T'nudluk frowned. “But your ship is not spaceworthy.”
“The scout ship is, General, and she’s fully armed.”
“A scout ship??” He scoffed.
“You seem to forget that one of our scout ships, flown by an experienced pilot, can take out a Creednax destroyer.”
“But your saucer that was damaged…”
“Was flown by an inexperienced pilot.” Zed finished. He motioned to the door. “Please general, we have many thing to accomplish before I leave.”
General T'nudluk held out a furry hand, which Zed took only a little reluctantly. “Luck in battle, my friend.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
Chapter 6
THE ROSE
It felt strange and still it felt very comfortable to Zed as the small scout saucer rose from the world or Myrth. From a thousand meters you could hardly see any damage at all on the Belerophon. “View ahead, LOLA.” The screen shifted. Despite his lofty position, or maybe because of it, the weight of LOLA’s warm hand on his shoulder gave him comfort. “ETA?”
“Eighteen hours, Captain. Scanners are clear.”
“Very good. Raise shields anyway.”
“Shields raised.”
“Thank you LOLA.”
“What can we expect, Zed?” Helen Sutherland asked from her chair on the far side of the bridge.
“I really have no idea, Helen. This could be a bit of debris dumped by the Creednax, or a ship full of people, either alive or dead or a mixture of both.” He said with a shudder.
“We should have waited and taken the Belerophon.” Helen replied with finality.
“The Belerophon won’t be ready for space, let alone battle for another week. We made it to Myrth after the battle with only emergency shields holding our air in.”
“Oh, I suppose.” There was a note of exasperation in the doctor’s voice.
Zed looked around the small bridge. “If you wish to eat or sleep, now is the time to do it.” He leaned over and touched his friend’s shoulder. “She’ll be okay, Mike.”
“I sure hope so.” The big Marine sounded glum. They’d all been in space for a long time now, and Zed knew that everyone was getting tired. Except for Krissk. It was difficult for Zed to tell expressions on Myrthraa faces, but he though he detected excitement in the alien crewman’s expression. He leaned back in his seat and shut his eyes.
He opened his eyes. His body felt rested from the brief sleep, but his mind felt as tight as a bowstring. “Slow to normal, LOLA. Sensors to maximum. Weapons hot; you have control.”
“I have control, Zed… Sensors indicate a ship adrift. Life support is below minimum, Zed. It couldn’t support humans.” LOLA was silence for several long moments. “Zed, it’s our lost saucer.”
Zed swallowed. “Creednax?” Mike was leaning forward in his seat, his eyes intent on the screen before them.
“No sign of the Creednax, even on long range scans. There is damage to the hull of the saucer, indicative of a battle with the Creednax.”
“Lifesigns, LOLA?”
“Uncertain, Captain. I don’t know what I’m reading.”
Zed could feel his blood pressure rising. “I’m going over there. I’ll take Dimitri.”
“Like hell.” Mike was on his feet, his face red. “I’ll be going too.”
Zed let out a long breath. “Get your suits on gentlemen.” He was surprised that LOLA didn’t say a thing.
Drifting over to the small saucer, Zed noted the damaged caused by Creednax energy weapons.
Zed’s eyes swung to a blast hole in the hull, surrounded by several heat warped plates.
The small hatch in the bottom of the saucer slid open easily, and the three men entered cautiously, weapons drawn. As the airlock closed LOLA spoke over their suit coms. “I’m running up the main power. Everything was shut down except emergency life support, which was in fail-safe mode.” The inner airlock opened and the men were greeted by the dead body of the CatTrace Ling. Zed heard Mike curse, or perhaps the curse had come from him. A thin squeak made him turn, just as the interior lights came back on. Three small CatTrace kittens were struggling weakly on the metal deck.
“LOLA?”
“Asphyxiation nearly killed them, Zed. The restored atmosphere will help, but they are all on the verge of starvation. I believe Ling died several days ago from an old Creednax weapon injury. She must have survived just long enough to give birth to the kittens, and nurse them a few times before she died. There is a dead kitten on the far side of the bridge. Zed was shaking as he topped the small ramp that led up to the bridge, and anger was on the point of driving everything else from his mind. In the low lights he could see dried blood on the floor, and the body of the small cat in the corner.
“LOLA?” He managed to get out in a choking voice.
“Analysis of the blood indicates that it is not from either Katherine or from Alina. Some is from the CatTrace Ling. The rest seems to be from Freya Gruber, a German researcher we rescued from Europa Base, and Xiu Mei Wén, a young woman we saved from the Chinese Lunar Base.”
“We sent them away so that they would be safe.” Zed was shaking violently. “I killed them.”
“Zed!” LOLA said in an alarmed voice. “I’ll just take control of this ship and…”
“No!!!” Zed roared. “This was Katherine’s ship. I’ll fly the thing back to Myrth myself.”
“But the AI is…” Mike began.
“I don’t need an AI!” Zed replied in a dreadful voice. “When LOLA, and Athena rebuilt me after I died, they gave me the ability to interface with digital systems. By the gods I’m going to use that ability! You take the other ship back, LOLA.” He reached out his hands and the bridge functions slowly came back to life. “Go with other ship, Mike, and you go too, Dimitri. Only the dead belong here.”
Dimitri crossed his arms and gave Zed a pitying look. “I died when my wife was killed on Europa base, my friend. I will stay.”
“As you will. You, however will go Mike. Alina is alive and needs you.” The small ship hummed as power systems came back on and the view-screen flickered back to life.
“I will not…” LOLA touched Mike’s arm, and shook her head. “Fine.” Turning, he stormed off of the bridge. Zed watched with blazing dispassionate eyes as a few minutes later Mike reentered the other saucer. When he was sure they were safe he held out his hand. In his mind he touched the main drive, and the small battered saucer streaked for Myrth.
Mike watched with some concern as Zed entered the bridge of the Belerophon. In the view-screen the two scout saucers sat a few meters apart on the tarmac, newly transferred nanites already hard at work repairing Katherine’s damaged ship. Zed only looked straight ahead with eyes the color of red agate.
“Everyone should leave the ship.” He said in a voice as cold as space.
“Why should we do that?” Mike said slowly, as he stood.
“You will never be able to get me down to sick bay to be tranquilized Mike, but I appreciate the thought.” Zed murmured through clenched teeth. “I will take the Belerophon, run her up as close to lightspeed as I can, arm all her weapons and fly her into the Creednax homeworld. E=MC? The closer the sh
ip gets to light-speed the more the mass increases.” He held out his hands and the bridge controls began to flicker.
“You can’t do this, Zed!” LOLA’s voice was shrill. “Katherine is still alive.”
“Is she?” Zed shut his eyes and the people on the bridge could hear the sound of power being rerouted as the Belerophon drives came on-line.
“Even if you crash this ship into the Hiveworld, it won’t be enough to destroy it.” LOLA looked around the bridge. “Oh damn.” She muttered aloud. “They were bound to find out sooner or later.” People were starting to edge toward the lift, worried expressions on their faces. LOLA raised her hands over her head. “Sisters!” She called in a loud ringing voice that seemed to echo off into a vast distance. “Help me help our brother.” Suddenly Athena, Boadicea and Cybele were standing in the small bridge. “He’s too powerful for me alone to subdue. It will take The Morrigan. The bridge staff watched in awe as The Morrigan formed before their eyes. Standing well over two meters tall, her dark hair nearly brushing the metal ceiling, she gave Zed a sad look.
“No brother.” She said softly. “You will not kill yourself. We need you, and we love you.” With The Morrigan standing on one side of Zed and Boadicea on the other, they held out encircling arms. Within the circle of their flesh, Zed wailed.
“No sisters… let me go. Let me do what I must do, before I kill more innocent people.”
“No brother.” The Morrigan murmured again. “You will come home with us, and you will heal.” A ball of cold fire enveloped the three standing entwined on the bridge… and they were gone.
~~~
The waves made a soft rushing sound on the beach, and the warm breeze smelled of the sea. Zed felt the sand under his fingers and the warmth of what he knew was the morning sun beating on his closed eyelids. Swallowing, he noticed, to his discomfort, that his mouth tasted as if a band of Persian camel herders had camped there overnight. He lay there, slowly remembering the journey to find Katherine and the other women, the discovery of the small saucer, and how he had tried to seize control of the Belerophon. In his mind he winced. THAT hadn’t been his most shining moment. He recalled the body of Ling, and the news that Freya Gruber and Xiu Mei Wén, both crewmembers entrusted to his safekeeping, were probably dead. He felt hot tears squeezing out under his closed lids. All that aside, it didn’t explain the beach. A rough hot tongue licked the salt trail on his cheek, and his eyes popped open.
“Hello cat.” He whispered in a hoarse voice. The cat, marked like a Siamese in shades of gray rather than tans or browns, looked up at him with clear blue eyes. The fur colors said that it was a female CatTrace. “You must be LanYing.” The cat went back to her licking. “Did you know that I killed your mother?” The cat didn’t bother to lift her head.
“She knows that’s bullshit too.” A deep male voice said. Zed turned his head and regarded Mike Flaherty standing barefoot in the white beach, wearing a tattered pair of cutoffs and a faded New York Yankees cap. He was tanned to a deep mahogany.
“What the hell are you doing here… wherever we are?”
Mike sat down in the sand beside Zed, and gazed out over the deep blue ocean. “I’m just checking out my retirement home, you know, repairing the roof, sweeping the floor, things like that. The neighbors were shy at first, but they’re coming around.” His glance indicated six tanned fishermen pulling a small boat out of the surf further down the shore. When he raised a hand in greeting the six waved back.
Zed lay back, hands under his head and shut his eyes. “We’re back on Olympus.”
“It sure the hell ain’t New Jersey. You’ve been lying right there for two weeks now. A week ago a small crab began to make a nest in your hair. If you had been human I might have worried. The cats arrived yesterday, so I figured you’d be waking soon.”
“Two weeks?” Zed opened his eyes, and then laughed. “I guess I really messed things up. I just saw the dead cat, the battered saucer and the blood… and I freaked.” He ran his hand through his sandy hair. “I knew in my heart I could never kill the Hiveworld that way. I just…” Zed stopped and looked out over the waves. “I just wanted to die. I was, am so tired of fighting.”
“We’ll have to work on that.” The soft voice of LOLA was concerned, but not overly so as she sat on Zed’s other side. “How are you feeling now?”
Zed chuckled. “Embarrassed as hell. I had all that power available, and I just wanted to kill myself. Stupid.”
“In that other universe you seem to have a protector looking out over you at times. We were wondering why your special protector didn’t step in to help you.”
Zed gave LOLA a long look. “You just don’t get it do you? Whatever it was, already knew that I would break. It just kept piling the bullshit up deeper and deeper and deeper until I inevitably snapped. They call it testing to destruction. The real test was to see what you would do when I unsurprisingly broke-down.”
“But… we couldn’t do other than what we did.” LOLA was frowning. “We had to save you.”
“You couldn’t do other than what you did — if you were a caring being. If you were still a machine you would have let me self-destruct and written me off as a failed attempt. I suppose it just had to find out if you cared enough to save me.”
“That was a dangerous gambit.”
Zed shrugged. “These are dangerous times.”
“Why the elaborate testing, then?”
A small smile crossed Zed’s face. “Perhaps it’s looking for a successor. More than likely it’s watching you three very carefully right now.”
“Four.” LOLA said firmly.
“Three.” Zed corrected. “It already knows me and my capabilities and limitations. That the test continues is a very good thing as far as I’m concerned.”
LOLA’s eyes widened. “It means you passed.”
“We passed. That was probably not the only test.” He rolled over to face Mike. “Do they have anything to drink in this village?”
Mike let out a low slightly unenthusiastic laugh. “They have a drink they call Taki, made from fermented honey and goat’s milk. It’s an acquired taste. The stuff runs about 140 proof, and after the first drink the rest seem to slide down real easily.” He snorted. “Three is my limit.”
Zed pulled himself to his feet. “Just the stuff I need to clean my palate and remove rust from metal parts.” He said with a grin. He looked down and offered a hand to LOLA. “Care to join us?”
She smiled and took his hand. “I’d love to try one.”
Mike brushed the sand from his shorts as he stood. “And here I thought you were smart.” He turned and led the way toward a small fishing village that might have been taken straight from Bali. Palm trees, heavy with cocoanuts hung over the beach and shaded the small houses.
“Nice place.” Zed stood on the wide porch of the house overlooking the wave-tossed ocean.
“Glad you like it.” Mike handed LOLA and Zed small glasses of a milky, tannish colored drink. Each glass contained about two fingers of liquid. “I have a small plot out back for a garden, and room for a few chickens.” He winked at LOLA. “My landlord promised me a stove, fridge and cable TV.” Mike lifted his own glass. “It’s best to get the first drink down in a hurry. Confusion to our enemies.” He tossed the fiery drink to the back of his throat and swallowed. His face turned red and he coughed for several moments. When he looked up his eyes were watering. “Good…” He whispered in a gravelly voice that spoke of burned vocal cords.
“Confusion to our enemies.” Zed sniffed his drink, regretted it almost instantly, and tossed his own drink back. He gasped, and could almost feel steam coming out of his ears. “This is a little smoother than the Balkan 176 Dimitri drinks. It must be the goat milk. His is a 178 proof vodka imported from the Bulgaria. They use it to kill brain cells and remove grease from engines.” He took a deep breath and swallowed, allowing the room to come back into focus. “The United Nations banned it under the Chemical Warfare Treaty of 2035
, and closed the factory. Loyal Balkans reopened said factory a week later and have been making it ever since.
“I’ll have to try it.” Both men turned to watch LOLA, who was giving her drink a dubious look.
“Confusion to our enemies.” With a look of determination on her face, she took a deep breath and tossed the drink to the back of her throat. Her face turned beet red and she opened and closed her mouth rapidly several times. Finally she let out a loud squawk, and flapped her arms like a chicken as she ran around in a circle, before vanishing with a loud pop.
Zed looked over at Mike and raised an eyebrow. “Well now, that was interesting. She probably had the feedback from her taste buds turned up to get the full benefit of the unique flavor. That will teach her.”
“Yup.” Both men held straight faces for several more moments before they cracked up with laughter. Mike poured two more drinks.
An hour later Zed left Mike sleeping on his couch. As predicted, the third drink had put the big Marine down, but then he was only human, or rather a digital copy with full human limitations. Zed had simply been drinking for the company, and not to get drunk. Alcohol had no effect on his digital body unless, as LOLA had done, he let it. Right now he walked the beach alone, watching the sun slowly settle behind the hill that held the temple. The world was gradually taking on a golden afternoon glow, and he wondered if it was like this every night.
“No Zed it isn’t. Sometimes it rains, and occasionally the weather gods grace us with a storm.”
He turned to look at Athena who was walking beside him. “I’ve missed you.”
Her eyes sparkled. “I’ve never been away.”
He smiled as he walked, looking at the sky. “I never noticed the rings on this world before. They’re very faint, but they’re there. If you had to pick a place to live, this certainly is the top of the list for beauty and climate.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You four fit right in.”
She slipped her hand through his arm. “We should go, Zed. Dinner will be waiting, and the others wish to speak with you. What you said to LOLA has posed many questions.”
...and they are us 3: HiveWorld Page 12
