by Jim C. Hines
Identified: Monroe, Marilyn. Mozart, Wolfgang. Kumar, Sanjeev.
Location unknown.
“What happened? Where are we? The last thing I remember was an exploding Prodryan.”
“Welcome back, Doc. We’re in a Nusuran escape pod heading toward the Pufferfish.”
“I leave you alone for”—Doc checked his internal time stamp—“nine hours, and you end up in an escape pod tumbling through space? This is why humans shouldn’t be allowed outside without AI supervision.”
“It’s good to talk to you, too. Can you give me an assessment on our suit integrity and the air quality in this thing? I’ve been feeling a little light-headed.”
“Your suit and Kumar’s are both full of holes, but some of the sensors and electronics are functional. Wolf and Monroe are in better shape. Oxygen is a bit low, around seventeen percent. Trace elements are about what you’d expect from a Nusuran ship, tinged with a hint of human flatulence.”
“Yeah, that was Wolf.”
At the edge of the monocle’s field of view, Wolf scowled and made an obscene gesture in Mops’ direction. Mops wouldn’t have seen it from that angle, and Doc decided not to bring it to her attention. “I’d be more worried about the temperature. You’re only about five degrees above freezing.”
Doc had already begun scanning the escape pod’s interior, building a digital map of their surroundings and automatically tagging and translating any text. The controls were labeled in Mankorian, the third most common language on the Nusuran home world. Doc cached the translations so they’d be ready for Mops.
“We need to talk to the Pufferfish, preferably without anyone else overhearing. There’s a good chance the Alliance is here searching for us by now.”
Doc retrieved everything he had about Nusuran ship controls, particularly communications, and compared it to his digital replica of the escape pod. “Have you tried opening a window and shouting really loud?”
“We also waved our arms a lot, but no luck.”
By the time Mops finished answering, Doc had matched the pod’s controls to an escape pod the EMC had retrieved from an older-style Nusuran cargo shuttle, and plotted step-by-step instructions for Mops and her team. “I’ll interface with Wolf and help her get started raising the Pufferfish. You need to rest and let your body repair itself.”
“I’m fine, Doc.”
“Medical professionals suggest humans get a minimum of forty-eight hours of rest after being blown up. It’s going to take at least that long to reach the Pufferfish anyway.”
Her pulse and blood pressure had begun to come down. Doc waited a precisely calculated amount of time before adjusting his vocal outputs to a volume and inflection with the greatest statistical likelihood of further calming her. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure they get us home in one piece.”
Mops sighed, but lay back in her seat. “Thanks, Doc. It’s good to have you back.”
“Likewise, sir.”
THE LIFT DOORS OPENED, and the bridge of the Pufferfish went silent as vacuum. Grom sat frozen near the main viewscreen, round brown eyes fixed on Mops as she stepped from the lift.
She’d sent the rest of the team for desperately needed showers and fresh uniforms while she checked in with Grom. She’d expected a mess, but her imagination fell short of the reality.
Exposed wires and cables ran along the floor, connecting various terminals to the main screen and to each other. Four access panels on the front wall had been removed, exposing power lines and circuitry. Glacidae writing covered the wall by navigation. According to Doc’s translation, Grom had been jotting down shortcuts and procedures for steering the ship . . . along with video game cheat codes.
Empty bowls were scattered about, along with half-empty methane slushees. Grom’s beak was stained blue from the marble-sized crystals of spice-dusted cellulose they’d been munching on. One of the snacks dropped from their grip to roll across the floor.
When Mops finally spoke, her words were deceptively gentle. “What did you do?”
Grom scooted back. “I overhauled and cleaned up the main computer, rewired the viewscreen and consoles to better communicate with one another, installed new hardware at most of the stations, upgraded the sound system—for communications purposes, of course—and ran extensive tests to make sure everything worked correctly.”
“Tests?” Mops nudged a discarded game controller with her toe.
“I was checking display and rendering speeds, response benchmarks, data lag...” Grom trailed off. “I kept the crew fed, as ordered. Most are a bit bruised and bloody from struggling against their restraints, but none have broken free and killed one another. Or themselves.”
Mops limped to the captain’s station. Her legs would have to stay splinted for another two weeks, but as long as the splints were locked tight, she could get around reasonably well. She paused. “Where’d you get the chair?”
“Secondary lounge. I cut off the bars the Krakau used and welded the chair’s frame to the anchor points. I thought it would work better for a human captain.”
Mops sat. The plush chair was so comfortable she could almost overlook the burnt patches and the gray stain on the armrest. “We’ll need your help trying to pull data from the mem crystals and monocles we took from the Nusuran shuttle. Assuming they weren’t damaged when we docked.”
Grom’s frontmost legs twitched with embarrassment. They’d taken almost three days to reach the Pufferfish, at which point Grom had successfully latched onto the escape pod with the ship’s grav beams. They managed to haul the pod into a vacant bay. Unfortunately, they’d also miscalculated the power levels, which meant the pod had entered the bay like a rock flung from a slingshot.
“Escape pods are designed for rough landings,” they muttered. “None of you were seriously injured, and mem crystals are much stronger than human bones. They should be fine.”
“I want to know where the Nusurans planned to take us.”
“Scanners picked up the A-ring energy signature when the Nusuran shuttle completed its jump. I can play the recording for you.” Grom scooted to the first officer’s console and pulled up an image on the main screen. Coacalos Station was highlighted in blue. Another pinprick of light—presumably the shuttle they’d abandoned—moved steadily away from the station and the star behind, then disappeared in an expanding ring of light.
“Do you know where it went?” asked Mops.
“Not with any precision. An A-ring destabilizes once it accelerates its payload. You can’t just draw a straight line out from the center of the ring to find the destination. At best, you can create a conical area of probability.”
A set of translucent cones appeared on the screen, projecting outward from both sides of the ring.
“Can you overlay that projection with a galactic map?”
“Sure . . .” Grom paused. “Maybe. Krakau controls are counterintuitive. Not all of us have extra brains in our limbs. I think if I rescale the projection—”
Puffy popped up on the corner of the viewscreen. “It looks like you’re trying to merge two maps. Would you like help?”
The animated ship had undergone a makeover. Mops frowned. “I’m fairly certain that when we left for Coacalos Station, Puffy didn’t have luminescent metal armor or an unrealistically large ax.”
“I applied a character skin from one of my games,” said Grom, carefully avoiding eye contact with Mops—an impressive feat, given the size of their eyes.
The hypergiant star on the screen shrank suddenly. Within seconds, the screen was displaying the galactic disk, with the cone-shaped projection spreading outward in both directions from their current location.
“That’s a third of the Milky Way,” said Mops.
“Closer to forty percent,” Grom corrected. “But there’s a high probability they’re within the central part of the projection, which n
arrows it down to only ten percent of the galaxy.”
“Would you like me to calculate how many planetary systems that is, and how many lifetimes it would take for you to search them?”
“No, I would not.” To Grom, she said, “Any update on the EMC?”
“Three warships arrived in-system fifty-four hours ago. EMC troops reached Coacalos Station thirty-eight hours later.”
“How do you know when they arrived?”
“That’s when they broadcast the station was under military quarantine. Nobody gets in or out.”
The Coacalos family would be pissed. “Has the EMC spotted us yet?”
“I don’t think so. The Pufferfish is running dark, and your escape pod’s energy signature was negligible. Unless they know exactly where to look, we should be safe a while longer.”
“Head down and see what you can find from those mem crystals and the escape pod. I’ll be in the Captain’s Cove.” Mops paused in the doorway. “And Grom? Thanks for watching over the ship and crew.”
Mops paced the perimeter of the Captain’s Cove. “Doc, Medical identified Krakau venom as a component of the bioweapon. That means somewhere in the Pufferfish databanks is information on what the hell Krakau venom is. How do we access it?”
“It depends on how and why those particular files are secured. Data can be locked for a variety of reasons, from military security to simple safety precautions. You wouldn’t want a captain accidentally deleting a life-support subroutine when she was trying to adjust the bridge temperature. If we assume the information is somewhere in the medical database, we’re dealing with significant security precautions.”
“Forget Medical for the moment. Pull up all records and accounts of the outbreak on Earth.”
The wall lit up with titles and references, everything from books to archaeological reports to archived personal journals and postings from Earth’s old worldnet. There were thousands of documents. Tens of thousands.
“What are you looking for?”
“Our former captor said Azure would provide the ‘true source’ of the plague that destroyed our species. I think they might have been talking about Krakau venom. Maybe we can find something buried in all this.”
“There are zero mentions of ‘venom’ in any of these documents.”
The door slid open. Monroe stood on the other side, holding a clean uniform in one hand and a food tube in the other. “Doc told me you hadn’t eaten or changed clothes yet.”
“He did, did he?”
“Damn right. I’m very good at multitasking.”
Mops set the uniform on one of the shelves, then took the food tube. She didn’t bother unsealing her suit. One of the holes from the explosion exposed her food port just fine. Her stomach gurgled loudly. With a sigh and fleeting thoughts of Tjikko nuts, she locked the tube into place. “Thanks.”
Monroe glanced at the wall. “Find anything?”
“I don’t even know where to start.” She stretched her shoulder. After three days in that escape pod, she didn’t think the muscles would ever fully unknot. “Everything we’re taught, everything I’ve read, it all agrees: humanity destroyed itself. The Krakau didn’t come along until fifty years later, at which point we tried to eat them. I’ve spent my life being grateful to them for trying to save us. The idea that they’re the ones who destroyed us in the first place . . . that they’ve lied to us all along, and their entire species somehow kept that secret . . . I don’t buy it.”
“Don’t buy it, or don’t want to buy it?” Monroe’s right arm twitched. He grabbed the elbow with his left hand and held tightly until it stilled. “It wouldn’t have to be the whole species. The different branches of Krakau government don’t play well together. This would have been in the early days of the Krakau Interstellar and Colonial Military Commands. Who knows how much those groups shared with Homeworld Military Command, let alone the Judicial division.”
Mops groaned. She’d never been fond of politics. In theory, the Krakau Military and Judicial branches shared equal power, with the military devoted to the safety of the Krakau people, and the judicial devoted to fairness and equality for all. In reality, there were constant squabbles and struggles for power and resources. “Do you think that Nusuran was telling the truth?”
“I don’t know enough to judge,” Monroe said slowly. “There have always been rumors. From time to time, you come across an old infantry soldier grumbling about Krakau conspiracies and secret agendas. One fellow used to believe they planned to eat us all. Another said the Krakau were intentionally dumbing us down to create better soldiers. Most of us chalked that talk up to paranoia, or too many blows to the head. The Krakau have their secrets, but what species doesn’t?”
“We need to start verifying what we know and what we’ve assumed.” Mops signaled Kumar over her comm. “I need you to get down to Medical and take Captain Brandenburg’s body out of storage.”
“Yes, sir. What should I do with her?”
“You’re going to dissect her.”
“Really?” The excitement and enthusiasm in Kumar’s voice was disturbing.
“Search for anything that could be a venom sac or gland. Compare your dissection against our Krakau anatomical reference materials.”
“Start with the beak and the ends of her limbs,” suggested Monroe. “Venom’s only useful if you have a way to inject it into your prey.”
“Did you hear that?” asked Mops.
“Yes, sir. Thank you! I’ll—wait. . . . Regulations prohibit tampering with the body of a deceased Krakau officer.”
She could hear the sudden disappointment in his words, like a child offered a gift only to have it yanked away. “As acting captain, I’m issuing a posthumous field demotion. Brandenburg Concerto is hereby reduced to the rank of private. As she is no longer an officer, I expect you to get started on that dissection post haste. Mops out.”
“You’re not authorized to do that,” Doc murmured.
“I don’t need authorization. I need Kumar to examine that body.”
“Do you expect him to find anything?” asked Monroe.
“Not really, but I don’t want to take anything for granted.” She scanned the screen again. Even with Doc’s help, it would take forever to go through it all. “Theta said the Prodryans were close to launching the next phase of their assault. Command knows how to combat this thing, but it will take time to get countermeasures into place. That means the Prodryans should strike quickly. Hit Earth, Stepping Stone Station, and every EMC ship they can reach.”
“Command will be on alert.” Monroe swore under his breath. “But they’ll be watching for Prodryan ships, not Nusurans.”
She nodded, knowing he’d come to the same conclusion she had. “We need to warn them.”
“Do that, and we give away our position.”
“We should have time to jump to another system before any EMC ships reach us. Even if we can’t . . .” She shrugged. “It’s the lives of two hundred humans on the Pufferfish against the ten thousand on Earth and throughout the EMC.”
He offered her a cube of gum, which she declined. “Why haven’t you made the call yet?”
She pointed to the screen. “What if we’re wrong about the Krakau?”
“Does it matter?”
Because it was Monroe, Mops withheld her first, profanity-laden response. He appeared completely serious, and after a moment, she realized he was right. Whatever the Krakau had or hadn’t done, it didn’t change the immediate threat.
With a nod of thanks, she turned to the console and cleared the screen with a swipe of her hand.
“Finish eating and change into an intact uniform before you make the call,” suggested Monroe. He started toward the door. “It’ll go a long way toward clearing your head, and Command might take you more seriously if you don’t look like something a Prodryan hocked up.”
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br /> “Thanks.” She waited for him to go. “Doc, get ready to start another countdown.”
“My highest ambition in life is to be your personal stopwatch.”
“Figure out how long it will take those EMC warships at Coacalos Station to get within firing range.” She removed her now-empty food tube, tossed it to the side, and began pulling her tattered uniform away from her slightly less tattered skin. “When I start the countdown, send it to Grom as well. Tell them that’s how long they have to get the Pufferfish ready for our next jump.”
Mops settled deeper into the captain’s chair and checked to make sure the rest of her team were in position. She hadn’t gotten an update from Kumar yet, but she hadn’t expected one, knowing how absorbed he got in his work. Wolf gave a thumbs-up from the communications console. Monroe sat at Weapons, while Grom was coiled up at Operations, along with a pile of jury-rigged wiring harnesses and various salvage they’d dragged up from the Nusuran shuttle.
“Activate the communications pod and send a tight-beam signal to Stepping Stone Station,” said Mops. “Standard EMC encryption.”
Wolf hunched over her console, squinted at one of the indicators, double-checked a scribbled note stuck to the wall, and tapped the controls. “Go ahead, sir.”
“This is Lieutenant Marion Adamopoulos in command of the EMCS Pufferfish. Acknowledge.”
Seconds stretched into minutes. Ten . . . twenty . . . Mops was about to ask Wolf to double-check whether they were transmitting when Admiral Pachelbel appeared on the screen. The Krakau looked weary, her tentacles floating limp on the water.
The admiral appeared to be alone, sitting partially submerged in a near-duplicate of the Captain’s Cove on the Pufferfish. “Lieutenant Adamopoulos. My contacts on Coacalos weren’t certain you’d survived the explosion. Looks like they owe me twenty cred. What prompted this unexpected call?”
“Twenty cred, huh? Since I’m the one who did the hard work of surviving, I feel like I’m entitled to a cut.” This would have been easier if Mops hadn’t liked Admiral Pachelbel and wanted to trust her, but she couldn’t afford to give any Krakau the benefit of that doubt. “We believe the Prodryans will shortly launch a large-scale assault to infect as many human-crewed ships and facilities as possible. We’ve discovered they’re working with Nusurans. Based on this, I suspect Captain Taka-lokitok-vi may be involved. We thought it was the Prodryans who infected our infantry team, but it could easily have been his people.
