“Well, that fork did come in handy,” I said. “But thanks.”
“Just in case,” she said. She led me to the mouth of the corridor leading to the bridge. “Now if we close this off—”
A door slid open behind us, and we both whirled. The first door on the other side of the hallway now stood open.
And the men who launched themselves at us weren’t here to talk.
I HONESTLY DON’T know why they didn’t shoot; they were both armed. Maybe it was because we were females, although I don’t think any man could be more intimidating than Rei was, toting that plasma rifle. Maybe they didn’t want to alert anyone coming behind us that they were laying an ambush. I didn’t have time to think about it, anyway. The one who ran at me swung his right arm across his chest as if he intended to backhand me with the handgun he carried. Stupid mistake.
I guess he wasn’t familiar with zelendu, or whatever art Rei practiced with her lovely rattan staff, either. Even without time to think, I leveraged one end of the staff up and then down in a sharp blow to his wrist as he came within reach. The gun dropped, clattering across the metal decking, and he howled, clutching his hand. He reared back, unwittingly setting himself up perfectly for my cross strike with the staff. Although I didn’t have as much room as I would have liked, I managed a modified swing and got a reasonable amount of power behind it. The end of the staff caught him under the side of his jaw and he reeled sideways, staggering into one of the skimchairs.
I’ll give him credit; he tried to recover. He grabbed the arms of the chair and swung it around toward me, then shoved. It skittered across the deck but I brought the staff down and swept to the side, knocking it out of my way. The thug made one final mistake—he lunged down and scrabbled for his gun. A quick down strike connected solidly with the back of his head, and he dropped the rest of the way to the floor.
I poked him with the end of the staff to be sure, and looked for Rei, in time to see her bash the butt of the plasma rifle into the other attacker’s forehead. He sagged to his knees, then fell forward with the slightest of moans.
Rei turned to me, saw the other thug on the floor, and grinned.
I said, “I think I get more points for style.”
She bent and picked up the pin-beam handgun her attacker had dropped. “Granted. But I’ve got a new souvenir, so I’m happy.” She flashed the grin my way. “Welcome to the sisterhood.”
“The sisterhood?”
“The sisterhood of kicking butt.” She tucked her treasure into the waistband of her pants and winked at me.
I suddenly thought of Pita—but she was still securely where I’d left her, too.
Rei closed the bulkhead door that sealed off the bridge from the corridor leading to the rest of the ship, and punched a code onto the keypad beside it. “Let’s get this garbage off the bridge, and get the others inside,” she said, but her voice had lost its light edge.
“What’s wrong?”
She glanced at the bulkhead. “I’m wondering how long those guys were in here, and what they might have done.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Sabotage?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a possibility. I’ll be glad when we can run a scan and get some eyes around the rest of the ship,” she said.
“All right,” I said, and grabbed my former attacker by the collar of his PrimeCorp jacket. But not before I pocketed his weapon. I figured I deserved a souvenir, too.
Chapter 38 – Luta
Cerevare’s Choice
THE BRIDGE OF the station, when I followed the Chron doctor onto it, was smaller than I’d expected—not much bigger than the Tane Ikai’s. But at the moment it was as busy as the bridge of the Tane Ikai had ever been. It was the command center of people under attack. Perhaps a dozen Chron had filled the room, and I was suddenly struck by the variations in their colouration. Besides the pale buff colour of the doctor’s chitinous skin, their hues ranged from more yellowish tones to light pinks, through a bluish-green. Now it was evident that their bone crests and ridges were highly individual. Some had spots or markings in lighter or darker tones, and several even wore piercings and adornments on their crests the way humans wear earrings.
Chron busied themselves at consoles, held low-voiced conversations, barked orders at subordinates. It was at once wholly familiar and totally alien, and I was glad Viss and Gerazan stayed close behind me.
From here, the space outside the station was visible, on screens and through a clear viewport that encompassed one-half of the ring level. I saw no sign of a planet, so I guessed we must have been taken past the wormhole we’d originally been heading for.
Outside, the scene was chaotic. More ships had arrived, both PrimeCorp starrunners and larger ships—obviously equipped for armed engagements—and Chron vessels like the ones who had attacked the Corvid station. They darted around the station trading torpedoes and laser cannon fire.
“Captain!” Cerevare’s voice broke me out of my contemplation of the battle outside the station. She rose from an eight-sided table where she’d been sitting in obvious conversation—conversation?—with two other Chron, one with buff-coloured skin like the doctor and a second with chitinous plates of a pale raspberry colour. Both wore the navy blue, white-lettered uniforms of the station crew. With her bright clothes and multicoloured sash, and her softly furred face among the hard, plated skin of the Chron, she stood out like an exotic flower.
Cerevare waved me over, her eyes shining with a light not of fear, but of excitement. “These are—well, I can’t actually pronounce their names yet, but they’re two of the crew of this station. They thought I might be a spy of some kind because of this—” she held out her arm, showing me again the tattoo on the inside of her wrist.
“I figured that,” I said. “Well, my friend the doctor here, whose name I also don’t know, sort of helped me figure it out.”
“PrimeCorp has allied itself with the—the other Chron,” she went on excitedly. “The split in their society, the one that Fha mentioned—this is the result. These Chron,” she swept a paw-like hand around the room to include everyone there, “they don’t want war with us, or with anyone. They were suspicious of us, but only until they found out we weren’t PrimeCorp. That’s why they brought us here.”
I nodded. “I thought as much. But speaking of PrimeCorp—we’ve got to get out of here, fast. It’s us they’re after, because they don’t want us getting home and telling the Protectorate they’re here. By being here now we’re putting everyone on the station in danger.”
I wasn’t sure she’d even heard me, because she swept on. “PrimeCorp’s involvement goes way back, Captain—all the way to the Chron War!”
“What?” The constant background chatter of the Chron voices clicking and whistling, the thump of torpedoes, the flashes of impact from the battling ships, all faded away.
“The Chron War,” Cerevare repeated. “PrimeCorp . . .” She glanced over at the two Chron with whom she’d been sitting. “If what they’ve told me is true, PrimeCorp was somehow responsible. I don’t fully understand how yet.”
I stared at her. This didn’t make any sense. PrimeCorp had been around at the time of the Chron war—not with the influence they wielded now, but still in existence. But how could they possibly have caused a war with aliens? And how could Cerevare have learned so much in such a short time? If the Chron didn’t speak Esper, I was damn sure they didn’t speak Lobor, either. And Cerevare had been familiar with only the few Chron symbols we knew from the war—and not even what they meant.
The station vibrated as another torpedo hit. They must have had amazing shields to withstand such an onslaught, but we couldn’t stay around to find out how long they’d hold. I hoped the Tane Ikai would still be intact when Hirin and the others got to it.
“Captain,” Viss said in a warning voice. I knew what he was telling me. We’d probably been here too long already.
I grabbed for Cerevare’s arm, but remembered in time that I wo
re the personal force field and slowed my movement. I put my hand on her arm gently. Her body heat was fervid through the thin fabric of her shirt.
“You can tell me the rest on the Tane Ikai,” I said. “We came to get you. We have to get out of here!”
Startlingly, she shook her head. “Oh, no, Captain,” she said, pulling back a step so that my hand fell away from her arm. “Don’t you see? I can’t go with you. I told them to tell you that.”
“Can’t go—what do you mean?” Viss demanded.
She spread her palms wide, taking in the station, the Chron, everything around us. “This is what I’ve worked toward—what I’ve been looking for—my whole life.” She smiled. “A way to understand the Chron. I didn’t even know it was possible to find Chron who didn’t hate us, and whom we didn’t need to hate. But now that I’m here—now that I know—how could I possibly leave?”
The station took another hit, and I staggered a little. My legs didn’t feel as steady as they had moments before. I hoped the doctor’s injection wasn’t wearing off this fast.
“Doesn’t seem exactly safe,” Viss commented in a dry voice.
“Once you’re safely away, we’ll return to the planet,” Cerevare said. “This station isn’t completely functional yet, but they have better defenses down there. We . . . sort of sparked an unexpected conflict here when we showed up. And reinforcements are on the way.”
Gerazan frowned. “What about your job for the Protectorate?”
Cerevare actually chuckled. “I think I’m doing far more for the Protectorate by staying here, don’t you? I’ve found out more about the Chron in the last few hours than we have in decades.”
“How did you do that, anyway?” I asked her. “I had the datapad with the translator, but even with that, we could only communicate on a pretty basic level. And I can’t leave it with you—I gave it to Jahelia Sord.”
She held up her own datapad. “I don’t need it. I tried to tell you, before they caught us—the datachip Fha gave me had a full translation program on it—they’ve had far longer to study the Chron, and more recent data. There was so much data there, so many files, I hadn’t found it until I searched for something specifically on language.” Her face and her voice turned very earnest. “Really, Captain, I can stay here. I want to stay here—need to, if there’s a new Chron offensive on Nearspace coming. We’ll need all the information we can get. And I can get it. The chip is still in my room on the ship—I copied everything on to this. So—I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to tell Lanar,” I said, only half-joking. I knew she was right. It was her decision to make, and I couldn’t force her to come with us. Having someone on the inside of Chron society could be more valuable than any other weapon if war truly was in the offing again.
“Tell him I’m—on a research sabbatical,” she said with a lupine grin.
“What if we can’t return to get you? How will you communicate with us? With Nearspace?” A million objections flooded my mind, even though I knew she wouldn’t be dissuaded and I probably shouldn’t try.
“The Corvids,” she said. “We’ll work out a way to contact them—send a message through the wormhole, maybe. We should be able to do that without having to worry about the asteroids beyond. And you’ll be in touch with them, too, or the Protectorate will . . .”
I shook my head. It seemed she’d thought of everything. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“In that case, I guess we’ll say goodbye for now,” I said, pulling her in for a quick hug. The quiet Lobor and I had become friends over the course of our strange journey, and even though I saw the sense in her words, a cold fear gripped me at the thought of leaving her here, in this alien place. She hugged me tightly too, and I almost gasped at the heat of her embrace. Lobors ran a much higher normal body temperature than humans or Vilisians—or Chron, I knew now—but I’d never been close enough to one to feel the full brunt of it before.
When I pulled away, she grinned her wolfish grin. “Don’t worry about me, Captain, I’ll be fine. And I’m going to learn so much . . .”
“All right . . . wait!” I put a hand on her arm, turning it over to see her tattoo. “Did you find out what it means?”
Eyes bright, she nodded. “Power, or energy,” she said, smiling. “Perfekta, don’t you think?”
“Perfekta,” I agreed, and turned away. My doctor friend waited near the elevators, and I hurried over with Viss and Gerazan close behind.
Another Chron, one with skin the colour of butter and armed with a weapon I didn’t recognize, stood beside the doctor. As we approached, it entered the elevator and stood waiting, and a second one, also armed, joined it. The doctor motioned us inside.
“Guess we’ve got an escort to the Tane Ikai,” Viss said.
I nodded to the doctor and said, “Thanks for everything.” Even without Pita here to translate, I hoped it might understand the gratitude in my voice . . . or maybe it could get Cerevare to explain later. I put out a hand, and the Chron took it hesitantly. The oddly smooth, seemingly jointless fingers felt strange, but its grip was firm.
There might be a future for us with the Chron, one that didn’t involve war, after all.
The station shook even harder under a renewed assault, and I quickly joined the others in the elevator. That future, if it existed, hadn’t arrived yet.
TO MY SURPRISE, our Chron bodyguards took the elevator only one level down, to the level the doctor had identified as officers’ quarters. Without Pita, though, I couldn’t easily ask them what they were doing. I had to trust them, and their plan became clear soon enough. At the rear of a narrow storage room, a ladder descended down an opaque metal tube.
“I should have known they wouldn’t be completely dependent on those elevators,” Viss muttered. “Gotta have an alternate route between the levels.”
The first Chron started the descent, and I followed. “Knowing about this might have made things a hell of a lot easier a little while ago,” I said.
“I know you lead a charmed life, Captain, but you can’t always get everything the easy way,” Viss retorted, climbing down after me.
“Har-dee-har.”
I had to slow down when we reached the next level, feeling ridiculously winded. Maybe the doctor’s injection was starting to wear off. No. I had to keep going until I was on the ship.
The Chron guard ahead of me glanced over his shoulder. He’d lengthened the distance between us and seemed impatient when he had to wait for me.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I muttered.
He entered another storage room with a hidden ladder, and we started down to the level where the Tane Ikai should be docked. About halfway down a shudder shook the station and my foot slipped off a rung. I threw one arm over the rung I’d been gripping, and clung with my other hand while my foot groped at empty air. A few thumping heartbeats later my questing foot found the rung. I stood still, stabilized but breathing hard.
“Captain? I can’t carry you and climb down this thing, so watch what you’re doing,” Viss said.
I felt indignation rise, then smiled. Leave it to Viss to try and goad me into staying healthy. “I’ll get there under my own power, or I’ll take cooking duty for a week,” I told him, continuing downward. A little more carefully this time.
We reached the bottom of the ladder and emerged into a thankfully empty corridor mere feet from the airlock door. I was surprised to find two men—PrimeCorp employees, judging by the logos on their jackets—unconscious in the airlock anteroom. The Chron guards split up, one accompanying us onto the ship, the other staying with the unconscious men.
“Rei’s handiwork, unless I’m sadly mistaken,” Viss said, leaning down for a glance at the lump on one man’s forehead as we stepped over them. “She does love to leave her mark on a man.”
I resolved to hear the story of how they’d ended up out there as soon as we had time, but that wasn’t now. We made it onto t
he bridge to find Hirin, his arm still in the yellow sling, with Yuskeya bent over his shoulder. Rei worked feverishly, scanning the ship to make sure it was safe to fly. The worst part, though, was when Yuskeya bent a finger in my direction and led me in to First Aid.
“She’s going to be all right,” she told me immediately, and I was grateful for the warning. Maja lay on the narrow gurney, pale and unconscious. One sleeve of her shirt had been cut away, and white bandages swathed her arm from bicep to her forearm implant. The front of her shirt bore a starburst of black streaks as if something terrible had impacted it.
“A couple of broken ribs,” Yuskeya said, noticing my gaze. “I’ve bandaged them up, given her shots for pain. I’m staying with her, but not because I’m really worried about her. I just don’t want her waking up in here alone. How are you?”
I leaned over and kissed Maja’s forehead, overbalancing and catching myself on the side of the bed. “Rotten, but still standing.” I tried to smile, but I’m not sure how it came out. “Thanks, Yuskeya, for taking care of her.”
“Thank Baden, too, he carried her from the elevators,” she said.
“I will. Cerevare’s staying,” I said. “I couldn’t convince her otherwise.”
Yuskeya raised her eyebrows then nodded. “I guess I’m not really surprised. She’d see this as an amazing opportunity.”
“I feel like I’m abandoning her.”
She smiled and put a hand on my arm. “We’re not all your chicks, mother hen. Sometimes we’re going to do what we damn well please.”
“I guess you’re right.” I glanced at Maja one more time. “But most of the time it’s my job. And that’s what I’m about to do. I’m going to the bridge now, and I’m getting us the hell out of here.”
Chapter 39 – Luta
Decisions of Last Resort
IT SEEMED TO take an eternity, waiting for Rei and Viss to run the diagnostics and scans and tell me that the ship was undamaged and functional. More small fighter ships had joined the battle around the station, from both sides. If the station Chron had received reinforcements, it seemed the other side had, as well.
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