by Erica Rue
“What does that mean?” Brian said.
“Dampening fields require an insane amount of power to generate, though less to maintain. No one would use microbial fuel cells for that. These things are slow burn type of energy. Keeping them too hot for too long led to early degradation,” Dione explained.
She thought she understood. In the AI’s attempts to fend off Zane’s attacks on the dampening field, she overloaded a lot of these power cells. Not only could she not reestablish her dampening field, but she didn’t have enough power to protect the planet from things like the Vens. And the Vens had possibly found them because the dampening field was down now. Whether it was the tracer or distress signal, the Vens’ appearance here was definitely their fault.
“They were failing even before Zane took out the dampening field. It was only a matter of time before the field died on its own,” Dione said.
With a few directions from the AI, Dione called up the readout and grimaced as she looked over the diagnostic results. Barely twenty percent of the cells were operational, but most of them were salvageable.
“I think we can jump start the process in most of these and get you back up to eighty, maybe eighty-five percent operational.”
“How long will that take?” the AI asked.
“I’m not sure. Some of them need some mechanical adjustments. Others need a fresh infusion of bacteria. It’s easy enough to get—just find some mud or waste—but the quantity we’d need is the issue. With our limited manpower, probably a couple of weeks.”
Even as she said it, she knew it was hopeless. They would never repair the weapon before the Vens came. It was funny. They had come here to disable the weapon, and now they were trying to fix it. Too bad the fix would be too late. Maybe there was another way to defeat the Vens.
“I want to check in with Lithia. Zane should have left by now.” She headed to the lift, but the doors wouldn’t open.
“Base, what’s wrong?” she said.
“Before you return to Lithia, I want to ask you another question. You say you have a jump-capable ship. What powers your jump drive?”
“A charging matrix.”
“Look at the power requirements for the weapon on the console. How long does it take your matrix to produce enough energy to power the weapon?”
Dione looked up the specs on her manumed and answered. The pit of her stomach dropped when she realized where this line of questioning was headed.
“Base, I know you want to use our matrix to power the weapon, but I don’t know if the two pieces of technology are compatible, or if we’ll ever be able to disconnect it.”
“I understand that,” was the AI’s only reply.
This AI was serious. It wanted to take part of their ship and use it to power the weapon.
“If we incorporate our charging matrix here, we may never be able to reinstall it in our ship. We could be stuck here.” She was thinking out loud. “There has to be something else.”
“Would this weapon really be able to destroy the Vens?” Brian said. “Based on your description, they pose a threat to everyone, even you. Unless you’re planning on leaving the Vens behind for us to deal with.”
It wasn’t quite an accusation, but it stung nevertheless. Dione knew what the answer was supposed to be. Yes, we’ll try this out. But in that moment, the reality of their situation was sinking in. Before, she had been thinking only of escape, of return home. It had seemed so close. But now, she again found herself worried about survival, and not just that of herself and her friends, but of the people of this world. Their arrival had brought this enemy down on them one way or another, and they had a responsibility to fix it.
“It’s not that simple,” she said. When she turned to Brian, the dark look in his eyes surprised her, and he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“If these Vens are as bad as you say, how many do you think will die?” he asked so casually he might have been asking for tomorrow’s weather forecast.
“And you think Victoria or the Aratians will welcome us with open arms? Where will we go?” The minute the words spilled out of her mouth and into the heavy silence, she regretted them. They were selfish. They were the product of the same kind of thinking that had gotten them into this mess.
“Does it really matter?” The tense anger in his shoulders had relaxed a bit, and he bowed his head in what looked like despair.
Dione wasn’t just thinking of herself, though. She thought about her uncle. He would mourn her. Her father might miss her, but he wouldn’t cry. She had never seen him cry, even after her mom died. He had gone about his life and meetings like the world hadn’t collapsed beneath them.
Dammit. Why couldn’t she do both, save them and leave? She tried to weigh the pros and cons of each scenario. If they stayed, there was a chance that no one died, even if that meant she lived in a prison cell. They would be around to alert the colonists and help them with tactics, assuming anyone listened to what they had to say after everything.
If they left, the Vens would murder many or maybe even all of the settlers, while she and her friends escaped, leaving behind the planet they had doomed. The answer was obvious. Multiple choice was easy. Just eliminate all the wrong answers, and then choose the best one.
This decision—doing the “right” thing—gave her no rush of satisfaction. This was not like giving up her Saturday mornings to tutor, or organizing a supply drive for Ankari refugees. This was her life. Her dreams. Her ambitions. But he didn’t really understand all of this, at least, he didn’t grasp the scale of her world.
“Brian, you’re right, and on some level I know that. But there’s a part of me that wants to pack up and go home, and bring you with me. I know there shouldn’t be a question, but there is. I’m human.” Brian’s jaw unclenched, just a little. She hadn’t completely lost him.
“So you’ll do it?” he said.
“It’s the right thing to do. But… it’s so hard. It’s so hard to give up what I’m giving up, and I can’t promise that Zane and Lithia will go along with it.” With that, she stepped into the lift, followed by Brian, and went to break the news to Lithia.
41. LITHIA
“No,” Lithia said. She was past shouting. The quiet anger was always worse. It hurt more because she was aware enough of her anger that she was trying to contain it.
She had been waiting outside on the landing pad. The warmth of the afternoon was just beginning to wane, but it was still bright out.
“We have no choice,” Dione said. “It’s the only chance we have to save these people.”
“There’s always a choice. There’s gotta be something other than taking out our charging matrix. Why don’t we take that AI offline and fly up to meet Zane, try his plan?”
“You heard him. His plan was a bust.”
“What if we can’t put the matrix back? Even if we jump to the max of our current charge, and go the rest of the way on engines, we’d run out of water and air long before reaching the nearest colony. The Calypso was not built for that, and we’ve cannibalized her emergency beacon. We’ll be stuck here.”
“If we don’t, these people will die.”
“They’re not our people. Just because you want to jump Brian doesn’t mean we all want to stay here.”
All the colonists here were just stupid people who decided to live outside the Bubble. They had brought this on themselves, and Lithia wasn’t going to suffer for their bad choices.
“What would Bel say?” Dione asked. Lithia didn’t want to hear it. Of course, Bel would want to save these people. But Bel wasn’t awake to give her vote.
“She’s unconscious now because of you. You dragged a live Ven onto our ship, and it nearly killed her. She can’t say anything,” Lithia said. She was crossing the line into truly hurtful comments, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to be left alone. “And Oberon, the only one who might know how to get us out of this mess, is dead, because you left him to die on that ship.”
Dione raised her voic
e. “And who brought us here to this planet? If anyone doomed these people, it’s you, and now you won’t help them because it’s an inconvenience!”
“It’s more than an inconvenience! I won’t get trapped here. I don’t trust that AI in there. I won’t abandon my family to live out some ridiculous life here on Kepos like my grandmother. I won’t. Find another way.”
“Is that what this is about? You don’t want to be like your grandma? ‘Cause I’ve got bad news. Looks like selfishness is an inherited trait. You lied to me—used me—to find this place, and now you’ll let the Vens kill them all. Because that’s what’s going to happen, and I know there’s a part of you that understands that. This isn’t you. There is no other way.”
Zane called over the manumed and interrupted their shouting match. “Lithia, I’m heading down now.”
“Fine,” Lithia said, her anger flowing through the cracks in her voice like a leaky dam.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Zane, we won’t be able to fix the station’s power cells in time,” Dione said. “We’re going to have to use our charging matrix to power the station’s weapon to protect these people from the Vens.”
“And then we reintegrate the matrix back into the Calypso?” he asked.
“I hope so,” Dione replied.
Zane was silent for several long moments. Finally, he replied, “It’s what Bel would want, too.” Unbelievable. Zane couldn’t possibly be on board with this.
“And if we can’t take back the matrix?” Lithia said. “We’re going to be stuck forever, Zane. This AI is holding us hostage. They shouldn’t be able to do that. No one will look for us out here. Are you ready to die on this planet with the idiots who live here?” Lithia could feel herself losing this battle.
“Has Bel ever told you her story?” he said.
“No.”
“When she’s better, you should ask her what it was like to survive a Ven colony assault. If we can stop that, it’s worth it.”
“Lithia, I—” Dione began.
Lithia cut her off. “I need to focus on helping Zane. Why don’t you go back inside and figure something out?”
Lithia felt her resistance buckling, but she wanted Dione to leave her alone. She hated being around people when she was angry. She always ended up saying things she regretted. Dione knew her well enough to leave.
***
“All right, take her out and let me know when you’re approaching atmosphere.”
Lithia heard the station door open again, and tensed her shoulders. If Dione was back, she didn’t think she could take it. She didn’t turn, and instead kept her eyes on the horizon. The sun was sinking lower in the sky. Cora appeared in her peripheral vision. She didn’t want to deal with her right now, but she didn’t have much choice.
“Is it true we’re not going back to the temple tonight?”
“Yes,” Lithia replied.
“I don’t know why the Farmer sent us out here. I’m not sure why you released the Ficaran leader, but we still have this Flyer. What is his plan?” Cora said.
The girl was clearly homesick and scared. Somehow Lithia doubted she had ever wandered off into the woods and helped some strangers evade Aratian trackers like Evy.
“What do you think he wants from you?” Lithia asked, unsure of what to say.
“I think I’m supposed to save my people from the Ficarans. We’ve separated them from their leader. Now is the time to act. Did you know she gave orders to kill any Aratian on sight, just because we won’t trade with her? And it’s her fault, too. The Ficarans have pretended to fix stuff for years, but they only ruin the Artifacts so they break permanently.”
“Not everything can be fixed forever. Sometimes things just break.”
“Not the Farmer’s magic. The only thing that could stop that is sabotage.”
Lithia sighed. She couldn’t condemn her ignorance and take advantage of it at the same time. When the Aratians had captured Lithia, she was ready to say anything to escape. Dione had needed her help then, and Bel still needed her now. But talking with Dione had forced her to question herself. She hated that. She hated how Dione had such an easy time making the right choice. Dione genuinely cared about these people and their conflict. Lithia was just trying to get to the next checkpoint.
Lithia thought up some lie about how the Farmer had sent them to stop the demons that were on their way, but she kept it to herself. Maybe it was time to start telling the truth. And facing the truth. Of course they would save all these people if they could, but that wouldn’t stop her from hating every minute of it. It was a struggle not to hate Cora.
“Cora, this is bigger than the Ficarans. Tell me what you know of the demons that fell from the sky.”
“A long time ago, before the Great Divide, all of us were one group,” Cora began to recite the familiar story. “All of us were Aratians. Everyone lived in or around the Vale Temple. We visited the Forest Temple and the Field Temple, but no one lived out there. Both Temples had their own specialties. The Field Temple allowed us to mine resources and repair Artifacts. The Forest Temple had ways to control the animals. The Field Temple has now been overrun by Ficaran scum who looted the Forest Temple, but not before we got most of the supplies. We’ve managed to control our livestock by careful breeding, but the days of hunting with harmonicas are gone.”
Hunting with harmonicas? Lithia opened her mouth to ask, but again decided to simply listen.
“Anyway, before the Divide, something appeared in the sky, like a Flyer, but bigger. And it was too high up. Everyone knew that Flyers couldn’t go that high because they’d be struck down by the Farmer’s Icon, and sure enough, a bolt of lightning destroyed it. After that, the Farmer took a Flyer from the Field Temple to the mountain alone. When he came back the next day, he assembled his men and told them that demons had fallen from the sky. He took thirty men with him, telling everyone that the demons would be dealt with, and a week later, only he and a few men returned, bloody and broken. But the demons were dead. Everyone was safe. Until the Architect showed up and ruined everything.”
“What happened to the Farmer after that?”
“Things were fine until the Great Divide, but shortly afterward, the Farmer disappeared. He had been planning a trip for a while, but after everything that happened, he needed to move up his plans. We needed more colonists to protect us from genetic diseases.”
He probably planned on bringing more than just people, but Lithia didn’t say anything. Both sides acknowledged the Farmer was gone, but the Aratians believed the Farmer was coming back. What had really happened to him?
It didn’t really matter. She kept thinking about Grandpa Min, and what he would think of Cora and all of the people here. He would want to help these people. He would welcome Miranda’s other granddaughter with open arms. While Cora was talking, Evy had joined them. Good. She should hear this, too.
“Cora, I need to tell you the truth, and it may sound a bit strange. We really are cousins. My grandmother abandoned my family and started a new life here. I wasn’t born here.”
Lithia paused to gauge her reaction. Her eyebrows furrowed, creasing her forehead. No screaming yet.
“The Farmer didn’t create everyone, but he did bring everyone here. The demons that came here were actually aliens. From another planet. I’m from another planet, too. The aliens, we call them Venatorians, or Vens, attacked us, and we ended up here. But the Vens found us, and now they’re coming. The Vens are the threat you need to be concerned about, not the Ficarans.”
It was an oversimplified explanation, but she was tired and it was the best she could do.
“So we are not on a mission from the Farmer?” Cora clarified.
That was not the most important take away, but of course Cora would only hear that the Farmer was a liar.
“Technically, no,” Lithia said, “but our friend really is sick, and your home is in danger.”
“You lied to me. You led them here.”
Cora was blinking back tears.
“We didn’t mean to,” Lithia said.
“The Icon will protect us,” Evy said.
“The Icon needs to be repaired, and we’ll be able to do that once Zane brings our ship down.”
“I thought… you look so much like me, and you had the communicator. You had to be sent by the Farmer. I trusted you.” A look of disgust crossed Cora’s face. “I have to warn my father. He’ll know what to do.”
“We’re going to destroy the Ven ships before they land.”
“What if some of them survive, like last time? We need to prepare.” A tone of urgency entered the girl’s voice. “Take me back home.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“Please,” Cora said, tears welling up in her eyes, “I just want to go home.”
This was not going well, but what had she expected? She had lied to Cora, made her betray her father, and now alien monsters were coming. She hadn’t really had a choice. Without playing into Cora’s beliefs, she would still be locked in an Aratian cell and Dione would be at the Ficarans’ mercy. There had been no place for the truth in all of this, and now had been a terrible time to start.
“In the morning, I’ll take you home myself. But for now, I have to guide Zane in, and we have to repair the Icon. It’s the only hope for all of us.”
She hated admitting it, and she wasn’t thrilled that the brainwashed girl in front of her was family. She wished it were Evy who shared her DNA. Still, she was certain of one thing. She would find a way off this planet if it meant building a damn charging matrix herself. After they stopped the Vens from attacking, of course.
Cora did not look satisfied with that answer, but there was not much she could do. Zane was calling.
“It’s Zane. I need to walk him through this.”
Cora stormed back into the station, but Evy stayed to watch for a few minutes before following her cousin. This girl had true curiosity, and her father hadn’t yet ruined her ability to question everything around her. She hoped more Aratians were like Evy, because she would be here for a while. Moira had seemed decent, too. As much as she didn’t want to accept it, she knew that giving up their charging matrix was unavoidable.
