The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3)

by Edward McKeown

  Maauro examined an electric socket in the wall, sighed, then extruded some device that she plugged into it. “Never turn down free power after a plasma burn,” she said. “However I must be careful or I risk blowing their fuses.”

  “I think you blew a lot of the fuses in the Emergency Committee’s brains,” I replied, as I dropped onto a large plush bed with a groan. “They will still have a hard time seeing someone who looks like a young girl as a threat to a huge monstrosity.”

  She shrugged. “I may not be. It depends on how the Destroyer functions. Remember, every other system I have ever encountered: Confed, Ribisan, Voit-Veru, Infestor, I already spoke the basic programming language of. This machine is something new. I may have to defeat it in close physical combat. It would surely find it difficult to cope with me at close range. But enough for tonight.”

  “Agreed,” I said, “a shower for me and some sleep.”

  “As for me,” she said, “mere low quality AC current and a spot on the floor.”

  “You’re welcome to half of the bed.”

  “The bed is old and wooden and might not take my weight, not to mention the scandal to the major domo should I be discovered there in the morning.”

  I laughed and headed for the shower.

  Chapter 18

  In the morning Maauro relayed the update to Stardust about where to land. They started lining up for a landing in the late morning, giving us time for breakfast and for Pape to arrange transportation to take us back to Sinner. We were to meet with General Staff on our return in the afternoon. I sighed internally, foreseeing an interminable series of technical meetings and other time-wasters. In this regard the Seddonese seemed very human.

  Breakfast was excellent, with Pape supervising what was likely to appeal to a human. The fact that Maauro participated with gusto seemed to bemuse the native human.

  Afterward, Maauro and I were taken out to the area we’d parked Sinner II and an escort brought us to the bomber. We rode out in the armored car, similar to the one we’d ridden in a day before. The day was only partly cloudy, we’d landed in late winter, almost to spring. Clouds and rain were the mark of the season. I caught a glimpse of the glow of Stardust’s entry through scudding clouds, but could not hear her engines over the dull rumble of the armored car’s engine and the wind blowing over us.

  Maauro leaned close on the hard bench. “Dusko says entry normal. He is estimating set down at the field in ten minutes. He wants to know what is for lunch as he does not plan on cooking.”

  I laughed. “Tell him the local food is well worth the visit and to save his appetite.”

  Pape looked over from the bench opposite. “Everything all right?”

  “Yes, our starship is landing,” I replied, raising my voice. “It’ll be there when we return. “

  The armored car pulled over. I saw four Seddonese soldiers waiting by the roadside.

  Pape nodded to them and spoke in the local language, trivialities Maauro did not bother to translate. Accompanied by Pape and the escort of four Seddonese soldiers, we started off into the forest. Pape told me of growing up in woods like these as a child and some of the animal life that lived in them.

  I’d developed a liking for the New Hope descendant and offered him a ride back in the Sinner II. His men would have to head back in the armored car. He told me his sergeant was glad to be making the trip back on ground-based wheels. Pape sent them back after we opened up the bomber’s hatch.

  Pape was amazed at the bomber.

  “It’s actually an older vessel, a Daitan, means ‘Daring’ in some old language,” I told him as I did my walk around. “We took it off some pirates, or rather Maauro did.”

  Maauro had preceded us to the bomber. A few days dryness had made the ground much firmer and she wasn’t sinking in as she had before. She’d completed the walk-around and some of the safety checks by the time we caught up to her.

  “It’s hard to believe,” Pape said, looking at Maauro disappearing into the green and gold bomber. “Her capabilities,…they seem like magic. She could be a demon from the outer hells, well other than the fact that she’s as cute as a new puppy.”

  I wondered briefly what the local form of puppy looked like. “Yes, she is that.”

  He hesitated. “Do you mind a personal question?”

  “No.” I said, as I checked a flap. Maauro may have pre-flighted it but I was too much of a pilot to leave that duty entirely to someone else.

  “You seem more like, well more like a couple than…” Words seemed to fail him as he searched for what we might be.

  “My girlfriend sometimes makes the same point,” I said. “Maauro is…unique and we are very close. In many ways I am closer to her than to anyone else.”

  Pape whistled. “That’s a recipe for trouble.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What’s her name?” Pape asked. “Your girlfriend, I mean.”

  “Jaelle Tekala,” I thought about it a second. “She’s not a human, she’s a Nekoan.” I pulled my com from my pocket. A picture of Jaelle glowed on its screen. She wore a bathing suit from one of our trips to the sea. The two piece suit showed off her fine, taut body, her tail projecting from a slit in the back. Her face was lit by a wicked grin and her golden eyes were filled with her usual joy at being alive.

  “She is beautiful,” Pape said, “very exotic. I’m married, myself. Here, take a look.” He reached into his blue and gold jacket and pulled out a leather wallet. When he opened it, there was a picture inside. To my surprise, a golden-eyed Seddonese looked out of it at me. She wore a swirling gown and her face was lit in a smile.

  “Beautiful,” I said, and meant it. “I didn’t know Seddonese had golden eyes.”

  “It’s rare except in this part of the country. Purple is the most common but you’ll occasionally see orange or black even.”

  “Looks like we have something in common,” I said

  “Is it…is it unusual,” Pape asked, with a sudden shyness, “for humans to marry or date out of our species in the galaxy?”

  “It’s not common, but it’s not frowned on. We have a legal union called a consortship, for people of different species, since you can’t reproduce. Some simply use their local customs to marry. I’m in a consortship with Jaelle.”

  “Nice,” he said. “That’s nice.”

  “How is it here?” I asked.

  “Pretty rare. Some regard it as scandalous, some as an abomination. We are one of the few to do so in our generation. Fortunately she’s from a powerful family, or we’d likely have been stopped. It must be nice to be from the stars where love is so much less questioned.”

  “It’s not always easy,” I said.

  “Still you have laws.”

  “They’ll be your laws if you join the Confederacy,” I said.

  “Something to live for,” Pape said, his face solemn.

  “Come on,” I said, as I edged under the bomber. Pape followed me up through the hatch and stared around the interior. Maauro had turned up the lights.

  We strapped into our seats after I finished preflighting Sinner. Maauro gave Pape her usual seat. “The view is better,” she said, while strapping him in. “It will mean more to you than me.”

  He smiled and thanked her.

  I nudged the throttle into hover and Sinner lurched into the air. As soon as we reached five hundred meters I moved her into forward flight. We headed toward the field where Stardust had landed an hour before.

  “We have nothing like this,” Pape said, as he pressed his face against the canopy. “There were some balloons and dirigibles, some gliders but nothing to compare with this. We’d started on regaining flight when the Destroyer awakened. Nothing we had could survive in the air within line of sight of the monster.”

  “You have been unable to keep patrols in contact with the enemy,” Maauro sa
id.

  “We tried. Again anything in line of sight drew beam fire. The Seddonese couldn’t get even that close until recently. It was using chemical or biological agents deadly to them. It seems to have used up most of those but may retain a small amount for dealing with patrols. We’ve used human scouts, but casualties are heavy and it can break contact pretty easily, especially in open country.”

  “Undesirable,” she mused. “I must consider means by which we can keep tabs on our adversary.”

  As we neared Stardust’s landing site a vibration started in the right engine.

  “Dammit,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?” Pape demanded, suddenly losing his enthusiasm for air travel.

  “Picking up a vibration in the number two,” I said as I shut the engine down and ran up power on number one. “Don’t worry. We can fly on the one engine.”

  “Do not blame yourself,” Maauro said. “I checked the engine out as well. Whatever defect it is, was well hidden. One suspects the pirates we took it from did not maintain factory specifications.”

  “You’ll have to tell them off if you see them again,” Pape said with a sickly grin, his hands white-knuckled on his seat arm.

  “She told them off pretty thoroughly the first time,” I said. “Fact is she’d have to visit them in Hell to follow-up.”

  “Which would seem pretty redundant,” Maauro added.

  Pape turned from his tense scan of the outside to look at her. She noted his regard and smiled sweetly. He turned back to me. “I have a feeling it’s a good thing she’s on our side.”

  “You have no idea, my friend,” I said, eyes glued to my instruments. “None at all.”

  “Stardust to Sinner,” came Dusko’s voice. “We see you. You look wobbly.”

  “Stardust, we’re having some engine trouble. Tell everyone to keep off the field. It isn’t serious, but I want to get down as soon as we can. I don’t like running on one engine.”

  “Very sensible. Try not to prang into us while you are doing it.”

  A few tense minutes later I brought Sinner in. Since I didn’t wish to use hover on one engine, I took a brief landing run on the wheels for safety and was relieved when the bomber rolled to a stop.

  “We’ll have to do a tear down on that engine,” I said to Maauro.

  She nodded. “There’s Dusko and Olivia coming down the cargo ramp. I see they have unpacked the mule and the crab-robots. Good.”

  When we climbed out it was immediately clear something was up with the Seddonese. People were running, vehicles and riding animals raced in every direction. We paused as Olivia trotted over, Dusko trailing her.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Olivia said, she had her hand on her sidearm and watched the scurry with a suspicious gaze.

  “It all happened just as you came in,” Dusko added.

  “I’ll find out,” Pape said and ran off to flag down an approaching staff car. The dark green and gray vehicle screeched to a halt and the braided and decorated occupant inside exchanged words with Pape. The news was clearly bad, the young human staggered back, his face stricken. The Seddonese officer got out of the vehicle and gestured at us. Pape nodded and they both ran over.

  “It’s a disaster,” Pape said, as he came up to us. “The Destroyer is on the move. It came through the Mellifan swamp near the town of Chlor. We don’t know how. That should have been impassible but it did it. The population is fleeing now.”

  “Why weren’t they evacuated before this?” Maauro asked.

  Pape’s face was tight. “We have only so many resources. We evacuated the towns on the plains south of here. We never thought it would sweep around the flank and head for Chlor though a swamp. None of the cities and towns in that sector have been evacuated.”

  The general rapped something out to Pape.

  Maauro translated for us. “They are sending forces south to help the refugee column: vehicles to help the civilians outrun the Destroyer, and military forces to delay it.”

  “It’s hopeless,” Pape interjected. “We don’t have enough transport to do it. The only thing our military can do is delay the Destroyer by forcing it to battle. No unit of ours has survived that unless it broke and fled.”

  He grabbed my arm. “Wrik, Chlor is where my wife Corra and her family live. Is there anything you can do? The bomber—”

  “Not with the Sinner on one engine,” I said. “She’d be a sitting duck. Stardust is even less maneuverable and has less armament.” I looked at Maauro. “If we are going to do anything it will have to be on the ground.” Behind her a troop of mounted Seddonese, carbines in their scabbards thundered past. A steam cart pulled a piece of artillery slowly in their wake. They looked pathetically antiquated.

  “Wrik,” Maauro said, quietly. “Again, it falls to you to make this decision.”

  “Is there any chance?” I ask.

  “We have not taken the measure of our enemy,” she replied. “I cannot tell.”

  Pape watched us in an agony of suspense.

  “We’re all they’ve got,” I said, despite the dryness in my mouth and the thudding of my heart. “Dusko get to work on the Sinner’s right engine. Olivia—”

  “I’m going with you.” Olivia said. “I’ll get my sniper rifle and some LAWs.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but she was already racing off.

  “I will get my armspac from the Stardust,” Maauro said. Then she moved, speeding past Olivia at a rate that made the human woman look like she was standing still.

  “Your vehicle is fast?” Pape demanded, looking dubiously at the mule.

  “Faster than anything else around here over smooth ground,” I replied.

  “Then I am with you. I can coordinate whatever of our defense units can arrive in time.” He turned and spoke to the officer who nodded and headed for his staff car.

  Chapter 19

  In moments Maauro returned with Olivia. Maauro held a container of light anti-tank weapons and her armspac. The LAWs weren’t as powerful as the missiles in the crab-robots, but they were what we had.

  I looked at Maauro and her large boxy weapon. “Three humans, the cargo and you may strain the mule.”

  “I will ride atop a crab-robot, my weight will slow it only slightly and not below the mule’s best speed anyway. I could run on my own but I would arrive at the battle site with my heat sinks full. As transports the crabs are more effective than my feet.” The three gray and green machines rolled up behind her, their road wheels projecting through the spindly legs that gave them their name. Their 20mm chain guns and missile mounts gave them a comfortingly deadly look. However it was in Maauro with her ability to dominate any computer system she encountered that I pinned most of my hopes.

  Pape scrambled into the mule. “We should go by the southernmost bridge, it skirts the city. That’s where the relief force is forming up.”

  “We will not wait for them,” Maauro said, climbing atop Crab One. “They can do nothing against this enemy but be targets.”

  I slid behind the wheel after helping Olivia load the LAWs container. She locked her sniper rifle down, then climbed into the ring behind the small cabin of the mule and pulled the charging handle on the LMG mounted over us, its slender barrel pointed directly ahead.

  “Let’s go,” she yelled. Her blood was clearly up. The one blue eye I could see was wide with excitement and a wolfish grin lit her face. She was, I decided then, crazy.

  Pape’s face was strained with fear for his wife. Perhaps I was the only one of the four of us afraid for himself. I was determined not to let it stop me or make me falter. I hit the accelerator and the mule slid forward.

  I rolled up the mule’s windows, the morning was still cool, though the clouds had thickened some. Rain seemed a daily factor of existence here but mercifully not just now. Oli
via could duck out of the wind behind the cab. She opened the small window between us so she could hear us.

  “How far?” I asked Pape.

  “I know the road well,” he said looking down at the speedometer, “at this speed, an hour maybe a little more.”

  I nodded as we raced past lines of men, animals and equipment. Officers and noncoms recognized us and cleared traffic out of our way. To my surprise, cheering broke out. Seddonese and a few humans waved their hats or shook their weapons as we sped by. We passed south of the city across the southernmost bridge overtaking and passing columns of infantry, then cavalry and finally the motorized transports and armored cars that had started first. They weren’t much faster than the cavalry, but did not need to stop. We didn’t hold up for them but drove ahead.

  Maauro spoke to me over the mule’s radio. “According to the Seddonese military traffic, the Destroyer has overwhelmed the small force protecting the town of Chlor and is pursuing the fleeing population which is heading for a valley in that range of hills before us.”

  I looked up. The hills were well in evidence, stretching across the horizon, low and rounded, they would offer little difficulty to the Destroyer. Pape’s paper map showed me that the road went up into the hills and then down into a wide valley before climbing up into the hills then descending to the broad plain where Chlor stood.

  Or had, I saw a tower of smoke in the distance being shredded by winds blowing southward. Pape looked up and his face blanched.

  “We’ll find her,” I said.

  His eyes were bleak, but he nodded.

  I coaxed a little more speed out of the mule. As we started to climb I realized I’d been right to have Maauro on a crab, the mule’s small engine, more meant for utility then speed, labored dragging us up the hill. Maauro and the three crabs gradually slid ahead of us. We were alone, the Seddonese military far behind us, and as yet no refugees ahead.