapter Forty-one
When Ollie awoke, memories flooded in. He kept his eyes closed while he inventoried his body. Every part of him ached, but these were not the aches of recent wounds. He smelled the hospital smell, and he heard distant murmurings of hospital staff. Then he heard movement beside himself.
He opened his eyes and turned his head to the right. Gertie sat primly on a chair beside his bed. Their eyes met,
and she smiled a warm smile of greeting. She must not have felt the need to talk, because she stayed silent.
Ollie did feel the need to talk. “How are they?” he asked in his softest rumble.
“Mending,” she said, her smile staying in place. “Thank you for bringing them back to us.”
“Cass is the one to thank,” he replied.
“Him too, and Emily, and . . . everyone else. How do you feel?”
“Much better than I should.”
“We expect full recoveries. Doctor Llambry wants to talk to you about your treatment.”
“Again?” Ollie grumbled.
“Yes, again. You have time to focus on your recovery, not the war. The Alliance made the hard decisions without you.”
“What decisions?”
“Our treatment of the Oort. We’re locked into a multi-month campaign. Maybe a multi-year campaign.”
“What kind of campaign?”
“We’re destroying every single spire on the Oortbok worlds.”
Ollie blinked, knowing how the An’Atee felt about killing. “The An’Atee support the plan?”
“They demanded it,” she said. “After seeing what you went through, they agree that we can never let the Oort rise again. These Oortbok worlds will be devoid of Oort when we’re done. That likely means the deaths of their hosts as well. We won’t stop there, but we hope to find better solutions for other worlds, time permitting.”
“Time permitting?”
“Professor Yarbo claims that, in some insect hive colonies, a worker will sometimes morph into a new queen if the queen dies. Or, there might be other Overmind embryos somewhere. Overminds could come into existence on other worlds at any time. We’re sending expeditions to every single Oort-dominated world we can find, and we’ll continue looking for more worlds that have succumbed to them.”
She paused to give emphasis to her next words. “We sent word to Lor Tas’val to keep an eye on the worlds the Oort took over in Harbok space as well, in case an Overmind comes into existence there.” She looked hard at him before adding, “Our decision includes taking out all Overminds wherever we find them, regardless of the cost to the host population.”
Ollie shifted uneasily. “If you can.”
She stood up, leaned over him, and kissed the rough, leathery skin of his forehead, then she sat back down. “Forewarned is forearmed. You and your crew showed us we can do it, but we came up with a better solution. We designed drones with weapons that can be pre-programmed.”
Ollie rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, then he shook his head. “Any credit goes to Cass. He was our captain. I’ll proudly tell anyone who asks that I served under him. He never stopped leading.” He looked a question at her and asked, “Did you know that the whole concept of the Overmind came from him?”
“I do know. We won’t forget.” She paused, then added, “I’ve been looking at him as Emily’s boyfriend, but I’m going to start paying more attention to him.”
“Think bigger, Gertie. His idea might have saved the whole galaxy from Oort domination. I don’t believe the Overmind ever appreciated the fact that Cass was its greatest enemy. Had it taken him out when he arrived at Asval, we would not be having this conversation. The Overmind would have done to us exactly what it did to the original explorers.”
When she nodded grimly, he asked, “Are there any lasting effects from the Oort manipulation of our minds?”
“Not that we’re aware of, but we’ll all be subject to testing for a long time. I never personally felt anything like what you went through. Only flight crews and gunners experienced the worst. The compulsions stopped with the destruction of the main spire, though the low-level persuasion from the small spires did not.”
She shook her head in wonder before adding, “As amazing as it sounds, the Overmind’s mental capacity was strong enough to produce physical damage to your bodies. Douglas’ medical staff was overwhelmed with wounded. We had to transfer many of them to other ships, and some had to wait for treatment until we could get them back to Ariall.”
“So, your husband really attacked with his baseship, eh?”
“He did. His bridge crew went through the same thing you did, though they had more replacements, so it was not as severe for them. It seems the Overmind capitalized on each person’s worst life experience. Some of those experiences were physical, but some were psychological. Neither he nor Danny Lester have relinquished their positions yet, though my patience is wearing thin. Every available fighter and prime ship is engaged in taking out spires.”
Doctor Llambry chose that moment to enter the room. “Well, well,” he said as he stepped to the side of Ollie’s bed, “how do you feel?”
“Better than I deserve. Thank you,” Ollie said.
“I’m too busy to beat around the bush,” Llambry said. “You’ve fought me for years, refusing to take the LifeVirus. This time, I made the decision for you.”
Ollie blinked, then he looked away from Llambry, blinking repeatedly as his mind adjusted to what those words meant. When he made eye contact with Llambry again, he asked, “It’s limiting the pain of my recovery?”
“It allowed your recovery, my friend. I’ve never dealt with so many broken bones, and your spine . . . well, without the LifeVirus, you would not have survived.”
“Then I’m grateful.”
“Over the coming weeks, I’ll ask you to decide on your next course of treatment. You can spend a few months in a tank, or we can fashion a prosthetic for your missing leg.”
Ollie shook his head. “You want to fix my leg? No! Among the Harbok, my missing leg has become a symbol.”
“It’s a symbol to us as well,” Llambry said, echoing his agreement. “The LifeVirus will eventually do the job by itself, but it will take years, and you’ll tire frequently. The tank will speed up the process, but you’ll be unconscious. Those are the trade-offs. That leg is getting fixed in either case.”
“I’ll discuss it with Lor Tas’val. Maybe he’ll want to try the LifeVirus himself. I haven’t told him about it.”
“You haven’t?” Llambry asked in astonishment.
“It was part of my original agreement with Greg that I not discuss the LifeVirus with any non-An’Atee.”
Llambry blinked, hard. “You’ve held to that all these years? I didn’t know! I discussed it with Tas’val myself. His response was that he’d only accept it after you did.”
Ollie’s jaw dropped.
* * * * *
Greg awoke a few days later. He felt confused. Memories of pain, lots of pain, flooded back, then he remembered the Overmind. His eyes flew open in alarm.
Arlynn came into view above him, her eyes telegraphing her concern. She leaned over and put her arms around him, then she held him in a tight embrace. His alarm subsided. When she released him, she sat beside him on the bed, leaning over him with a hand caressing his face.
“Welcome back,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes. “How do you feel?”
He went internal and inventoried his body. The pain was gone, all of it. He felt completely normal. “Fine,” he answered. He studied her, noticing the scars on her neck and knowing they ran down the side of her body all the way to her calf. “You?” he asked.
“Healing nicely. I’ve been awake for a month. My strength is almost back to normal.”
“Emily . . . and Cass and Ollie?”
“Ollie is up and around, still on one leg. Dr. Llambry will wake up Cass and Emily in another month or so.”
Greg blinked several times as he assimilated the information. “What happened?” he asked.
Her smile stayed in place as she continued caressing his face. “You joined a small number of people who can say they’ve been blown up twice.”
“We failed?” he asked in horror.
“Relax,” she said, the smile leaving her face. “The Overmind was far stronger than we ever imagined, but we defeated it. A lot of good people gave their lives in the process.”
He seemed to
deflate right in front of her as memories of that terrible day returned. Yes, a lot of good people had died.
When she saw his eyes shifting from side to side, she knew the questions he was seeking answers to. “It’s dead, Greg. You can erase that concern from your mind. If you’re up to it, I’ll give you the details,” she said.
He sat up straighter in the bed, and she fluffed pillows behind him to help, then she gave him a long, lingering kiss. She lay her head on his chest for a time. When she sat up, she was all business. She gave him an abbreviated version of the attack on the Overmind’s spire and a brief description of the aftermath.
When she finished, she said, “As you know, we streamed a recording to Grayson. Douglas received it as well. I have a copy. I’ll show it to you later.”
“How about right now?”
“No. Doctor Llambry’s orders. You know how the LifeVirus requires frequent naps.” She stood up, then lay down beside him on the bed and snuggled close. “I’ve so been looking forward to this,” she breathed.
He closed his eyes and enjoyed. When he next awoke, Arlynn was ready with a bowl of soup. Without saying anything, he smiled inwardly, still in wonder that doctors could so accurately predict his sleep/wake periods. After eating, Arlynn led him on a short walk down the hallway and back. The scars of her burns were not healed, but they would eventually disappear. She brought him fully up-to-date over the next two days, including the recording of the attack on the Overmind’s spire. Through all of it, Greg was continually reminded that they had nearly fallen into the same trap the original Oort discoverers, most likely Harbok, had fallen into. Cass’ insight—and equally important, his assertiveness—had prevented disaster.
“Doctor Llambry insists that you avoid work for at least two more days, but I’m willing to allow a limited number of visitors,” Arlynn said, breaking into his reverie.
Genesis Page 43
