by Smith, S. E.
“It won’t kill me.” Her lips quirked at the edges.
“What?” he asked, not surprised his voice was rough edged.
She shook her head. “I just…am I the only one who wonders what we were thinking to do this in the first place?”
“No,” he found he could almost smile. He hesitated. “Everyone should be able to go…home.” He said the word with the realization that its meaning for him was blurred, out of focus.
“We have a similar saying about not leaving our people behind.”
“And do you always secure them?”
She shook her head. “Sometimes we fail, but we try, because we’d want that for ourselves, we’d want to be brought home.”
His heart chilled. She was speaking of their dead now. She feared she would fail to bring her people home. Now he touched her cheek. The skin was soft, his touch releasing her scent. He inhaled it greedily. Her home was far from his, in more than light years. If she went home, he would lose her. He was starting to realize how much he feared that, feared it more than what he might find on Teuhhopse.
“Then we will try,” he said.
* * *
City was not thrilled to be alone with Lady Yodrirka, well, almost alone. Tiger was curled up on one of the ready room chairs, his cat’s ears up, his expression alert and interested. In fact, he kind of reminded her of a referee, the way his head turned to her, to the Lady, then back to her.
City had never felt so Picard. Ready room for starters. Her hands were clasped behind her back, her chin was up, the table was between her and the bird. The uniform was different and there was no Earl Grey tea, but she channeled him because she needed to be the Captain at this moment.
She needed the bird to talk.
The bird was still, not even her eyes moved as she watched City. Those eyes. It took channeling Picard and all the other Star Trek captains to hold it.
“You wished to speak with me, Sergeant City?”
Her voice was as deep and old as her eyes, with the timbre of a mountain storm.
Yeah, it was that cold.
Was the “Sergeant” a push back against the captain channeling?
“Yes, I did. You’ve seen what’s happened at our other…stops. I don’t know if they are after you, your ally, OxeroidR, or both of you—”
“You don’t believe this ship is an attractive acquisition?”
“I’m sure that this ship interests someone. Now. But no one knew about it before. We think the Testudinians either talked or were coerced into talking.”
“The robot knew. And his human.”
“We both know that if OxeroidR wanted to take this ship, it would already be his.”
The bird’s head moved in what could be a nod. For the first time, she moved, turning to pace slowly over to a painting that had come with the ship, her claws clicking ominously against the uncarpeted flooring. City didn’t know where or when the painting had been created. It was a place she wouldn’t mind seeing. A place of blue mountains and a purple lake. Both familiar and alien at the same time.
“True.” She turned to face City once more.
“Bull and I have been looking at the probe data. We’ve identified an area where we can drop you off. This time we’ll take the Emissary down, use the scan dampening effect of your mountains to confuse them. You fly your way and we fly ours.”
The Lady continued to stare at her. Not a feather ruffled, so why did City feel distrust emanating from her? What was her deal?
“We are concerned about ground defenses. Can you give us any insights to what we might encounter during atmosphere entry?”
“Such as?”
“Ground to air or ground to space weapons? Be a pity to be shot out of the sky this close to your home.”
The Lady walked the other direction, then turned to face City. “You are not going to open communications with the humanoids? That is what your Mr. Faxton desires, is it not?”
Faxton had started to set his sights on getting home. City cocked her head. “Should we?”
“Is that not what you do? Make treaties with other humanoids?”
“That knowledge is above my pay grade, but from what I’ve observed, we’ve only recently encountered non-human species. Mr. Faxton’s brief for this mission, with the help of Dr. Dauwn, who specializes in non-human species, was to explore our options there.” Jeez, she sounded like a diplomat. But had she been careful enough? She let her gaze do some boring into the bird’s. “But my interests are about the security of this ship and everyone on it.” She paused. “You fly high. Surely you have a good handle on the risks on your own planet.”
“I would avoid the treehouse city,” she finally said. “The hut dwellers are…acceptable, but what use will they be to you?” It was her turn to pause. “Unless you also see them as a…resource?”
“Resource.” City felt the chill all the way to her toes. “You mean slaves.”
“The others let them exist, provide some assistance, protection from the S’Kassidaens, and in return they pay tribute.”
The S’Kassidaens were the spiders. “Tribute. What kind of tribute?”
“Ask the robot’s human.”
City clenched her hands behind her back. “I’m asking you.”
The hooded gaze slid away. “I think you know.”
“What is your relationship with the humans and the S’Kassidaens?” City was shocked at how calm she sounded.
“We stay as far away as we can from them.”
City considered this. “Except you didn’t.”
“I…surrendered to them.” Her wings extending and beat the air angrily. The force of it almost rocked City back on her heels. “They found my nest. My mate was killed. My fledglings were taken. I had no choice.”
City dropped into a seat and rubbed her face. “Do you know what happened to them after—are they still alive?”
Perhaps it was something in her voice or her face that caused the bird to tuck her wings back in.
“I have seen them twice since. On a video link.”
This was bad. “Do you know where they are?”
“In the S’Kassidaen’s den, of course. If—”
City bit her lip. “What’s to stop them from using them to make you surrender yourself again?” Even if she tried to free them, they knew they were coming. Or they would know by the time the Emissary was in Teuhhopse space.
The wings beat again. “I cannot leave my young in their hands. I will do what I must.”
City eyed the talons flexing against the metal floor—leaving long gouges in it. So just turning around and heading home wasn’t an option. And if they released the Lady, not only would she surrender again if she couldn’t free the kids, she’d be a captive with a lot of information about them, about the expedition, and about the Garradian Universe.
Spiders. Were these the kin of the one they’d stepped on? Spiders had lots of babies, didn’t they? She rubbed her temple. Okay, they had spiders. We have a robot. With a flying squirrel. And her Marines—Marines she couldn’t order to do this. It was so far outside her brief.
She sighed. “Could we tune our sensors to find the—your young?”
“Why would you help me?”
City met her gaze without flinching. “You know we now have a mutual security issue. If they get their hands on you, they’ll ask you about us, about this ship, where we came from. And you’ll tell them to protect your young.”
Her head nodded.
“But beyond that, we embarked on this mission to get you home. All the way home. Even if I am not…thrilled that the scope of the mission has expanded, we both know Bull won’t stop until you and your young are safe.” And he was the only one who could stop her taking over the ship to make them keep going. It was ironic knowing that he’d probably help her do it. “We could drop him in close, he frees the kids, they fly—”
“They cannot fly. They would not allow me to teach them to fly.”
Birds that couldn’t fly. C
ity wanted to bang her head against the desk. Or a wall. “How big are they now?”
“Near my size.”
It almost seemed as if the bird was amused about the piling on.
“Do…they have the same trust issues you have? Will you be able to convince them we’re the good guys?”
She looked away, then back. “I do not know.”
City would like to think this would make a difference with Bull. But it wouldn’t. He was the only one not afraid of the bird. She glanced down at the grudges in the metal. Maybe he should be.
“Rita, can you work with the Lady to find her young?”
If they are there, I will find them.
City was not sure—no, it was better if they turned out to be on Teuhhopse, because Bull would insist on flying all over the place looking for them. For a robot with millions or possibly billions of processors, the dude could sure be single minded.
* * *
They’d dropped out of comet drive one jump away from Teuhhopse so they could get an updated look at the space around the planet. Bull believed they should launch another probe.
And they needed to share the plan with the team.
City was pleased that Kraye looked more like himself. What he’d learned had rocked him. It had rocked her. But she had a feeling he was used to quick recoveries. It had only been a few hours since they’d held each other. It felt longer.
She’d offered him one of the shuttles to see if he could find his past, but he’d refused. His lips had twisted wryly. “My past is—I prefer the present. I look to the future.”
Had his gaze held hers with special significance? She’d hoped so as they’d entered the ready room together.
Okay, she liked thinking that too much.
Today the ready room looked bigger because there were fewer participants in this council, with one new addition: her second in command, Corporal Jenkins. He was a good Marine and would take over if something happened to her. And her men needed to know. Boy, did they need to know.
Bull was there with Rocky. Tiger had settled near Lady Yodrirka. Rita was always with them. It didn’t take long to brief them on what she’d learned and then Rita showed them where the not-so-young were being held.
She and Bull had seen the data and had had time to process it. Okay, Bull had had time to process it. He was calling the shots because he was their only hope.
At least the hostages weren’t being held in the spider den as the Lady and City had feared. She had a feeling it was a much harder target. She’d seen Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.
But she and Bull agreed that the appearance of it being a softer target was part of the trap being set for the Lady. On the plus side, the enemy might not be expecting them to help the Lady. It depended on how good they were at planning for the unexpected. Bull believed they needed to expect them to plan for everything or they weren’t planning for the unexpected. This, while mind bending, also red lined the plus side.
So far all they’d observed in the probe scans were humanoids moving around the encampment. But that did not mean that the spiders wouldn’t be there.
City didn’t need Bull or the Lady to connect the dots for her. The tree people “protected” the hut people from the spiders by working with the spiders. It was on a spider’s ship where they’d found the captured bird. Those spiders got around which was a strong incentive not to give them access to intel on where this ship came from. This brought her back to, yeah, exceeding the mission brief, but not a lot of other options here.
“At our last look, the space around the planet is still free of bogeys. We think they have deployed buoys around the planet and are planning to hop in once we set one off.” City figured they’d bring as many ships as they could get there but the bad guys lived with the same laws of physics that they did.
“How do you plan to deal with incoming bogeys?” Jenkins asked.
“We can’t stop them from seeing us when we drop into normal space,” Bull explained. “We will switch to cloak. They might also be able to track us by the turbulence the Emissary will cause when it enters the atmosphere.”
“You’re taking this ship down to the surface?” Jenkins might be having trouble with his stone face. “With all due respect, ma’am, this ship will be a sitting duck on the ground.”
City’s smile felt a bit evil. “Not necessarily. The mountains where the Lady’s people live have some interesting sensor dampening properties. If we can locate an LZ there—”
He grinned. “They won’t be able to see us.”
“Exactly. And, as we’re doing our atmospheric insertion, we’ll grab what intel we can and adjust our plan if necessary.” City gave Bull the nod to continue.
“We’ll go into the mountains well away from where we plan to land, drop down and launch the shuttles, heading straight for our secondary LZ.”
This time Jenkins blinked. “Straight for?”
“This ship has a phase cloak,” City said. “It will spend energy, so we can’t do it all the way to the encampment, but if they pick up anything, we’ll be far enough from the Emissary when we switch to regular cloak. Even if they can track our movement somehow, they won’t be able to track anything back to this ship.”
His grin was wider this time though his eyes might also be a little wide at the thought of flying straight through a mountain. Don’t think about it was the best she could offer if he asked. He didn’t.
City turned to Bull. “Would you brief them on what happens next?”
He nodded and extended his body upright. A hologram activated in the center of the table.
“The young are located in an encampment that is centrally located between these three hut dweller settlements. It is possible that these settlements provide labor for the encampment.”
The view moved in.
“There is humanoid activity during daylight that diminishes significantly after night fall.”
The view changed to night.
“We’ve noted when the activity is at the lowest. That is when Bull and the Lady will go in,” City said.
“Just Bull?” Jenkins did not look pleased.
“Once they have located and freed the hostages, we’ll drop in and pick them up,” City said evenly. She didn’t mention persuasion might be necessary. It already looked enough like a Charlie Foxtrot. “There is a landing pad in the center that is large enough to accommodate one or both of our shuttles.”
“Are you certain they won’t see your shuttles approach?” Lady Yodrirka asked.
“It depends on the skill of their scanning tech,” City admitted. They had to assume it was top notch.
“We can also make it harder by flying the shuttles in low, like just above the trees,” Jenkins said.
City slanted Bull a look. “I know someone who can do that.”
“You have two shuttles,” the bird pointed out.
“We can tie the flight controls together,” Bull said. “I will fly both shuttles during our approach, landing as close as possible. I will send a signal when we are ready for pickup.”
City angled to look at the bird. “Can you be our eyes in the sky until we neutralize any opposition, at least until Bull needs you?”
“You do not wish me to be on the ground.”
“You can hike to the encampment with Bull if you want to,” City said, holding her scary gaze.
The bird gave a sound that almost sounded like a laugh.
“We can fit you with a head set so you can stay in touch, warn us if you see anything we need to know.” Once she was on the ground, that edge went away but Rita would have the shuttles sensors cranked up, too. A lot of finger-crossing on this op.
“Questions? Concerns?” She surveyed her team.
“You gonna make some of us stay behind and guard the diplomatic team?” Jenkins asked.
“I’m going to let you volunteer to remain, but if no one wants to stay, Rita will watch out for them, won’t you, Rita?”
A part of me will.
<
br /> “She can be in two or three places at once,” City told Jenkins.
He blinked. “Oorah.”
“Indeed.”
* * *
City faced Faxton in the small communal space on the VIP deck. He looked ragged around the edges, but he managed one of his smooth smiles.
“No one shooting at us?”
“We’re parked in a fairly remote sector in this system while we ready for the last hop,” City said. “So far that’s working for us.”
He might have winced. “This is not the journey I expected.”
“No.” She’d known they wouldn’t get what they expected, but it was obvious she hadn’t set her expectations low enough either.
“You all have a role, tasks to perform.” His wry smile was almost real. His expression rueful when he met hers. “I had hoped that we, that all of us would have more time to become acquainted.”
City blinked tired eyes. Was that personal interest in there? Had he expected the love spaceship?
“I could have used more downtime,” she admitted, especially more sack time. She shot him a look as if he’d heard her thoughts. Alone, thank you. Maybe if she hadn’t met Kraye—
“I’ve been running sims—simulations.” She’d been trying to get better at everything she might face out there. Bull had cranked them up so high she died during most of them. She didn’t continue the confession. It would not build his confidence to find out she’d been practicing her combat flight and fighting skills and done a lot of dying while doing it.
“Will the Emissary be dodging around while you drop off the Lady?”
City considered him, then shook her head. “No, they’ll be expecting that. We’re going to land. You saw the data, or rather you didn’t see the data about the Lady’s mountains. We think we can hide there.”
“Hide?” A frown spread slowly across his face. “Why would we need to hide? Aren’t we going to land and release the Lady?”
City took a deep breath. The command structure was a little iffy here. He might think he was in charge. “We’re going to launch a rescue mission.”
He blinked. “Rescue?”
