“Science experiment,” said Nate. “Old one. We’ll cover that later.”
“Is it important for now?” said El.
“There was a Queen there,” said Nate. “Killed it. Apparently Penn would become a Queen too? Bit of an expansionist program in the ol’ Ezeroc world. Also, they think I’m infected with an alien parasite.”
“Are you?” said El. Nate saw she had her hand on the old hand cannon by her side.
Careful, Nate. She might be in pro mode but she’s still jumpy. “That’s between me and my parasite,” said Nate.
“That’s a negative then,” said El, relaxing her hand away from her gun. “Penn didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor before he popped.”
“Popped?” Nate was working his console. “Okay, I see what you’re saying. Lots of rocks. Like they want to flush us out.” He pointed at the holo, where the big Ezeroc asteroid — or ship, or whatever the fucking thing was — orbited. “At least we got visual on the big bad monsters.”
“Why?” said El. “They got a parasite on you, or so they think. Couple more hours in the oven and you’ll take over the ship. You as the alien, I mean.”
“I figure them wanting us to bust a move back to human space,” said Nate. “I figure that what we have here is longer-range thinking than we’ve given them credit for.”
“Okay,” said El. “So what are we going to do?”
Nate thought about that for a while. Dust off, but with what purpose? He thought about the dead city they’d left on the other side of planet, about the dead colonists, about the hundreds of thousands of people who were no more. Nate thought about Penn, who was involved in all this up to his eyeballs before he was infected. He thought about the old research facility masquerading as a transmission tower, or science outpost, that had been here for a long, long time. That was overrun with Ezeroc. And he thought about a giant asteroid that these aliens used as a starship. The way he figured it, there had been some kind of advance contact years back. The Ezeroc met humans for the first time at that old facility. Something went down, a science experiment either side might have started. And then the Ezeroc had sent a colony ship.
So had the humans. The difference was that the Ezeroc came prepared; Penn hadn’t told any of the humans what to expect. Penn, or someone very much like him, had set an entire colony up as a petri dish in which to grow alien spores. Penn, who was a spy for the Republic. He’d got his, but there was no doubt plenty more culpability to go around.
“Cap?” said El. “What are we going to do?”
“I’m not sure,” said Nate, “but the plan starts with killing them all.”
• • •
“This is your captain speaking,” said Nate into the comm. “We’re about to lift off from this rock and go to war.”
El gave him a sideways glance. “We’re in a cargo ship,” she said. “The Tyche is a heavy lifter. She’s not a fighter.”
“You keep telling me,” said Nate, “how good a pilot you are. How you can make our girl swoop and soar.”
“But,” said El, then went silent.
“Cap,” said Kohl’s voice from the comm, “are we going to fly up into space and shoot some aliens?”
“My plan exactly,” said Nate. “How you feel about that?”
“Not amazing,” said Kohl, “because the Engineer drugged me with something, but I figure I can get back to that messy business when this other messy business is dealt with.”
“That’s the story,” said Nate. “Hope? You with us?”
“Engineering is online and good to go,” she said. “Engineering wants to know why you’re taking the Tyche to war. She’s a freighter, Cap.”
El gave Nate a raised eyebrow. He ignored it. “She’s the Goddess of Luck, Hope. And don’t you feel lucky?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve been knocked out by an alien psychopath, stuck to a wall with goo, and I don’t know what is going on.”
“Well, great,” said Nate. “Strap in anyway.” He clicked the comm off. “El, how many planet busters do we have on board?”
“We have exactly zero,” she said.
“Wait, what?”
“Zero,” she said. “We are a cargo ship.”
“I know, but—”
“What we have, courtesy of the fine Republic, is a full load of ship-to-ship torpedoes.” She sniffed. “Which will scratch an itch on that asteroid and not much more.”
“The long game,” said Nate.
“I wish you’d just tell me what you were planning,” she said.
“Wish I could,” he said. He held the sword up. “Blocks espers.”
“Good to know,” she said. “Must help conversations with Grace.”
“The Ezeroc,” said Nate, “are espers. It’s a whole race of aliens that read minds.”
She looked at the sword, then up at his face, then back to the sword. “Oh,” she said. “I see.”
“Get us in the air, Helm,” she said. “Try not to hit any of the big falling rocks while you do it.”
“Aye aye, sir,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It wasn’t the same as flying a frigate, but that was the only thing that would keep them alive. El’s hands worked her console, firing up the Tyche’s systems, bringing systems online. The ship was telling her about a ring of alien insects surrounding them outside, which she told it to ignore. In about two minutes, they’d be barbecue anyway, so not worth the PDC ammunition it’d take. Besides, the way El looked at it, there were plenty more where they came from. You needed to snip this kind of thing off at the source.
That was the captain’s plan, unless she missed his intent. She got why he wasn’t telling them about it. Mind reading aliens was a thing that could set a woman’s teeth on edge. If she knew the plan, the bugs knew the plan, and that would delete the surprise factor.
A mind reading human could set a woman’s teeth on edge too. She thought of Grace. She thought about how there was some unfinished business there. But she also got the cap’s basic direction of travel on this. Fix the alien problem first, that was the critical issue, and then worry about the shipboard squabbles. And, she admitted in the quiet of her own mind, Nate had a point. Grace had done no wrong by them. Not yet, and maybe hadn’t planned to. Grace had done quite a bit right by them, and that bothered El. Espers weren’t to be trusted. Those assholes had torn down the entire Empire before the rest of humanity had built a pyre and burned them on it.
The Tyche’s deck hummed to life, reminding El of the job at hand. Rocks coming out of the sky: priority one. Killing the aliens: priority two. Working out how to stop Kohl from killing Grace, or whether they should let that run its course: priority three.
El hoped Kohl thought that too. She’d been on a bridge crew trying to fly in a war zone while an insurrection panned out across the galaxy, and it hadn’t been a big bowl of fun. It had been a big bowl of we’re all going to die, and that as a general rule was why she tried to avoid being on planets. Planets were where you went to die. Flying a ship? Totally different. Totally.
“Hope?”
“You’ve got Hope,” said the Engineer over the comm.
“We good?”
“We’re good,” said Hope. “I’d have told you if we weren’t.”
“I know,” said El. “I worry about our girl, is all.”
“She’ll do right by you,” said Hope.
“I know she will,” said El, clicking off the comm. She put her hands on the sticks. Here goes nothing.
The Tyche grumbled in her belly as the drives came up. The antigrav pushed them away from the planet’s crust, all the extra juice from the Ravana’s stolen heart making it seem effortless now. An alarm blinked on her console, a feed getting too much power, and she cleared the alert. That would keep happening for as long as they had a bigger power supply, which probably meant forever. More power was always better power.
She brought up the telemetry of falling rocks. Not huge time left now, because
the captain sure was a talker. The one impacting the tower would be with them in minutes, and while it seemed a long way away, it wasn’t. Meteor strike would deliver a significant level of energy to the planet’s crust. That energy could turn into a huge fireball of fury and death, sweeping them aside like dust into a pan. Best not to be around when it hit. She plotted the rest of the asteroids, the ones she could see, and saw the likely impact points. Nothing as complicated as before when fragments of rock had come down like angry hail; this would be easy.
A cakewalk. Hell, even the captain could fly them out of this.
• • •
Hard thrust, a wall at El’s back. The shake and tremble of the Tyche, like an anxious puppy. The rattle of something behind El, a bolt not tight all the way.
The holo turned, filled with telemetry, the Tyche’s eyes seeing things faster and farther than El could hope to. The Tyche was saying look, these rocks are bad, but those can be ignored. El agreed. Best to go away from the bad rocks.
The ship roared over the forest floor, her underside close to the deck. El didn’t know whether the Ezeroc used RADAR or LIDAR or unicorns for sensors, but old habits died hard. On the deck was invisible. On the deck was hard, but hard flying was fun flying. Hard flying was what it was all about. And Nate was right. El could make the Tyche fly like she was a fighter, born on the wing.
Or course, all that extra power in the main reactor helped. Made the Tyche less sluggish down here where antigrav was important.
“El,” said Nate. “Don’t play with your food.”
She gave a tight grin. “Aye, Cap. Just looking for a nice safe hole in the sky.”
“That one,” said Nate, pointing at the holo. “Looks clear.”
“I reckon so,” she said. She fed the Tyche new flight data, pointed the ship at the space in the sky between large falling rocks. The ship rumbled back, growled as the fusion drives built up the thrust to escape gravity. “Escape burn in 3, 2, 1, mark. Mark.”
A kick, the acceleration couch slamming against her as she pushed the throttle forward. An easy 3 Gs this time, nothing worth getting a stroke over. It’s not like they had an entire sky full of fire this time.
“Oh, hey,” said Nate. “That’s unusual.”
“What kind of unusual,” said El, then stopped. Because the Tyche was telling her that the Ezeroc ship had jumped. It had busted a move through the sky, gobbled up the klicks in an instant, and was now a lot, lot closer. It would be waiting for them in the sky when they left atmosphere.
“That kind,” said Nate.
She figured he was thinking what she was: Endless Drives couldn’t jump like that close to a gravity well. Which made what the Ezeroc had just done … impossible. “Do I abort?” said El.
“Nah,” said Nate.
“No? Are you crazy?”
“A little,” said Nate. “But this is what they want, El. They want us in space.”
“You know this,” said El, “because you’ve melded minds with the alien menace that will be the doom of our species?”
“I know this,” said Nate, “because it makes sense.”
“Oh God,” said El, “we’re all going to die.”
“Yes,” said Nate, “but not today. Keep burning.”
It wasn’t really up for discussion; El was just working her mouth to let off steam. Climbing for the stars wasn’t a thing you wanted to break off half way. Sure, you could do it, but you’d just need to do it again some other place. And the Ezeroc ship seemed to ignore all kinds of unfortunate laws of physics. The Tyche could drink a little of the same liquor too, but pulling open a negative space field this close to a planet wasn’t a thing that would end well for them. Get some more sky behind them, then punch for the black.
The holo lit red. COLLISION WARNING COLLISION WARNING.
“Oh, hey,” said Nate. “That’s not cool. Try and avoid that.” He was pointing at a new rock falling from the Ezeroc ship.
“You think?” said El. “Why are they firing at us if they want us to make space?”
“Oh, they’re not firing at us,” said Nate. “They’re firing next to us. A warning shot. Easy dodge.”
El worked the sticks, altering they’re trajectory. Nate was right, the rock was an easy dodge. Too big, too slow to pose a threat. “So … why?” she said.
“If I was a horrible alien on this ship, I’d say something like ’Gnar, let’s all go to space!’ and we’d go to space. A sensible human pilot would run the fuck away,” he said. After a second, he said, “I think.”
“You think?”
“Yeah,” said Nate. His face split with a manic grin. “Ain’t this cool?”
“Could they also,” said El, “be wanting to distract us?”
“Distract us?” said Nate. “From what?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Reaching orbit didn’t take long. A quick burn, hard thrust at their backs, and you’ve got yourself orbital velocity. Grace could feel the changes as the Tyche went from straight the fuck up and through a flatter trajectory. Bumps and shudders and shifts in the ship told a story of a not-smooth launch as the Ezeroc hunted them through the sky. Grace wasn’t worried about that; she’d seen El’s work firsthand. Their Helm was second to none in Grace’s experience. The only thing holding El back from a career of greatness was El herself.
That’s probably a problem that will solve itself.
A greater problem for Grace right now was Kohl. That asshole was not in his acceleration couch. That asshole wasn’t anywhere Grace could see him, and that worried her. It worried her right to the bottoms of her feet, because despite Nate’s hey we’re all on the same cheerleading squad talk, Kohl wasn’t interested in cheerleading. The man wasn’t interested in much else other than punching things.
Punching things had its place, but not in your home.
Grace.
Her head whipped around, casting about the ready room. She was the only one here. Nate and El were in the flight deck. Hope was in Engineering. Kohl was the one unaccounted for. Kohl was the one free roaming the ship. Kohl, who had it in for Grace. Kohl, who had it in for Hope — God only knew why. Maybe it was just that Hope was just too young, too damn easy to play to be living this kind of life. But the last time Hope had been doing her job, cribbing it back in Engineering, an alien insect inhabiting the body of a spy had grabbed her up.
Those fuckers had grabbed her friend, and—
Grace, don’t get involved. Don’t.
She wrestled with that voice for longer than she wanted to admit. Grace wasn’t proud of it, and wouldn’t have told anyone about the struggle. About how she measured the angles, thought about the win in it for her.
What I want is for you to decide.
“Oh, fuck’s sake,” she said, then keyed her comm. “Hope?”
“You’ve got Hope,” said the Engineer.
Grace would have sagged in relief if the pressure of acceleration hadn’t held her in her couch. El had turned the throttle down, the ship now pushing along at a lot less thrust. Still turning in space, Nate giving a whoop here and there. At least someone’s having fun. “Hope? Is your door locked?”
“No,” she said. “Because, you know. We got him. We got Penn.”
“Okay,” said Grace. “It’s just that, I’m alone here. In the ready room.”
There was a long, long pause. “It’s locked now,” she said. “I’ve really locked it! It is locked in a way that even the cap won’t be able to get through.”
“Good,” said Grace. “You stay there. You don’t open it. Not for anyone.”
“Not even for you?” said Hope.
“Not for anyone,” said Grace. I guess this is it. You’ve decided. This crew. Here. Now. “Hope?”
“Grace?”
“Don’t bother the captain,” she said. “He’s got enough on his mind.” She didn’t add, bothering the captain would also bother El. And bothering El would mean the alien mind readers would know what’s up. Grace unclipped her
acceleration harness, easing herself from the chair. Feet on the deck, she felt the artificial gravity of the ship pulling her down, and the thrust pushing her back. It was an odd sensation, like standing on an uneven floor.
Odd for her was odd for aliens too.
Last time she’d fought Kohl, she didn’t have a sword. This time, she wouldn’t make the same mistake. She set off to her cabin.
• • •
Of course the sword wasn’t in her cabin. The shiny new blade that Hope had made for her was missing. There was a note scrawled in blood on the wall above her bunk. It said COME AND GET IT.
She sighed. Where did Kohl end and the alien begin? Did they change all at once? Was it like delirium, curable with antibiotics and a good chicken broth?
Grace Grace Grace Grace Grace…
This voice was fainter. She could hear the alien hiss through it, the words in her mind speaking to her, but from within the ship. Closer, and smaller at the same time. Younger.
Grace looked at the blood on the wall. Now there was a good example of someone not in their right mind. If she’d been younger, been more afraid of her own shadow, she might have been scared, but what she felt was bored and frustrated. It didn’t postpone the inevitable. It made a hard job harder. Seriously, why hadn’t Kohl just waited here for her?
Kohl might not want to kill you.
“Oh,” she said. “So you fuckers aren’t always in control, huh? Not at first, anyway.” That was good to know. It was also bad to know, because instead of just killing Kohl — the man deserved it, in the way plants deserved rain — she’d have to work out whether he’d turned, like milk left in the sun. Whether the core of him was sour. Whether it could be saved.
The ship gave a hard swerve, up becoming left for a while, then down swapped with up and right. Grace’s feet left the decking, she hit the wall, then the ceiling, then the other wall, and landed on the decking again. Fucking rock-throwing aliens.
Tyche's Flight (Tyche's Journey Book 1) Page 26
