by Jim C. Hines
Her next words hit Mops like a herd of stampeding Quetzalus. “Unfortunately, we have no way of reversing the damage to your crew. I’m sorry, Mops. I know how you care for your people.”
“You haven’t even examined them,” Mops protested.
Pachelbel continued as if Mops hadn’t spoken. Which, from her perspective, she hadn’t. Mops’ words wouldn’t reach her for six minutes. “When you return to Stepping Stone Station, you and your team will be taken into quarantine for examination. I’ll need you to prepare a full report, with as much detail as possible. Have everyone on your team do the same. Every detail, no matter how small, could help us counter this threat.”
The admiral glanced at something off-screen. “I’m sorry about your crew, Mops. It sounds like you’ve done an exceptional job under very difficult circumstances. I know it’s no consolation, but I imagine you’ll receive a commendation for your actions.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mops said automatically. “What will happen to the rest of my crew?”
Another interminable wait. “We’ll examine them and do everything we can, but we can’t risk this thing spreading. The official recommendation from Colonial Military Command is that they be . . . put down.”
“Put down?” Mops whispered, fighting a surge of anger. From the way Pachelbel’s tentacles were twitching, she wasn’t happy about this either. “Admiral, there has to be a way to help my crew. The Prodryans might have a cure. Or we could at least try decontaminating them. We can’t give up on almost two hundred human beings.”
The response, when it arrived, was firm. “They aren’t just human beings anymore, Mops. They’re potential weapons. Living biological bombs. I’ll remind MilCom of your crew’s service and urge them to consider every alternative, but our priority is the preservation of your species. Prepare your ship for the return A-ring jump, and do not mention Krakau venom to anyone else. Admiral Pachelbel out.”
Mops killed the connection. “Doc, Admiral Pachelbel gave me a five-hour countdown.” The numbers appeared on her monocle, at the edge of her vision. “Now pull up everything we have on Pachelbel.”
“Sir?”
Mops didn’t answer. A moment later, the information began scrolling onto her monocle. Pachelbel Canon was fifty-three years old, bordering on elderly for a Krakau. She had four offspring, all adults now, with two partners. She’d started with the Krakau Interstellar Military twenty-four years ago, shortly after the founding of the EMC.
She wasn’t one of the hard-shelled Krakau warriors, but had served as a weapons technician before being promoted to tactical officer. She’d also spent two years as Alliance liaison officer on a Merraban warship, after which she’d transferred from Interstellar to Colonial Military.
For the last fourteen years of her career, she’d been working with Earth and humanity as she progressed through the ranks.
“What are you searching for?”
A twitch of Mops’ eye flicked her monocle’s display ahead to the next record. “Pachelbel knows more about humanity than pretty much any other Krakau. Not the science behind the cure, necessarily, but who we are as a species. She also knows me, personally.”
“You’re aware, I assume, that none of those words provide an answer to my question?”
“She didn’t have to tell me anything. She could have ordered us to sedate the crew and bring the ship home, and I would have done it. Instead, she volunteered that MilCom intended to have the crew killed. ‘Put down,’ like animals.”
“Perhaps she felt bad withholding information.”
“She’s been an admiral for sixteen years. She protects information every day.” Mops activated her comm. “Wolf, join us in docking bay two. Monroe, Kumar, we have less than five hours to get answers from that fighter.”
“What happens in five hours?” Monroe responded.
“Hell, Monroe. I don’t even understand what’s happening now.” She replayed her exchange with Admiral Pachelbel in her mind. “But I think we’ve been given a window to try to save our crew, and that’s when it closes.”
The Prodryan fighter was in sad shape. Most of the damage had come from the A-ring explosion, but its haphazard arrival on the Pufferfish had added additional dents . . . both to the fighter and the inside of docking bay two.
The fighter’s port wing had been completely torn off; the other was crumpled inward. Large gashes ran along the tubular central body.
“Their ships are built like giant metal Prodryans,” scoffed Wolf. “What ego.”
“They’re not the fastest ships, but they’re maneuverable,” said Monroe. “They can fly in space and in atmospheres up to almost twice the pressure of Earth’s. Missile bays are on the bottom. They’ve got a single plasma beam mounted up front. The wings fold in for A-ring jumps, but most of the time they keep ’em spread, even in space. They serve as heat-radiating fins. The color patterns show family lineage, battles won, stuff like that.”
“What patterns?” asked Mops. The wing was a burnt mottling of grays and blacks. Doc did something to Mops’ monocle, and suddenly she saw red and orange and pink swirling through the crushed ruin of the wing. The design reminded her a little of the storms of Jupiter. “Have you figured out how to get inside?”
“We were just talking about that, sir.” Kumar pointed to one of the gashes in the main body. “I say we use a plastorch. Enlarge that big hole.”
“Why not use explosives to blow open the hatch?” asked Wolf. “It would be quicker.”
“You have that kind of explosive sitting around?” Monroe popped his gum. “You know how to use it without killing yourself or blowing a hole in our hull?”
“No explosives,” said Mops, cutting off Wolf’s response. She studied the holes. They were too small for anyone, human or Glacidae, to squeeze through. “How long to cut your way in?”
“The armor’s the biggest challenge.” Kumar rapped his knuckles against the hull. “An hour, maybe?”
“Too bad we can’t just have Grom take a dump on it,” muttered Wolf. “That ought to burn right through.”
Kumar cocked his head. “Given the acidity of Glacidae waste, you’d need at least thirty kilograms of—”
“Just get it open,” Mops snapped. She’d sent Grom for an acid bath. It would be a little while before they were clean and able to assist with the fighter. Mops intended to have the ship fully dissected with the computer equipment ready by the time Grom arrived.
Staring over Kumar’s shoulder wouldn’t make the work go any faster, so she retreated to the closest maintenance hub to pull up the instructions from Stepping Stone for sedating the rest of the crew. She’d have to reroute air circulation and bypass eleven different air quality monitors and alarms, but that should be simple enough.
“We have a potential problem.”
“What’s that?”
“You told me to get the crew out of the way. I locked nine ferals in Medical. You’ll need to get past them to reach these sedatives.”
“Can you lure them into the convalescence ward?”
“I’ll devote my full processing power to the task of opening and closing a few doors.”
“Don’t forget to read them a story, too.” They’d be hungry and restless, eager to hunt. Mops worked on prepping the air vents while Doc began reading.
“‘One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.’”
“You’re reading Metamorphosis to a bunch of reverted humans? That’s harsh.”
“It’s not like they understand. But if you’d prefer, I could switch to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
Mops shook her head and kept working, overriding alarms and resetting air circulation to draw from Medical. Roughly sixty percent of the ship was clear, and could be sanitized with a level one decon. “Doc, a little help please
? Given the target dosage, how much of this stuff do we need to release?”
The figures appeared on her monocle, but before she could do anything with them, a voice through her comm made her jump.
“We’re in!” said Monroe.
She sat back, grimacing at the stiffness in her shoulder. Had it been an hour already? “Grom, are you done with your bath yet?”
A drawn-out sound, like an impossibly flatulent elephant, played over her speaker.
“I’m not sure how to translate that.”
“Move your ass, Technician. Meet us in docking bay two.”
The first thing Mops saw when she entered the bay was Kumar dragging a dead Prodryan out of the ship. Most of a dead Prodryan, rather.
Kumar straightened when he spotted her. “Sir, request permission to—”
“There will be no amateur autopsies,” Mops cut him off. As she got closer, she could see where shrapnel had punctured the Prodryan’s torso armor. Dark orange blood with the consistency of hull paint dripped onto the floor.
Wolf pulled a second body halfway out of the hole, then yanked a sidearm from the Prodryan’s belt. “Dibs on the pistol!”
“The EMC does not now, nor will we ever, work on a ‘dibs’ system.” Mops held out a hand. Wolf slumped, but gave her the weapon. The grip was designed for smaller hands, and a notch in the curved stock looked like it should rest against the owner’s forearm barb. “Doc, do we have any specs on this model?”
“It’s a hand-held A-gun, similar to EMC infantry issue. Command believes the Prodryans stole the design from us. Their ammo isn’t compatible with our weapons, but you should be able to use it, assuming there’s no personal security. And that it wasn’t damaged in the attack.”
“They’re nasty,” said Monroe. “Not very accurate, but they’ve got a burst mode that can spray a dozen shots in the blink of an eye. I’d keep it on single-fire. The things are prone to overheating, and then . . .” He spread his hands to mimic an explosion.
“Good to know.” Mops slid the gun into one of the equipment straps on her harness, being careful not to touch the protruding nub that appeared to be the trigger. “Grom should be joining us soon. Any idea where we’ll find the computer system in this thing? I want to know about their mission, where they launched from, who they reported to, and every last bit of information on this bioweapon.”
She stepped closer and helped Wolf haul the remaining Prodryan the rest of the way out. “Leave the bodies alone,” she reminded Kumar as she poked her head and shoulders inside the ship. Her monocle compensated automatically for the relative darkness.
The walls were curved metal, striped with deep ridges and grooves. The interior was separated into three oval pods connected end-to-end, with a larger, spherical room in the back. Straps and the contour of the floor suggested the Prodryans lay on their backs while in flight, with most of the controls and displays directly above them. Exposed cables and wires clustered where the head would rest.
Mops glanced back at the bodies. Both wore helmets with visors—or the remains of a visor, in one case. It looked like the cables hooked directly into the helmets, making them a possible connection point to the main system.
She pulled herself inside and lay back in the closest compartment. It felt like she’d crawled into a metal cocoon. “Doc, adjust my vision. Show me the Prodryan visible spectrum.”
Her monocle flickered, first turning dark, then brightening until she had to squint, before settling back to a normal level. Instead of the dingy black-and-gray interior, she saw squares of bright blue-and-violet text on rich brown walls. “What do they say?”
“Some of it is labels and instructions for the various instruments. There’s a ship’s identification or registration code: 156934-C. To your left is . . . I think it’s a poem.”
“Show me.” As she focused on a given line of the angular text, a translation appeared on her monocle. “This . . . isn’t very good.”
The scars of battle make us strong.
The blood of our enemies makes us strong.
The loneliness of space makes us strong.
Victory makes us strong.
Death . . . does not make us strong.
But death in battle brings the vengeance-strength to our hivemates.
And thus death makes us strong!
(Except for those who are dead.)
Victory to the Prodryan Expanse!
“I can confirm that neither the rhythm nor the description are any better in the original language.”
It went on like that for another four stanzas. Mops turned her attention instead to the different cables and controls, searching for information about the computer systems. “This can’t be the first time the EMC captured a Prodryan fighter. Don’t we have records on how they work?”
“If so, I’m not able to access them. A good portion of the Pufferfish’s files are classified and off-limits to us, even with your increased access as acting captain.”
To her left, a cracked pane of transparent plastic or silicate protected what looked like personal mementos: a green seed pod the size of her thumb, a glass bead bracelet, a toy knife, and a porous brown rock several centimeters in diameter.
“A scent-stone,” said Doc, noting the direction of her gaze. “Prodryans often use such stones to preserve the scent of a mate. Depending on their mate’s hygiene, of course.”
Mops crawled through the ship until she reached the larger chamber in the back. It was big enough for three Prodryans—if they were on good terms and kept their wings flattened. The curved walls were honeycombed with storage drawers and control panels and access ports.
A sound like dozens of stiff brooms sweeping the walls made her whirl. Grom had followed her into the ship, their shell gleaming wetly. They smelled of methane and cleaning chemicals. The feathery tendrils of their legs scraped the interior of the ship with every movement.
Without a word, they snatched one of the wires that connected to the Prodryans’ helmets. Holding the wire in one digging claw, they used two others to strip the coating. They pulled a small, beeping box with a blinking yellow light from their harness and clamped a lead onto the exposed wire.
“This will let me trace the wire back through the system,” they said, their face centimeters from the hull. “It’s old technology, but reliable. Can you hear the signal pulse? It will lead us to the source of any data the crew receive through this connection.”
Grom crawled through the ship into the back chamber, for once unconcerned with keeping a comfortable distance from humans. Their legs brushed Mops’ ankle as they ran delicate feelers over a panel in the entryway. “I believe what we want is here.”
“Can you access it?”
“The memory core will be encrypted.” They pulled another tool from their harness, a metal wand with a cord stretching to a small battery pack. Grom switched it on and moved it around the edge of the panel. “The screws are on the inside. Standard precaution to keep the ignorant from accessing the system. You need a focused magnetic screwdriver to pop the shell.”
After a series of five clicks, the panel popped free and fell onto the floor. Grom peered inside. “The crystal harness looks standard. Power supply is operational. This thing might be salvageable after all. It’s frozen right now—some sort of software deadlock. Let me see if I can get it running.”
“What are you doing?”
“Turning it off and back on again. This looks like a modified NR-4 tactical computer. If I can boot it into recovery mode, we should be able to bypass the initial authentication and at least learn the basic specs.” They jabbed another tool into the guts of the computer. The ship’s lights flickered once and died again. “It will also let me safely remove the mem crystal. I can plug it into the Pufferfish systems and try to crack the encryption.”
“You want to plug an alien computer core from
a hostile ship into the Pufferfish? What if it infects our systems?”
“Do you take me for some incompetent h—for a fool?” Grom’s mouth clicked nervously. “Maintenance has stacks of isolated computers with no connection to the rest of the ship. I’ll plug it into one of those. Worst case scenario, it fries a single backup unit that was just gathering dust anyway.”
Mops wasn’t sure which she found more insulting, Grom’s bitten-off reference to “incompetent humans,” or the implication that her team would allow dust to gather anywhere on the ship.
“I’ll need command-level clearance to access the decryption software,” Grom continued.
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
“Let me isolate the crystal harness. Once I’ve disconnected—”
A blue spark illuminated the chamber. Grom toppled backward. A scent like burnt oil filled the air.
“What the hell was that?” Mops snapped.
Grom twisted upright, leaving a greasy black smear where they’d fallen. The spark had startled them as much or more than it had Mops. They poked their head into the panel and sniffed. “I think that was a physical safeguard . . . probably designed to fry the crystal.”
Mops took a deep breath. “And the chances of salvaging anything useful from it?”
They turned to look at her, brown eyes even wider than normal. “I . . . I’m sorry, sir.”
She didn’t trust herself to answer. Grom had done their best, but they were trained for routine maintenance of EMC systems, not infiltrating enemy military hardware. She crawled past them and exited the fighter. From the somber expressions of her team, they’d all heard what happened.
“I want every millimeter of this wreck searched, inside and out,” she said softly. “Find every scrap of information you can. I want to know where they came from, who they reported to, what their orders were, and everything they knew about Krakau venom.”
