If Ruuel cared, he didn't show it. Ferus thought it was funny, and Auron doesn't seem to let much get under his skin. Halla and Eyse were briefly annoyed, then decided to look on the light side. Sonn was fuming, but Ruuel sent her to do a patrol of the outside of the building with Halla, and she'd cooled off by the time she came back. I did school work, and read books, and thought about the enormity of cataloguing an entire city. Even the initial recording of sites, while looking for any kind of writing, will take months. The entire planet will take centuries. Archaeologist is definitely going to be a booming career choice – KOTIS didn't have any on staff until Pandora was founded and Islen Duffen is a brand new recruit, who will ultimately be coordinating an ever-increasing horde of minions if the reclamation of Muina goes to plan.
Fortunately, once the immediate area is a little clearer, fewer Setari will be devoted to babysitting. And, no matter what Islen Duffen's opinion of the value of their observations, Fourth Squad's more likely to be able to detect and analyse strange Muinan installations than any of the greysuits.
And Ruuel has some vestige of a sense of humour and I'm liking him more than ever. Damn.
Friday, April 4
Chipping away at the whitestone mountain
Today was First Squad's turn to baby-sit greysuits, while Fourth Squad continued the wider area patrol. Our survey site was chosen because the buildings in this part of the city are large and suggest importance, and the Setari are systematically going to each one, doing a circuit of the exterior, and then looking inside. The greysuits aren't very keen on the Setari going inside, so they're only allowed to do more than look from the door if they're dealing with Ionoth.
I guess there were bones everywhere, but it was only when we went into some rooms which had been partially closed off that it was really brought home to me that this must have been one of the places where everyone abruptly dropped dead. Where, most likely, the Ddura had killed everyone. It was a lot harder to think of it as a big, lonely energy-dog after seeing so many grey and dusty skeletons lying where the people who lived here had fallen.
Yesterday First Squad were thoroughly tired by afternoon, and this time Fourth Squad were starting to look worn by lunchtime. They didn't do that much fighting compared to clearing the spaces, but wandering around constantly combat alert, and using Place Sight when they thought it appropriate, gets pretty draining after hour upon hour. Setari missions are usually two to three Earth hours, not all-day assignments. They stayed typical Fourth Squad, practically talking in abbreviations while on duty, but I think part of the strain was the place itself, by the history and the deaths of more than memory monsters. When we finished our second patrol loop they were more subdued than businesslike.
Fortunately they're growing a little less formal back on ship, and I ended up sharing a dinner table with Lohn and Mara, Mori Eyse, and the two junior-most greysuits, Katha and Dase, who were very interested in Earth's early civilisations. We moved to the common room afterwards and I tried not to feel too pressured when my attempts to dredge up memories of archaeological expeditions and discoveries on Earth attracted a larger and larger audience. I talked about Macchu Piccu and the discovery of Tutankamen's tomb and even Islen Duffen was interested, though she acted tremendously disapproving and asked lots of Devil's Advocate-type questions. It's so strange to be the only person who knows any of this stuff, and to have my rambling memories treated as important. I wish I'd paid a lot more attention in all my classes.
No-one stayed up too late, though, which was good for me since I had been walking all over the city as well. It's a little hard to tell how much I'm effected by enhancing, but I know I am now, though I wasn't dropping with exhaustion today the way I had been after all that tree-uprooting. Time to go to sleep now, and to try not to think too much about Ruuel asleep two pods over.
Saturday, April 5
Dase
It took me half the day to figure out that Dase (Dase Canlan, one of the junior archaeologists) was trying to flirt with me. Flirt seriously, I mean, not the teasing-flirting that Nils from Second Squad seems to do almost unconsciously. Dase and Katha had asked Islen Duffen if they could explain to me some of what they were doing and rather to my surprise she agreed, so I had some lessons on 'field archaeology'. I do wonder where Taren archaeologists usually do their archaeology – there can't be that much left of the early days of Tare's settlement that doesn't have mega-buildings sitting on it.
Before I twigged, I was just enjoying having some people to chat to who were willing to be not 'on duty' every second of the day. It was only when we went in for lunch that Dase switched more to asking about my family and how I felt about the things I was doing on Tare that it filtered through to me that he was smiling at me a lot. He wasn't pushy or sitting too close or anything; it was just that kind of vibe.
Looking back, it's funny how disconcerted I felt. It's not as if I've never dated. And Dase isn't some damp mouth-breather. Not so fantastically fit as any of the Setari, unsurprisingly, but with this cute, flopping-into-his-eyes fringe. Twenty-two or three, possibly, which still seems too adult to me, but I guess isn't so much older than me. He'd probably score a 7 on the Orlando Bloom-meter, and is a pretty nice guy. A bit earnest.
It's not easy to decide how to react to a guy when you know people are watching. But the main hurdle was that Orlando Bloom would score about a 7 on my Kaoren Ruuel-meter. And Ruuel was sitting at the next table. Fortunately facing the opposite direction, though I held no hope that he wasn't sparing a fraction of his attention to the "psychological aspects". I am part of the Setari's duties.
I dealt with Dase by asking Katha a lot of questions, always keeping the conversation group-focused, acting completely oblivious to any kind of undertone. Hell, for all I know he was just being friendly and I was reading way too much into everything. But I did spend the rest of the day trying to work out how I would feel if I wasn't so fixated on Ruuel.
That wasn't easy, and I had an annoying internal argument about whether or not I should try and get to know Dase better, because it was silly to push a perfectly nice guy away in favour of a one-sided crush. But that's how it is. The thing with Ruuel will either fade or it won't, but right now there's only one person I want flirting with me.
For all that the mind boggles at the idea of Ruuel flirting.
Sunday, April 6
Umbrella of the Apocalypse
Ruuel woke me up just on dawn with an override and a typically curt text message: "Aft lock."
Not sure if it was an emergency, I released my pod's lid, making my nanosuit grow back its feet and gloves as quickly as I could manage. I did bring a bag of normal clothes along, but it's simpler to wear the suit to bed precisely because of mornings like this one, though I guess I mainly wear it because I would have felt embarrassed slopping around in pyjamas while everyone else was in uniform.
Mara was with Ruuel and one of the greensuits, standing on the small ramp down to the trampled dirt outside. Ruuel touched my arm and then turned to gaze into the half-light.
"Possibly just a false alarm," Mara said, squeezing my shoulder in apologetic greeting. "Combat Sight is giving me nothing specific, but I can't escape the sense that something's there."
Mara's turn for the late watch. She'd woken Ruuel, who in turn had woken me because he was no more certain. I looked out at the hazy shapes of the stacked trees and the endless stretch of whitestone buildings. The air was sharply crisp, with a fragment of breeze rattling leaves. Otherwise, nothing.
"No birds," I noted. That early, bird-calls should have been just starting up, but it was like the city was holding its breath.
Ruuel glanced back at me, then nodded at Mara. "Something is coming. It's still in near-space." He set off a full alert alarm and headed back into the ship.
"Go quickly and grab something to eat," Mara told me, after a rather wry look at Ruuel's back. "There's only one thing any of us are likely to be able to sense while it's still in near-space. This isn't going
to be easy."
A massive. That's what Ruuel said, as he brought all the Setari and the greensuits and Tsel Onara into a channel and gave them one of his terse briefings.
"We'll retreat," Tsel Onara said immediately.
"No time," Maze said. "If we can feel it, it's right on the verge of emerging. The Diodel isn't manoeuvrable enough to avoid an attack during take-off, even if we could manage that immediately."
I'd run, not to get something to eat, but to go to the toilet and to wash my face. Maze ordered both squads outside even as Mara said: "It's emerging. Mark seven, almost on top of us."
Eight squads. That's what I was remembering as I ran back to the aft lock. The last time they'd fought a massive they'd needed eight squads, and Maze's wife had died. We didn't even have any of the big hitter squads, and for all I knew how much more powerful I made the Setari, I still felt bug-small when I reached the ramp and felt what was above us.
Not with psychic senses. Felt in the way you do when there's something really big moving, like when the Litara is flying overhead. The thing was standing beside the park, not directly over us, and was bigger than the Litara. It had to be one of the weirdest things I've ever seen – a black and bulky central section low to the ground, but with two twisty 'sub-bodies' raised far higher up on either side by scads of long spindly legs which reminded me of the collapsed spokes of an umbrella. I watched one of these reach with a lazily deceptive speed and pluck something from the ground below. It was too far to see just what it was, but the massive moved it over to the central body and dropped it on top.
"We'll draw it away from the Diodel first," Maze said. "Spel, Gainer, Eyse, Halla, remain with the ship on alert for accompaniment."
"First assessment is that it will be resistant to elementals," Ruuel said calmly, and gave me one of the molasses food bars which were standard mission fare. He had a handful of them, was passing them out.
Maze grimaced, but didn't seem particularly surprised, setting the enhancement rotation as he touched my arm. "We'll go over the top," he said. "Don't underestimate the reach of those arms."
Eight people. Instead of eight squads, they were going to try and fight the thing with eight people. But still, even though they were looking super-serious, they weren't acting like they thought it was impossible, so when Auron hitched me into his side all I did was hook my arm obediently across his shoulders.
We went very high very quick, the cold air making my eyes stream. There was a crunching noise below, and I realised it was one of the buildings the massive's main body was resting on. Even whitestone couldn't stand up to the weight of it. After one brief glance where I saw that the top of it looked like a massive Venus flytrap, I didn't look down again.
"Higher – we're in reach," Ruuel said, and we shot up abruptly even as some of the umbrella spokes came toward us. Maze set the tip of one, a horrid fingery arrangement, shrivelling and burning and Ruuel said: "Sonn," which prompted her to drop a ball of lightning down into the mouth, and then we were on the far side.
"The large building at mark nine," Maze ordered, and we dropped down to the roof of a long, single-story building, moving way too fast for my comfort. The fact that I have to be carried instead of levitated makes whizzing about scary.
"Swoops at twelve mark," Ruuel said. "Fast approach."
"Your targets Kettara, Senez." Maze re-enhanced, starting the cycle over. "How much reaction to that lightning?"
Ruuel's eyes were fully open as he gazed back at the massive. "No more than pain."
It was moving toward us, surprising me by being a lot quicker and less awkward than something that big and weird should surely be. Off in the direction Mara and Lohn had gone was the white flash of Lohn's Light wall, and a gargling wail before some heavy things crashed and skidded in the street below.
"Focus debris damage on the join points between the centre body and the outliers," Ruuel continued. "Then debris and elementals on the outliers. They are its weapons."
"Right side first," Maze said, wasting no time in pulling a boulder out of the ground below and hurling it at the massive. It fell short: we were too far away. Even Ferus, who has the strongest Telekinesis of the two squads, couldn't quite reach.
"Haul above," Maze ordered, and he, Zee and Ferus gathered everything loose and heavy from the immediate area – trees and rocks and chunks of broken whitestone – and zipped upwards.
"Retreat back four streets," Ruuel ordered, because the massive was uncomfortably no longer too far away. Auron lifted me, Mara, Lohn and Sonn backward to the roof of a two-story building up the hill, landing just as the others began hurling things downward with maximum strength.
The massive didn't like that. It made a low, deep noise and stopped moving as its right segment was almost completely severed. As the three telekinetics dipped back to the ground to gather more missiles, the massive's two outer segments lowered all their spindly umbrella arm-legs until they were about the same height as the main body. The right segment didn't seem like it was going to drop dead or stop moving just because it was no longer fully joined, although both of the segments had pulled down completely into defensive bunches.
The tiny constellation of the Setari rose again, moving to attack the other segment, which seemed to be tilting so that it faced in my group's direction.
"Scatter!"
I gasped, wrenched by abrupt and rapid movement. Ruuel had stepped behind me, slid both arms under mine, and gone straight up. He'd brought Mara, Lohn and Sonn with us, and Auron followed after a moment's shock. Ruuel was moving as quickly as he could fly and I slid helplessly down, clamping my arms over his and trying not to panic until he bound our suits and I stopped sliding, just as a wave of purplish light washed out the dawn, filling the air with the scent of burning metal.
Both of the outer segments had blasted us, one up at Maze's group, the other direct at mine. We'd managed to move in time, Auron just barely clearing the upper edge of the purple, but the interface showed me Zee's location plummeting in a way which was absolutely wrong.
Maze and Ferus dove after her. Ruuel, breathing hard from the effort of moving everyone so quickly, said: "Swoops from mark four. Auron, take over carriage and bring us rapidly over it and down. Sonn, full power into the detached part."
Ferus had caught Zee. He and Maze paused together, then Maze said, voice tight: "Rendezvous with the others."
Lohn took care of the swoops behind us as Sonn dropped another ball of lightning down onto the damaged segment. We descended rapidly, meeting together on another roof. Zee was limp and still, but I knew from the mission display that she was alive. Ruuel let me go and turned to watch the massive, saying: "It's reorienting."
"Restart enhancement rotation," Maze said, brushing a finger against my arm. "Looks like the second ball of lightning has had some impact. We'll work on detaching the other segment. Keep moving. Spel, join us with Gainer and Halla."
Ferus passed Zee to Auron, enhanced, and then he and Maze took off again.
"We'll work on finishing off the injured segment," Ruuel said. "Kettara, use Light element. The rest, whatever minor seems most likely to damage it." Lohn and Mara re-enhanced, and I went back to being Auron's carting-about problem. I was too caught up in the fight and worrying about Zee to spare much attention to the whole grabbed-by-Ruuel thing. I've been thinking about it plenty since. He was going all-out, at his limit of Levitation and Telekinesis talents, and I could feel his chest move as he gasped for air. If I hadn't been panicking, I probably would have enjoyed that a lot.
The damaged segment didn't seem able to produce the purple beam any more, or didn't have a chance before we rained Light and Fire and Ice down on it. The other segment shot at Maze and Ferus, but forewarned they were able to dodge and pelt it with big chunks of the buildings it had been tromping over. The rest of the Setari swung around and toasted that side as well.
The centre section was still alive, though, and still moving, crushing more of the city in the process. We all
dropped down to another roof, very close to it, meeting up with Ketzaren, Alay and Halla.
"Take Annan back to the ship," Maze told Ketzaren. "Spel, enhanced Sonics on the main body."
Alay nodded, taking my hand and squeezing it: I've no doubt I was looking wide-eyed and pale. We all moved back behind her then, with the ship behind us, and I found out that Alay's Sonic talent is a really scary thing. Like Ketzaren's Wind, it's something that takes her a long time to build to a seriously destructive level, but even with our ears covered and not being the focus of her attack, my bones started aching. The massive began to wail and rock, and every bird and animal in its direction which hadn't fled already burst from cover and ran.
It died unspectacularly. I expect if it had anything recognisable as a head, blood would have run from its eyes and nose and ears. As it was, it just stopped moving and wailing and settled down on the crushed remains of the buildings below. Alay stopped shredding our ears and let out her breath. She turned her head and just for a moment I saw her face. Naked. I know that Maze lost his wife in the last massive attack, and now I know that Alay must have lost someone too.
"Escort Ionoth are still emerging," Ruuel said, and added either to me or to our audience on the Diodel: "Massives are usually trailed by other Ionoth, particularly swoop roamers."
"We'll pause here for recovery and then clear," Maze said.
"Pandora control is sending reinforcements," Tsel Onara added, voice crisp but with just a hint of relief, or respect. Massives are well-named.
Most of the Setari began eating the energy bars Ruuel had handed out earlier. I had mine in a pocket, but ignored it, for all I was really hungry. I figured it wouldn't be that long before we went back to the Diodel and had some food which didn't leave a tarry-sweet aftertaste in my mouth.
Lohn came over and gave my shoulders a squeeze. "Remember when you asked if enhancement was worth all the complication of rotations?" he asked. "This is what it comes to – the difference between dozens of us bouncing attacks off one of these things, or a handful with enough impact to penetrate its defences."
The Touchstone Trilogy Page 32
