by Chris Ward
She gave his shoulder an affectionate squeeze then dropped down beside him, her own weapon blazing, cutting a path through the monsters as they rushed forward.
‘Do you remember which way we came?’ Caladan shouted.
‘I don’t know,’ Lia said. ‘It all looks the same.’ Lia flicked something off her belt and clicked a switch. With a howl of frustration, she threw it into the towering stack behind them.
‘Was that what I think—?’
‘Yes! Get behind the truck!’
As the remote grenade detonated, blowing out the foundations of the leaning stack, Lia pushed Caladan down. The monsters fell back as the wall of stacked furniture and installations came crashing down, junk raining around them.
‘Wow, that was too close.’
‘Move while we have a chance. Go.’
Lia went first, firing everywhere, taking down the monsters as they rushed her, their snapping jaws darting for her knees and ankles. Unused to such bizarre combat, she had to concentrate to keep her blaster pointed down. Up ahead, she saw the doors they had come through, guarded by dozens more, some armed with crude weapons. Lia pulled another remote grenade from her belt and tossed it forward to clear her way.
Over the boom of the explosion, she barely heard Caladan cry out. When she looked back, the monsters were dragging him away. More than a dozen pulled at his legs and single arm, while another was wrapped around his blaster, biting at his fingers.
‘Caladan!’
‘Leave me! Save yourself! You can… goddamn… dream about… ouch… me. Run, Lia!’
Lia kicked away an attacker and shook her head. ‘No chance.’ She rushed after him, firing to either side. The creatures were everywhere, leaping out from behind overturned boxes, snarling and snapping out of holes in the floor. She screamed Caladan’s name as she tried to reach him, but it was no good. She turned a corner past a large central column and saw the creatures drag him through a crude metal portcullis then lower it again.
Something grabbed her ankle, pulling her down. Lia twisted her blaster and blew its head off, kicking away the remains. A dozen more leaped at her, and she scrambled back out of the way. She kicked one in the face and slammed her heel back into the midriff of another, but when she turned to use her blaster her fingers closed over air.
It lay a few paces away. Scowling, Lia stretched for it, but claws closed over her ankles, dragging her back. She kicked out, getting loose, but there were more, closing in, catching both feet this time. She felt her skin breaking beneath claws polished razor-sharp.
‘Awwwwrraaarr!’ The sound came from back near the doors. Lia turned, expecting to see more of the monsters bearing down on her, but instead saw a single lurching figure, one that made her blink with surprise.
Jack O’Flagon stumbled through the debris, arms held out, howling like a madman. The monsters, at first moving toward him, now fled, howling with fear. The ones pulling Lia’s ankles let go of her, whimpering like children as they burrowed back into hills of junk and debris.
Lia sat up as Jake reached her.
‘Quickly, we’ve got to get you out of here. Where’s Caladan?’
‘They took him inside their fortress,’ Lia gasped. ‘We have to get to him.’
‘He’s as good as dead. We don’t have much time. I shocked them into seeing a larger version of themselves, but the illusion won’t last long. Come on.’
‘No, we can’t leave him!’
In front of them, a handful of monsters poked their ugly heads out of burrow-like holes in the debris.
‘Lia, this is your only chance… I can’t fool them for long and I have no weapons to fight them with.’
One monster howled. A dozen howls responded, followed by ten dozen more. The test chamber, which had fallen still, rustled with renewed activity.
‘Run!’
Lia didn’t argue. She let Jake pull her to her feet, ignored the pain of her lacerated ankles and raced after him as he cut a path through the debris to the doors. A couple of monsters stepped into their way, but Jake kicked one aside and smashed the other with a piece of metal.
Jake led her through the broken doors to the elevator shaft.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We can seal the shaft from the control deck, keeping them inside.’
‘Caladan…’
‘He’s drunk his last.’
A single desperate cry rang out from the other side of the test chamber.
‘That’s him!’
‘We can’t help him now!’
Jake grabbed her shoulder, but Lia pushed him away. She pulled her blaster from her belt and advanced a few steps. Lines of the monsters rose out of the debris, jaws snapping. Shaking with rage, Lia lifted the blaster and took out a couple, but it only proved to incense the others, who broke into a run, howling as they came.
‘I’ll kill every last one of you—’
Arms closed over her, knocking her aside. Her blaster fell to the floor. Lia tried to wriggle free, but Jake’s grip was too strong as he dragged her back to the elevator and kicked the door control. The sound of the first monsters hitting the other side came as the doors sealed and the elevator began to rise.
‘Let go of me.’
She turned to face him, rage boiling over, but Jake shook his head. ‘You’re a pretty lady, Ms. Jansen, and you’re undoubtedly brave. But your attempts at diplomacy are sometimes misguided.’
14
Harlan5
Harlan5 brought the Matilda down in a sparsely forested valley below a mountain ridge. He frowned as the ship’s camouflaging device refused to turn the pine-green of the forest, its malfunctioning systems remaining a gray-brown that resembled the earth scorched clear of vegetation by their landing thrusters.
Within minutes of landing, a native species of monkey had claimed the ship’s upper surface as a new territorial lookout, and while it was impossible to hear their feet moving about, Harlan5 found it interesting to play a simulation through the bridge’s speakers to give Beth and Paul a sense of the world outside.
‘I don’t care about monkeys,’ Paul said. ‘Where are the bugs?’ He peered through the view-screens at the mountainous wall rising ahead of them. ‘I see nothing.’
‘It looks rather habitable,’ Beth said. ‘Kind of like pictures of Old-Earth I’ve seen.’
Harlan5 shook his head. ‘Don’t be fooled. I’m using a light filter to enhance the natural light. It’s much gloomier than this because Vattla is an outer system world. Its atmosphere has adapted to store its natural light and retain heat, allowing an eco-system to develop, but it’s far different to an inner system world. Would you like the full explanation or a summary? My database contains both.’
‘How long will the full explanation take?’ Beth asked.
‘Nine hours, fourteen minutes and three seconds.’
‘The summary then, please.’
‘Very well. Vattla has developed an outer troposphere far thicker than most human-habitable inner system planets, which means light that enters remains trapped inside, effectively bouncing back and forth between the ground and the atmosphere. Vattla’s days are Earth-months long, but they start from dozens of degrees below freezing before slowly warming to an almost agreeable temperature in the mid-twenties Celsius. Then, the long night plunges everything into cold and dark again. The flora close to conserve energy and heat, and the fauna hibernate deep underground. The air is breathable during the mid-point of the long day, but it thins during the nights so humans are required to wear respirators, even if you could withstand the cold.’
‘Sounds inviting.’
‘It isn’t,’ Harlan5 said, intentionally deciding not to humor the joke. ‘The few fauna species, like the monkey-types currently defecating on the Matilda’s upper surface, are only active during the warmest part of the days. The long night and the early mornings belong to the Evattlans.’
‘Where are they?’
‘We have been lucky enough to land during the latter part of
the latest day period. However, the sun will next set in approximately thirty-two Earth-hours’ time. It would be advisable to leave the planet before then.’
‘Why?’
‘Because once the sun starts to dip, the planet will be swarming with giant bugs.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Indeed.’
‘How big is giant?’ Beth asked.
‘From the size of a domestic cat at birth up to the size of an Old-Earth elephant, if you know what one looks like,’ Harlan5 said. ‘With the exception of the queens, which have a different body physiology, the weight of their developing exoskeleton prevents them from growing much bigger. They never stop growing, so eventually they get too big for their legs and organs to support them. Their body armor becomes brittle, easily damaged. When they can no longer move, they become food for other creatures.’
‘Why does Raylan Climlee use them?’ Beth asked.
‘He harvests juveniles, no more than an Earth-month or two old. They are the size of you or me and fitted with an additional load-bearing steel frame which acts both as body armor and a harness.’
‘What happens when they outgrow it?’
‘They die. Reports leaked from Trill System about Raylan’s ground armies suggest the Evattlans are used as cannon fodder, drawing enemy fire while the other lines move in. They are expendable to his army in very large numbers.’
Beth glanced at Paul, who nodded at the visual screens while Harlan5 spoke. On the distant mountain peaks, a black line had appeared. ‘Sunset,’ he said. ‘Thirty-two hours, you said?’
‘Thirty-one and fifty-three minutes now.’
‘What do we do next?’
Harlan pointed at his computer terminal. ‘We’re picking up readings from orbit. Raylan’s command vessel has moved into a lower orbit and deployed several seek-and-destroy teams to hunt us. The Matilda’s camouflaging device, despite misfiring somewhat, will disguise us visually, and a transmissions blocker prevents us being picked up on radar-type devices. However, a seek-and-destroy team is currently overhead, so any activity from the ship will be spotted.’
‘Can we get away?’
Harlan5 shook his head. ‘The probability is low. They have all the strategic advantages. In addition, they could easily bring reinforcements to trap us. Our best option is to wait for the nearest seek-and-destroy team to move beyond our current location before attempting to escape.’
Paul nodded. ‘So, the summary of all that is that we wait.’
‘You’re bright, Little Buck.’
‘Waiting is for dead men. Let’s go look around.’
‘Not a good idea,’ Beth said.
‘Come on. The robot said the bugs are still sleeping—’
‘They don’t really sleep. They’re lying dormant in underground hives until the surface conditions are suitable for them to emerge.’
‘Then we’re all good. Come on.’
‘I think we should trust Harlan.’ Beth reached for Paul’s hand, but he pulled it away. ‘Harlan? Can’t you lock the doors?’
‘Technically yes, but my programming suggests it might be statistically safer for us to be away from the ship while the seek-and-destroy team is directly overhead. If we are discovered, it is likely they will blast us from space. While on land, the Matilda’s shields are inactive. They use too much background energy and attract too much attention.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Plus, my programming fancies a walk.’
‘What about Davar? We can’t leave him here.’
‘It is possible he has recovered from his wounds by now.’
Harlan5 led them through into the medical bay. A light flashing on Davar’s recuperation tank indicated that he was as fixed as the machine could make him. Harlan5 activated the decompression procedure and they waited for the lid to rise.
‘Davar? Are you all right?’
A watery groan came from inside the tank. Beth leaned forward to grab a spindly hand that appeared out of a fog of dry ice. Davar’s face appeared, his angular, bony features bleached white by the system, his eyes blinking away accumulated gunge. As Beth and Paul helped the Kalistini out of the tank, Harlan5 called up the information his database held on the closest naturally evolved race humans had so far found to themselves.
Taller and bonier, and with a lifespan on average double that of a human, they could nevertheless be mistaken for humans or subspecies. Davar, only a little taller than Paul, was still in his adolescence for the race, his features softer than they would later become. Despite their similarities, Kalistini were unable to breed with humans. Although the frequency of attractiveness between the races, particularly between male Kalistini and female humans, meant numerous research programs operated across the Estron Quadrant. As far as Harlan5’s most recent updates were concerned, there was no breakthrough yet. But he could see why Paul’s eyes watched Davar with barely concealed jealousy as Beth wiped the naked Kalistini down.
‘Welcome back to the world of the living.’ Beth wrapped her arms around him as he climbed out, seemingly oblivious to the gunge still coating parts of his body. With a quick calculation, Harlan5 estimated that Davar was seventy-five percent more likely to get the girl than Paul. It was a situation that, in his need to impress, might make Paul reckless, dangerous, a liability to their safety.
‘What happened to me?’ Davar said, his voice an easy, soothing tone, perhaps augmented by the recuperation tank’s microbe reparation system.
‘You took a long sleep,’ Beth said, one hand tenderly touching the side of his face. ‘But you’re back now. Thanks to the Matilda.’
‘The what?’
‘This ship. And Harlan5 here.’
Harlan5 nodded. ‘Hello again. I trust you’re feeling better? Your blaster wounds should have healed, although you’ll likely feel some stiffness, and it will be a while before you regain full mobility. We are about to embark on a little reconnaissance mission. It might be safer for your continuing recovery for you to stay here.’
Davar shook his head. ‘I’m coming.’
Paul’s disappointment was hidden by Beth’s excited exclamation.
Even though Paul was ready to get straight outside, Harlan5 insisted that Davar take a little time to recover, so while Paul returned to the bridge to monitor the situation in orbit, Beth gave Davar a tour of the ship, Harlan5 filling in the gaps whenever she drew a blank.
‘And this room is…’
‘…the quarantine hold. Used for the safe transport of organic life forms not native to the destination planet, or for crew members or prisoners who might have a compromised physiological condition.’
‘And in here we have the, um, the…’
‘…the cleaning equipment.’ Harlan pulled open the door. ‘Notice how it’s near empty. My captain and pilot prefer to pay a team each time we dock, if they stay sober long enough to remember. Be careful not to spill the last bottle of cleaning fluid, as it’s the only one left.’
‘This ship really is a box of delights.’
Harlan5 shrugged. ‘There are some surprises, for certain.’
Davar wore a tired smile as they moved from deck to deck. In a couple of areas, Harlan5 noted minor damage to the wiring or coolant systems and made a note to send remote bots to fix it. The ship had received external damage in the escape from the fueling station, of course, but it would have to wait. While the Matilda carried a handful of space-worthy reparation robots, they were only good for minor cosmetic damage or removing debris. Only a shipyard mechanic with the necessary equipment could replace a damaged cannon.
‘How are you feeling?’ Beth asked Davar when they had reached the lower deck where the exit doors stood closed. ‘Are you ready for a little trip outside?’
Davar nodded. ‘I can’t wait. That tank left me feeling a little claustrophobic.’
Harlan5 radioed up to Paul on the bridge, and a couple of minutes later he appeared, eyes flicking suspiciously from Beth to Davar and back.
‘
Are we good to go?’ he said.
‘Ready,’ Beth answered.
They donned protective space suits from the Matilda’s supply. Each was skin tight and fitted under their regular clothes. Beth went into a private changing room, while Paul and Davar changed in front of Harlan5. When Beth re-emerged, she looked little different, the space suit on beneath her regular hardy tunic, pants, and boots. Each of them also took a respirator which could be slipped on, but Harlan5 advised to wait until they were needed.
‘Let’s go hunt some bugs,’ Paul said, as Harlan5 activated the lower hatch control. The airlock doors slid open and the hatch descended, crunching against bare earth.
‘Touch here.’ Harlan said, pointing to a circular object protruding from the wall. ‘It’s a hand sensor. It might be safest to leave the hatch down, but the Matilda has an internal door which will prevent any animals wandering inside. To open it, touch your hands against the sensor on the left hatch pillar. You’ve all been given authorization, although I control the override, so make sure you’re nice to me.’ At the three blank stares he received, he added, ‘That’s a human joke.’
‘Ha,’ Paul said.
‘Ha-ha.’
As the three of them headed down the hatch, Harlan5 glanced back into the ship. His fingers ran over the controls, activating an automatic defense system to ensure no Evattlans could get onboard. Of course, they should be back before the bugs woke, but it was wise to make sure, just in case.
15
Caladan
When he opened his eyes, Caladan was pinned to a plastic tabletop. He tried to lift his head, but his hair and beard were taped down. His legs and arm were secured too, but he found his captors had suffered from that age-old dilemma of how to secure a one-armed man, and he was able to tilt the stump of his left shoulder, giving him just enough maneuverability to see what was going on.
