The Celaran Solution (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 9)

by Michael McCloskey

  She stopped. Then large bubbles rose from the corpse.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The pressure wave ruptured its oxygen bladder,” Arakaki said. She swam up with her suit’s gas intake hose in her hand. She sucked up a few of the largest pockets of oxygen, but many of the smaller bubbles flowed away with the current along the ceiling.

  “Quick! Go over to the top of that corridor and suck some of those in!” she urged.

  Caden pushed off and swam upward, headed after the bubbles. He got to the top and pulled out his suit’s intake hose. He slipped nozzle in place about halfway through the stream, but he sucked up what he could.

  “I got half of them,” he said.

  “We didn’t get as much this time. But it’s better than nothing,” she said. “Back to the others. Maybe they had better luck.”

  Caden half strode, half swam back through the corridor they had used to get to the room with the Quarus. The water had a red haze to it, the blood of the dead alien they had left behind. Little streams of denser red fluid ran along the current just above the floor.

  When they emerged, Siobhan spotted them from a position outside the cage where they had started. She had a clear hemisphere sitting on the flat top of a piece of unknown equipment. The edge of the hemisphere came out over the edge, where wires and a hose entered. From the wires and her suit hose, Caden surmised she had succeeded in separating oxygen from the water.

  “How was hunting?” Siobhan asked.

  “We brought some back, but not enough,” Arakaki said.

  “We collected another ten minute’s worth. If we make any more, we’ll be defenseless. Well, except for an ultrasharp sword.”

  “Something’s wrong,” Arakaki said sharply.

  There were so many things wrong Caden had no idea which one she might be referring to. She continued before he asked.

  “If deadly alien enemies showed up inside your space station, what would you do?”

  “Well, if we had weapons, I would defend the ship, even counterattack,” Caden said.

  “Exactly. We’re the fish out of water here... you know what I mean, almost helpless. So why aren’t they coming in hard to wipe us out?”

  “Maybe this is more of a spy station or a science lab. Maybe there are no troops here,” he said.

  “Good thinking. But it doesn’t feel right, does it? Why are they letting us sit here? We came out to get this one, and what was it doing? I mean, what wasn’t it doing? It wasn’t waiting for us, it wasn’t guarding us. Just working on that piece of equipment.”

  They had made it to the cage. Suddenly the lights flickered, making Caden wonder how the Quarus prevented shorts in their electrical systems. He supposed they must have had centuries to figure it out.

  “Okay... that’s not encouraging,” Caden said.

  “No, it’s good!” Telisa9 maintained. “It means our friends have arrived!”

  I wonder if the Quarus will blow up the whole station to keep from being captured, Caden thought. He decided to keep his doubts to himself.

  “Then we need to tell them where we are,” Siobhan said.

  And we have no attendants left.

  “We can either go back to that chamber above the cage and cut our way out again, or we can try and run toward their breaches,” Arakaki said.

  The room trembled. The water jolted Caden a centimeter or two to his left.

  “That direction,” Arakaki said, pointing the way he had been pulled.

  “We’re going to swim into a fight?” Siobhan asked.

  “They’re here to get us,” Telisa9 said. “We have to make it as easy as possible. They may be dying for us right now.”

  That shut everyone up. Arakaki took the lead and Caden followed. They were almost to an exit tunnel when a current pulled them forward. A pocket of gas appeared against the ceiling.

  Caden was pulled halfway through the curved tunnel. He collided with Arakaki two times. Both times, their Veer suits protected them from injury, though his rifle reported a partial malfunction after the second hit. They struggled to right themselves.

  “Keep going,” Telisa9 ordered. “They may self-destruct this base!”

  Arakaki reached the end of the corridor a meter ahead of Caden. They swam out into another, straighter corridor. It was wider than the last and had no current. The pressure dropped again. Caden watched water boil away at the top of the corridor. He spotted a machine hanging above them in the middle of the straight corridor. It was next to a hatch as if the machine had dropped out of the ceiling.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  Suddenly the water around them boiled away even more fiercely. His suit sent his link a warning that the temperature had jumped dangerously.

  “It’s too hot! Go back!” Caden called urgently.

  His suit started to burn his skin. It told his link it had no more heat sink capacity to protect him.

  Arakaki struggled to retreat as well. Caden heard himself yell out in pain. They swam back into the curved corridor and met Telisa9 and Siobhan, who pulled them away.

  Caden started to recover. He heard Arakaki explain.

  “There’s some kind of defensive weapon ahead,” she said.

  “A defense weapon that boils them alive?” Caden asked incredulously. He realized after he said it that he was more rattled than he would like. His comment had no real value to the problem they faced. Arakaki had remained level-headed.

  “The water only boiled because of the pressure bleeding off from breaches somewhere,” Telisa9 said.

  “It might keep Quarus at bay by making it too hot,” Telisa9 said. “I don’t need to know the explanation. Send two grenades to hit it. Program them for directional detonation, straight into that device.”

  “I’ve got one left,” Arakaki said, taking hers off her belt.

  “I have the other,” Caden said. He told the grenade its target was the bulb on the ceiling.

  “I don’t think this model can swim,” Caden said.

  “Hold it out of the water and launch it,” Arakaki said. She held hers up away from the blobs of water that floated in the room, next to a wall. Caden followed suit.

  They unleashed the grenades. The weapons spun away, adhering to the walls above the water. Caden retreated back into the corridor.

  Ka-Wump!

  Caden felt the impact in his bones. Luckily the shockwave had come through the air, not the water. His link told him the grenade had reported a likely hit microseconds before detonation.

  More water boiled off. The current started to pull them again. Caden floundered in the chaotic environment. The walls did not have enough features for him to anchor himself.

  “Are we getting pulled out into space?” Siobhan asked. “I’m almost out of air.”

  “That means hull breaches like ours, only bigger,” Arakaki said. “We have to assume it’s our friends.”

  “Find our way to them,” Telisa9 said. “Head toward the noise.”

  In an instant, they became weightless. At first, the mass of water stayed below them. Then large globs of it started to detach every time one of them moved.

  “This is crazy. I hope we’re winning,” Caden said.

  “Frackjammers, I hope they know we’re on board, too!” Siobhan said.

  “They do! That attendant must have told them.”

  Suddenly a bright flash arced through the room. Caden’s external audio sensors fed him a sizzling sound like boiling water.

  “What?”

  “Electrical arc,” Siobhan said. “That was close, but my suit protected me.”

  A silver torpedo-shaped machine slid around the corner and headed for them.

  “Don’t shoot! I don’t think that’s a Destroyer,” Telisa9 said.

  “Drenched with rain, I’ve brought oxygen,” the torpedo said.

  “It talks like a Celaran,” Caden pointed out.

  I guess it’s actually a Celaran cyborg.

  “Thank you,” Telisa9 said.


  A section of the cyborg’s skin slid away to reveal a row of widely-spaced nozzles. Caden and Siobhan plugged into its body. Telisa9 and Arakaki connected on the other side.

  “How is it that our hoses fit this?” Caden wondered aloud.

  “I designed the connections for your Veer suit air-vines,” The cyborg said.

  Caden was impressed. It had designed and altered part of its body to get oxygen to them.

  “Thank you so much,” Telisa9 repeated. “I’ve got what I need.”

  “Grab onto me. I’m supposed to extract you from this dangerous storm.”

  Suddenly a bar extended from the cyborg, bent in mid-air, grew, and bent back to rejoin the machine’s skin. The result was a loop of metal perfect for Caden to grab. A glance told him that a bar had formed for each of the Terrans.

  Nice trick.

  “This thing can make whatever it needs,” he said privately to Siobhan.

  “The ultimate in versatility. The Celaran way,” Siobhan replied.

  “We should capture on of these ugly buggers and study them,” Arakaki suggested.

  The water lurched to one side, sending everyone with it. Caden avoiding hitting anything, but his already-stimulated adrenal system gave him another boost. Caden’s suit told him that another electrical current had surged through the water.

  Rumble.

  “We’re not capturing anything!” Telisa9 told them. “They’re mismatching their spinner! Hope The Five get us out of here now!”

  “Hang on,” the machine said.

  The powerful cyborg thrust forward, towing them with it. Caden grunted under the acceleration but held on for dear life. The water pressure rose before him, stretching his body back and pulling hard on his arm. They moved swiftly through the water globules. He was unable to straighten himself out against the resistance but kept his grip. He heard Siobhan curse but saw that she had managed to hook her arm around the bar, keeping her on board.

  They took a hard turn in an arc. Caden’s legs scraped along a wall, but his Veer suit kept him intact. He caught a glimpse of a Quarus body boiling away into space, forming shards of frozen black blood. Then they sped up again. He saw a melted deck filled with debris spinning about.

  Caden emitted an unintelligible sound as the cyborg shot out of a hole with glowing red edges and into the vastness of space.

  When it said hang on, it wasn’t kidding.

  As they left the station behind, Caden looked back and saw at least three breach points in the hull. He watched a Vovokan battle sphere obliterate a Quarus space robot that was trying to repair a breach.

  “Secure yourselves,” the cyborg said.

  What? I’m already—

  A ripple passed through Caden, clenching his innards. He felt like Magnus had planted a side kick into his liver again.

  Gravity eddies. This is the worst place I’ve ever visited.

  Caden looked ahead. He saw a Terran commando vessel which he assumed was their Iridar. He felt a relief beyond what he could remember ever feeling before. An assault bay lay open to receive them. The cyborg hauled them inside and brought them to an adjacent prep room, which sealed off and pressurized.

  “Did any of you happen to grab a piece of a Quarus floating around in there?” Maxsym asked them on the team channel.

  “If we don’t leave now, there will only be pieces of us floating around,” Marcant said.

  “Please don’t leave me alone out here,” Maxsym urged.

  Well, at least he sounds sincere, Caden thought.

  “Then why aren’t we moving?” asked Magnus.

  Caden looked at the ship’s navigation data in his PV. The Iridar lurched away, spiraling in one direction and then another, barely putting space between it and the Quarus ship.

  “The solution is complex,” Marcant said. “Adair is doing its best.”

  Ah. The spinners still have to be matched, so we can barely maneuver.

  Caden saw that the Celaran assault ship was also moving sluggishly. The two vessels continued their erratic retreat.

  “At some point we’ll break away and try to weather it out,” Magnus said. “Now would be a good time for crash tubes.”

  Caden tried to access the layout to find the nearest crash tube. Siobhan grabbed his arm and pulled him.

  “This way,” she said.

  They turned away from each other and went to their own tube on opposite sides of the corridor. For a split second before the hatches slammed shut, they stared across at each other.

  “I love you!” she called out.

  “I love you, too,” he said, but both tubes had already shut. Crash foam blasted in to surround him.

  Caden accessed the external sensor views brought them up in his PV.

  The base spun wildly. Caden was happy to see that it receded in all the views. He felt sure it was not built to rotate like that. He almost asked if they had been under a spinner’s gravity or just force from the spin when the base exploded. The sensors cut back to protect themselves from burnout. A shudder ran through the ship, but they continued to distance themselves.

  Already, Caden started thinking standard equipment changes to make and underwater training scenarios to run in VR.

  We won’t get stuck like that again, he vowed.

  Chapter 18

  Telisa stared at the four Quarus artifacts that lay before her on an examination table. They were amazing acquisitions, but Telisa could only think about what she did not have: Celara Palnod’s Trilisk AI.

  “You got all these from the ship? Wow!”

  She turned toward the voice and saw Magnus coming into the room. He looked at the items appreciatively.

  “You didn’t think I could step foot on an alien ship and not pick up anything that wasn’t nailed down, did you?”

  He shook his head and smiled.

  “It’s just that we were a bit busy—”

  “I know. I was honestly more focused on getting our team back. I only grabbed one of these things on the way out. Thank Siobhan and the other Telisa for pocketing more items while they were trying to free oxygen from that water.”

  “So what priority is figuring these things out?”

  “High. These things are our enemies now,” Telisa said slowly.

  “But we don’t really want to fight them. We only want them to stop attacking the Celarans.”

  “Yes,” she said. They shared a moment of silence. Then she continued, “Whether we try to talk to them again, or have to fight them, either way, the course is the same. We learn everything we can about them. These artifacts will tell us more, so we study them.”

  “Okay, if you’re going to make me, I’ll study the insanely cool alien artifacts,” Magnus said smiling.

  She smiled back.

  “When you think of it the right way, our job isn’t that bad,” she said.

  ***

  Telisa was alone in her quarters. Magnus had invited her to lunch, but she had not yet met him; she had to speak with Lee first. Telisa did not want any of the other team members to be aware of the conversation. It would make them suspect her plans before she was ready to defend them.

  She created a channel and added Lee.

  The Celaran connected quickly. She added a video feed from a ceiling optical monitor, allowing Telisa to see the Celaran flitting around the wide space of the cafeteria. The alien had added a live vine from outside the temple and started to grow it from one corner of the room.

  “Yes?”

  Telisa added her own video feed so Lee could see her as well.

  “Hi, Lee. I was going through the information you gathered from the Trilisk vine temple and I had a question. There was some kind of Celaran-like creature in one of those columns. Is it another hybrid like the huge flyers that can manufacture their own food from the sunlight?”

  “No,” Lee said. She halted in midair, drooping slightly.

  “What can you tell me about that thing?”

  Lee flipped in the air and flew
into the corner where the vine grew.

  “These creatures were our genetic relatives. They lived like us, drinking sweet sap, but they lived down among the roots. That’s why they were so strong and dangerous. They had to be strong and use natural weapons to survive since they could not fly away.”

  “We haven’t seen any of them. Did they only live on Celara Palnod? You didn’t bring any to live on the colony planets?”

  Lee flipped again and shimmered in agitation.

  “They are all dead. Gone long before the Destroyers came.”

  “So these creatures went extinct... how long ago?” she asked.

  “It would be a few hundred Sol years since the last one crawled on the stems,” Lee said.

  “That’s all? What happened?”

  Lee stopped again and slowly floated downward. She grasped a rubbery roosting cord with one hand and hung from it loosely.

  “They were like the ground things. Predator underleaf. Our races competed from primitive times when there was not enough sap, before we turned the vines into much richer sources of food. We learned to keep them from hurting us. Eventually, they all died.”

  “Really? You mean you... killed them all?”

  Lee flew under a table, then back out and found another corner. Telisa recognized the strange flight patterns as a fearful retreat.

  “We do not have that word. They were smart, but we were smarter. We learned to protect ourselves with tools and traps. They had tools, too, but ours advanced faster than theirs, possibly because there were more of us on the vines.”

  “How did that result in their extinction?”

  “We isolated them from us. We only meant to protect ourselves, but eventually, they died off. They could not compete with us, and they were not able to adapt to our ever-increasing restrictions. Knowing what we know today, we would not have done that.”

  Telisa decided the information was too important to keep to herself, despite her earlier desire to inquire discreetly. She had her link share the conversation log with Maxsym.

  “Thank you, Lee. That’s very sad, but also very interesting,” Telisa said.

  Within a minute Maxsym had caught up and joined the conversation.