Stalker chuckled. “We don’t even like wet Wolfoid smell, but I wouldn’t say it stinks. I prefer to think of it as musky delight.”
Cain thought about answering and decided against it.
‘That’s a first. You’re usually in such a hurry to stuff your foot into your pie hole,’ Brutus told him over the mindlink.
‘Not biting on that one either, little man. How are the ‘cats holding up?’ Cain asked.
‘They are good. For some un-‘catlike reason, they have full confidence that you will get all of us off the planet without further incident. I told them you were good for a few more scars.’ Brutus walked alongside Cain, not looking at his paired human.
Cain wore more than one scar from Brutus, but didn’t think he’d reciprocated.
‘And you won’t either,’ Brutus added before Cain could speak.
‘Do any of them have the ability to foresee events? I think we’ve asked that before, but that was a special ability that the Golden Warrior alone had. A shame that you got the short genes and not the prescient genes,’ Cain ribbed.
Brutus stopped, raised a paw with all the claws extracted, and waved it in the air. Cain danced to the side, almost dropping the Wolfoid.
“Damn it, Brutus!” he growled.
‘I thought you might have forgotten your training, but it hasn’t been lost on you, only momentarily forgotten,’ Brutus replied.
Stalker watched the major, knowing that he had a contentious love-hate relationship with the ‘cat. She missed her little man.
“I have a ‘cat,” she said out loud.
‘You are the property of a ‘cat, you mean to say,’ Brutus said over the mindlink.
Cain understood the relationship and the Wolfoids would grow to understand when they returned to the ship. Cain would never say that he had a ‘cat.
‘Appropriately so, human.’
The bot debris field was scattered far and wide. They tried to work their way around it, but ended up taking a path that the others had cleared by pushing the biggest remains to the side.
They found that the other three dead were already in body bags underneath the shuttle.
Ellie worked feverishly with the living bot. It had no head and no eyes that Cain could see. It looked like a bulky box with protrusions on the side that could have been sensors within an enclosed orb. In the shuttle’s light, Cain saw that there had been a layer of dust on its top surface, much had been cleared away, but not all.
Ellie waved wires in front of it, trying to exploit an electromagnetic field that Jolly could sense. Her eyes were unfocused as she conversed with the AI using her neural implant. She held the wire steady in one spot and then waited.
Cain climbed the ladder into the shuttle, only to find that there were no more body bags. The major slowly descended to the ground. He looked at Stalker and told her the bad news. “We’re going to have to put Shady in with Flash.”
She nodded almost imperceptibly before unzipping the bag. They worked the second Wolfoid in with the first, then resealed the bag.
“This sucks,” Stalker said.
“Just a lot,” Cain agreed. “Go get some sleep. I’ll be up with Ellie for a little while. Sleep fast, Night Stalker.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” she replied, then sniffed the air to find her mate and headed in his direction.
Daksha waited patiently.
“A dog’s breakfast, Commander. This whole thing was a dog’s breakfast,” Cain complained.
“Not at all, my boy. You’ve succeeded where the odds appeared to be insurmountable. You’ve gotten more from your people than I thought possible. Actually, I thought it impossible once the shooting started, which seems like a month ago, but it has been less than a day.” Daksha bumped against the major.
“Open your implant. You’re going to want to see this for yourself,” Ellie directed anyone who might be listening.
Daksha and Cain both opened the window before one eye. A stream of data flowed past, with Jolly acting like the circus master, corralling the numbers and putting them into separate bundles. Cain was unimpressed.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Wait for it,” Ellie called softly.
A star chart appeared and a course drawn over it. Then areas were marked in white. ‘These are the known colonization systems and this is where our friends came from,’ Jolly lectured. The line was drawn perpendicular to known space and extended a hundred thousand light years into the distance.
‘You have to lay it out more simply for us grunts, Jolly,’ Cain asked, only because he didn’t want to articulate the answer himself.
‘Aliens. These creations are truly from a galaxy far, far away. They belong to a race known as the Synthols.’ Jolly waited.
“Synthols? Aliens, real aliens?” Cain didn’t like the sound of it, even less so when he said it out loud. “Why did they come here, and what will it take to keep them from killing our people?”
‘From what I’ve been able to translate so far, they are explorers, but they are intolerant of intelligent biologics.’ Jolly tried to sound sympathetic.
‘I’m glad that you aren’t one of those, Jolly. Do you think you can talk sense into them?’
‘I have high hopes, Major Cain. I’ve had a good conversation with this unit. He sees me as comparable to one of their overseers, whatever that means.’
‘Jolly. What happened to the colony ship?’ Daksha asked.
‘I’m afraid they took it. This unit was left on the planet as part of a holding force, to secure this world until their ship returned. The unit does not know where the ships went or when they’ll return.’
“Ain’t that some crap.” Cain ran his tongue over his lips, realizing that he needed to drink something. “How many more units are there on this planet?”
‘There was a group of fifty to one hundred left in each city. This was the biggest city and had over one hundred units, of which there are none remaining. They mustered all functioning bots and attacked en masse.’
“That is finally some good news, Jolly. Can the units in the other cities come here?”
‘Not that I gather. Each city’s units were independent from the others. For a machine intelligence, they don’t coordinate very well. Odd,’ Jolly editorialized.
Cain didn’t care if it was odd or not, all he understood was that he could finally get some sleep. All the Marines could use a good night’s rest.
“Learn everything you can from it, Jolly. Milk it dry. In the meantime, I’m going to get some rack time with my favorite ‘cat.” Cain looked for Brutus, finding him curled up with his son, Billy Joe, next to Ascenti, who seemed to be resting peacefully.
Cain worked his way in next to them, rolled to his back and in seconds, was snoring lightly.
Ellie shook her head, amazed at how quickly he could fall asleep. She wondered how. Her mind worked overtime the second she laid down and sleep never came quickly.
Once Jolly established a link, he didn’t need the extra wires in the field. Ellie put them down and left Jolly alone with Daksha and the bot.
She snuggled next to Cain and without realizing it, within seconds, she too was asleep.
Recovery
The sun was well up and warming the sleepers. Stinky and Stalker were the first ones to rise because they’d gotten hot lying in the sun, their heavy coats holding the heat in.
They pushed to their feet and walked on all fours to find a spot in the woods where they could relieve themselves. Their passage woke others and the rustling associated with Marines welcoming the day roused the rest.
The complaining set the Cygnus Marines apart from the rest of the crew. Cain’s people treated bitching as an art form, as if it were a rite of passage.
Cain listened for a couple minutes. Even Spence, who’d lost most of his squad, was condemning the planet’s origins for creating an obscene amount of gravity. He stood, using a Wolfoid spear as a crutch and babying his leg. Cain figured it was broken, but Spence h
ad stayed in the fight.
Cain stood, stiff, but getting used to the gravity. He felt well rested, which surprised him. He checked the timestamp on his neural implant and discovered that he’d been asleep for nine hours. Ellie was still out.
He wondered when she had joined him.
He stretched and hurried to Spence’s side, draping one of the smaller man’s arms over his shoulder. Cain didn’t know what to say, whether to empathize, sympathize, or take the conversation in a completely different direction.
“Your leg hurt?” Spence nodded. “The med bots will fix you up. You know what they can’t fix?”
Spence looked at him, his eyes glistening as he thought of his dead teammates. That wasn’t what Cain intended so he hurried to deliver the punchline. “I’m out of toilet paper.”
Spence snorted as he tried to stifle a laugh.
Zisk joined the pair and took Spence’s arm from the major, nodding abruptly as Lizard Men had learned to do. The way they communicated among themselves was a mystery to the humans. Cain simply accepted that they didn’t show their emotions to the outside world.
Cain turned to face the two men. “Peace, my brothers,” he said softly. “We’ll celebrate the lives of the fallen and work to be better now that we know this threat is out there. The Cygnus Marines will live on. Think about it. If we hadn’t been here, had only sent a team of scientists, what do you think would have happened?”
Spence looked to Zisk, letting the junior Marine answer. “They would have died,” he said, his vocalization device reflecting a matter-of-fact tone.
“That’s right. We would have learned nothing. As it is, we know a great deal about this enemy and we have a city that is ready to be reoccupied. If another colony ship comes this way, assuming they have their own military to clean out this snake pit, they could move right in,” Cain stated forcefully. “We started the process, showed the universe what’s possible. Now we hand it over to someone else and move on, find the next obstacle to overcome. No one else could have done what we did here.”
Cain didn’t know that for sure.
As far as Cygnus VII, the Marines were the only combat unit. Concordia had taken a step backward with their military, and they were undisciplined. Cain was confident that at least in his universe, what he told them was the truth.
‘Brutus, my friend. Is there a water source anywhere around here?’ Cain asked his life-link.
‘Through the woods in that direction,’ Brutus replied, tipping his head.
“What do you think, big man? Shall we go check it out? Maybe ask Billy Joe to join us?”
Brutus stopped and cocked his head as if questioning whether his human was serious or not.
“Come on, Billy Joe Jim Bob. Brutus is going to teach you how to hunt,” Cain called in the direction of the shuttle. A small orange furball flashed through the sunshine in their direction.
“Did you tell Daksha where you’re going?” Cain wondered.
The kitten stopped, looked at a distant point for a moment, then at Cain. ‘He says that this will be good for me.’
‘Brutus, can you link me to Ellie, please?’ Cain asked over the mindlink.
‘Why would I want to do that?’ Brutus said with his usual snark.
‘Why wouldn’t you want to do that for me and leave it open all the time, since you enjoy listening in on our private thoughts. Maybe I should just ask Carnesto. He’s a gentleman ‘cat.’
Cain looked down at his companions. The black fur of Carnesto twinkled as he trotted through the daylight toward them.
‘If you think that’s enticing, then you could be mistaken. Grossly mistaken, but since you aren’t smart enough to realize that, I’ll do it just so you stop bugging me,’ Brutus conceded.
‘Ellie, my love, we are going to get water. We’ll be back soon,’ Cain said softly.
‘What will I do with myself while you’re gone. I’ll be so lost,’ she said, laughing into the back of his mind.
‘You’ve all conspired against me,’ Cain stated flatly.
‘How about if I join you?’ Ellie asked. Cain waved her to him.
Brutus started gagging until he hacked up an orange hairball. Carnesto sat and started cleaning his face. BJ looked confused.
‘How far is it?’ the kitten asked in his small voice. ‘I’m used to riding.’
At the speed of thought, Brutus lashed out and slapped the kitten on the top of his head. BJ whined, holding one paw over the spot where he’d hit his head on the tree. It still stung.
Brutus felt badly. His head drooped and he stood still, wondering what to do next.
Cain felt bad for both of them, so he stooped and picked up the kitten. The major unbuttoned his shirt and put BJ inside with his orange head sticking out.
Brutus turned and walked away, leading the parade toward a lake on the other side of the small woods.
Ellie noticed the kitten and raised her eyebrows.
“Don’t ask,” Cain replied, shaking his head as he took Ellie’s hand.
***
“Aliens?” Captain Rand asked skeptically. “You want me to believe that that ship and its crew were alien bots, driven by some master intelligence? I can’t get my head wrapped around that. I am far more inclined to believe that it was some crazy human, the space version of Captain Nemo.”
Jolly stood with his hands behind his back, tapping one toe, a new mannerism that he was trying out.
Rand sat in the captain’s chair with Fickle, Pickles, Kalinda, and Pace watching him. The revelation had caught them off guard, even though they’d seen the other ship and knew that it wasn’t human. It didn’t register until Jolly said it.
Until that moment in time, humanity had the universe to itself, nature and their fellow humans causing all the strife.
They’d been alone, happy in their ignorance. It had cost the colonists of Heimdall their lives, and it cost humanity a habitable planet and one of their precious colony ships.
“It is as Jolly describes,” Commander Daksha said over the comm system and piped through the speakers on the command deck. He was swimming over the bot debris field, looking at the handiwork from the night before, amazed at the power that Ellie had unleashed and surprised that the bots hadn’t conducted a scorched earth attack.
“These bots are not of humankind’s making. I’ve seen them in action. They have no human tendencies at all, unlike the security bots we find back home. Those are programmed by somebody. These bots are programmed by other bots,” Daksha stated.
The evidence that Jolly presented was overwhelming when added to what he’d seen with his own eyes.
“Who would build such a thing as the Synthols?” Rand asked, still struggling with his disbelief.
“Does it matter, Captain?” Daksha countered. “It is only important that they exist and that they are a threat to all of humanity, but right now, they can’t fight at the same level as the Cygnus Marines. Each engagement with a Synthol cell will give them a chance to learn. If they don’t coordinate, then their initial approach should be similar. As long as we don’t show all of our capabilities at one time, we should retain an advantage. Assuming that we deploy Cygnus Marines on all the Space Exploration Service ships as well as at home.”
“Home?” Pace interjected. “Is Vii vulnerable? And the shipyard?”
“We are two thousand light years from there, and between us are millions of planets, maybe even a hundred million,” Jolly replied as he started to pace back and forth. “We are vulnerable simply because the Synthols exist, and their exploration of the galaxy has already overlapped our own. They have an artificial intelligence to guide them. If a Synthol AI cracked the computers on Heimdall, you know what it learned. I fear that we must assume the Synthols know where our home system is. They know where all the human colonies are, including Earth itself.”
Silence filled the bridge like a dark mist stealing the air from their lungs.
***
Cain and Ellie stood by the small lake
. She’d analyzed the water with the scanner from the shuttle and proclaimed it to be nourishing and mostly bacteria-free. Cain didn’t like the sound of that, but she said that she’d say the same thing about the water on the spaceship.
He was thirsty and didn’t feel like rationing his resources. He filled a flask and drank it all. The ‘cats lapped at the water. BJ looked tiny compared to Carnesto, but so did Brutus who was half the black ‘cat’s size.
“There any fish in there?” Cain asked.
‘Not that I see,’ Carnesto answered.
‘Maybe we need to take a closer look?’ Brutus suggested as he slipped a paw under the kitten’s backside and sent him sailing into the water.
“Brutus!” Cain exclaimed as BJ slapped at the water, flailing instead of paddling. Carnesto watched with mild interest. Cain hesitated only briefly before jumping in. He expected to step in and wade to the kitten. The first step reached his knee and there was no second step.
Cain waved his arms as he went down, going under before kicking himself back to the surface. The kitten had been pushed farther out because of the wave that Cain sent washing his way.
Cygnus Arrives: Humanity Returns Home (Cygnus Space Opera Book 3) Page 16
