by Jerry Aubin
“What do the bugs have to do with bringing the colonists here, ma’am?”
“We’re trying to keep the different groups isolated from each other to prevent any conflict or resource contention between them. Other than a detachment that operates out of caverns built under the original human settlement, the ants are held in reserve on a separate continent in case they are needed.”
Kalyn held up her hand to signal that she was receiving a message. “Ma’am—the two shuttles have been destroyed and the landing party is now moving in the direction you expected. The asteroid has also exited the system. How are you certain it’s coming back?”
“Surveillance, Kalyn, will almost always provide you with whatever information you need to know. Our friend with the cigars had appeared to be in charge, but I discovered someone higher in rank than him today. Our tiniest drones have been observing their landing party and I overheard him refer to one of the new women as Madam President. A short time later, I captured that same woman discussing with her aide how she had just ordered the asteroid to return back and mount a rescue mission if the need arose. They’ll be back.”
Kalyn appeared dubious. “If you say so, ma’am. Is the younger woman who is always in the company of the cigar-chomper still your target? The one with the black hair and blue eyes.”
“No.” Rilee displayed a new image. “There’s a different woman who showed up for the first time today. The cigar-chomper referred to her as Major which is a senior position within the ancient military structure the asteroid uses. Someone high up in their hierarchy should provide the best opportunity for getting what we need.”
“ You’re clear for Upload, ma’am, but I have to say something one last time for the record. This is an extremely bad plan.”
Rilee nodded and then made her final preparations and issued remaining orders. Finally, she turned back to Kalyn.
“You remember what to do if anything happens to me, right?”
“Of course, Rilee. I can’t believe you’re going through with this, but I’ll absolutely honor your wishes.”
Emotions welled up, so Rilee shut her mouth and closed her eyes before they distracted her. With one last breath, she triggered her Upload…
…and immediately marveled at the radical change in visual perspective flooding her mind. With eyes covering their heads, each optimized for a different wavelength, the visual data a human consciousness was exposed to while inhabiting an ant was potentially overwhelming. She examined the Skin and marveled once again at the creation she had played such a large role in developing thousands of years earlier. The soldier ant, one meter taller than the workers, was a fearsome killing machine that had proven its worth across the universe. In one forelimb she carried a small case and she confirmed it held the two devices critical to her plan.
With everything in place, Rilee waited for the final indication that it was time to execute. Then, she sensed it. A chemical signal triggered her Skin and all of the other ants around her to charge. Up through the secret tunnel they poured with an image imprinted on their minds of their destination. She had expected the attack would be a perfect surprise given how their secret caverns exited out within the perimeter defenses of the landing party, but for some reason the humans were alert to their presence. The next seconds were critical, so Rilee trusted the insects around her to play their role while she focused on her own.
Then, Rilee spotted the woman. As she had seen on the surveillance before Upload, her target was sitting off by herself away from the others. Rilee charged and grabbed the woman before the human was able to react to what was happening around her. Within seconds, Rilee had dragged the struggling woman behind a building and out of sight of the remainder of the landing party. A group of soldier ants formed a solid wall that surrounded Rilee’s Skin and the human. The sounds of battle increased in ferocity all around, but Rilee blocked all of the distractions to focus on her work.
Pinning down the squirming woman with one forelimb, Rilee used the ant’s other forelimb to grab the larger of the two devices out of her case. The device had been in use for thousands of years, but it was only in the last six months that Rilee had successfully modified it for use by an ant on the battlefield. At one end was a probe that was sized to seat around a human eye socket. Rilee held her prisoner’s head steady and inserted the probe until it signaled a proper seal with the flashing of a green light.
The opposite end of the device ended with two probes that were shaped much differently. Rilee opened the mouth of her ant and guided the probes along the roof of its mouth until they found purchase in the two cavities located within. These cavities housed sensory nerve bundles that ultimately connected to each hemisphere of the ant’s brain. Rilee felt a slight twinge of discomfort as the probes firmly attached, and then another light flashed green on the device. Without any hesitation, Rilee pressed the Upload button and…
…seconds later awoke with a start inside the body of the woman. The lights on the device glowed solid green to signal a successful transfer of Rilee’s consciousness out of the ant and into the woman from the asteroid’s crew. She couldn’t quite move yet as the nanostructures the tool had inserted into the woman’s brain were still aligning their circuits to support complete bodily control and sensory input, but a tingling sensation revealed the process was moving apace.
Rilee closed the body’s eyes and concentrated. At the very edge of her perception, the original occupant’s consciousness was still present. The Collective Pact included strict rules that prohibited nearly all forceful takeovers of Skins, but Rilee had been granted a waiver once the benefits of her plan were understood. The woman’s mind emanated nothing but chaos as it reeled from Rilee’s invasion and its loss of agency, but given time Rilee was certain she would harness its energy and interact with it for the purpose of mining memories and other information necessary to maintain the illusion. It took special skill to ride a Skin while its original consciousness remained trapped within, but Rilee had done it before and was confident she would succeed again.
Once Rilee had full control of the woman’s limbs, she removed the transfer device from her eyeball. The ant she had just exited remained as still as a statue. The device had injected a powerful paralytic agent that ensured the creature wouldn’t begin to move independently until the procedure was long done. Rilee reached into the case and removed the second device it contained. The superluminal communicator was heavy due to the miniature Star Crystal it contained, but still small enough to disguise as a pendant on a necklace. She slipped it over the woman’s head and tucked it under her uniform.
Rilee tapped the leg of one of the soldier ants encircling her, and scrambled out to rejoin the other humans. Her legs wobbled as she ran, but she worried about being apart from the rest of the landing party any longer than absolutely necessary. She scrambled against the building and found a spot against the wall next to the one they had called Madam President.
The battle must have terrified the humans as wave after wave of the soldier ants attacked, but Rilee breathed easy with the knowledge it was all for show. The ants were on a suicide mission and sacrificed themselves to give the illusion of an all-out attack. There were strict orders that none of the humans be harmed, mostly out of concern that Rilee’s new Skin might get hurt in any crossfire.
A rescue shuttle from the asteroid arrived as Rilee expected, and she dashed aboard alongside the rest of the humans. She followed the officer in charge along with the president into a compartment where they were joined by a small group of what appeared to be senior leaders. There was contentious back and forth about the ants’ attack between different members of the group, and the exchanges provided a great opportunity for Rilee to sit back and soak in every detail about the people around her. Now that she had embedded herself within the asteroid’s hierarchy, Rilee’s mission was to learn everything possible about its society. As expected, those first moments aboard the shuttle made it clear there was an awful lot to learn.
24
That’s not going to work this time.
Rilee paused as the group finished absorbing her words. The expressions around the room ranged from Sergeant Bailee’s simmering anger to Mase’s barely contained amusement. Zax was the first to speak.
“Is Major Eryn’s mind still inside that body? Will she be OK?”
“Yes, Zax. The major will be just fine. I’ll return control of the body to her as soon as I no longer need it.”
Kalare spoke next, and her eyes glistened with the threat of tears.
“All of the things I’ve shared with you in confidence over the last few years…”
“Dear, dear Kalare—of everything I’ve experienced while living as a member of this Crew, getting to know you has been the most wondrous. Frankly, it’s the depth of goodness I see in you that has shown me there is hope for the future of this asteroid. You proved that yet again with the way you handled that young civilian earlier. I can’t imagine the depths of betrayal you must be experiencing right now, and for that I’m sorry. Please believe me when I say that my fondness for you has always been completely genuine.”
“Wait,” Aleron interrupted. “It was you who stranded the Ship somehow during the last battle, wasn’t it? I always thought it was odd how much time you spent in Engineering those last few months of the trip to Earth. You figured out some way to tamper with the FTL, didn’t you?”
“You’re correct, Aleron. It was an obvious tactic that the Ship would jump away as soon as we disabled all of your fighters. We were fully capable of tracking wherever you might go, but we wanted the Crew to feel thoroughly beaten and hopeless. The theory we developed was that such a thorough domination in the final battle would leave you all in a state of mind where there’d be absolute compliance with subsequent demands. You proved us right. After everything I witnessed while living among you, the most surprising thing to me was the reaction of the Marines. I never would have expected them to just sit back and passively allow our ants to board without putting up at least token resistance.”
Bailee shot out of his seat. Rilee locked eyes with the man and did not flinch as he charged. Her Skin’s heart rate didn’t increase by so much as a single beat, despite the Marine’s reddening face as he drew close and bellowed.
“We did not just sit back! I was in ChamWare myself and prepared to tear your damned bugs to shreds when the Boss ordered us to stand down. I never understood what the hell he was thinking because they never would have made it out of the hangar if he’d just given me the green light.”
“And you’d be dead right now, along with everyone else who was by your side. We’ve continued to let you believe in recent years that your precious ChamWare was useful against the ants, but the reality is that bugs from our most recent generations see you as plain as day. Along with all of those eyes, they now have sonar that’s sensitive enough to identify the last meal in your stomach. We’ve been keeping that capability secret to use for our advantage when it would be most beneficial.”
The blood drained from Bailee’s face nearly as fast as it had painted him red a moment earlier. He tried to hide it, but Rilee’s revelation landed like a kick to the stomach. She didn’t take joy in demolishing the man’s beliefs about the effectiveness of his Marines, but Rilee had to keep him in line and nip any ideas he might have about using force against her.
“Please stand down, Sergeant.” Imair rose and leaned forward to address Rilee with her fists balanced on the table. “It sounds like you were the one agitating the most for our destruction, but now I sense you’ve changed your mind. Does that mean you’ll convince your Council to leave us alone? If your people want payback against Adan, and all of us on the Ship need to be rid of Alpha, then let’s work together and achieve both goals. You just need to help us get rid of Rege first.”
Rilee shook her head. “I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. When you nuked our ants on that planet where Zax discovered the fighter, it shifted a lot of opinions and significantly hardened those who were already against you. I’ve reported back to the Council in recent years how there’s hope to rehabilitate your society, but all of my earlier status updates about what I discovered here have been used by our leadership to push the conclusion that the universe will be safer with your asteroid’s destruction. Your society’s extensive history of violent action was likely enough to doom you in their eyes, but Rege being in command is absolutely untenable. Unfortunately, our Collective Pact prohibits us from getting involved in your internal affairs. Unless there’s some way for you to effect a change of leadership on your own, my best guess is our Council will conclude that you present too big a risk and must be stopped.”
When she first arrived onboard, Rilee wanted nothing more than to prove the inhabitants of the asteroid deserved destruction. Then, the depths of admiration she developed for Kalare over the years began to shift her perspective more and more in the opposite direction. Learning that Adan was alive and still using force to engineer the society towards his twisted goals was the last piece of evidence she needed to conclude the Ship’s society could be redeemed. If his influence was removed and replaced by people like Kalare, then there was no reason to take the drastic step of exterminating those who had left Earth so long ago. Rilee wanted to ignore the Pact and help remove Rege, but she recognized that doing so would be leverage for Randel to destroy any willingness the Council might otherwise have to consider her new perspectives about the asteroid’s society. She was stuck.
“OK,” Zax stood as he started to speak, “we just have to kill Rege. The maintenance tunnels will let us make our way up to the Bridge and take him by surprise. We can do this!”
Bailee shook his head. “That’s not going to work this time. Once you exposed that vulnerability during the Revolution, both Flight Ops and the Bridge were secured against that type of intrusion.”
Zax kept talking. “Then we just have to take them head on. You must have access to plenty of weapons, Imair, right? Round up all of your people and we’ll overwhelm whoever Rege has guarding the Bridge and bust in.”
“That won’t work, either.” Bailee’s voice was quiet. “Even if we manage to defeat Rege’s guards, he’ll just trigger an emergency lockdown and we’ll be stuck outside. It won’t take him any time at all to vent the passageway and flush us all out of the Ship.”
“Why are you just giving up, Sergeant? There has to be something to try.”
Rilee admired the boy’s determination to find a solution, but it was obvious that Zax was pushing the Marine too hard. Anger flashed across Bailee’s face and his hands balled into fists, but then the Marine’s muscles relaxed and he slouched back into his seat without a word. The compartment was silent for a few long beats until Kalare spoke.
“There’s an emergency override to get into the Bridge. The Boss told me that he and a couple of other Omegas are the only ones with access. It’s there in case there was ever a mutiny and someone was able to capture Flight Ops or the Bridge.”
Imair laughed. “All we have to do is break the Boss out of his quarters, fight our way to the Bridge, and then hope he’s able to override the hatch before Rege opens the nearest airlock. What could possibly go wrong?”
It served none of their goals for Rilee to ignore her orders and directly assist the Crew, but the discussion had sparked an idea she was confident could be spun as a simple matter of misinterpretation.
“I can improve your odds.”
25
You first, CAG.
“Aleron—no! You can’t do this. You have zero preparation!”
“And what preparation have you ever done that will make any difference?”
Aleron’s tone was snide and dismissive, and Kalare considered for a moment that it might just be more effective to punch him in the face. She choked back her anger and spoke calmly and clearly instead.
“I’ve spent half my life sending my consciousness into a fighter, and I’m damned good at it. Do you remember that time we tried to put you into a
simulator and how badly you failed? Not everyone is cut out for work like this, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“So what am I supposed to do then? Just sit here and twiddle my thumbs while the rest of you head off to who knows what fate? Why would you think that I would be comfortable with that? You’re going to need as much help as possible, and there’s no question you’ll be much better off having me there at your back than another one of the civilians. If you had any other options I might feel differently, but you don’t. I’m going. Period.”
Aleron stomped off towards the other side of the sewage treatment cavern. Kalare was about to chase after him when a quiet cough caught her attention.
“What do you want, Zax? This isn’t the best time.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help but overhear. He does have a point. It’s not like you have great options right now. I’d join you in a heartbeat, but obviously I need to get us through the tunnels into the Boss’s quarters and then as close to the Bridge as possible.”
Kalare nodded. “Of course, we need your biometrics. It would be stupid of us to get discovered any sooner than we have to. The good news is we’ll only have a few hundred meters of passageway where we’ll be out in the open on the way to the Bridge. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up being so shocked at the sight of us that we get through without a shot being fired.”
Zax smiled. “That would be nice, but, knowing Rege like I do, it’s wishful thinking. That man is a psychopath, and I’m certain he’d rather have us all destroyed than lose control of the Ship. I’m guessing he’ll have his guards start shooting like mad at the first sign of any threat, and everything will immediately descend into chaos.”
A shrill whistle echoed across the cavern. Bailee was signaling them over. Kalare turned back to Zax.
“No sense debating any longer because we’re out of time. The sergeant looks pretty agitated. I’m guessing that means Eryn—uh…I mean Rilee—is about to return.”
