Bartoc Secret

by Clara Woods

  Uz’s head shot toward him. She stared for several seconds, then bent down again.

  Lenah looked at the countdown. “Sixty seconds. At least sit down somewhere.”

  Both complied, and Uz strapped herself into the copilot’s seat, grabbing Zyrakath. He didn’t look happy but kept still when Uz shoved her notes into his arms and held him protectively on her lap.

  Lenah stared back at the screen. “Fifty seconds.”

  Her gaze flew over the screens. The shields were down, and their engine power was at a mere sixty-three percent. Not the best conditions to quickly get away. But there was no time to complain. No time to plan.

  Lenah wiped her sweaty palms against her pants legs, then grasped the flight stick, enjoying how familiar it felt in her grip. She could do this.

  “Ten seconds,” she said, tensing her whole body as she watched the countdown. Two seconds.

  The Star Rambler rocked. The sensation of leaving a warp bubble was never pleasant, but this one shook harder than usual. Lenah didn’t blink as the colorful swirls were replaced by the black emptiness of space. Lenah pulled the ship up hard. Two dots sprung to life on the proximity radar. One large—the part of Kalhhok—the other one a ship. A ship that was sitting on top of the rock formation.

  “Did we—?” Cassius asked but never finished when the Star Rambler was hit so hard from behind that it lost balance. The nose dipped sharply down, and Lenah was pressed into her seatbelt as they fell.

  She watched the screen. The largest chunk of rock hadn’t even reached them. This had just been a small taste of what was coming. Lenah flung her fingers around the weapons control on Uz’s side of the cockpit, pressing the button with all her strength. The Star Rambler lurched.

  Someone made a pained sound behind her, either Martello or Cassius, but Lenah kept her focus on the weapon. Something cracked into the ship, and Lenah’s teeth clattered. She bit her tongue and the weapons control slipped out of her grip.

  In the view screen, the empty blackness of space was replaced by dozens of pieces of rock overtaking them. Like a large hammer, another one collided with the Star Rambler’s hull.

  Down the corridor, someone screamed.

  Lenah dipped them sideways, avoiding a large boulder that was about to collide into the view screen. Then she pulled up the Rambler’s nose, getting out of the way of yet another massive rock. More stones pelted onto the hull, and a red light started to blink on the main screen. The hull in one of the cabins had been compromised.

  Lenah dipped again as another large chunk threatened to crash into them.

  Suddenly, the bright lights of laser fire replaced the rocks. Disoriented, Lenah blinked for a moment until she remembered the second ship. The Bartoc ship they had taken with them.

  The Rambler jolted more than ever, even making a loop in the air. More lights started blinking, and unexpectedly, weight lay heavily on Lenah’s chest. They plummeted downward.

  “We’re being hit by another ship,” Uz chocked out, staring in disbelief at the proximity radar. “But the gravity…”

  “We brought the ship with us on that rock,” Lenah pressed out, trying to conjure up enough strength to push air out of her lungs. The Star Rambler was now shaking so hard she could barely keep her hands on the flight stick.

  The Bartoc ship hit them again, this time in the starboard section. The screens turned off along with all the other lights in the cockpit. The emergency lights switched on, throwing a dim blue light over them.

  Lenah pressed the ship into a sharp curve, all thoughts focused on getting them away from the attacking ship. Everything hurt and her head pounded as the mysterious G-forces kept pressing on her. Where were they coming from in space?

  She managed to avoid the next laser blast. Lenah flew lower, feeling as if the flight stick weighed more than her whole body.

  Uz leaned forward with a groan and started to type something into one of the blackened panels on the dashboard. The emergency light lowered even more, but a communications screen in front of Lenah turned to life.

  “Why?” Lenah tried to ask Uz, but no more than a groan escaped through her clattering teeth.

  She tried to avoid the other ship when Saltoc’s border wall blinked to life. Like a puzzle of countless hexagonals locked into one. Was the wall possibly causing this gravity?

  Cassius pulled himself up with a groan and knelt in between Uz and Lenah. His enhanced fingers closed around the weapons stick. Lenah tried to turn her head. She couldn’t see the other ship, had no idea where they were. She flew them into a sharp circle, causing Cassius to crash into her side when a laser bolt came from above. There they were.

  Lenah pressed on the brakes hard and flipped them. Their loop was far from controlled. Several times the ship tipped sideways. Lenah countered as well as she could. When they were hanging nose-down, Cassius started shooting.

  Lenah held them there for a moment, trying to give him time, then gave thrust, not daring to present a target. At least her unpredictable flight seemed to have derailed the enemy ship and they didn’t hit again.

  The Star Rambler turned on itself, and the other ship came into view.

  “A code, a stupid code.” Uz, bent over the screen and winced. Lenah stared at the screen, getting a glimpse of Bartoc runes.

  “Lenaaaaah!” Cassius screamed, though it came out hoarse and breathless, and Lenah snapped her attention back to flying. She took a ragged breath, thinking that the G-forces were getting worse.

  She had lost sight of the pursuing ship again. Lenah spiraled upward in time to avoid a laser beam. She turned them back. Cassius tumbled back but caught himself on the back of Lenah’s seat. Her seat rocked from his weight, but it held, and Cassius snapped his other hand back on the laser.

  Uz’s head came up from her screen, and she stared at him wide-eyed. Her eyes met Lenah’s, but Lenah had no time to ask. She brought the Star Rambler around softly, flying into a curve, until the other ship came into view. They didn’t follow, but the bright light of their laser flashed.

  Cassius frowned. “They are not following. I think they’re hit.”

  Lenah flew into a wide dive, then away in a straight line. They didn’t follow.

  * * *

  “Shit.” Cassius pointed sideways.

  Lenah turned her head with some effort, struggling against the gravity. At least ten ships were approaching, already close enough to see through the view window. “Shit.” She agreed. “Uz?” Then Lenah turned the Star Rambler on a straight course toward the Saltoc border. The gravity instantly got stronger.

  “It’s asking…a keyword,” Uz wheezed. “No idea…how…in time.” She sounded defeated. “Need…alternative plan.”

  “Alternative?” Lenah tried to laugh but almost choked instead. “Back to the first planet? Recuperate.”

  “Didn’t…crack…like the construct’s password?” Martello asked. He was on the floor, his nose and lip bleeding but otherwise seemed unharmed. Lenah hoped the mages in the back had fared equally well.

  Uz, looking like a complete lunatic, stared at Martello. Her eyes widened. “Construct!” she bellowed so loudly; Lenah dipped the ship on instinct.

  Uz stumbled out of her seat and shoved Zyrakath into Cassius’s arm.

  “Uz?” Lenah asked, but the Cassidian was concentrating fully as she climbed over Martello to reach the hatch. With her thin limbs, she had a hard time struggling against the gravity.

  Cassius rocked into motion, dropping Zyrakath into Lenah’s lap, and went after Uz. He pushed her toward the hatch until she was in the corridor. “Keep…course,” Uz instructed. “Either working or dead. Zyr, be ready.” She vanished out of sight.

  Lenah flew into another curve. The other ships, not struggling with a beaten engine like hers, had gotten a lot closer. Luckily, they didn’t appear to be within firing range just yet. Lenah turned back, then kept flying what she hoped was an unpredictable pattern. She felt like a mouse being chased by a whole horde of cats. And she wa
s running straight for a wall with no escape. She sincerely hoped Uz knew what she was doing.

  Zyrakath started to move in Lenah’s grip, but his thin limbs weren’t made for withstanding such strong forces. Something crackled, and his wing stood in a totally unrealistic angle.

  He made a small sound that might have been complaint or pain— even though Lenah knew he didn’t feel physical pain—but kept climbing out of Lenah’s lap.

  Lenah looked down at him. His eyes shone with something Lenah could only call mad excitement. It was the same look she’d just seen on Uz. So, she helped him forward until he was perched in front of the screen Uz had been tinkering with.

  Lenah took another look. She saw runes and a red triangle in the lower third of the screen.

  “Zyr,” Uz’s strained voice sounded over the comm. The drone stirred, then tried to lift his finger. Lenah stretched out a hand to guide his hand toward the screen.

  “Fireball. Bartoc. The weird stick with an apple. Enemy.”

  Lenah blinked, but Zyrakath started to struggle forward again. Something cracked. His other wing. He ignored it this time, and Lenah helped his finger toward the corner of the screen. He moved it in wide arcs, marking down Bartoc runes. His progress was terribly slow, and Lenah watched the looming wall come ever closer. It was difficult to judge distances in space without any instruments, but she figured they were only a few thousand clicks away now. It was already taking up all the space in their view window.

  She kept making zigzags with one hand, holding Zyrakath with the other one. Finally, he had written a sequence of five runes, and his finger moved toward the other side of the screen.

  Suddenly, laser fire surrounded them, and Lenah crashed forward, losing her grip of Zyr. She lost sight of him as the Star Rambler jumped forward. The other ships had come into range and were firing.

  Lenah couldn’t breathe. The pressure on her body was unbearable. Her eyelids were glued to the front view as she was no longer able to blink. With effort, she moved her eyes back to the screen Zyrakath had been operating.

  The five runes hung there, but something else was blinking at the lower corner. Lenah stretched out her hand, feeling like it weighed several tons. Her progress was awfully slow, and a pained scream wanted to escape her throat. Yet, she was no longer able to scream. Or breathe. Her lungs started to protest as she put all her concentration into her hand. It went ever so closer toward the screen. She pressed her finger into the blinking button, on the verge of losing consciousness. Tears stuck to her eyes.

  Nothing happened.

  The Star Rambler was now so close to the wall that Lenah could see it flickering. Each hexagonal tile seemed to be made of a maze of light. Light that could probably burn them on the spot.

  Lenah felt unconsciousness descend on her. She thought back to the day she had met Persia in her family’s mansion, and they had stolen the Star Rambler together. Inwardly, she smiled. She would do it all over again. These last few months, despite all the hardships, had been the best of her life. She had made real friends, fallen in love, and even tried to do something good with her life. She regretted not finishing her mission to help. Humanity back home would be left alone, never knowing how close Lenah and several other mind mages had been to coming to their rescue. And then the bright lights were replaced by blackness.

  But not by the fog of unconsciousness. The border had vanished right in front of her eyes. Lenah took a deep, instinctual breath. The G-forces pressing down on her body were gone. The tears that had gathered in her eyes rolled down her cheeks. Lenah sucked more air into her lungs, feeling light-headed as the Star Rambler started to slow.

  Lenah shifted her head in disbelief when a familiar planet came into view. Juan’s World, where just a few days ago they had walked the dusty central street toward Thuat Jones’s house.

  Someone screamed down the corridor. Lenah whirled around, turning the ship to see what lay behind.

  The wall flickered once, then became invisible. But not a single ship was in sight. The Bartoc hadn’t followed them.

  Lenah flew a soft circle and put them on a manual course toward the planet. Holding onto the controls with one hand, she turned to Martello. He lay on the ground, curled in a tight ball. His lungs were moving his chest up and down. He was at least alive.

  “Martello,” Lenah asked in a voice she didn’t even recognize as her own. He stirred slightly in acknowledgment.

  Someone came trampling up the corridor.

  Cassius broke into the cabin, carrying an unconscious Uz in his arms. He lowered her slowly onto the copilot’s seat, then stared through the front window. “It really worked? This crazy Cassidian used a code from the construct, and it worked?”

  Lenah nodded, a wide grin spreading on her face.

  More screaming sounded from the corridor along with many frantic footsteps. Lenah froze.

  “The hatch is gone!” someone yelled. “Inside!”

  “What?” Cassius asked, but Lenah had already seen them with her inner eye.

  “Cassius, fly. Straight forward.” Then she was out the door. A terrible fear crept into her veins.

  At least ten Strikers huddled in the corridor, a group of ragged and bleeding mages. Penelope stood in front at the small window toward the cargo hold as Lenah shoved her way toward her. There were too many people, so she stopped, concentrating on her mind magic. She felt so tired, she could barely conjure it up, but many weak flickers, the familiar flickers of Muha Dara, came into view. And behind them, three Cava Dara.

  Lenah took a deep breath, feeling like her triumph had been instantly robbed from her again.

  “Listen up, everyone. Do not let them touch you.” Her voice, hoarse as it was, rang through the corridor and stilled the Strikers. “Concentrate on two of them at once and make them fight each other. Send raw emotions. Hatred, aggression.” Lenah closed her eyes to follow her own instructions, focusing only on the first couple of Muha Dara that had almost crossed the cargo hold. Lenah sent all her anger at them, demonstrating to the Strikers. All around, she saw hesitant streaks of mind magic going toward their attackers.

  “Funnel raw and strong emotions. Like this,” Lenah said and let the two Muha Dara attack each other.

  The Cava Dara hovered back just outside of her grip as the Strikers started to understand what they had to do. Faster than Lenah had ever seen, the group of Muha Dara was gone, their bodies torn to pieces. Then, the Cava Dara came forward.

  “Everyone, split into two groups!” Lenah yelled. “Build a wall, press them away.” She demonstrated with her power, and quickly, the others joined in. The Cava Dara hovered back. But they were pushing back, just three against several dozen humans. And then, they were gone.

  Lenah dropped to her knees when the resistance broke. Someone crashed into her from behind. Lenah ignored it and closed her eyes, frantically looking for the Cava Dara.

  She could feel their presence at the edge of her consciousness. Then something slipped into her mind. “We will kill you.” It wasn’t so much the words as their meaning. And as suddenly as it had come, it was gone, and so were the Cava Dara.

  Lenah opened her eyes, realizing she was the only one kneeling. Everyone else had doubled over, lying in a heap on top of each other.

  “Um, Lenah!” Cassius’s yell rocked Lenah back into motion.

  “What?” she asked, struggling to get up. She felt heavy as lead, tired, and completely cold. She was shivering, and the sweat had frozen on her face.

  “We’re going to hit atmosphere.”

  Lenah had never heard Cassius sound so nervous. That gave her the strength to turn around, climb over the Strikers, and stumble back into the cockpit. Cassius was right to be worried. They were not approaching the planet from a good angle.

  Lenah stumbled next to Cassius. He tried to make room, but she simply leaned over him, grasping the flight stick and trying to adjust the angle. With their motor damaged and a hull breach, it would be impossible to make the planet entry
pleasant, but hopefully, they wouldn’t lose control.

  The Star Rambler shook and flipped. Lenah lost balance until Cassius grabbed her and held her in place.

  Juan’s World’s dusty and semi-terraformed plains loomed in front of them.

  40 Gone and Back

  Lenah hardly recognized the dusty starport of Juan’s World. What had a few days ago been a flat piece of desert was now an expanse of rubble.

  Someone had cleared just enough to have one lane open for spaceships to land. Two other ships were parked at one end of the lane, and with no one there to give instructions, Lenah pulled in behind.

  No living creature was in sight. Lenah swallowed. What had happened here? When they’d left the battle behind, contact to the surface had just broken off.

  The others were equally silent, and no one moved when Lenah turned off the engine.

  Lenah stirred. She didn’t want to hear the sad story that had happened here, but avoiding it wasn’t going to make it go away. Cassius moved to give her room, then exited the cockpit behind her.

  Lenah nodded at the Strikers, who were staring at her with scared faces. They were a ragged bunch, all still wearing their bag-like garments and shaken from multiple fights, the harsh journey, and their recent losses. Many people had bleeding wounds on their faces or bare arms.

  Lenah felt guilty for having caused them so much pain. She cleared her throat. “This is Juan’s World. It belongs to the Last Inhabited Worlds, a cluster of planets that humans have been terraforming for the past decades. It lies at the fringes of human settlements in the Cassidian sector, but—as you can tell by our rough entry—a large battle with the Cava Dara took place here.” She paused, looking from face to face. She saw fear but also determination. “We will find the leader of this world, Thuat Jones,” Lenah said, and fear for the leader of LIW pulsed through her. “He is a powerful man here, but more importantly, he will be able to update us on the happenings of the past few days.” She walked down the corridor, and everyone made space to accommodate her. Lenah nodded at Penelope and Jann to walk in front with her and opened the hatch that lead toward the cargo hold.