“Let’s talk this out,” Mud said.
Bee repeated the sentence into the translator still attached to her thinsuit. The Sweepers didn’t reply, and instead ran directly at Mud without firing a shot.
Mud started to move toward them in response, setting his shield out to push them aside a second time.
The Sweepers jumped and dove around the cone of the field, having worked out the dimensions of it from the first ramming, and made for a door back into the main hallway. Mud turned to follow, with Bee closing in.
The Sweepers ran down the hall, Bee’s sonic and Mud’s stun blasts not stopping them at all. Mud landed and braced himself with his good leg. Switching focus on his GravPack, he set a strand to one of the Sweepers and attracted it, yanking it backwards. Bee landed next to Mud and grabbled with the Sweeper, punching and kicking him as if it were a test. She probed areas to find weaknesses, dodging the strikes coming back at her as much as possible. Four arms and two legs made that an extra challenge and Bee gave up, ducking and charging at the Sweeper, tackling it and driving them both to the ground.
Mud, at the same time, reversed the pull and flew right at the remaining Sweepers. Swinging his new staff in a wide, flat arc, he caught one of them across the waist. Shoving that Sweeper to the ground, Mud brought the tip of the staff around and planted it firmly in the gut of another Sweeper, using the leverage to flip that Sweeper up, slamming its body against the ceiling before dropping it on the prone Sweeper struggling to stand.
The final Sweeper kept moving, not engaging at all, turning a corner just as Mud spotted it. “Secure these three, I’ve got the last,” he called back to Bee and took off. “Guys, what’s the score?” he said into his comm as he turned the corner, seeing the Sweeper slide past a door.
“They turned and made a break for it. They’re fast,” Steelbox replied.
“One of ours did, too,” Mud said as he pushed the door open further to glide through. “I think they’re all headed back to the engine room. They either docked there or think they can cause more damage before we stop them.”
“Sonics don’t—” Olivet started.
“Nope,” Mud said quickly, “and the stun on my blaster doesn’t either. So we punch them. A lot.” Mud sent a soft tone through his comms to let the others know he would be dropping radio silent while they converged on the engine room. The same tone came back over the comms at him and he smiled. The team really could work well together. A swell of pride, followed by worry. The current enemy needed dealt with, and fast, so they could get back to work.
Mud snuck toward the engine room, refusing to rush, sensing a possible trap. He weighed the options in his head. They could simply be trying to get off-ship. No clear way to tell. Mud ran the numbers in his head again as he came to the door for the engine room.
The rest of his team was already there, trading blows with the Sweepers. Seven of them, swarming over Chellox, Olivet, and Steelbox, arms swinging. Mud took in the painful dance of violence and hefted his staff in hand. The Sweepers noticed him, and one of them ran for Mud, arms out. Mud swept his legs quickly, looking around the large engine room. Over in a corner he spotted their airlock, cut roughly into the side of the Amalfi—they’d mated their ship and somehow avoided detection.
“Chellox, Olivet,” Mud said, taking a moment to jab the Sweeper on the ground, convincing it to stay there a while longer, “get on their ship, see if you can figure anything out.”
Mud set strands from his GravPack to the wall behind the fight and attracted himself to it quickly, coming in at speed and knocking over two Sweepers. Chellox and Olivet freed themselves from the melee and made for the airlock.
Mud worked his way into the scrum, still four Sweepers against only himself and Steelbox. Back to back with his teammate, Mud held his staff out, across his body.
“You know those other three are getting back up, right?” Steelbox muttered.
“Yup,” Mud agreed, swinging his staff in an arc to keep the Sweepers in front of him back. “But I have a plan. Duck.”
Steelbox hit the ground and Mud set his GravPack to attract. The Sweepers around them felt themselves being pulled over, forced on top of the two humans. Mud reversed the GravPack’s setting and they went flying, finding walls and floors to stop their wild tumbling. Mud tapped his staff on the floor with a thunk and smiled. “Let’s leave them and get on their ship.”
They ran for it and found Chellox and Olivet standing over the controls. “You know we can’t do anything here, right?” Olivet asked Mud.
Mud pulled his blaster and pointed it at the controls, waiting. “Not the idea. Just buying time.”
The Sweepers came on board warily, stopping when they saw Mud and worked out his intent. He patted the air hastily then held up his hand, palm out, to them. “Stop,” he told them softly.
“They can’t understand us,” Chellox pointed out.
“Oh, they get this,” Mud assured him. “Bee,” Mud said into his comm, “need your translator, engine room, on the Sweeper ship.”
“On my way, just securing these three.”
“Leave them,” Mud said, “I think we can end this.”
“Really?” Steelbox eyed the seven Sweepers in front of them. “This is your whole plan?”
“They have a ship. We’ve never seen one, any time we’ve been in their universe. So why now?”
“They need it to transfer a bunch of them at once,” Olivet said. “So…”
“Exactly,” Mud told him. He kept his hand raised toward the Sweepers, his gun pointed at the controls.
Bee entered the ship, three of the Sweepers turning to aim at her. “I’m with them,” she said into her translator, “let me pass.” They moved aside, very obviously against the idea but still giving in, and she walked over to Mud.
“Diplomacy, huh?” she asked him, shaking her head.
“We have not harmed your scientists. They are here of their own free will. We wish to help both sides,” he said to her translator and waited.
One of the Sweepers took a half step forward, speaking as he did. “You will hand them to us,” the translator said.
“We will discuss this with them, or you don’t go home,” Mud told them, waggling the gun a bit. “We do not want to fight you. Let us solve this with peace.”
“They come with us,” the Sweeper repeated.
“Talk to them first, with us. No weapons on either side,” Mud said. “If they want to go with you, we will not stop you.”
The Sweepers looked at each other and spoke in whispers so the translator couldn’t hear them. Their arms waved in conversation. After a full minute, the Sweeper in charge said loudly, “Yes, leave our ship, we will leave weapons here. Bring them to us.”
Mud nodded and holstered his Acadian blaster. “Dad, bring the group to the engine room, I guess. We can set up in a corner while they fix the relays, the damage is minimal. And bring the white boards, too, we’ll have to work down here while we arrange some sort of peace.”
“So it was the—”
“Yeah. I’ll explain when you get here. No weapons.”
CHAPTER 32
EVERYONE GATHERED in a corner of the engine room, trying to stay out of the way of the technicians fixing the Amalfi. The Sweepers had disabled the engine, but they didn’t have a real understanding of human technology. As such, their work ended up highly creative, and ungainly to untangle.
They refused to help, insisting they weren’t sure what they’d actually done to the engine. Mills grew ever more frustrated with them over this, but kept his calm as talks progressed. “Just tell them what you—” he started for the fourth time.
“Leave it,” Mud said. “Look, they came here of their own will. We are all at risk,” he told the new Sweepers—Traksit, Jomin, Wokha, and Pelith all agreeing with him. It changed nothing, though. The Sweepers, who Mud had started to think of as a reflection of his team, insisted only that they be allowed to return to their own universe, taking the scientists
with them.
Jomin argued for staying, explaining the danger, but nothing seemed to sway the intruders. Steelbox and Olivet wandered away from the discussions for a breather, followed by Shae. “When you were in their universe, did they have many ships like this?” she gestured toward the rough edges of the airlock seal along the wall.
“We didn’t see a single ship,” Olivet said. “Wait, we didn’t see any ships at all.”
“Not that strange, is it?” Steelbox asked. “We saw less than a fraction of their...anything.”
“But we’ve never recorded contact with them,” Shae said, “until now. But here they are with devices to shuttle through to our universe, and now whole ships. Feel odd?”
“Our universe is really big, too. Bigger than theirs, even. So I don’t know if it is.”
“But you were on the ship,” Shae said. “How did it look?”
“In what sense?” Steelbox asked.
“How new was it?” she asked.
“If I had to guess,” Olivet said, “it’d been fairly decently worn. Not shiny new but well used.”
Shae turned and left them, heading back to the larger group without another word. Olivet and Steelbox looked at each other, confused for a moment, and then followed. “Bee, ask them how long they’ve been coming to our universe and what they’ve been doing here,” Shae said.
As the question translated, the Sweepers looked at each other and said they hadn’t been to this side of the breaches before. Shae refused that and asked again. Another dismissal. She sighed and rubbed her temples. “So the breach device in your ship is new?”
That got only silence as a reply, to which Shae nodded. So she asked them again about their past transfers. This time one of the Sweepers nodded at her. “We have been to your side before,” the translation came. “To explore, to find the problem.”
“So you knew of the problem,” Shae said. She looked at Mud. “How much of this has been a lie from the start?”
“I don’t think it was in the way you’re suggesting,” he told her, turning to Wokha. “The different tribes, some knew, others did not. That’s why you wanted to come help, isn’t it?”
“Yes, we knew, others did not. Some were told and did not believe. We had to act.”
“And this group, sent to bring you back?” he asked.
“We have heard of them, yes. They are not sent by our people, but another group.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell us this?” Bee asked, annoyed.
“When we go back, we do not want to cause trouble between the groups,” Jomin said.
“If you don’t work out a way to get them to back off, you won’t stay without a lot of trouble, and then there won’t be anywhere to go back to, will there?” Mud said, his voice rising as he spoke.
“You speak truth,” Pelith said to him. Turning to the other Sweepers, he said, “These beings speak the truth. We will explain to yours when we get back. For now, we must stay.”
“You must return now.”
“We refuse. We invoke abstract,” Jomin said.
Mud and Bee looked at each other. “What’s—” he started to ask, even as she answered she had no idea. Slowly they worked around translations to figure out that the scientists officially sought a form of asylum, breaking with all tribes from their home.
They took a break from the talks, a short one, so everyone could eat. The Sweepers had brought enough food on their ship and were willing to share with the scientists, even though they were apparently no longer part of their own society. Mud didn’t pretend to fully understand the status, much less why they had waited so long to invoke it with the fate of two universes hanging out there.
They tried to discuss it with Pelith, who seemed willing to explain, but the deeper they got into the subject the more confusing it seemed. There were so many cultural differences to be overcome that they could only accept what they were told and keep moving.
That in mind, they got back to negotiations and finding a way to solve the crisis. The Amalfi came back online, and Mills left to check on the ship. While he was gone, Mud called for the Brands and got them back to work on their catapult idea. The Sweepers weren’t sure the concept would work, but with a reduction in long-range communications, they agreed a lure seemed a good idea.
Jonah kept reassuring everyone that he could convince the Council to drop the communications levels. Shae raised an eyebrow each time he said so, but let the matter slide. Their plans drawn up, they called Mills back.
“Here’s the basics,” Mud told him. “Dad will convince the Council, and Pelith and Traksit will stay on this side for now, to help. They’ll also collaborate with the Brands to build a working catapult and test the theory. The Sweeper Task Force,” Mud continued, gesturing at the ten Sweepers still standing in a group, looking unhappy, “will take Jomin and Wokha back, where hopefully whatever societal crap they need to cut through will happen. Then we can start working on this from both sides.”
“But if they were coming here before, in secret, because of this—”
“We got that worked out, too,” Bee said. “We think. Look, they didn’t trust us, and have such a strange relationship with technology...they did a good thing bad.”
“Not sure that’s an explanation,” Mills told her.
“They snuck over here to test substances to cut off communications from this side,” Mills said, “before they built the sweep guns they use.”
“Oh,” Mills said, “so we just only missed a possible invasion.”
“Mills,” Jonah cut in, “don’t make this worse than it is. We did the same.”
“Kind of?” Mills said, tilting his head and thinking it through. “But not really at all.”
“We leave it and move forward,” Mud said firmly. “Look, we cut communications back and see if the barrier heals. If it does, we keep comms low usage but we can stop worrying. If the barrier doesn’t heal, then we find a better long-term solution—but according to the math this buys us about a century.”
“On your side,” Pelith added.
“We’re going to have to work out exact time translations, and new maps for guest breaching,” Mud said. “This is going to be an ongoing thing.”
Mills sighed and leaned against the wall. “So we don’t even get to present a full, working plan when we tell the Council we need to fundamentally change the way the Gov works?”
“Think of it this way,” Shae said, “they get to have input for a change.”
“Oh, they’ll love hearing that gracious tidbit.”
Mud clapped Mills on the shoulder. “Let’s walk and I’ll explain the rest to you.” He looked behind him at the assembled group as he led Mills away. “You guys start prepping things.”
They walked along a corridor, grey and flat, military issue with lights bright enough to reduce shadows and dim enough to not cause glare. Even the harshness of the illumination had been studied once and decided by committee, Mud knew.
This, too, would fall into the pattern. They would start the work, extend the shelf life of two universes, and then the majority of the long term would enter committee. Worse, it would spin like that across two universes, and the leadership of the other universe didn’t even have a central head.
The only thing for any of it remained to start. Mud explained details to Mills, including his worry about committee spiral and the problems of finding ambassadors and diplomats for an entirely new-to-humanity universe.
Mills and Mud walked to Mills’ quarters and sat there, having a drink and continuing to talk. At one point Mills smiled suddenly and Mud took a breath, preparing himself.
“Olivet needs to go back to Trasker Four,” Mills said, “to explain the reality of the planet’s situation to his people, right?”
“Yeah, we’ll need to fill his slot on the team for a while, at least.”
“Permanently, I think.”
“Wait, why?” Mud asked, twirling his empty glass in hand.
“You said yourself we n
eed an ambassador. He’d be good at it, and has experience in both universes, technically.” Mills shrugged and poured himself half a drink, just staring at it.
“If he agrees, you can have him. I don’t like it, but it makes the sort of stupid sense the Gov likes.”
“Thanks. Now for the rest, huh?”
“Oh,” Mud said, pouring himself another drink and sipping at it for a second. “My parents will be in charge of the long-term team.”
“I don’t know that you get to decide that,” Mills said, knowing in his heart he’d already lost any possible fight about it.
“You can argue it with them, but you see how much they seem to want in already. It gives them something to do—less punching, more talking, but still saving the universe. Besides, the Council will hate it and worry about what they’ll do next, even more than they’ll worry about the Sweepers. Should ease some of the problems.”
“I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?”
“From either side,” Mud agreed. “Maybe the Sweepers will be nice about it.” They shared a laugh, the sort of gallows laugh you can trust a friend to commiserate with you on. Raising their glasses, they nodded at each other. “I’m considering this mission done, from my angle.”
“Yeah, you’re off the hook for it,” Mills said. “You know, if you wanted to, they’d promote you. You could get your own ship. Give Bee the team, take it easy a while.”
“You want to say something about my leg, say it.”
Mills laughed again and drained his glass. “Not at all. I just thought maybe less getting shot at would be nice.”
“And so I could host the team and you wouldn’t have to deal with the problems we cause,” Mud said, shaking his head.
“See, you’re more than smart enough for a promotion.”
“Pass.”
“Well,” Mills said, standing, “we should get back before your mother injures one of the Brands. I think I’ll offer them some contract work in return for their turning their whole enterprise into something legal, working for us not against us.”
The Endless Sky Page 23
