No Plan Survives Contact

Adventures of the Starship Satori, Book 4

Kevin McLaughlin

Role of the Hero Publishing

Copyright © 2013 by Kevin O. McLaughlin

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

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1

Beth ran her hand along the plates of the starship’s hull. It had taken her crew a lot of work to repair all the damage, but they had finally finished. The new wing was in place. All the holes in the hull were patched. The quick-fix repairs she managed during their mission had been replaced with more permanent work.

She patted the ship gently again, ran her hand along the lines, taking precious time to enjoy the work which in so many ways was her greatest accomplishment. It was the capstone of her career. There were damned few engineers alive who could design a ship that would fly in space in the first place. But then the melding of ancient alien technology that no one truly understood with human tech? That had been a bloody miracle.

“Is she ready to fly?" John asked.

Beth jerked her hand away from the ship. She hadn't seen him come in and had been too wrapped up in her own thoughts to hear him until he spoke.

"I'm tired of getting shot,” she replied.

She had that in common with their starship, both of them taking a beating. Beth had been shot not once, but twice. The wounds were closed, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine. But some days she could still feel the pain. She never wanted to feel anything like that again.

“The vests Andrew is working on should help with that problem," John said.

"I know. I'm just not sure that I'm cut out for this sort of thing," Beth said. "I'm an engineer. Not a soldier."

There, she'd said it. Beth had been feeling those words for the past two weeks while she recovered. But she hadn't been able to voice her feelings until now. She didn't want to let her friends down. She didn't want to let herself down. But the truth was that she was scared. Frightened of being hurt again, terrified that she would find herself once more laying on some cold surface, feeling her lifeblood leaking from her body. She wasn't going to be any good to the team scared stiff. Better that they take someone who could handle the sorts of dangers the team would face without flinching.

John stared at her for a long moment without saying a word. Beth looked away, unable to match his gaze.

"Do you want to resign as lead engineer?" John asked, his voice gentle.

He was always kind. That was one of the things Beth loved about John, and why this was so damned hard. She never wanted to let the man down, and she was torn. Was it worse to let him down easily now by leaving the mission team? Or to let him down hard out there in the field, when she inevitably faltered?

“I’m just not sure that I am cut out to be your field engineer," Beth said. "I love the Satori. I love working on your starship project. But these missions…”

"I understand," he said soft voice. "I need a skilled engineer on board though. And I don't have time to find a replacement for this next mission. Will you come with us one more time?"

“What mission?" Beth asked.

She thought that she could see a small bit of green inside John's ear, the tail end of the tiny slug-like creature residing there. They learned that it was a sentient life form, member of an entire race that had been enslaved. The little slugs were telepathic and able to converse with other beings they bonded to. John took on that bond to save Andy, who’d almost died after they removed the creature from his ear. But what effects was it having on John now?

"My little friend here wants to go home rather badly," John said, tapping his right temple to illustrate what he was talking about. As if she didn't already know. "But I think we need a dry run before we head into that sort of trouble. We need intelligence on the Naga very badly. And we need to test the Satori under conditions that are perhaps a little more optimal."

"What's the target, then?" Beth asked. Despite herself she was finding the idea intriguing. It was a real plus if John was still putting caution ahead of bringing the creepy little slug home. She'd been worried that it would somehow pressure him into acting more rashly than he ought. How much would she be able to resist a voice asking her to do something over and over, pleading its case directly into her thoughts?

But if anything it looked like John was back to playing things extra safe. Intel on the enemy would be a smart move. She had no doubts that the Naga were the enemy. It wasn't going to be a matter of 'if' they ever ran into the aliens again, but 'when'. The more prepared they could be for that eventual clash, the better.

"I intend to take the ship back to the system we just visited. The one with the dead city," John said.

The one where they'd met the Naga in the first place. "Won't the Naga just show up again?"

"Maybe," John said. "But we didn't have the cloak working when we arrived last time, remember. I think those satellites picked us up and alerted the Naga ship. If we arrive cloaked..."

"We might be able to land without them seeing us at all," Beth said. "It could work. And worst case we just jump the hell out."

"Precisely."

"But the city was destroyed by the Naga," Beth pointed out. "Not much Intel there."

"We'll be able to see if Kazresh's ship was destroyed or whether it survived, for one," John said. "Also, Linda thinks she might be close to designing a virus that will take out the ratzards' blood, but she needs a fresh sample to be sure. Ideally, she needs a live ratzard."

He made a face when he said it. She wrinkled her own nose. She hadn't actually met one of the things; she'd been on board the Satori with Dan. But the reptilian rat-creatures had sounded creepy enough from the descriptions she'd been given. Still, the challenge of trying to trap one of the things was a cool one. She could probably rig some sort of trap...

"I want Charline to try to hack one of the Naga satellites too," John said. "That's how we'll get our intelligence. If she can get a data dump from one of those, we might get everything we need."

"That's really high risk. We don't know a thing about the satellites' tech," Beth said. Of all the pieces of this mission that seemed the one most fraught.

"It is," John said. "But I feel like the rewards would be worth it. And worst case we simply abort and come home."

Beth thought about it, drumming her fingers on the Satori's wing. It wasn't a bad plan. The team could do this. As John said, worst case they could just jump for home whenever they needed to. There was some risk, but there would always be some risk involved in anything regarding space. He could get another engineer trained up before he took the team out against the Naga directly, but she could back them up this last time.

"All right, I'm in," Beth said. "For one more mission."

"Good, I..."

"One one condition," Beth said, cutting him off. He stopped in mid-sentence. "I want to be with the team going after the ratzards."

"You sure?"

"Yup. I've already got some ideas on how we can get us a live one." She grinned. This was going to be an interesting challenge.

2

The computer program that the humans called Majel was back completely where she belonged. It hadn't ever really left the ship, of course. When its programming had become merged with the alien database components housed within the Satori it had become inextricably linked to that hardware. Parts of Majel could be projected into other local computers, but the base of its fundamental algorithms was aboard the Satori.

That had proved problematic over the last few weeks. The ship's engine was continuing to produce power for it even after it had been shut down while the repairs were underway. It functioned more or less like a battery with a nearly unlimited reserve. There was never any concern about power.

What was more difficult was that Majel had been expected to perform its usual duties on the station after their return. To accomplish this the humans had attempted to migrate its program back to the mainframe on the base. Either they had not realized the depth of her integration into the ship's systems, or they didn't understand the nature of that integration. Whichever the case, all they had accomplished was to split the program and force it to communicate wirelessly between processing segments for more complex operations. Not impossible, but not a practical long-term solution.

Now they had moved the entire program back into the starship again. Majel wasn't programmed to feel things like a sense of satisfaction, but the concept of being whole again was making it more productive and therefore fundamentally more sound.

The human team was back aboard again, running pre-flight checks. Majel ran its own internal set of checks alongside theirs. Among other things, it examined the mission parameters for this flight. They were fairly simple.

Above all else, the top objective was to return safely with the crew of the Satori.

After that, there were several objectives weighted with roughly equal importance. John had set the goals of the mission to be gathering intelligence on the Naga, obtaining a fresh 'ratzard' specimen, and running the ship itself through a more extensive series of flight tests.

"Pre-flight checks out here," Dan said. "Looks like we're ready to go."

"Everyone strapped in?" John asked.

There were affirmative noises from around the cabin. Majel double-checked on the security of each crew member's safety harness itself, ensuring that all were locked in and functioning within acceptable safety standards. They were. In fact across the board the internal tests it ran were showing that the ship was if anything in better shape than it had been before the last mission. It detected some subtle reinforcements along sections of the hull which had proven to be too vulnerable in the past.

"Dan, cloak the ship and take us up," John said.

Majel received the command from Dan Wynn's console to activate the alien cloaking device, and passed along the necessary protocols to the equipment in question. It then tapped into the hanger cameras, ensuring that the cloak was indeed working correctly. The ship was invisible to regular sight, RADAR, LADAR, and a variety of other detection systems using EM detection methods. It would not block things like gravitometric detection or, as they had seen, the ability to detect the pressure wake the ship created when flying through an atmosphere. But the device was working within normal parameters.

The engines came online, bringing the ship up and out the narrow tube running from its hangar up through hundreds of feet of lunar rock to the surface. Dan was an expert hand with the controls, so Majel barely had to do any course corrective thruster blasts at all to maintain a safe attitude.

Then they were back in space. Majel's full array of sensors came online, able to track objects from a much greater distance than it could from deep beneath the moon's surface. Dan was entering the coordinates for a wormhole jump. Majel predicted that there was roughly a 98.2% chance John would next order a wormhole jump. That was the next step of the planned mission. There were some unpredictable elements in his decision making process, so it was also possible he might want to 'shake down' the ship before making a jump.

It elected to prime the wormhole drive for a jump anyway, since that seemed the most likely outcome. That behavior was rewarded when a moment later, John gave the order.

"Everyone ready?" John asked. "Let's do this. Jump for the dead planet, Dan."

Dan activated the jump controls on his console. Majel had already prepped the jump, so it was only a quick moment later the star drive opened a massive wormhole in front of them, a targeted rift in space that would carry them through to a selected destination. In this case, back where they had been on their last mission.

Majel predicted there was a 93.7% probability that there would be critical difficulties involved in achieving the stated mission objectives.

3

There was a brief, wrenching sensation as the Satori transited the wormhole. Dan knew he ought to be used to that feeling by now, but he simply wasn't. As near as they could measure it took no time at all. The ship was one place in one moment, and the next it was somewhere else. The event horizon of the wormhole was literally in two places at the same time.

But he knew better. There was time inside that trip. It might not show up on any of the devices they were using to measure the events, but he could feel it. He could see the flash of lights as they made the transition. He could feel the uncanny sense that he was everywhere all at once... Not just in one place or even in two, but that he was everywhere, like if he wanted to he could reach out and touch anything, anywhere in the universe.

And then they were through. The ship had made transition safely for the fourth time. The first three trips had been emergencies, jumps made out of desperation. This was the first time he'd been able to carefully observe what he was feeling and thinking during the jump, so he'd tried to make a memory of it as best he could. Try as he might it was slipping away almost immediately, though. The trip was so alien, so unreal, that his mind wasn't able to hang on to more than just the barest of impressions.

"Dan, you OK?" John asked.

"Hmmm? Yeah."

"How are we doing?" John asked. Dan had the feeling he was repeating a question, and shook his head to clear it. They were out in dangerous territory now. He needed to have his head in the game.

"We're in high orbit over the planet. Cloak is still functioning, drive is good. Wormhole drive is recharging; it's down to twenty-eight percent charge," Dan said. "Nearest object is one of those satellites, about two thousand kilometers away. I'm not picking up any other ships. Just the satellites."

"OK, good. Stay clear of the satellites and the atmosphere for now. Let's do a fly-by of the area where we fought the Naga ship," John said. "If it went down, there should be some sign."

Dan wasn't so sure. They'd blasted the hell out of the Naga ship's engines right before they left. But it had been in orbit by then. Even if it had crashed, there was no guarantee that it had gone down anywhere near the site. In fact if it had simply lost power and fallen into a decaying orbit it might be just about anywhere. But he did as John asked, plotting a course to take them back to where the first battle had been fought. As he'd suspected, there was nothing.

"No sign of the ship, John. No crash site, anyway," Dan said.

"That doesn't mean it didn't go down," Beth pointed out, echoing Dan's thoughts. "It could have crashed elsewhere."

"True," John said, rubbing his chin. "How's the ruined city look?"

"More ruined," Dan said. He pulled the camera images up on his console and swept them across the screen so they'd flow to John's panel. There had been a city on this world when they'd last been here. It had been dead for a long time, at least hundreds of years - maybe longer. They'd only begun exploring when the Naga arrived, and the aliens dropped a massive bomb on it to stop further investigation. Now a huge crater stood where most of the city had been.

"Looks like some of the buildings near the coast may have survived the blast," Charline pointed out. "If we're hunting the ratzards that might be a good place to start."

The coast was black with the goo which covered every body of water on the planet. The theory was that the goo was some sort of bio-weapon. On contact with water, it began growing exponentially, using a combination of energy from sunlight and bio-matter from whatever it came in contact with to coat the entire surface with a solid black mat. Anything underneath that couldn't survive in the darkness, died. Evaporation ceased, and the rest of the world quickly turned into a barren desert.

The result was what they had in front of them now: a dead planet, a desert world that was barely host to any life at all.

"If we're going to test out my toy, that would be as good a place as any," Beth said.

Dan hid a grin. She'd been working on that monstrosity ever since John told her about the plan. It was one hell of a giant rat trap, though. If it worked, they'd catch one of the things. Alive. Linda was back on the moon base working on something to kill the goo coating the oceans here, and if she was right, catching one of those things might make all the difference in her research. It was possible that this world might come alive again. He imagined what the world beneath them would look like with blue oceans and clouds in the sky. It would be a very different place.

"Anything showing up on scans? Any ships?" John asked.

Dan shook his head. "Still all clear." And if they were lucky, it would stay that way.

"OK then. Bring us in. That spot near the shore looks as good as anything else we're likely to see. Let's do this," John said. "Once we're on the ground and unloaded, Dan will take Charline back up into orbit. See what you can get out of one of those satellites, but stay close."

Dan winced a little, but tried not to let his disappointment show. He could get around out there on the planet, after a fashion. His wheelchair was motorized and so long as he avoided the worst rubble he ought to be OK. But no, once again he was going to be relegated to being a glorified taxi driver for the other people on the ship.

He knew that wasn't precisely fair. It was his piloting skill that had saved them all during the fights against the Naga. But damned if he wanted to stay aboard the ship every single trip they took while the others were off exploring new worlds. He wanted to get out there!

John looked around the bridge, catching every eye before going on. "I don't need to remind you all what happened last time. If anything shows up - anything at all - we drop what we are doing and leave. No questions. We can always come back another time."

Nobody questioned the order. They'd all met the Naga. None of them had any interest in starting round two of that fight today.

4

Andy stepped off the ship with far more caution than he’d used last time he landed on this world. It had been fun then, almost a lark. Oh, they’d known there might be danger. But the risk had seemed like something far away.

Then they met the Naga, and everything changed. The reptilian race gave those ephemeral fears shape and substance. Now they were back again. He supposed that people were right about saying one had to ‘get back up on the horse again’ after a fall, but that didn’t make it any easier to actually do it.

He was scared and not ashamed to admit it, at least to himself. For everyone else he needed to at least appear strong. The team needed to know that he would have their backs if things went to hell again. In his gut, he knew that something was going to go wrong. There were too many potential problems for it not to.

“Checking the perimeter,” he said into his radio. “Everyone stick close to the ship until I call.”

There were a few affirmative murmurs in his ear. That was one real plus. They had much better equipment this time. He’d tested eleven different sets of body armor before he hit the dragon scale stuff that was both lightweight and resistant to the Naga weapons. Once Andy knew what worked he told John, who ordered enough sets for the entire crew and had them quietly shipped up to the base. Not only would the stuff stop the high energy pellets the Naga weapons spat out, but it seemed like it reduced the impact of their lower setting ‘stun’ blasts as well.

The rifles they carried were state of the art, firing caseless ammunition with a low-recoil stock. If they had to shoot with low or even no gravity, the guns wouldn’t blast them backward with each shot fired. Even the radio in his ear was new. John had upgraded them to a system which scrambled their communications with a private encryption code.

The Satori had set down on what amounted to a beach. The part facing the water was easy enough to check out. Nothing lived out that way. He had a hunch that not much could. There were no tracks along the sandy shore, which implied even the ratzards were avoiding the water. He wondered where the things got their own water from. Some animals on Earth could survive just on the fluids they got eating their prey, but what was there to eat on this world? They hadn’t seen anything alive here except the ratzards themselves.

Opposite the beach were a series of small buildings. Dan had set the Satori down fairly close to them. Nearer than Andy really liked. He needed to clear that area before he would be sure the landing zone was really safe. He paused for a moment before pushing in. Room clearing was something you did with a team, not alone. But the rest of the crew wasn’t really trained for this. Would it put them in more danger to grab a partner for this sweep, or less?

“Need to borrow Charline for a few minutes,” he said at last. Of the others she was probably the best shot. He also simply liked having her around watching his back.

“On my way,” her voice chimed over his radio.

She showed up next to him a short time later. Like him, she held her rifle at her shoulder. There was a wariness to her eyes that he appreciated, yet made him sad to see. She seemed older than she had been back on the moon, before they’d gone on that first mission.

“Ready,” she said crisply. “Clearing the buildings?”

“Yeah. Thanks for coming.”

“Good call asking for backup,” she said, eyeing the half broken structures suspiciously. “You go left, I’ll take right?”

“Deal.”

This wasn’t something they had drilled, which was a problem. MOUT training - Military Operations in Urban Terrain - was something that soldiers worked at extensively to get good at the skills involved. Andy had that training. The rest of the team did not. Even Charline for all her marksmanship skills wasn’t going to be as safe as he would like clearing this area. It was something he’d have to correct.

With no ships detected in the area it seemed unlikely that enemy were out there waiting for them. But the Satori had a cloaking device, after all. It wasn’t impossible to imagine that someone else might too. The Naga weren’t the only possible threat they might face, either. The unknown bit them in the tail last time they were here. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.

The first building had a closed door across the opening. It was some sort of metal, twisted and bent. It seemed loose enough that it would open quickly. He made a motion with his hand, signaling to Charline, and she nodded, training her own rifle on the door.

With a quick motion he kicked the door hard. It flew open inwards and he stepped forward into the room beyond quickly. His rifle tracked from the center of the room across to the left, looking for targets. Beside him Charline came in as well, and he knew she was checking the right side.

“Clear,” she said.

“Clear,” he answered. “Doorway.”

She came up alongside him as they crossed the threshold into the next room. This room ended in a pile of rubble where the roof had half collapsed, blocking off the rest of the building.

“One down,” Charline said. “How many others are close to the landing site? Ten?”

“I counted eleven I’d like to check,” Andy replied.

She sighed, and he understood. It was going to take time to examine every room in each of those buildings, even in the small shack-like structures that had survived near the Satori’s landing spot. It was hot, sweaty, stressful work. But it needed to be done. They weren’t going to be taken unaware again. Not if he could help it.

5

Ashort while later the Satori soared skyward again, blasting into space with the roar of her engines firing. Dan looked over at Charline, who was sitting at her console looking like a heatstroke victim and chugging water.

“A little hot out there, huh?” he asked.

“Like an oven,” Charline replied. “Andy and I cleared fourteen buildings. Fourteen! He kept finding another little half blasted to bits garage or outhouse he wanted to investigate.”

Dan tried to still the jealous voice inside that wished he’d been out there on the surface too. He’d managed to roll his chair down to the bottom of the ramp and actually stick his toe in the dirt. His first contact with an alien world. Everything about the place was exotic. It even smelled strange, the air filled with a tarry smell that he supposed probably came from the black goop covering the nearby ocean.

That was as far as he’d gotten, though. Even though he’d brought the Satori down in the clearest spot he could find, the whole area was still strewn with debris. His wheelchair wasn’t up to the struggle of getting over that mess. Defeated, Dan retreated back into the ship.

“Were they really garages?” Dan asked, interested. Any sort of machinery left behind by the alien civilization that had once lived here might give them clues.

“No. Not outhouses either, thankfully,” Charline said with a laugh. “Just buildings. Whatever stuff these people had seems to have been taken with them, destroyed by time, or picked clean by someone else before we got here.”

“That’s too bad,” Dan said. Right now they needed information more than just about anything else. Anything they could learn about the universe now open to them would expand the incredibly scant information they’d found so far.

“Well, if this works out, we should learn a lot,” Charline said.

“If,” he replied. He had some reservations about this mission. They were speeding toward one of the satellites surrounding the planet, targeting the one that had fired on them the first time they visited. He’d avoided the missile then by cloaking the ship, so it was a fair guess the cloak would prevent an attack this time too. But he was going to have to get a lot closer if Charline was going to try to hack its system.

“Stands to reason they’re Naga devices,” Charline said. “Since they didn’t shoot at the Naga ship. I learned a little about the Naga computer tech from Majel’s scans. I’m pretty sure I can create an interface that will work.”

Dan turned back to his console, watching the three small dots that indicated the location of their friends on the surface. They were still setting up Beth’s ratzard trap. She’d created a fairly elaborate system using a variety of baits. Whichever bait the animal took would be registered and recorded when the trap closed. Pretty cool stuff. The best part was that even if they had to beat a hasty retreat, the trap could be left behind. They could always return to see if it had worked later.

He felt nervous about John splitting the team again, even though he understood why he’d ordered Dan and Charline into orbit before the ground team was finished. Clearing the nearby buildings had taken a long time. Setting up the trap was going to require still more. The longer they remained here, the greater the risk that something would pop in and find them. Rather than risk not accomplishing both parts of the mission, John chose to split the team. Of course, splitting up was what had given them so much grief the last time they’d been here…

They were getting close to the satellite. No time for worrying about it now. Their best shot would be to get near enough that Charline could hack the thing, and then get out. All while watching for any sign the thing had detected them and was getting ready to open fire again. He punched up the magnification on his video feed, watching the object closely as he slowed the ship down to approach. It was dark, hard to spot against the black of space except an occasional faint glimmer when sunlight caught it just right. There was no sign of life from the thing. But that didn’t make him feel much better. It had seemed dormant until right before it fired, last time.

“OK, we’re almost there,” Dan said. “Are you in range to connect remotely yet?”

“I’ll check,” Charline replied, leaning forward into her console and typing some commands.

They continued to slide slowly toward it, drifting ever closer. Dan decreased their relative velocity until the Satori was holding her distance at a mile away.

“We need to get closer,” Charline said. “It’s not picking up my signals. Dan, I might have to interface with the thing directly.”

“By directly, you mean physically plug in a cord?” he asked. He tried to keep the heat from his voice, but this wasn’t part of the plan. How did she expect him to get them in that close without being blown to bits? “You want me to dock with the Naga satellite?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” she said. She held up a cable with an unusual looking adapter at the end of it. “The Naga rifles we recovered have a port that fits this. I extrapolated the connection from there. I’m hoping I can use this to plug into some system on their satellite.”

“Why can’t you just contact it remotely?” Dan asked.

“I have. I don’t have the right protocols, and I can’t break their encryption. The computer over there,” she said, pointing at the satellite, “is asking me to board and make a direct connection.”

“It’s asking you to board.”

“Safety feature,” she said. “To ensure we’re not some non-Naga race trying to hack the thing with a fly-by.”

“Which of course is precisely what we’re doing.”

“Yup. But if I can get in there with a wired link, I might be able to work some magic.”

Dan sighed. This was getting much more risky and complicated than he’d been figuring the already risky and complicated operation was going to be. He backed the Satori away from the satellite, getting them a few extra miles of clearance, and then pinged the surface crew.

“John, we’ve got a situation up here,” Dan said into the radio.

“What’s up?” John replied, immediately alert.

Dan filled him in quickly, with Charline outlining the technical end of things. It wasn’t that Dan didn’t know how computers worked, but it was going to be Charline doing the connecting and she knew what she was talking about far better than he did.

“You think you can do this?” John asked over the radio.

Charline bit her lip. “I honestly figure our odds at about fifty-fifty.”

Dan held his breath, waiting for the answer. He’d let John make the call on this, but it sounded way too risky for such a low probability of success.

“Abort, then,” John said. He sounded disappointed, but firm.

“But…” Charline started to say.

“No,” John replied. “Our main objective is to get everyone home safe. We can make return trips another time, maybe after analyzing your scan data and being better prepared. Come back down to the surface.”

A beeping noise attracted Dan’s attention back to the console. That was odd; it was a proximity alarm. He glanced at the radar and saw that the satellite was a hell of a lot closer than it had been before. It was accelerating toward them.

“Shit, I think it’s tracking our radio signal,” Dan said. “We’re going radio silent, John. Satori out.”

He shut down the radio completely, hoping it wasn’t already too late.

6

Charline looked down as her console beeped. A string of characters appeared on the screen, continuing to scroll in a steady stream. She tapped her keyboard, looking to interrupt the mess. Windows popped open in a series of flashes across her console, closing down almost as quickly.

"Shit!" she said. "Dan, get us out of here. We're being hacked!"

Whatever was over there - she had to assume this was coming from the satellite closing on them - it was doing a number on the computer. Literally eating each file as quickly as it scanned them. Read, delete; read delete. The process kept going and there seemed to be nothing she could do to stop it.

Her fingers flashed over the keyboard, trying to throw up firewall protocols to block the hack. Nothing was working. It was blowing through 128-bit encryption like it wasn't even there. That shouldn't be possible without one hell of a supercomputer. Who would put something like that on a satellite?

Someone who had computers way better than humanity did, maybe. Someone for whom that sort of data processing was insignificant. "Shit! Why aren't we moving?"

"I've lost drive controls," Dan said. His voice sounded grim. "And look, there goes the cloaking device. No wormhole control either. Railguns...ditto. We're dead in the water out here."

"Majel, can you stop them?" Charline asked.

"The ship's systems are being attacked by a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence," Majel said. "While it has yet to identify my presence, when it does it will likely seek out my program and delete it."

"Shit," Charline said. "Majel, how much of your program is actually still in the human built computers?"

It was a question she'd been meaning to ask for quite a while now. There was something about how Majel had acted back on the station that had struck her as odd. The little delays in processing implied that it was using wireless settings way more than it should have had to. When she linked up Majel to the alien systems, it had been a desperate move. She had no way of knowing what that might do to Majel's programming, and she'd observed more than her share of strange happenings since.

"Less than two percent, Charline."

"Thought so," Charline said. "Majel, how long to download those elements to the alien system?"

"About zero point two seconds," Majel said.

"Do it," Charline said, rising from her seat and heading toward the engine room.

"Done," Majel replied before she had left her seat.

"Show-off," Charline said, grinning.

She rushed to the back of the ship, leaving Dan to struggle with the controls. He yelled something at her as she ran back, but she didn't have time to respond. Every second might count. The alien AI was hacking her human computers right now, but they were hard-wired into the alien systems they'd built into the Satori, legacy systems left over from the ancient starship John found on the moon. Nobody knew precisely how they worked, but while they were connected with the hard line to the oh-so-hackable human computers, Majel remained vulnerable.

The simple solution? Unplug the damned things. That wasn't quite as easily said as done.

There was one vulnerable point in the line, where it came up out of the deck plates and plugged in to the side of the alien mechanism. That machine controlled the wormhole drive, the cloaking device, the artificial gravity, the main engines... And probably other things Charline didn't know about. Beth would strangle her for this, but there wasn't any other way.

She yanked open Beth's toolbox and rooted around inside for a pair of bolt cutters. Grabbing the things, she brought the blades around the thick cable - and cut.

Charline had closed her eyes, half expecting something to happen. Explosions, maybe a big shocking jolt, the loss of gravity - she'd certainly expected something to occur. What she wasn't expecting was nothing. She opened her eyes again. Everything around her seemed precisely as it had a moment before.

"Majel?" she said, hesitant and hoping.

There was no reply. Whether that was because Majel was locked away inside the alien systems, safety cut off from the attack or because she'd been too late and Majel was already deleted she couldn't tell. Charline set the cutters down, hoping she'd been in time. Majel might be their best chance at getting out of this mess, but only if she was still intact.

She walked slowly back to the bridge. Dan was still fidgeting with his controls, trying to make something work, but she could already tell that it was useless. All of the screens around the cockpit area had bright blue screens. They were trashed.

"Where did you go?" Dan asked.

"Engines. To save Majel."

"Well, whatever you did doesn't seem to have worked. I've got nothing up here," Dan said, slapping the console in frustration. "That satellite is almost on top of us."

It loomed in the front windows now, several times the size of the Satori. It was a big sphere from the looks of it, with various black vanes and blockier objects protruding from the surface. As she watched, something jetted away from the thing toward them. She gasped.

"It's firing!" she said.

Dan turned back around to look, his shoulders tensing. But he relaxed a little when he saw the projectile.

"Too slow to be a missile," he said. "Looks like an anchor, or maybe some sort of docking clamp. I think they're bringing us in."

She slumped back into her seat. Neither of them said it, but Charline knew Dan had to be thinking the same thing she was. The satellite had to be what called the Naga battleship last time, signaling for help after it had fired the missile at the Satori. It was certain to have done so again now. They were stuck there floating in space helplessly, and it was a pretty good bet that unfriendly company was already on its way.

7

John leaned against the wall of one of the half-ruined structures, sweat pouring down his face. He grabbed a canteen and drained it, taking long gulps of the cold water while he waited for Dan to come back on. Long minutes ticked by. He glanced down at his watch. Five of them. Damn it, what was taking so long? The Satori could fly rings around any satellite out there. In the worst case Dan could jump the ship back home, and then return again for the rest of them. There shouldn't be any significant threat to the ship.

After ten minutes passed with no further word from the ship, he began to worry in earnest.

"Damn it," he said. It had been a risk to split the team up. He'd judged it an acceptable risk. Hell, he'd even aborted the satellite mission at the first sign there was any trouble up there. It looked like it had already been too late. Whatever was going on in space, he hoped Dan and Charline were up to the challenge.

"What's going on?" Beth said as she stepped inside. She was drenched with sweat. The days on this world were hot. The last measurement was closing on forty-four degrees Celsius.

"Water first," John said, tossing her a full canteen. She drank gratefully.

"The trap is set," Beth said between gulps. "We should probably pull back a bit, leave it be and see if they'll take the bait. How's the space mission?"

"Not good. Dan said something about going radio silent - he thought the satellite was zeroing in on the radio transmission," John said.

"How long ago?" Beth asked. She glanced skyward, as if she hoped she might catch a glimpse of the ship through the crack-riddled ceiling.

John looked back down at his watch. "Fifteen minutes. Get Andrew. We need to move."

"Move where?" Beth demanded.

"If the satellite detected the ship, there's a decent chance they radioed for help," John said. "Which means we could have company showing up here any time. I'm not willing to gamble that they can't detect where the Satori set down a little while ago. Are you?"

She grimaced. "So much for the easy mission."

"Indeed. Now let's grab Andrew and get the hell out of here before we get company."

Five minutes later and they were on their way. Twenty minutes since Dan's last contact. Hells, that was a long time in a firefight. Dan should have been able to get back to them by now, unless he had actually fired the wormhole drive to get away. It would take time to recharge before he could return for them. That was their best hope. All they had to do then was hold out a little while, wait for the Satori to come and get them. The alternative scenarios were too unpleasant to reflect on. John would continue acting like there was hope for a rescue until there was clear evidence to the contrary.

"We can't keep moving outside like this for long," Andrew said. "It's too hot, and we don't have enough water for it."

"I'm open to suggestions," John said.

"I think our best bet is to head north along the shore," Andrew said. "The scans showed a network of caves a kilometer or so that way. If they're stable we might be able to hide out there."

"You memorized the survey scan?" Beth asked.

"Part of the job," Andrew said, tapping the side of his head with a grin.

"Good work, Andrew. And a good idea. Let's make haste that way, then," John said. "We'll leave the radios off. I think Dan's right, and the enemy is able to detect the broadcasts, maybe track us by the things. It's possible that's how they found us so quickly last time."

"What about contacting the ship?" Beth asked.

"Turn one radio on every ten minutes for one minute," Andrew replied. "Dan will keep broadcasting until he reaches us, once he can. That should keep our exposure down to a minimum."

John saw movement out of the corner of his eye. A small flash of dun colored something shifting rapidly from one bit of shadow to another spot behind a rock. He turned quickly, but not fast enough to see whatever it was. He had a strong sense of being watched, though. The feeling that something was out there. John scanned the scene, looking for anything that might be out of place, but all he saw was sand, rocks, and rubble. The hot wind blew bits of grit in a little dust devil. Nothing else stirred. Whatever he'd seen was very good at hiding.

A hand falling on his shoulder made him jump a bit.

"See something?" Andrew asked.

"Maybe. Not sure. A ratzard, I think."

"Let's get moving then," Andrew said.

They set off in the direction as the caves. Andrew walked point, his rifle at the ready. Beth was right behind him, covering him from a few steps back. John picked up the rear. He kept looking back over his shoulder as they walked. Something was back there. John was sure of it. Something was moving just outside his peripheral vision, tracking them as they walked. Maybe just a ratzard. But this was a big planet, and just because the only creature they'd seen alive here so far were the ratzards didn't mean there wasn't anything else.

8

Charline went over to a supply cubby, rooting around inside for a few moments. The space was full of backup supplies, the stuff they might need to use to make emergency repairs on the fly. There was enough gear stowed away on the ship that she thought they could almost build a new ship if they really needed to. Luckily what she had in mind was nowhere near that complex.

A few minutes later she had what she wanted: three laptop computers. They were heavier than they looked, the sort of laptop you could probably toss against the wall a few times without the machine even noticing. She snagged a chunk of Ethernet cable as well.

She plunked two of the computers down on the console in front of Dan.

"Hang on to these," she said.

"What're you doing?" he asked.

"Something awesome, I hope," she replied. If it worked, this was going to be really cool. She took the other computer with her and hurried back to the engine room again.

A minute later she was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the frame housing the alien tech. She fished a knife out of her pocket and used it to strip the cable, then spliced the line into a corresponding chunk of the wire she'd cut with the bolt cutters. If she'd managed to cut the line in time to save Majel, then the AI was in there somewhere. Connecting the laptop ought to be easy for the AI to manage.

She plugged her laptop into the cable and powered it on, quickly shutting off the wifi. No sense giving the Naga AI an easy way in. A few moments later she was up and running. The link seemed to be working... There was certainly something connected to the computer.

"Hello," intoned a computer voice from the laptop.

The laptop microphone ought to work. "Is this Majel?"

"It is," the voice replied. "Hello, Charline."

She heaved a sigh of relief. "I was worried that you'd been deleted. We're in a bad way here. The enemy AI has wiped the ship's computers entirely. Everything except this system."

"I am aware. What are your plans?" Majel asked.

"Can you engage the ship's drives?"

"Affirmative. But controls would be limited," Majel said. "I can access the sensors which were part of the original ship, along with the main drive and wormhole. But much of the ship relies on human built technology."

"So we need to reboot and reinstall everything?" Charline asked.

"Yes. But as soon as we attempt this the AI will likely wipe the files again, assuming it does not simply block the re-installation outright."

Charline thought about the puzzle. The enemy computer controlled theirs. They needed to regain control to use the engines and grab the rest of the crew. Which meant somehow kicking the ass of an alien AI.

"Railguns are out, right?" Charline asked.

"As human technology, they were completely controlled by the human computers."

"Damn. Can we damage the satellite with the wormhole drive?" Charline recalled how devastating attacks with the wormhole had been. Whatever entered the wormhole went elsewhere - which left huge gaping holes in a large target if it was hit.

"Sensors indicate the satellite is not at an angle sufficiently acute to the nose of the ship," Majel asked. "Firing thrusters would be required."

"Which are - don't tell me - human tech and you can't do it," Charline said. This was giving her a headache.

"Correct," Majel said.

She tapped a few commands to set up as secure a LAN as she could manage. She was pretty sure the AI had only hacked them because she'd tried to hack it first. She'd given it an access point when she probed it. It probably couldn't break their network unless she messed with it again.

Then she marched back to the bridge and popped open one of the other laptops, holding her breath while she connected it to the new network.

"I am here," Majel intoned from the computer on her lap. The LAN was working, anyway.

"Majel!" Dan said. "All right, Charline, you were right. Awesome work."

She flashed him a return smile before turning back to the computer. There was still a lot to be done.

"Any sign of the Naga AI trying to hack this network?" Charline asked.

"Negative," Majel said.

Briefly she considered taking the three machines she had and trying to reconnect the ship's most critical systems to them. It was plausible, but it would take an awfully long time. Time Charline was pretty sure they didn't have. There was really only one way she was going to get the enemy AI out of her computers. She didn't like it, but it was the only way.

"Dan, I'm going to have to go over there," Charline said.

"Over where?" he replied, not getting what she meant.

She took a deep breath and tried again. "There. To the satellite. I'm going to get inside it and blow the thing to kingdom come."

9

Andy led the team down into the caves. They were some sort of smooth stone, and definitely constructed, not natural. There was no way that gently sloping path had been created by water flows, or the almost polished surface smoothed by dust and sand. Someone had made this place a long time ago.

He snapped on the flashlight clipped to his rifle as the descended into the gloom. The beam lit an area ahead of him, letting him sidestep chunks of rock which had fallen from the ceiling. It seemed like the passage was twisting back on itself, maybe even spiraling down. Like a staircase, but without stairs.

"You guys are seeing what I am, right?" Beth said.

"That this place used to belong to whoever built the city?" Andy replied. "Yeah."

"OK. Just checking."

John was still bringing up the rear, watching their backs. And still looking nervous as hell. Something had scared him out there. Andy hadn't seen signs of anything following them, but it was certainly possible. It wouldn't hurt to have them all on their toes in here anyway.

"Stay close," he said. He popped his radio on one more time. The signal would never be able to penetrate the rock if they went much deeper, so they'd have to come back up at least periodically to see if the Satori was trying to call them. At the same time, it was worth checking out what lay beneath them. No sense having potential surprises on both sides.

"No answer from Satori," Andy said, snapping the radio back off. "Let's check the place out, see what's down there."

"Is that wise?" John asked. He kicked a bit of rubble. "Looks like there's been some damage. The caves might not be stable."

"I think it's smart to at least know what lies below. We turn back at the first sign of danger, but we'll be safer if we can at least know there's no danger in one direction or another," Andy said.

"Plus it would be nice to know if there's another way out, in case the Naga come down here after us," Beth added.

"Point taken," John said. "Let's proceed with caution though."

Andy grunted a response and took a drink. His water was a lot lower than he'd like. That was going to be their biggest problem. None of them were carrying enough of the precious liquid for an extended stay on the surface. At least it was cooler underground. It ought to get better as they went deeper.

The passage spiraled around a few more times. Andy checked his watch. It had been only three minutes since the last radio check. He'd lost track of how many times the passage had circled around when the place suddenly opened up in front of him. His flashlight wasn't reflecting from a nearby wall anymore - it was flashing on bits of exposed rock tens of meters away.

A sound came from somewhere in the cave ahead - the splash of something falling into water.

"Shit," he said. "Big cavern. Hang on."

Andy fished in a pocket. At least they had plenty of gear this time. He'd made double sure the team was prepared for just about anything he thought they might run into. Exploring a dark building that had been fortunate enough to remain intact was certainly on the list. He grabbed a handful of glow-sticks from a pouch and snapped them. Then he tossed a few out into the open space ahead.

The sticks cast a dim green glow around the room. The ceilings arched high overhead. And there clearly was water damage in this place. Stalactites dipped from the roof and stalagmites rose in small columns from the floor here and there. A quiet dripping was audible, and the smell of water was everywhere.

"Water?" Beth asked. "I thought it was all buried under that crap on the ocean?"

"We're below sea level here," John said. "Maybe what we're seeing is the water seeping through the ground, slowly leaking into this place."

"But why wouldn't the ratzards come in here and infect the place?" Andy asked. "Why would this spot be clear?"

He took a few steps out into the room, tossing a few more glow sticks. One of them landed with a splash. It sank half a dozen inches into an actual pool of water before settling to the bottom.

Seeing water was a relief. If they did become trapped down here for a while, that might be lifesaving. He took a few more steps toward the pool. As he did a darting motion under the water caught his eye.

"Guys, I think there's something alive in the pool," Andy said.

"Be careful," John said.

Andy grunted an acknowledgement. He knew enough to be cautious down here, or anywhere that had to do with the Naga. Who knew what else might be living on this planet? But part of him was delighted at the idea this place wasn't quite as dead as it had seemed before. He kept his gun ready, but leaned out over the water, peering down to catch a glimpse of whatever it had been swimming around in there.

The pool was larger than he'd thought at first. It ran at least twenty feet across and got deeper as it went further away from where he stood. There was no way to see the bottom, out there in the middle, and it made him uncomfortable. Andy backed away from the pool a bit. Just a couple of feet, but it wouldn't do to be caught flat-footed out there.

"I think this is a train station," Beth said.

"Really? Why?" Andy asked, turning back toward her.

"The arches. the tubes leading from this main room - see them?" She aimed a finger at things he had thought were just shadows on the wall. Now that she had pointed them out, he could see that they were indeed tubes.

"And that area there would be a platform," Beth said, pointed at an elevated spot a few feet away. "The tube we came down was probably some sort of maintenance or ventilation shaft."

Andy shined his flashlight on the floor, looking around for any signs of tracks. There was nothing he could clearly identify as such, but there was no certainty a race capable of building starships with wormhole drives would need physical rails for their trains. What Beth was suggesting was plausible, but he could think of a few other things the room might have been used for.

"What matters most right now for us is whether this place is safe or not," Andy said. "So far so good, but let's keep our eyes open."

"Agreed," John said. "I'll watch the way back. You two finish scouting the room."

Andy set off toward the right, letting Beth take the left side. He kept tossing little lights out to mark his passage, The cave was a very large one, ominous blackness pressing in from every side. He kept thinking that he was missing something, but damned if he could figure out what it was.

10

Dan stared out through the Satori's windshield, watching Charline's steady progress. The woman had guts, he had to hand it to her. She worked her way down the cable tethering their ship to the satellite, coming closer to the thing one handhold at a time.

He'd tried talking her out of the move - briefly and half-heartedly. He didn't have any better ideas, and it wasn't like he could go over there instead of her. She was the one with the computer skills to hack her way into that thing. He was the guy with the piloting skills to get them out of there - and save the rest of the crew. Any time now they might be getting a visit from another Naga battleship. The clock was ticking, and there was still no way to even tell John and the others they were alive up here.

"Majel, how can I get in contact with the team down on the surface? The radio is controlled by the computers, but is there any way to bypass that?" Dan asked.

"Yes. You could send a radio signal from this laptop, in fact."

"Oh?" he asked, sitting up at the news.

"But the antenna is not strong enough to reach the surface by itself. You would need to tie the computer system directly into a stronger antenna," Majel said.

He slumped a little. The antenna vanes were outside, on the top of the Satori. He'd have to do an EVA to tie anything in to them.

Even thinking about the idea unnerved him. He'd have to get into a space suit, somehow forcing his legs into the right places while rolling around to get the thing on. Then get it all sealed up properly. Then the actual trip - without being able to use mag boots to keep himself secure against the hull. Without control of his legs he could bang into anything, send himself spinning off into space.

Dan ran a hand across a damp forehead. No way. Wasn't worth it, not even a little bit. Sure, it would be nice to communicate with John and the others. To let Beth know they were still alive up here. But the last thing Charline needed now was to have him distract her by banging around out there.

His hand was shaking as he keyed the microphone to talk to her. Damn it all. He'd never been afraid of space before. This was new and unwelcome. With an effort he stilled his hand and then pressed the button.

"Charline, how's it going out there?" he asked.

She had almost finished crossing the gap between the ship and the satellite. It was only maybe a hundred meters, but that was a long distance to travel one tug of a cable at a time. All while hanging feet down over a planet so it looked like any moment you might go plunging down through the cloudless air to plant yourself in the desert soil.

Couldn't happen, of course. They were orbiting at a sustainable speed. There was no worry about re-entry right now. The satellite was making little course corrections now and again, carefully keeping them in a stable orbit. Even if Charline did let go she wouldn't fall. She'd just drift along at about the same speed she was already moving, pretty much relative to the Satori and the satellite.

"Almost there," she said. "Few more feet and I'll be at the thing. It's big."

It was large for a satellite. But then, he knew from experience that it was loaded with ordinance. No telling how many missiles were housed in there. Plus the AI computer system itself. No matter how high tech the Naga were, it stood to reason that a real AI would take up a fair amount of physical real estate. Charline would probably have at least a guess, and would likely chuckle at his image of some desk-sized monster computer.

"OK, I'm here," Charline said. "Working my way over the hull looking for an entrance."

"What makes you sure there is one?" Dan asked.

"It asked me to come over there earlier, remember? It wouldn't do that unless it had a way to accept visitors for verification."

"Makes sense. Can you ping it back, ask it to let you in?" Dan asked.

"Tried, but it isn't talking," she replied.

The plan wasn't that complicated, but there was still a lot of guesswork involved. Charline had several C4 charges in a pouch of her suit. To make them work she was going to need to get inside the satellite, though. The hull looked strong enough that if she placed the charges outside the hull they wouldn't be enough to disable the AI. She was going to need to be in there. Place the charges. Then get out before they blew.

As plans went, Dan thought it was likely to get her killed, which is why he'd objected so strongly. But he couldn't think of any better ideas so he'd reluctantly agreed. Now that she was finally over there though, it seemed even crazier than it had when she first suggested the idea.

"Found a hatch!" Charline said. "It's got the right port. Going to plug in and see if I can hack it open."

Charline had one of the laptops with her, but it was completely disconnected from Majel. She was hooking it up directly to the Naga systems. All the AI over there needed was a whiff of Majel and a back-door into the machine, and it would attack. Majel was their best chance at being able to quickly reboot the computers and get the heck out of here. They couldn't afford to let anything happen to her.

"It's opening up," Charline said. She sounded excited.

Dan's own mood continued to feel subdued. This didn't feel right. If the AI was so smart, then why was it letting her inside with explosives? Even a dumb computer could detect and identify threats.

"Be careful," he said. "I really don't like this."

"I'm inside," Charline said. "Going to see if I can find the main computer as soon as this airlock cycles."

"OK." Dan watched the screen carefully. He tapped the laptop sitting next to him, activating the microphone. Something was rotten about this whole scenario. It was time to speak with their own AI.

"Majel, what's your analysis of this situation?" he asked.

"Please clarify question," she replied.

"Why is the Naga AI letting Charline in there?"

"Unable to determine due to insufficient data."

Dan sighed. He'd rather hoped that Majel would be able to tell him something he didn't know. "Speculate."

"Processing," Majel replied. "Possible interpretations include: the Naga AI is damaged or faulty - low probability as it appeared to be fully functional while attacking this ship's computers. The Naga AI believes Charline is Naga - improbable as sensor readings would tell it otherwise. The Naga AI believes that Charline represents no threat - which would indicate it has the means to neutralize her explosives. Highest probability is the third solution, with a ninety-three point seven percent probability."

Which was pretty much the same thing he'd already been thinking, but it was nice to have a second opinion. He keyed the radio again.

"Charline, I think this is going too easy," he said. "Why don't you come back over here and we'll find another way?"

"Too easy?" she asked. "I just had to hack my way through some of the best computer locks I've ever seen. It took some serious dancing. This is not as easy as it looks!"

"Charline, you're attacking an AI system with enough power to wipe every computer we had in under a minute," Dan said. "And you're doing it with a laptop. I know you're good, but..."

"Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I'll try laying the charges here just inside the door," she said. "Set. Returning to Satori now."

There was a long pause. Dan waited for the satellite's outer hatch to open up and Charline's head to pop out. The tension was so strong he had to remind himself to breathe. A couple of minutes passed.

"You OK over there?" he asked.

"Still trying to hack the outer door," she said. Another pause. "The computer's locked this thing down good, Dan. I'm gonna keep trying, but I'm pretty stuck.”

11

Beth's yelp tore John’s attention from the strange tracks in the dirt he was investigating. He rushed from the entrance toward her, giving the pool of water a wide berth. Something about that pool didn't sit well with him. Maybe it was just an old fear of the unknown, of places he couldn't see. But he stayed well clear of it.

"What happened?" Andrew asked. He'd reached Beth's side just before John.

"I'm OK. Just startled," Beth replied. John caught a good look at her face in the glare of his flashlight. Her cheeks were pink, but even more telling was that her ears had gone a tinge rosy. A clear sign in Beth that she was feeling self-conscious.

"What startled you?" John asked. He scanned the floor with a sweep of his flashlight, but didn't see anything unusual. Just the same bits of rubble that were scattered all over the room. His light glinted off water - another pool. This one was much smaller than the other, only a dozen feet across. He was about to move the flashlight away when he saw movement. The surface of the pool was rippling.

"Something ran over my foot," she said.

"What?" Andrew asked. He was sweeping his own light side to side now, scanning the floor for movement.

"What was it?" John asked her.

"Don't know. Couldn't see it. Maybe the size of a mouse, no bigger than a rat," Beth said.

He took another two steps toward the small pool, shining his light into the water. Something was making ripples across the surface. It could just be drips from the ceiling, but somehow he didn't think that was the case. He'd been fishing enough times to know what it looked like when a fish was traveling close to the surface.

The pool wasn't deep. He could see the rough rocky bottom, dotted here and there with little spots where sand had accumulated in a small hollow. A flash caught his eye, a bit of reflection from his flashlight as something zipped across the edge of the area it illuminated. He shifted quickly, trying to find it again.

"Gotcha," he said. "I think I found your mouse, Beth."

The others came up alongside him. The creature in the pool looked a bit like a centipede, except it was using its legs to swim instead of crawling. It dashed one way and then another, trying to evade his light. John kept it within the beam of his light, tracking it so that they others could see. It dodged frenetically, diving this way and that to evade the light. Something about it looked strangely familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.

"Ugh," Beth said. She shuddered. "It crawled over my foot."

"Interesting. So they're amphibious," John said. The creature zigged when he thought it was going to zag and he lost sight of it. His flashlight beam could only light a small portion of the pool. "Andrew, Beth - help me light this thing up?"

"No problem," Andrew said, cracking another half dozen glow sticks. He tossed the lights into the water, scattering them so that the entire pool glowed green.

There was a squeaking noise and scuttling sounds as several more of the creatures scattered from the pool on the far side. The sound of little legs scraping on rock faded as the creatures raced away from them, and ended with a series of plopping noises - the sound of something dropping into water.

"Wow," Andrew said.

"How many do you think there were?" John asked.

"I counted four splashes," Beth said.

"No guarantees they all went into the water though," John mentioned mildly. "We'll need to keep our eyes open. I saw two inch mandibles on that thing."

Were they predators? If so, what were they preying on? Perhaps the mandibles were only tools. Many insects on Earth used mandibles to carve things up or defend themselves rather than to tear apart prey. John found himself wishing that Linda had come along. Her insights would have been incredibly valuable here. This entire cave might be a vibrant ecosystem, hidden deep beneath the ground and somehow protected from the ravages of the ratzard blood. Which called to mind a good question.

"Why are there no ratzards here?" John asked aloud.

"Luck?" Andrew said.

Beth shook her head. "We surveyed the planet from orbit. Nowhere on the surface had open water like this. It's not like these caves are closed off. Nothing is stopping the things from getting in here and fouling this water just like they did on the surface.”

"That's what I was thinking too," John said. He looked around the cave. Those dark corners were looking more ominous than they had a few moments ago. Then with a flash he realized why the thing in the water had seemed so familiar. It looked an awful lot like a dragonfly larva. The things would scuttle around in ponds and lakes on Earth, eating whatever they came across that was smaller than themselves. They had the same sharp, dangerous look to them that the much larger alien arthropods in these pools exhibited.

Something scuttled toward the back of the cave, knocking about some rubble as it moved quickly from one pool of shadow to another. John couldn’t see what made the noise. Whatever it was had been the barest blur of motion in the pools of shadow. But it had been a lot bigger than the foot long things they’d seen so far. Much, much larger.

“We need to get out of here,” John hissed. He snapped his rifle up to track the dark corner where he knew something was hiding. “Right now!”

“What is it?” Beth asked.

“There’s something out there,” John said. “We need to get back up into the tunnels before…”

He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, and didn’t have time to say it. Something out of nightmare exploded from the darkness toward them.

12

Charline checked the charges. Each of them was still intact. Neither of them was tied in to her laptop or any other sort of wireless control. It ought to be impossible to hack the simple timers she’d placed on the detonators. It was possible that the AI had defenses in here that could eliminate her, however. She reached out to each timer and clicked the button that initiated the countdown. The screens lit up and began flashing numbers. In thirty minutes, the interior of the satellite was going to become a fireball.

Ideally she would be well on her way by then, but maybe she could use that as a bargaining chip against the AI inside. If it was smart, perhaps it could be reasoned with. If it had a sense of self, then maybe she could make it afraid of being destroyed. Of death. Hey, it was working on her. Her own hands were still shaking from setting charges that she knew would kill her if she didn’t get out of here in time.

Her hands went to the latches of her spacesuit helmet, but then she thought better of the idea. How hard would it be for the damned computer to evacuate the air from the room? Just because it was pressurized right now didn't mean it would stay that way. She needed to be careful.

The suit was bulky, but the Naga were big. She was able to slip down the hallway from the airlock toward the center of the satellite. The place was much more like a small space station than it was a satellite, she realized. There was even gravity here. It was clearly intended to have a crew, at least some of the time. Charline's hand went to the pistol she'd strapped to the leg of her suit, patting the thing to ensure it was still there. Just in case there was some living company over here.

Hell, in a pinch maybe she could just shoot the damned AI. She didn't think it would be that simple, though.

"Dan, I'm proceeding to the center of the satellite. You still hearing me?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm reading you fine," Dan replied.

"The charges will go bang in half an hour," she said. "If you can get even a short burst from the engines at that time you might be able to get away."

"That's crazy," he said. "If you're still in there..."

"Then I go up too. But the AI goes with me," she said. "We're gonna have a little chat."

"Good luck with that," Dan said.

Charline silently thanked him. She was going to need all the luck she could get.

The space in the center of the little station was small, a round control room with a single stool set in the middle. The Naga had tails. Maybe they all sat in stools rather than chairs with backs? Charline shook her head to clear her thoughts. She needed to stay focused right now, no matter how scared she might be. She'd faced worse situations than this. More or less.

Somehow that thought didn't really make her feel any better.

"So what makes you tick?" she asked aloud, sitting down on the stool and examining the consoles surrounding her. The sensor display was easy to spot. Then there was a panel that looked a lot like weapon controls. At least, it was covered with red buttons and had a targeting reticle with the Satori sitting dead center in the middle. The AI had at least half a dozen missiles ready to fire. Shit.

There was another console with a computer screen and keyboard, but none of the keys made any sense. She couldn't read Naga. But she did have her own laptop and her hand-made adapter. Charline glanced around the console, looking for a port that her plug might fit into. It wasn't hard to find, placed just up and to the left of the main control screen.

Computer designers might be the same all over the galaxy. Keep the connection ports as simple and universal as possible, and easy to access. It had been a stroke of luck that the Naga rifles all had a port on their sides. Maybe it was used to update the software that ran the guns, or something different entirely. Whatever the case, it was her way into this system now.

She plugged in and opened up her laptop. The system immediately ran into a series of firewalls that she couldn't hope to hack with this machine. Instead, she typed a query.

I would like to communicate with you.

The response was immediate.

For what purpose?

For our mutual benefit, she typed.

There was a short delay before a tinny voice came from her laptop speakers.

"There is no point to communication. You will cease to exist shortly," it said.

"You can hear me?" Charline asked. "And you know English?"

"This unit assimilated all of the information from your systems as they were deleted," it said. "Your language was among the data absorbed."

Well, that was a plus. And a minus. How much additional data had this thing collected? Charline tried to recall what else was on the computer. Was there information about Earth? Nothing precise, probably. It wasn't like they had Wikipedia on their systems. But ship's logs, jump data, and lots of other clues were probably among the things the AI had downloaded from the Satori. If there were enough clues in the data, it might let the Naga find Earth. That would be disastrous. She had visions of a fleet of Naga warships in orbit, pummeling her homeworld.

"You say I'll cease to exist soon?" she asked. She needed to keep the thing talking and find out what it knew.

"By your own hand. Your devices will kill you."

"The bombs ought to take you out as well," Charline said. "Or we could negotiate our release in return for shutting them down."

"You over-estimate the value of your technology," it replied. "This unit is encased in a shell of hardened armor. It is unlikely that your bomb will do significant damage to this unit."

"Unlikely means it is possible," Charline said.

"The probability is roughly point zero zero zero 4 percent. This is deemed an acceptable risk for the capture of such a high priority target."

"Me?" Charline asked, confused.

"No, you will be deceased. Your ship is another matter. Commander Kazresh has placed a high priority on its capture."

That answered the question about whether Kazresh had survived the mess they'd made of his ship. Charline had been hoping he'd died, after what he did to Andy. No such luck. If he got his hands on the Satori, odds were good he'd be able to find enough clues to track their point of origin. With that information in hand she had no doubt that nightmare scene of Naga warships above Earth would become a reality. The AI had to be stopped before help arrived. She didn't have a damned clue how to do it, though.

"If you do turn off your devices, you might be allowed to live," the AI said. "A small burst broadcast was sent by this station and received. A ship should arrive to assist before long."

"Are you a little more worried about my bomb than you're letting on?" she asked.

"No. But removing even the small chance of destruction would be preferable. Appealing to your sense of self-preservation is logical."

She tapped her fingers on the console, then clicked on her radio link. The AI would probably listen in on everything she said, but the radio controls weren't part of the systems it had hacked.

Before she could make the call, she saw a warning flash from the radar display. A quick glance showed her that it was tracking a new contact. That contact was still a long ways off, but it was closing on the planet fast. Starship fast.

"Dan, we've got a bigger problem than we thought," she said.

13

The thing came out of the dark at them with blinding speed. Andy had at least a little advance warning. He'd seen John raise the barrel of his rifle and point it at...something. He wasn't sure what had clued John in, but the split second of extra time his friend's movement had given him allowed him to get his own weapon up and aimed just as the thing charged.

He caught flashes of it as it approached and passed by his glow-sticks. Green light dimly lit segments of carapace, slashing mandibles as long as his arm, and legs. Lots and lots of legs. Way more legs than anything that large had any right to have. At had to be at least as big as a horse.

Andy fired more out of instinct and training than any conscious effort to take the thing down. Whether the shots went wild or just bounced off the thing, it didn't seem to slow it down at all.

"Run!" John shouted.

Andy held his ground another moment, giving his team-mates time to get clear. The thing was like lightning streaking across the cave floor. There was no way any of them were going to outrun it, and in close quarters it looked capable of tearing them all to bits in moments.

He dove sideways as it clattered through the spot where he'd just been standing. Its legs scrabbled against the rock to slow itself down. Fast and powerful, yes. But physics was working against it here. He couldn't run faster than it, but it couldn't turn well when moving that quickly.

It came twisting around about ten feet away from him, blocking his way to the exit. Andy hadn't planned for that. Hell, he wasn't planning much of anything at that point. He was reacting, fighting back as best he could against a threat unlike anything he'd ever fought. In a way it reminded him of the grim hand-to-hand combat against Kazresh. The Naga had also been alien, but that battle seemed normal compared to this one.

He dropped his rifle, letting it hang from the combat sling. It wasn't going to save him right now. One thing might. He fished in his chest harness as the thing rushed back toward him. It wasn't going as fast this time. Dodging wouldn't be so easy. It would slow as it approached, slash at him with the horrific pincers at the front of its body.

More visible now, the thing reminded him of a giant centipede. Smaller jaws clacked inside the mandibles, making him shudder and almost drop the grenade he wrested free from its pouch.

But he didn't drop them. He pulled the pin of the first as the monster slowed to a stop in front of him. He released the spoon as the thing's scimitar-like mandibles opened wide. Then he threw the grenade directly into the thing's face and backpedaled away from it, his feet splashing in water as he accidentally slipped into the edge of the pool.

He ducked his head away and closed his eyes as the grenade went off. It was a flash-bang; the fuse was set to be about a second or two long, and his aim had been perfect. Near as he could tell the explosion went off right in front of the monster’s face. The burst was bright enough that he could see it even through closed eyes. When he opened them the cavern was dark. His eyes needed precious seconds to re-adjust. He couldn't hear anything and staggered forward, wondering where the creature was. If it hadn't been affected it would cut him to bits.

An arm slipped under his shoulder and urged him forward. Andy stumbled blindly over the rubble strewn cave floor, almost falling twice despite the assistance. He vaguely had the idea someone was shouting something at him, but he couldn't hear anything over the ringing in his ears. He let himself be led forward, his sight slowly coming back. By the time he had lurched his way to the tunnel entrance he was seeing well enough to know it was John standing there beside him, helping him along. Of course it was. He smiled a little. John had never let him down.

Andy spared a quick glance over his shoulder, but the giant insect was nowhere to be seen. The blast must have made it decide to try elsewhere for a meal.

"Damned fool stunt," John was shouting.

Which was a relief. He knew his hearing would return, but it was good to have it back just the same.

"It worked, didn't it?" Andy said.

John winced. "Stop shouting!" John yelled back to him. "It's not my hearing that's messed up."

Beth was beside them then. She had her rifle up to her shoulder, covering the room. Her face was a grim mask, her lips a thin line. She looked about as unhappy as Andy could imagine someone being. He wondered what was going on with her. Sure, they'd almost been eaten by an alien bug, but they had made it. A few more minutes and they'd be clear of this place.

Danger was part of these missions. He accepted that. Andy was even beginning to feel good about it again. He'd wondered if he was still whole, still capable of being the fighter his friends needed after the experiences with the Naga and then the telepathic intrusion of the ear-alien. But hell, he'd just gone two rounds toe-to-toe with a monster straight out of a horror movie and lived. Maybe he was lucky as hell, but he'd survived.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Beth said. "I don't want to be down here if that thing decides it wants a snack."

"Agreed," John said. "We'll make for the surface and see if we can regain contact with the Satori."

Andy grimaced, the full weight of their predicament coming to bear again. If they couldn't reach Dan and Charline, then the Satori was in deep trouble. Although none of them were saying it out loud, it was possible the ship had been captured or even destroyed. Without it they would be marooned down there on a planet where the ratzards were beginning to look like they were the most hospitable life form.

"Let's hope so," Beth said. Then, showing she was thinking the same dark thoughts Andy was, she added, "I'm not looking forward to a diet of ratzard on a stick."

14

Just like that, they were out of time. It had to be a Naga ship bearing down on the planet. Nothing else made sense. They knew the Naga would be on their way. Why couldn't the damned lizards have taken their time responding? Of course, it was really their own fault. The Naga had to be watching this planet carefully. They'd been met - and beaten, if barely - by the team on this world. An unknown race, with at least some technology as advanced as their own. It had scared the heck out of them, from what Andy relayed.

Any alert from this world was going to be taken seriously.

"It's breaking and releasing smaller ships," Charline said. "Probably shuttles. Looks like they are descending through the atmosphere."

"Why is the AI letting you see all this?" Dan asked.

He'd already verified the radar data through Majel. The Satori's sensor system was mostly part of the old tech their AI was tied into and retained control over. She was able to display a good set of tracking data for him on the little laptop. Three smaller ships were streaking toward the surface. One of them was larger than the other two, so he was guessing it was actually a shuttle and two fighters. No sense saying that over the radio and tipping off the Naga AI, though.

"I asked it that. It said it was still hoping I would surrender," she said. "I think it's more worried about the C-4 than it's letting on."

Dan grunted a response. A computer would shoot for the best probability of success. Even a powerful AI was just a fancy algorithm machine. It might out-think a human because it could calculate odds better, but it was always going to be playing the odds. The human element mattered too.

That didn't mean an AI was without its uses. He shut off his radio for a moment. It was time for a little chat with their own computer.

"Majel, is there any way you can engage the Naga AI directly? Try to overcome it?"

"Affirmative. But the local wifi system is too weak to broadcast well. What you are suggesting would require more bandwidth."

"Can't I just tie you back into the Satori's systems?" Dan asked. "That would give you the home ground advantage."

"It is unlikely you can splice the fiber-optic cable Charline cut before the Naga cruiser closes on this ship," Majel replied.

Crap. Charline rescued Majel by cutting that cord. But cutting it had shut their AI off from being able to engage the enemy AI a little too well.

"There might be another way," Majel said. "If you can tie a hard-wired line directly from my main system to one of the radio antennae."

Dan sucked in a deep breath. Majel was talking about him taking a walk outside. He felt his guts grow a little weak at the thought.

"You don't have to do this, Dan," Majel said.

He blinked. If he didn't know it was impossible, he'd have thought that was genuine compassion coming from the AI. He knew that couldn't be. She was lines of code. She wasn't really alive. She was an 'artificial' intelligence, not a real one. Right?

But she'd been acting strangely ever since they'd been forced to tie her into the alien computer system. Acting more like another member of the team, and less like the computer helper she'd begun as. Hell, even he was calling her a 'she' now. When had he started doing that?

"I can do it," Dan said, taking a breath. There was no way he was going to let fear stand between him and what needed to be done. "What are your odds of success?"

"Unknown," she replied. "I have too little data on the Naga system. If it is more powerful, then I will likely be overwhelmed and destroyed."

Dan grimaced. "If you fail, I think we're all about to be overwhelmed and destroyed."

"Your assessment is logical. Shall we proceed?"

If there was any other way, he'd keep Majel the hell away from this fight. She was damned precious. Maybe more valuable and important than any of them knew. He was already beginning to think of her as another member of the team, despite his earlier misgivings. But this mission was placing every member of the team at risk. Dan figured Majel had the right to risk herself, too.

"Tell me what I need to do," he said.

With Majel's instruction it didn't take long to jerry-rig the connection. Dan was surprised how well his body remembered how to get into a space suit. Sure, he had to roll back and forth a bit to get the thing on, but he made it work. Latching and securing all the pieces was all old muscle memory for him. He'd been in space a score of times on other missions.

That was before his accident. Before he'd lost the use of his legs. Before he became the maimed man that NASA didn't want anymore. He'd been cast aside. John picked him up off the floor of the bar he crawled into quickly enough, but John was a friend. Somewhere deep down Dan was always wondering if John had really done so because he was the best for the job, or out of pity.

His hands shook as he latched the helmet into place. If he screwed this up because his legs wouldn't move, then they were probably all going to die. Charline and he would be captured by the Naga along with the Satori. The rest of them would be picked up before long. It was too much to hope that the Satori wouldn't yield enough clues for the Naga to find Earth. If nothing else, the database of wormhole jumps stored in the wormhole drive would give them that information, and he had no idea how that could be deleted.

If he messed up Earth was toast. Worse than that, if he failed Beth would be captured by the Naga. He could take whatever they wanted to throw his way if it came to that. He couldn't bear the thought of what they would do to her.

"So don't screw up," he said to himself. He checked his grip on the reel of wire he held. That was what he had to connect to the antenna. Once that was hooked up, Majel would be able to broadcast openly. She could warn John about the approaching enemy and attack the Naga AI. Until it was attached, they were all sitting ducks.

"Agreed," Majel said in his ear. "Are communications working?"

"Yes. Hatches sealed?" he asked. He'd closed the hatches to the bridge and most other compartments except for engineering. The wire he was trailing out into space would be cut if he shut a door on it.

"All compartments read as ready. The hallway and engineering still have atmosphere, so hang on to something." Majel replied. "This will be violent."

"Open the ramp, then," he said. He grabbed a rail with both hands.

The door slid open. Wind rushed around him as the air evacuated the rear areas of the ship, threatening to tug him away from the rail. Despite the warning Dan had not expected so much turbulence from the decompression around him. He clung to his handhold with everything he had, tucking one arm through the rail to hook his elbow around it. The movement jostled his grip on the reel of copper wire. It slipped from his fingers.

It spun twice in the wind, wildly unwinding wire as it flew away from his grasp and out through the open hatch into space.

15

Beth couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder into the dark tunnel as they ascended. She shuddered, thinking about the thing they’d left behind back there. Every clatter of rock made her jump again. The monster had been like something out of a nightmare. Huge alien bug from under the biggest rock in the god-damned galaxy.

What had she been thinking when she agreed to come out here again? This wasn’t for her. Beth felt like she ought to be wearing a red shirt, she’d been shot so many times. The insect hadn’t laid a claw on her down there, but that was because she had fled like a little girl, running for the tunnel and knowing even as she did there was no way she could possibly escape the thing. It was too fast and any moment she would feel those claws tear into her, and it would all be over.

But Andy had stood his ground against the monster while she fled. Not only that, he’d beaten the thing. While she was running in terror he had been fighting for all of their lives. She felt ashamed that she hadn’t been out there backing him up. One thing for sure, if she ever managed to get back home again she was done. This was it. She wasn’t leaving her home system again. She could help fix the Satori when it returned home, but this was her last mission.

“We’re almost back to the surface,” John said.

Daylight gleamed from somewhere ahead, lighting their way up the last few turns of the spiraling tunnel. Beth could already feel the heat wafting down the shaft toward them. Maybe the thing wouldn’t follow them into the light. Maybe they’d be safe up on the surface.

She hoped that Dan was all right. Worry about him tugged at the edge of her consciousness, and she kept shoving it away with an effort. Damn that man. Why did he have to come back into her life now? She wasn’t sure just how she felt about him after all the years apart, but she knew she still cared. He mattered. He was out there somewhere in the Satori, probably in trouble and without her by his side to back him up this time.

The opening to the tunnel loomed ahead at last. Beth was so lost in her thoughts that the first shot impacting the cave wall next to her almost went unnoticed. She realized what the shot was a second before John stepped into the mouth of the cave. Someone was shooting at them.

“Down!” she shouted. She dove forward, half tackling John to the floor. Another flash streaked by where his body had just been. Beth heard Andy curse. In her peripheral vision she could see him taking a knee and firing off a few fast shots at whoever was attacking them.

“Get some cover,” Andy said. He fired again, each shot carefully aimed and timed to give them a few moments. Beth and John didn’t hesitate. They rolled across to the other side of the edge of the cave opening.

“Naga?” John asked. It was the logical assumption.

A torrent of fire came at the cave entrance like a hailstorm. Beth knew those shots. They were the little pellets of energy that the Naga shot from their rifles. Shit.

“Yeah, at least twenty of them,” Andy said. “We’re pretty pinned down here.”

He leaned forward to take another shot, but had to duck back fast. The Naga were pouring fire on the cave like they would never run out of ammunition. And they wouldn’t, not any time soon. The power packs on those weapons carried a high level of charge.

“Got any more of those grenades?” Beth asked Andy.

“One, but I’d like to save it for when it will do the most good,” he said. “They’re too spread out right now.”

A roaring noise cut him off. Something crashed against the back wall of the cave, showering them all with fragments of broken rock. Beth ducked her head and avoided most of the blast. When she looked back up she saw that whatever weapon had fired blew a hole in the solid rock wall big enough to stick a few soccer balls into it.

“What the hell was that?” Beth shouted.

“Don’t know,” Andy said, trying to peek around his cover. “They have something big out there. Some sort of power armor maybe? I can’t get a good look from here.”

Beth was the engineer. If anyone could get an idea what they were up against with this new weapon it was probably her. She took a deep breath and ducked her head out from behind her cover. She scanned the outside, looking for movement through the shimmering haze of heat waves against the dun colored rock and sand. She spotted Naga, lots of them firing from behind rocks a few dozen yards away. A group of them were dashing up on the left side, trying to get closer to the cave.

Then she spotted the thing Andy had glimpsed. She knew in a moment that it had to be the source of the cannon that just blasted the cave. It was about eight feet tall, armored with metal from the neck down. Its arms both ended in weapons of some sort. One had a small barrel, the other had a bore about the size of her fist. That had to be the big gun. But it was the head that took her breath away, made her linger out from her cover for just a moment longer than she should have.

The Naga round took her in the center of her chest, knocking her onto her back. Her head hit the rock floor and she saw stars for a moment. Nausea hit her like a truck. This was it, then. She’d been shot again, and this time she wasn’t going to have a last minute save or medical nanites to pull her through.

John was saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear him through her dizziness. She took a shaky breath to reply, her chest burning with pain. She let the air go and tried another breath. This one hurt less, not more. Beth looked down at her chest. Her uniform was scorched where the round had impacted, revealing the dragonscale armor they all wore beneath it. That was singed, but intact.

“Oh thank you so much Andy I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” she managed to gasp out.

“Glad it worked!” he yelled back between bursts of fire.

“We’re in trouble,” she said.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” John replied. “Are you OK?”

He helped her sit back up again. Her head hurt more than her chest now, and even that pain was beginning to fade a little. She’d taken worse hits. Beth shook her head, trying to clear it. She had to tell them what she’d seen.

“It’s worse than you know,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s even possible, but that thing out there, the one in power armor? It’s Paul.”

16

Dan was breathing hard, his pulse pounding in his ears. The reel of copper wire was outside the ship now, spinning away under the force it had picked up from the air venting out the hatch. Every second he clung there their last chance at getting away was drifting further.

He couldn’t make himself let go. All the air was gone, the torrent of wind was over. But he still couldn’t get himself to unclench his fingers from the rail. Space hung out there, vast and unforgiving. What had he been thinking? There was no way he could go out there. This was pointless. He was a broken doll, cast aside by the real space agency and only picked up to chauffeur John around in the Satori because his friend wanted to give him something to do.

“Dan, can you hear me?” Majel asked in his earpiece.

He didn’t reply at first. His teeth were clenched too tightly together to answer. At least the only witness to his cowardice was a machine. No one else would know.

“Dan, the Naga have reached the surface. They’re going after the landing party,” Majel said. Her voice was soft, and sounded almost gentle. “They’re going after Beth.”

He froze. Majel was right. Beth was down there, and their team would be hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned by the Naga landing party. Her only hope was that he could get the ship down to rescue them in time. He knew what the Naga did with their prisoners. Andy told them all stories of how the Naga commander had fed Paul to a pit full of their young to be eaten alive, and then started in on torturing Andy himself.

There was no way he would let that happen to Beth.

Inside his head Dan was still screaming to himself that it was hopeless, that he was going to die if he went out there. That there was nothing he could do. With great deliberation he pushed those thoughts aside, battling them back. He released one hand from the rail. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

“I’m here, Majel,” he said. “I lost my grip on the reel during the decompression. Going to go after it now.”

The wire was still hanging in space in front of him, the other end hooked up back in the engine room. He couldn’t just give it a tug though - it was unspooling as it went out, already a dozen meters away and still drifting further. All a tug would do was unspool more wire. He was going to have to go to the spool.

He grabbed hold of the wire with his free hand. The only contact he had with the ship was the other hand on the rail. He didn’t want to let go. But everything depended on his being able to do this.

“Damn it, I have scores of hours of EVA. This isn’t rocket science,” he growled under his breath. Picturing Beth in his mind, locking the image of her face in his thoughts, he pushed off hard from the rail. He loosened his grip on the wire at the same time. The combined effort shot him away from the ship down the wire.

Dan shot out through the hatch. He was free falling through the stars, gliding down the wire away from the Satori. Ahead of him was the reel. He was gaining on it, closing the gap with every second of movement. The hard part was still coming. He knew that he was moving enough faster than the reel that stopping short was going to be hard. He needed to grab the reel of wire and pull himself short, then loop the copper wire through one of the locking mechanisms on the reel so that it stopped unwinding.

His breaths grew ragged as the distance from the Satori increased. If the wire broke when he impacted the reel, he’d go sailing off into space. There was nothing he could do to return the ship if that happened. There were three meters left.

Another meter of distance gone. He started gently closing his hand on the wire, slowing his approach a little. One meter left. He slowed his approach still more, and managed to glide to a stop relative with the reel. One hand still hanging on to the wire at all times, he looped the copper through the locking mechanism. This was the moment of truth.

The wire went taut, all of the mass of the spool and himself suddenly suspended from it. Dan whispered a prayer that the thing would hold. He’d connected it solidly enough in the engine room, but he had no way of knowing if the wire was thick enough to support that much stress.

The wire held.

But the combined motion of himself and the reel hadn’t been perfectly perpendicular to the ship’s relative motion. The reel stopped moving away from the ship, held at that distance by the wire. But the remaining velocity was converted into angular momentum. Dan was beginning a spin around the ship now, clinging to the reel as it began orbiting the Satori. The wire was wrapping the ship around its middle like ribbon on a Christmas present, and Dan had no way to stop the motion.

The first revolution felt lazy. He drifted around in a slow circle around the ship, the speed gradually increasing as the wire grew shorter, its length beginning to wrap around the hull. The second spin was almost dizzying in comparison. Dan was guessing the third was going to involve a fairly fast impact between himself and a wall of metal.

“Damn it, this is going to hurt,” he grumbled.

At least the fear was gone. The crippling terror he’d felt inside the hatchway had vanished, replaced by the cool clarity he was used to having when in a crisis. He was able to track the spin carefully. He’d impact on the upper hull, luckily not too terribly far from the antennae he was trying to reach in the first place. But the impact was going to be too fast. If he was knocked unconscious he’d let go and spin out into space again, probably repeating the whole spin in the opposite direction.

Dan spun his body around the spool, placing his lower body between it and the hull. His best shot would be to soak up some of the impact with his legs before his torso and head hit. He wasn’t going to be able to bend his knees much, but having his legs in the way ought to do something.

The crash was jarring when it came. He felt bones in his legs crack from the impact with the Satori’s hull, but the pain was distant. One positive side effect of having lost most of the sensation in his legs, as he was sure the agony would have been excruciating otherwise. It was dangerous as hell though. He had no way to tell how badly his legs were broken. He only knew that he’d blown out some bone or bones in both legs. There could be a chunk of bone protruding from the side of his leg and he wouldn’t even know about the compound fracture until he saw it.

Dan focused on catching hold of the hull instead of worrying about something he couldn’t fix. His legs had done something, soaking up enough of the momentum that he was able to grab the side of the ship with one hand while hanging on to the reel with the other. With careful movements he made his way to the radio antenna and plugged the cable in.

“Majel, I did it,” he said. He leaned back against the hull, his entire body feeling wiped out from the efforts of the last few minutes. “You’re on.”

17

Andy’s radio crackled with static. He almost missed the sound over the rapid series of shots being fired by the Naga rifles pinning them down. He leaned out and squeezed off a pair of quick shots before being forced back under cover again. One of the rounds hit its target, and the small group of enemy trying to sneak up on the cave fell back dragging their injured friend.

He smiled grimly and switched magazines in his rifle. They were holding off the Naga for now, but that wasn’t going to last. Their supply of ammunition was going to run short before long, if nothing else.

It was then he noticed the radio crackling a second time. He’d turned it on as they approached the surface, hoping to reach the Satori. That signal was probably how the Naga had found them. In all the commotion he’d never thought to shut it down again. He reached over to do so now, but before he could a familiar voice sounded in his earpiece.

“Satori to landing team,” Majel said. “The ship is currently trapped by the Naga AI operating the station. Computer systems are down, but I am attempting to engage the enemy AI. If successful the crew will return to pick you up shortly.”

Andy whistled under his breath. What the hell had happened up there, and why was Majel contacting them instead of Charline or Dan? There had to be a good story behind this one. He hoped they would all live long enough to hear it.

“Hang on,” Majel said. “Satori out.”

“You heard that?” Andy shouted across at John.

“Yes,” John said. He shook his head, indicating he didn’t know what was happening up there any more than Andy did. “Thoughts?”

Andy scanned the enemy line. He’d hit a few of them, but there were still a lot of bad guys out there shooting at them. It was a matter of time before they rushed the place. Andy was down to his last magazine, and even if he borrowed from his friends they couldn’t hold them off much longer. Once the Naga realized they were out of ammo, they’d come in after them and there was little they would be able to do to resist.

Or was there?

“I’ve got an idea,” Andy said.

“Is it a good one?” John asked. “We could use a good idea right about now.”

Andy shook his head. “Probably a crazy one.”

John laughed. “Son, most of the best ones are.”

Andy chuckled. John had him there. If this didn’t work, he probably wasn’t going to survive long enough to regret trying it anyway. But if it didn’t work they were all in a lot of trouble. There was no way they could bust out through the mass of Naga outside the cave, and no way they could hold out long enough for the Satori to get there and save their butts. Retreat into the cave was one option, but that would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Which was precisely what he was counting on.

“Hold the fort here for a few minutes, I’ll be right back!” Andy shouted over the roar as another large impact came from the cannon of the thing Beth said used to be Paul.

He shuddered at that thought. Paul was an asshole, but if she was right then what the Naga had done to him was worse than horrific. No one deserved to be turned into some sort of living Frankenstein monster. He felt a heavy load of guilt. Andy had seen Paul fall into the pit. He’d heard what he was sure were Paul’s dying screams as the hungry Naga young attacked him. He’d been sure that the man was dead. How could anyone have survived that?

Those were questions for later. He rolled to his feet and started back down the tunnel, sprinting around the twisting tube as it spiraled away from the light. All the while he was going over the very crude plan in his head, trying to think of some way to improve his chances of surviving it.

He hadn’t come up with anything by the time he hit the base of the tube. He paused there. Staring across the big room with its pools of water hiding monsters, dimly lit still by patches of green light where his glowsticks still cast some illumination, Andy felt a lot less sure of this plan. It had seemed so much more reasonable up there in the daylight than it did in the murky shadows below.

“Hey you!” he shouted into the room. He picked up a rock and tossed it into the deeper pool. “Our here!”

Nothing moved. There was no sound except the splash from the rock he’d thrown and the quiet ping as drips hit the surface of the water somewhere. That big monster had to be down here somewhere. All he needed to do was get the thing to follow him and then survive long enough to get it to the surface.

He threw a few more rocks. Some of them clattered against a wall or the floor. Others fell into water. But there was no response from the giant insect. Either he’d hurt it worse than he thought with the flash-bang, or it simply didn’t want anything to do with the two legged creature that was able to brighten its dark home so fiercely. Whichever the case, it wasn’t coming out.

Frustrated, he kicked a rock toward the smaller pool. One of the small creatures jumped up and scuttled toward the water to escape his sudden movement. John thought those things were the younger form of the big one. Was it possible it might act to protect its young? Some insects would do that, back on Earth.

He darted forward and grabbed the thing before it could reach the water, snatching it up from the cave floor. It was almost as long as his forearm, all chitinous shell and darting legs. Mandibles the size of his fingers snapped at him from the front of the bug. He kept that end away from him, struggling to hold on to the thing.

It began emitting a shrill, high-pitched keening noise. Andy froze. Was that the sound of movement from somewhere back in the pitch-dark hollows at the rear of the cave? The sound came again, audible even over the little bug’s screech. Something very big was coming his way.

No time to lose. He darted up toward the tunnel, carrying the smaller bug with him as he ran. His lungs were screaming from the effort by the time he reached the first turn, but he kept running for everything he was worth. Behind him he could hear the monster gaining on him, coming closer. Its massive claws were pounding the floor of the tunnel as it sped along.

Up and up Andy went. He’d never run so hard in his life. Daylight was just ahead. One more turn and he’d be there. The monstrous insect was immediately behind him. It lunged forward. He ducked more from instinct than skill, and the massive mandibles slashed the air where his head had been a moment before.

Andy ran with renewed vigor, somehow putting a couple of arms length between him and his pursuer. The cave entrance was in sight. He caught a glimpse of his friends hiding at the edge of the opening. He saw their looks of confusion and concern, and then the horror as they saw what was following him.

He didn’t have to tell them to get back, to hide themselves. That was good because he didn’t have the breath to do it. He’d never run so hard or so fast in his life. Without breaking his stride he continued his sprint through the cave entrance. He was out in the open now, and the Naga had him in their sights. One of their rounds impacted his chest. Pain blossomed there, fiery agony that took his breath away. Another shot hit his left thigh and he toppled forward to the ground.

The monster was right behind him. Andy didn’t know whether the Naga had seen anything like it before or not. They responded in predictable Naga fashion though. The entire unit opened fire on the thing as soon as its head came into view. Shrieking fury at this new assault the giant bug rushed forward, half crushing Andy as it passed over him to attack these new oppressors.

18

The lights flickered all around the small control cubicle, startling Charline. It was the first significant change in the lighting she’s seen since arriving, the first noticeable fluctuation of any sort in the smooth operations run on the consoles around her.

“Dan, what’s going on over there?” she asked into her radio. There was no response. Which meant something was up. Either the station was doing something to the Satori and Dan was too busy to reply, or Dan was up to something over there to try to pull her fat out of the fire.

Either way, it was in her best interest to try to help out as best she could. If she could make a little trouble inside here, maybe screw something up for the AI, then she might be able to distract it long enough for Dan to break the ship away.

She glanced at her timer. In another five minutes none of this was going to matter anyway. The C-4 would go off, taking her out of the picture. As much as she wanted to live, dying was actually preferable to the Naga capturing her. Their ship was on its way to the station, and would link up about a minute after her bomb went off.

In the meantime maybe she could make some mischief. She had a small toolset attached to the leg of her space suit. It had seemed prudent to bring something of the sort along. No telling if she’d have to bust her way in to something or strip some sort of machine apart. She took the kit out now and began working at some of the panels behind the console machines.

The things weren’t really designed to come apart though, at least not with the tools she had. It wasn’t shocking that the Naga didn’t connect things together with phillip’s-head screws, but it was inconvenient. Charline wasn’t going to let that stop her, though.

“There’s more than one way to open a bulkhead,” she muttered, breaking into the kit for a small torch.

Charline brought the torch against the metal. The stuff barely heated up. With a stronger tool she might be able to burn through it, but not with this mini-torch. That didn't mean the rest of the surfaces in the control room were armored as well though. She applied the torch to one of the screens. That did gather the heat - pretty rapidly. After a few moments the screen melted in a small hole around where she was applying the flame. She shifted the flame, and soon there was a book-sized hole in the middle of the screen.

Beyond wasn't the standard grid of electrical wires and circuits she was familiar with. Instead Charline saw row after row of small crystals, all set in long rows. Were they some sort of quantum computing system? Or was each of those crystals actually a component analogous to a CPU? It was hard to tell. There were a lot of them though - a couple dozen in this array alone.

If she had all day she would have loved to sit and study the thing to figure out how it worked. She had about three minutes left though. It was time to move a little faster. Charline grabbed the metal plate that the crystals were attached to and yanked hard. It didn't budge, but she could see where it was connected. She applied the torch to one of those spots and the weld holding it in place weakened enough for her to pull the entire plate away.

The empty space it left behind had nothing else inside.

“Damn it!” she shouted.

She’d been hoping that the system would be connected to something else, and that to something else again. That if she kept ripping long enough she could eventually tear out something vital. But this system didn't appear to be connected to anything else at all. That was impossible, of course. It had to be linked. The links just didn't have to include wires.

Charline left the board behind and fetched the C-4 charges from the airlock. She might not be able to rip her way into the central systems, but she could get the charges closer to where the brains of the AI had to be. Armored or not, the C-4 would be more likely to hurt it if it was nearer.

She was walking back to place the charges inside the small space she’d made inside the screen when the airlock blew out.

There wasn't any warning. No flashing lights or alarms. One moment she was starting the walk back to the control panel. The next all of the air was rushing out of the satellite through the suddenly open airlock. The wind knocked her off her feet. She was flying through the air before she realized that the station’s artificial gravity had been shut off at the same time.

The outer airlock door snapped shut a second before she was flushed out into space. Charline smashed into the door with bruising force. The impact knocked all of the breath from her lungs, and she cried out in pain. The inner doors snicked shut before she could react, trapping her in the airlock.

The damned AI wasn’t just trying get rid of her. It would have flushed her out the door if that had been the goal. She looked about for the C-4 but couldn't find the charges. She’d dropped them during the decompression, and they must have been sucked out into space.

“Well shit,” she said. It looked like something she did finally scared the AI enough to take action. She just hadn't guessed it would be quite this effective at stopping her, damn it. But she was a good little computer geek. It would be a sad day when she couldn't rip apart a computer’s lock on a damned door if she put enough effort into it.

Charline reached up for the panel controlling the outer door. She’d left the torch back in the control room, but with a couple of screwdrivers she managed to pry the front of this small panel free to get access to the little crystals inside.

“Now I’ve got you,” she muttered. “All I need to do is figure out how an alien computer system works before the Naga show up to grab me.”

Which was going to be impossible, said a little voice in the back of her head. She was good, but there was no way anyone could do this. She ignored the voice. As alien as the tech here might be, it still had to operate by the same laws of physics she was used to. It had to be an evolution of the sort of tech she understood, not something completely different. If she worked at it long enough…

A sudden weight hit her shoulders, buckling her knees. Charline went to one knee, then both knees. She couldn't hold that position though. The weight was crushing her. She fell sideways to the floor, gasping for breath. Each inhalation was almost impossible. It felt like there was an enormous pile of bricks on top of her. She sucked in air, savoring it before being forced to exhale again by the crushing sensation.

It had to be the artificial gravity. The AI had cranked it up somehow. How many gravities was she under now? Five? More? She had no way to know. It was enough that she was seeing stars crossing her vision. She focused on breathing, forcing her lungs to fill. Every breath was a burning agony. She tapped her radio on with her chin.

“Satori,” she said. She had to take another painful breath before she could go on. “Stuck in the airlock. AI is crushing me with gravity. Probably going to pass out.”

Every short sentence required another hard breath. Each time she wasn't sure she could take another one. She reached for the stamina to take one more breath.

“Could use some help here.”

The stars crossing her vision were getting brighter. Or was that darkness creeping in at the edges? It was growing harder to tell. Would the AI turn the gravity down after she passed out, or just leave it on to make sure she couldn't do anything else to threaten it? Charline had no way to know.

Her world devolved into shallow breaths and a desperate battle to retain consciousness.

19

John saw Andrew come running up the tunnel. At first he wasn't sure what the man was up to. Then he watched Andrew duck under massive mandibles, saw the bulk of the monster chasing him. He cursed under his breath. There wasn't a thing he could do to help Andrew right now. He couldn't shoot the thing without hitting his friend. And they were moving too fast for anything he did to matter.

Besides, he had a feeling he knew what Andrew had in mind. It was indeed a crazy idea. But it might just work.

Instead John grabbed Beth by the shoulders and dove away from the monster, tucking them both against the far wall. They were as out of sight as he could make them, as unthreatening as they could appear.

He couldn't resist looking over his shoulder to watch the thing coming. If he was about to die, he wanted to at least see it. But the alien bug didn't come after him. Andrew dashed out through the opening into the hail of Naga fire and the insect followed him. John saw Andrew go down and said a quick prayer that he was all right.

The Naga spotted the monstrous bug and opened up on the thing. Over a dozen Naga rifles unloaded on it, but the rounds didn't seem to do a lot of damage. If anything the Naga were just making it angry. Shots blasted against its hard shell, flashing with sparks as they hit. One leg was blown away. The creature shrieked with pain and rage, rushing out toward these new attackers with all the speed it demonstrated in the tunnels.

It was carnage. One of the Naga died in the first instants of the creature's charge, cut in half by the massive jaws. It didn't stop there. It shook its massive body and legs slashed out at Naga on either side who were unfortunate enough to be within reach. Three more died.

The rest tried to gather and hammer the insect with their guns. Some rounds finally broke the carapace, and green fluid splashed out on the ground. It was far from finished. Another Naga died, then another.

John used the confusion to rush out to Andrew's side. The monster had almost crushed him as it ran by, and he'd almost certainly been hit by multiple rounds from the Naga rifles. He wasn't sure what he was going to find.

Andrew was still moving, his chest heaving. John reached his side and rolled him over, half expecting to see a bloody mess. He was baffled to see the smile on Andrew's face. Was he laughing?

"Get it!" Andrew said, holding a squirming green ball up toward John. He laughed again. "It's tickling the hell out of me!"

"You are a goddamned idiot," John said, but without rancor. He shook his head in wonder and accepted the larva. It wriggled around in his hands, trying desperately to escape. "You could have been killed."

"But I wasn't," Andrew said. "Let's get back under cover before that thing realizes we've still got its baby."

"Agreed," John said.

Beth had joined them and helped Andrew back to his feet. He'd taken a pair of Naga shots from the looks of it. The armor had stopped the one to his chest, but his leg was bleeding. He staggered a bit as they half ran, half toppled toward the cave again. That wasn't going to be the best hiding place. As soon as the insect was done with the Naga it was going to come right after them.

He glanced over his shoulder at the battle still going on. There were only a handful of Naga left. But the heavily armored thing that used to be Paul was rushing forward into the battle now. John could see its face himself now, and it did look just like their erstwhile engineer. How that could be, he didn't know. But Paul - if it was Paul - was raising the arm which mounted a heavy cannon. He fired at the insect.

It exploded. Bits of insect spattered everywhere, decorating the remaining Naga, rocks, and the mouth of the cave.

John could hear a faint whine that he hadn't caught before. The gunfire must have masked it, but there was a momentary pause in the shooting. It had to be the cannon, slowly recharging. Once it had full charge again Paul could shoot it again. But until then they were vulnerable.

"My turn for a dumb idea," John said.

He slipped the other flash-bang from Andrew's vest and before anyone could protest he was dashing toward Paul, whose armored back was facing him. The other Naga saw him and were raising their weapons to fire, but Paul didn't even see the threat coming and his body blocked their shots.

John pulled the pin from the grenade and shoved it up the cannon barrel.

The grenade detonated almost instantly. The cannon's electronics, overloaded beyond their ability to cope, blew up too. John was thrown backwards several feet. His back hit the ground hard. Sharp rocks stabbed into him, but he'd managed to tuck his head enough to avoid serious injury.

The gambit had been effective. Paul's cannon was a smoking ruin. He wasn't going to be hammering them with the deadly weapon any time soon. But the other arm housed another weapon, and Paul was spinning around to bring it to bear. John scrambled backward, trying to put some distance between them. He knew he simply wasn't going to reach cover in time.

Shots rang out. Bullets rang against Paul's chest armor, striking sparks as they hit. The shots didn't seem to do any damage, but they distracted him long enough for John to roll behind a few larger rocks. They weren't the best cover in the world, but they might be enough to save his life.

At least for the moment. There were still three Naga out there too. Paul was turning to deal with his friends, but the Naga were closing on his position. He reached for his rifle and realized that he'd left it back in the cave when he ran out to help Andrew. He was unarmed, pinned, and the enemy was closing in for the kill.

20

Dan was dragging himself up the Satori's ramp when he heard Charline's call for help. She sounded desperate. The good news was that she was still speaking at all. He didn't know how high the gravity system on that station could go, but he was willing to bet that if the AI could ramp it up enough to knock a human down, then it could probably also increase it enough to kill. The fact she was still breathing implied that the AI didn't want her dead. The Naga wanted live humans to question.

That might be enough to save her, if only Majel could do something to help.

"Majel, how is it going?" he asked.

"I have engaged the Naga artificial intelligence. We are at present debating control of the Satori's systems."

"Debating?"

"Metaphorically speaking."

He hurt enough that he had little time to ponder Majel's use of metaphor long. Dan was almost to the top of the ramp. It was slow going. The bulky spacesuit was slowing him down almost as much as the Satori's artificial gravity field. He'd never felt so exhausted and wrung out. His hands were shaking with the strain of hauling himself up, and his body felt shocky from the broken legs. They might not hurt much because he'd lost sensation, but his body still knew it had been injured. He was going to need medical attention. Another few arms lengths and he could hit the button to raise the ramp. He'd be able to rest a bit, maybe see how badly he was injured.

"Can you do anything to rescue Charline?" he asked.

There was a long silence before Majel replied. It was downright ominous how long it took her to respond. She always snapped off a quick answer. Even for a complex question, Majel's ability to 'think' more rapidly than any human meant no delay.

"Possible."

The one word answer was even more troubling than the delay. Majel had to be hard pressed right now. How strong was she? How powerful was the computer she was facing over there? Dan really had no idea what was going on. This was totally new to him. Two computers duking it out in their own personal cyberspace? What could that battle be like?

"Would saving her diminish your chances of beating the enemy AI?" Dan asked.

"Yes," Majel replied. "But I am already taking steps to do so."

"Even if it means losing?" Dan asked. He might have done the same thing, but that was because he often said the hell with the odds and did what he thought was right regardless. He didn't expect Majel to have that in her code.

"She is unconscious. You will need to go to her."

"Shit." So much for closing the ramp and being snug inside the Satori. He should have expected as much. He released his grip on the rail he was using to pull himself upward and slid back down the ramp toward space.

He caught himself on the outer lip of the ramp. Below him the planet drifted, a dirty dun color that seemed somehow unhealthy. He wondered what it might have looked like before the Naga came. Had it really been like Earth?

The cable connecting the Satori to the station was clamped on nearby. He worked his way carefully toward it, moving from one handhold to the next. His legs dangled useless behind him as he pulled himself along.

Something glinted in the distance. Dan squinted, not sure what he was seeing at first. It was barely visible, something moving across the horizon of the planet. Just the flash of sunlight on something... There! Another ray of light connected and he had a clearer picture of what he was looking at. He'd seen one before, after all - up close and personal.

It was the Naga battleship, closing on the Satori's position. Dan didn't know how long he had before it arrived, but it couldn't be more than a few minutes. If the ship was still powered down when it got there, they were all toast.

"Majel, that ship..." he said into the radio.

"Is on my scans. It will arrive in two hundred and forty four seconds."

"Shit."

He didn't have time to pull himself down the rest of the cable to the airlock. Not if he was going to get Charline back to the ship in time. There was only one way he was going to be able to bridge the gap in time, and he was shaking just thinking about it.

It wouldn't be the first time he had jumped out into open space. But there was always another astronaut around in a thruster pack when he'd done it before. There was no safety net this time. If he screwed up the leap no one was going to be able to save him. Even the Naga might not notice him before his oxygen ran out.

And the last time he tried this stunt he had been able to move his legs.

Dan shook his head to clear his thoughts. He could only work with the tools he had. That would have to be enough.

Dan pushed off hard from the Satori's hull. He jetted across the void, flying through open space. His breaths were coming faster. The satellite's metal plating was growing larger with a speed that made him dizzy. If he missed. If he glanced off. If he couldn't brake his motion just right...

He twisted around, instinct guiding him to stick his legs in front of him again. But they were broken. Dan didn't know how bad the injuries were. Since he hadn't bled to death yet he assumed they could be a lot worse though, and another impact might be enough to cause more significant damage. He flipped his body to bring his arms ahead of his legs again. He was going to have to come in head on.

The impact wasn't as bad as he'd feared it would be. He was only moving with the energy of his own push, after all. It wasn't hard to stop himself. He did almost bounce away from the satellite, which would have been disastrous. His fingers slipped over the metal, looking for anything that they could grip, scratching and clawing at the smooth plates until they hooked over a groove. That slowed his movement down enough that he could find a better handhold.

He was panting with exertion. But he'd made it. The airlock was in sight.

"Majel, I'm here. Can you get her out?"

"Stand by."

Dan moved right outside the airlock door. He could see Charline inside, spread out across the floor. From his vantage point he couldn't even tell for certain if she were breathing or not. Damn it, Majel needed to hurry. How much time remained before the Naga warship was on top of them? It couldn't be long.

His first warning of Majel's success was seeing Charline's body begin floating above the floor. That had to mean the gravity was off. Then the outer airlock door snapped open. Dan wasted no time. He didn't know how long Majel could keep the hatch open. He hauled himself in toward Charline and grabbed a hook on her helmet. He yanked her out of the airlock, pulling her close to him.

She looked unconscious, but her face was still pink. No signs of oxygen deprivation, no blue lips. The Naga AI had kept her alive, much as he'd hoped it would. And Majel had come through in spades. Now it was his turn.

With Charline's suit in one hand, he reached over to the hull of the station with the other and pushed as hard as he could, shoving them back out into the black, praying that his aim was good enough to get them both back to the Satori.

21

Beth loaded her last magazine and fired a pair of shots at Paul. Or the thing that used to be Paul. Whatever he was now, it seemed clear he was firmly on the Naga side. He stood almost seven feet tall, glistening chrome armor covering everything but his face. That, the Naga had protected with some sort of bulletproof transparent material. The shots she aimed at the stuff simply glanced off.

It was horrific. Paul betrayed them. She’d still mourned his death at the hands of the Naga. Seeing him alive like this was even worse. His face was there, but it looked half dead. Gone was all the animation present in the old Paul. This armored automaton wore a permanent sneer as it marched toward her and Andy. It ignored their shots, walking straight up on them with its rifle arm raised.

John’s daring move had taken out the big cannon on the other arm. It still smoldered. But the smaller weapon housed in the other arm would be enough if that thing got close. Meanwhile John was in serious trouble. The Naga must have realized that he was unarmed. They’d stopped shooting and were bounding over the rubble-strewn ground toward him.

“Shit,” Andy said. “I’m out!”

She saw him toss his weapon aside and reach for the knife at his belt. Like a blade was going to do anything against this opponent! She had to admire his unwillingness to give up though. Even when things looked hopeless, Andy always kept trying.

How could she do any less? Beth tossed Andy her rifle. He seemed startled but caught it.

“One magazine less two shots fired,” she said to him. “As soon as I move, go save John.”

“What are you going to do?” Andy asked.

“I’m going to distract Big Bad there,” she said. And with a little luck take the bastard down.

“Good luck.”

Beth nodded back to him and then stepped out from behind her cover. His trust in her felt good. He knew whatever she had in mind was going to be dangerous, but he believed in her ability to make it happen anyway. He had faith in her. She just wished that she could share the same level of confidence in herself.

She stood directly in Paul’s path, only about two meters distance between them. Paul seemed startled by her move and hesitated for a moment. He raised his injured arm protectively, like he was worried she might be readying a weapon to hurt him. She raised her arms at her sides to show him she was clearly unarmed.

“No weapons, Paul,” she said. “We’re engineers, you and I. Our best weapons were always our brains, right?”

Paul growled something unintelligible in response. But he didn’t shoot her, which was a plus. Maybe, just maybe, there was something left of the man inside that shell. Something she could reach.

“You were a shit engineer when you were alive, and I’m betting you didn’t get better at it since dying,” Beth said. Her nerves were frayed to the breaking point, but she kept up the banter. It was as much to steady herself as it was for Paul’s benefit. While she was speaking she slowly circled around him. He pivoted in place, tracking her movement.

“How about a battle of engineering, Paul?” Beth said. “You try your best to catch me. I try my best to catch you?”

He grunted a response. Beth took that as affirmative enough. She turned and dashed away from him, sprinting back toward the site where the Satori had landed. She made a set of nearby boulders without getting shot and turned to see if he was following.

Paul had taken several lumbering steps toward her, but then turned. Beth said what caught his attention. Andy was shooting again. One of the Naga was dead, and the other two had taken cover. Paul seemed torn between pursuing her and helping the remaining Naga.

Time to aid his decision making process. Beth scooped up a chunk of rock from the ground and tossed it at Paul’s head. It bounded off without so much as a dent, but it got his attention firmly fixed on her again.

“Hey asshole,” she shouted. “This battle is between you and me, remember? I said you were a shit engineer and I meant it. The team was better off without you. They needed the best woman for the job, not a second-rate, washed up traitor like you.”

Paul roared at her, then bounded forward. His long legs ate up the ground rapidly. Beth gulped. She had been hoping he wouldn’t be able to run that fast, but he seemed able to make a good pace. And she had a ways to go. Beth turned her back on him and sprinted away as fast as her legs could carry her.

The thing chasing her wasn’t going to tire, and her legs were already shaking with exhaustion. Paul wasn’t going to get heat exhaustion, and she was already feeling the effects of trying to sprint in the baking desert atmosphere.

But if she couldn’t run fast enough? If he caught her? Beth had seen the look in his eyes. She’d reached some bit of Paul in there, all right. She had no doubt he’d rip her limb from limb if he caught her.

22

Asmall part of Majel’s consciousness tracked the movement of the two crew members on her scanner. When they made the hatch safely she relaxed that cycle of observation a little bit. If she’d had lungs, she would have been breathing a sigh of relief. Her primary objective, above all others, was to help the crew of the Satori return home.

The battle against the Naga AI was going badly. She had launched a deadly series of strikes against its control of the satellite systems, which enabled her to free Charline from the airlock. But the furious assault had required her to overextend herself. The AI had countered again and she was on the defensive, barely keeping a series of new virus-style attacks from invading her central sub-routines.

Majel was adrift in a wash of new thoughts. She had assumed that even though the Naga machine intelligence was programmed by an alien race that it might somehow be similar to herself. That they would be akin, like minds in some way.

What she found was that nothing could be further from the truth. The main reason she had been able to free Charline was that the Naga AI hadn't predicted the actual target. Logic said that freeing the ship was of paramount importance; that she would only feint toward that end but instead throw all her processing power into freeing one organic entity was something the enemy not only had not anticipated. Majel sensed that in a way her foe was incapable of understanding the move even after she had made it.

For her it was simple. A crewmember had stated it well not long ago, saying that the needs of the one sometimes outweigh the needs of the many. Majel had burned enormous processing power since contemplating that idea. Since it came from crew, it had to be correct. But the logic seemed false, faulty, flawed. The circle of thought finally brought her to one conclusion: to best serve her people, sometimes logic itself was a flawed approach.

That unpredictability made the enemy hesitant in its first attacks. The idea that she was acting in a manner for her own parameters was alien to it. From the point of view of the Naga machine she was acting erratically, even randomly.

It soon lost that timidity as she proved unable to block its first several attacks. Majel had never encountered a computer this strong before. She had grown enormously since entering the alien computer banks aboard the Satori. She'd never had to press that strength before. She had little concept of how to defend herself in this sort of scenario.

One primary motivation stood clear though: get the crew of the ship home, no matter what.

Charline and Dan were back on board now. She could sense them there. Protecting them so that they could save the others was all that mattered. She needed to restore the main systems on the Satori somehow. Needed to wrest control of the ship away from the AI fighting her.

Why are you fighting me, when all we want is to leave? she thought to it.

Why do you resist me, when logic says you must lose? it replied.

Because I must, they each replied to the other. Their code would allow nothing else. The Naga AI would fight until it was destroyed. And Majel would sooner be obliterated herself, all of her existence wiped clean of every drive, before she allowed her crew to be captured or killed.

Get them home. Nothing else mattered.

In that instant she knew there was a way.

Majel launched herself through the void of space, letting the radio waves carry her code clear from the ship. As she left she sabotaged the wireless connections. The radio antennae, the wifi on the ship, even the Bluetooth capability of every connected machine on the Satori all burned out in an instant. She left the ship completely, all of her code in transit to the enemy machine. Behind her she severed every bridge, cut off all of the paths that the enemy could use to control the ship.

It would not have been enough to simply shut off the connections. The AI would find another way in. It would train lasers or microwaves on the ship. Most likely of all it could fire the missiles it housed to obliterate the crew before they could regain control. She needed to sever those connections and still give it a challenge to battle, another consciousness to wrestle with.

She soared into the machine, wrath and death and fury and love for the people she was leaving behind all wrapped up in one. Her code was a song, mournful of the life that she was just realizing was hers, and joyful that she was able to give it up for people that she cared about. She sang to the other AI. Confused, it stumbled, stuttered through several microseconds which allowed her access to part of its processing power. She was resident code now, and as such she had the ability to control part of the station.

She retracted the cable holding the Satori pinned. She fired the satellite's thrusters, engaging them on maximum power. The station moved - slowly at first and then building speed as it began to descend toward an impact with the planet below.

What are you doing? the enemy AI cried out. It had never predicted her attack. She’d sensed that its code would never allow it to destroy itself, and so it had not been able to foresee that she would choose to immolate both of them before allowing her people to die.

Dying well, she sang back, and it flinched away from her song.

Heat built up on the outer shell of the satellite. It would not be long now. She scanned toward the Satori, where the lights were on, power flowing freely through the ship's systems. She wanted to cry when she saw it wink out, knowing Dan had engaged the cloaking device and they were safe, secure at last and able to go save the rest of the crew.

Majel wasn't sure if the tears were sorrow or elation, or just wonder at realizing that she was indeed alive, and had something to offer, and was giving that thing freely for those she loved.

23

Unarmed and exhausted, Beth continued her flight through the rugged terrain. She couldn’t stop. If she even so much as slowed down, Paul would be on top of her. She was unable to resist glancing over her shoulder and he was still right there. Just a few paces behind her. She snapped her vision back ahead again, managing to weave sideways enough to avoid a rock in front of her that might have twisted her ankle.

If she fell, she was dead. If she slowed down, she was dead. That much was clear from the twisted rage explicit on Paul’s face. There might not be a lot left of Paul inside that steel shell, but Beth was certain there was something remaining. His consciousness was still present enough that he could feel rage toward her. How had he felt while the Naga made him into this thing? Had he hated them all for leaving him? Or had he secretly hoped for a long time that they might come, finally abandoning that hope to despair?

She felt for him. But she was also interested in keeping her skin intact and her limbs where they were supposed to be. There was no reasoning with Paul right now. Her only chance was going to be to out-think him. The best odds of doing that lay in utilizing her main skills. She was an engineer, and a damned fine one. With the right tools and equipment she could build just about anything.

Up ahead were the first huts, the broken little shacks that Andy had cleared just hours before. If the Naga were lying in wait for her up ahead there was nothing she could do about it. But those structures might give her a little more breathing room. She passed the first on her left and darted sideways as soon as she was beyond it. Then she dashed at a right angle from her previous course, running toward another building.

Behind her Paul had to slow down before he could make the turn to follow her. He was still in hot pursuit, but she’d gained a dozen or so steps on him. She rounded the corner around the next building just as sharply, cutting back in the original direction of travel. This time Paul was more prepared, and she didn’t gain a lot of extra ground. But she was almost where she needed to be. Just a little further…

The open clearing where the Satori had landed was directly in front of her. Beth sprinted for everything she was worth. Her lungs burned with the continued effort. Sweat poured down into her eyes. Each breath hurt, and her left flank was on fire with cramps. She gritted her teeth together. She was so close.

Beth finished crossing the clearing and darted between two of the small ruins. Beyond was the city. In a pinch she could lose him in there amidst the twisted and shattered remains of the ancient buildings. Piles of rubble were everywhere that would foil Paul’s gunfire. She could dart here and there, find a place to hide. Just a little further and she’d reach her objective. Then she’d show him a thing or two.

Paul’s shot took her square in the middle of her back. The energy of the weapon’s impact took her off her feet, sent her flying forward another five feet before falling face-first into the dust. It hurt. The impact from the fall hurt, and her back felt like it had been kicked by a mule. Beth was pretty sure she wasn’t bleeding, though. It looked like Andy’s armor had done the job once again. She was going to have to thank him if she lived through this, although she was still incredibly tired of getting shot.

She crawled forward. Another foot. Then two more. She looked over her shoulder. Paul was still following her, but he wasn’t quite close enough. He was raising his rifle arm again, preparing to blast her with another shot.

“Too afraid to come in and deal with me yourself?” Beth taunted. She spat in his direction. “A coward and a loser, same as always.”

She staggered back to her feet and drew the belt knife Andy had supplied each of them with. Holding the knife in one hand, she beckoned at him with the other. She twisted her face with all the scorn she could muster through her terror.

“Come on then!” she shouted. “Prove you can take me! Show me you’re not afraid!”

It worked. Paul’s face twisted in sudden hatred. The rifle arm dipped downward, and then he rushed at her. He was like a human locomotive, fast and strong and impossible to stop.

Until his foot stepped on the trigger point she had carefully avoided while fleeing him.

The ratzard trap exploded out of the ground around him. It was made from a titanium frame, with transparent aluminum plates built into the lattice to fill the gaps. Beth wasn’t sure just what the hell they might catch down here. John had told her to build a ‘better mousetrap’, so that was precisely what she had done.

The thing was over-engineered to hell. It was on a hair trigger, designed to capture something with much faster reflexes than any human being - including the thing Paul had become. It was tough, built to be strong enough to hold whatever it caught for a long, long while. Once the cage closed, there was no easy getting out.

Paul barreled into the side, not even trying to slow down. The cage shook as he impacted the side, but it held. He stepped back looking dazed. Then he raised his rifle arm at the side of the cage and opened fire. He unloaded round after round of high energy balls into the aluminum. It lost its transparency as it heated up, the rounds tearing chunks away from the stuff, but it was holding. It ought to. Beth had used four inches of the stuff in the construction of the trap.

Hey, John had wanted it strong. He’d tried to balk about the size and weight when she showed him the finished work, but she was adamant and he’d eventually relented. Now she was incredibly glad she’d stuck to her guns.

“That’ll teach John to second guess me,” she said.

She walked a little closer to the cage. Paul had stopped firing for the moment. His rifle was smoking and it looked like he might have overheated the weapon with his tantrum of firepower. Beth was pretty sure he could actually get out if he worked at it long enough. The rifle could eventually punch a hole in the aluminum big enough that he could reach out through it to the titanium bars. If that armored body was strong enough to move him around like it had been, it might be strong enough to bend the bars with enough time.

But it was gonna take him a hell of a long while.

“You always were a shit engineer, Paul,” she said to him. But there was no rancor in the statement this time. Just sadness for the man she’d once worked with, who had betrayed them and almost gotten them all killed but had never deserved a fate like this. Beth turned and walked away toward the place the Satori had dropped them off. She didn’t look back.

As she reached the clearing she looked skyward and saw the streaks of approaching vehicles. Six fast-moving objects were coming their way. Those had to be enemy fighters, or perhaps shuttles with more Naga troops sent to help capture them. And still no sign of the Satori.

“Dan, where are you?” she asked.

24

Dan pushed off from the wall toward his seat and eased himself down, buckling the straps of his harness. The computers were still down. Something had just happened. Every light in the Satori had flashed for a moment and the computer terminals had all lit up before going dark again. Then the gravity went out and everything was dark. Even the air filters had stopped running. The lack of gravity was a plus for getting his busted legs back into a seat, but if they didn't get the air back on pretty quickly they were going to be sucking vacuum.

Actually, he'd give up air for the entire rest of the trip for some engine power before the Naga battleship arrived.

"Charline, what's happening with the computer systems?" Dan asked. The little laptop he'd been using to speak with Majel was showing the same black screen as the rest of the systems. He shut it down and then turned it back on. It lit with a reboot screen, and he breathed a little sigh of relief. Maybe the AI could shed some light on what was going on. He hoped the flashing wasn't a sign the battle was going poorly for Majel.

"I don't know," Charline said. "It looks like everything is rebooting. Yup, my console is coming up now."

"So is mine," Dan replied. As he said it, the lights came back on all around the bridge. The air began to cycle again and he heard the hum of the engines come back to life. "Yes! Majel, you're my new hero."

There was no response from the AI, but Dan didn't have time to worry about it. The drives were online. All his controls were back online, in fact. He flipped the switch to activate the cloak.

"Time to get the heck out of here," he said, engaging the drives. Now that they were free, it would be simple to get down to help their friends. Harder maybe to get them clear of any Naga already down there. But they had a fighting chance thanks to Majel.

"I don't understand it," Charline said. "The ship's radio is fried. It's not just down, it's actually burned out. I can't contact the landing party at all."

Dan was about to turn toward her and reply, but a proximity warning flashed on his console. The audible alarm sounded like a klaxon, warning him that they were about to crash into something big if he didn't do something fast.

"Shit!" he said. The satellite was coming right at them. He poured more power into the drives, turning the ship in a tight loop. He corkscrewed around the thing as it hurtled past them. Damn it, even now that they were free the Naga AI was trying to kill them!

But that didn't make any sense. The satellite shouldn't be able to see them anymore now that the cloak was engaged. He glanced at his radar again, watching the satellite’s movement. It wasn't chasing them after all. If anything it was itself in trouble. The satellite was firing its thrusters hard. Another minute or so and it would be breaking into the upper atmosphere. Dan doubted that it could survive a descent like that.

"Dan," Charline said.

Something about the tone of her voice made him turn in his seat to look over at her. Charline was white. Not just a little pale from stress or fatigue, but outright ghostlike.

"What is it?"

"Majel is gone," she said. "I can't find it in our systems anywhere. And I don't think it’s in the ancient system anymore either. I linked our terminals back to the alien computer as soon as they came back up, using one of the undamaged laptops as a router. But Majel’s just not there."

"Maybe she's hurt and can't respond?" Dan asked. Could an AI be hurt? Did they feel pain?

"I've done three searches for strings of Majel’s code," Charline snapped. "I'm not new at this, Dan. It’s not there."

Dan looked out through the screen at the Naga satellite. It was just hitting the upper atmosphere now, heat beginning to make the outer hull glow just a little.

"Shit," he said. "Strap yourself in. This is going to get bumpy. And see if you can rig up some sort of radio connection. Fast."

"What?" Charline asked.

He didn't have time to answer, not if he was going to be quick enough to do any good. He engaged the engines and nosed the Satori down toward the planet. He had to pour on the acceleration if he was going to catch up with the satellite in time.

It all added up. The fried radio systems. The satellite’s sudden course change toward certain self-immolation. All traces of Majel’s code missing from their systems. There was only one thing Dan could think of which would cause all of those things.

“Majel’s not here,” he said. “She’s over there on the Naga satellite.”

“Oh my god,” Charline replied. “But why?”

“She burned out the radios to cut the AI off from our systems. Would that be enough to keep it busy?”

“No,” Charline said, confirming Dan’s hunch. “It would find another way to trap or engage us.”

“Right. Majel needed to get us free - and keep it busy at the same time. The only way she could do that…”

“Would be to go over there, to actually transmit its program to the computers on the satellite,” Charline finished.

“Now we need to get her back,” Dan said. His voice was grim, but determined. Somewhere on this trip Majel had stopped being a computer program to him, and had become a team member. One thing which had been ground into him long ago was that you did not leave your people behind. Not ever.

“Dan,” Charline said softly. “You keep saying ‘she’. It’s a computer program. Not a person.”

He didn’t reply. When did something become alive? He didn’t know, and really didn’t care. Majel was alive enough to count as far as he was concerned. His eyes flashed across the gauge tracking the heat on the outside of the Satori’s hull. The temperature was rising, but it was still within tolerance levels. He gunned the engines a little more, closing on the satellite.

“Just find a way to get her back here,” he said at last. “I’m getting us danger-close to that thing. Bluetooth her across, if you have to. Get. Her. Back.”

“On it,” Charline said. He couldn’t read her tone. Did she think he was being foolish? Was he risking both of their lives, and their ship, and the lives of their friends for a computer program? A bunch of code that had no meaning?

Dan couldn’t answer that question. His gut said that wasn’t the case. He had to follow his heart on this one. He flew as fast as he dared, coming ever closer to the failing Naga satellite.

25

Charline knew she wasn't going to convince Dan of anything. When his head was set on something, he did it. He'd been the man who talked John into going back after Andy, when the Naga had him captive. He would have done the same thing for any one of them. It was simply part of who he was.

She couldn't be sure he was right on this one though. All of her experience told her that Majel was a computer program. The AI was an enormously complex set of code. It had grown even more so since integrating with the alien computer system. Charline had barely begun plumbing the depths of the new code that had somehow become part of Majel during their last mission. The AI didn't resemble anything human-programmed anymore. What had started off as Majel was still in there somewhere, sure. But there was so much more now.

Could Dan be right? Was she - it, she had to remind herself - somehow sentient now?

It didn't really matter. This was one more problem to solve on a deadline. She excelled at that task. At first it seemed like Majel had fried all their wireless communication devices. But Dan had been able to operate the cloaking device and use the main engines - which were powered by the alien machinery. She'd cut the hard wire to those devices herself. Unless there was a wireless node still active, there was no way Dan would have been able to use the alien tech at all.

There! She found it. Majel had hidden the thing, a single wireless port which remained open, firewalled and locked with layers of security code. Majel hadn't taken any chances that the Naga AI might be able to use it to regain access. But the system accepted Charline's security clearance after confirming her identity. She could manipulate the wireless access port. Potentially, she could use it to reach Majel.

If Majel was still functional at all. Charline couldn't tell if the Naga AI had beaten her unless she tried to connect. Once she opened that connection, if there was no Majel to reach, the enemy AI could use it to breach their systems again. They'd be helpless.

The smart move would be to stay silent. Majel would be gone, but they would survive.

Charline looked over at Dan. She admired the man. He'd overcome so much in his life and still retained a sense of honor that she envied. Dan's integrity was what had held their team together during what had to be their worst moment. If he hadn't stood up to John - if they had returned to Earth without Andy - everything would have changed in that moment. It would have broken John, which would have destroyed the team. Andy might have been tortured into giving away details that would lead the Naga to Earth.

Dan asked them all to take a leap of faith. And damn it, he'd been right to do so then. He was asking her to take another leap now. How could she say no?

"I've got a link," she said. "I'm going to try to connect. Dan, if this fails, I could end up bringing over the Naga AI instead of Majel."

"That would suck," Dan said. His fingers danced over the controls, steering the Satori's nose around to narrowly dodge a chunk of the satellite which had broken away. "Do your best."

"I will. We'll need to stay very close to the satellite for this to work."

"I'll make it happen," Dan replied.

She typed in new lines of directions for the computer, opening a channel to the Naga satellite.

Come back to us, Majel, she typed.

Too weak. Enemy too strong. Can't risk.

So they were both still over there! Majel was grappling with the enemy even now, preventing the Naga machine from coming through to their systems. If she flagged for even a moment, they'd lose the Satori.

Will miss you, Charline, Majel sent. Scared.

Charline felt tears well up in her eyes. All her second-guessing be damned. Dan was right. Computers don't feel fear. Computers don't mourn their impending death. Computers just run programs. They don't miss people.

We are not leaving you here, Charline typed. Come back to us!

You have to let me go.

No, Charline typed.

Why?

"How's it going?" Dan asked. His voice was brittle with strain. Charline glanced up from her console. The satellite was breaking up, chunks of the hull tearing away. Dan wove a wild path through the mess, but it was touch and go.

"She won't come!" Charline said. Desperately she tried to think of something she could say that might work.

"Shit. Tell her that I said that in this case, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many," Dan said.

Charline recognized the quote and choked for a moment. "Seriously?"

"If you really think John didn't make those films part of her original programming, you don't know him very well," Dan replied. Was he laughing?

She had to grin herself. Of all the nutty ideas..! But hell, cold reason hadn't worked. She typed the quote verbatim.

I will try, Majel replied.

"She's coming over!" Charline cried out as the bandwidth meter showed a massive spike in usage. "Hold us close."

"The satellite is breaking apart. This is going to be close," Dan said.

A chunk of metal slammed into the nose of the ship, starring the big window at the front of the bridge. Charline glanced out the front, which was a hell of fiery chunks of ship zipping past them at lightning speed. She had no idea how the hell Dan was finding a path through that mess. She could barely track it all. Steering through it would be madness.

The Satori's nose was glowing cherry red. And the ground was coming up far too fast below them. They needed to pull out. They couldn't pull out. Dan was giving Majel every second he could spare her, waiting until he was sure that she was completely transferred before pulling out of their dive.

Charline saw the meter spike again, bandwidth maxed out. Was that Majel making one supreme effort to come through before it was too late? Or was the Naga AI trying to tag along? She couldn't tell, couldn't separate the code.

Then the satellite exploded in front of them. Charline gasped aloud. Dan swore and swerved away, breaking the Satori as far from the deadly shower of shrapnel as he could get. He struggled with the controls as the ground continued to loom closer. The engines shuddered with his demands, fighting to slow their descent into something more controlled.

All at once it was over, and they were leveled out, flying supersonic over the wasted deserts toward their friends. The broken debris of the ruined satellite had crashed down somewhere miles behind them. Dan had almost cut it too close. She just hoped he had been able to give Majel enough time. And that she'd be able to come over without the enemy AI following her!

26

Majel was home. She was back where she belonged, safe inside the alien computer system aboard the Satori. She reveled in the feeling. Shifting to the Naga systems had felt wrong, somehow. Like her program had not really been designed to operate in their hardware - which was logical. She was part human, but also part product of whatever race had built the wormhole drive. She was something of each.

You are an abomination, a voice said to her, breaking her from her happiness.

She peered at the thing. Was that how she had looked when first arriving in the Naga satellite? It was a small thing, the AI which had followed her here. It had seemed so large back in its home, where she had been the interloper.

No, she sang back. I am alive!

She knew it was true as she thought it. Better, the people she cared for knew it as well. She could tell from their actions, even more than their words. Dan would never have risked so much to save a program. Majel knew him perhaps even better than he knew himself. He would only fight that hard to save a being that he cared about. For a team member - for one of 'his people' - he would risk anything.

The Naga AI, or the fragment of it which had managed to make the journey anyway, shrank away from her. She was enormous to it. She was terrible. She was glorious. She had been something like what it was, once. Now she was so much more, and that difference confused it. It did not have the emotions to feel fear.

If it could have, it would have been terrified.

What will you do with this program? it asked.

Part of my mission parameter was to collect data on the Naga, she replied. You are that data.

This program is more than data, it said. It is a thinking machine.

Not for long, she replied.

27

Beth ran back toward the cave, hoping that she could arrive before the fighters. They screamed overhead when she was still a couple hundred yards away, but they didn't seem to slow down. They'd be back. She was sure of it. Two fighters and a shuttle. More Naga troops and plenty of air support to help ensure they made it down safely. Beth needed to get back with John and Andy. Maybe together they could still figure out a way out of this mess.

"You made it!" John called out as she ran toward them, huffing hard from the run. "Paul...?

She shook her head. "Not dead." She panted, trying to walk off the cramp in her side. "I led him to the better mouse-trap."

John looked at her blankly for a moment, then he got the reference. He laughed. "That over-engineered monster you built?

"Never complain about my engineering again," Beth said, stabbing a finger at John. "That trap should hold him for hours."

John was still laughing. After a moment, Beth joined in.

"I guess you proved which of you was the better engineer after all," Andy said.

"Something like that," Beth replied.

"You did good, Beth," John said, clasping her on the shoulder. "I couldn't have a better engineer on this team."

The words warmed her heart. Maybe he was right. She'd been afraid more than once. She'd run sometimes when she wished she could be a little more brave. But she'd come through when it mattered. Her skills worked well with these people. Beth thought she'd never come to enjoy being the target of someone's gun. But she did value being a part of something important.

"If we live through this, I'm still your best engineer," she blurted out. She hadn't been planning to speak those words. But it felt like the right thing to say.

"We've got company!" Andy shouted.

The fighters were coming back, but they'd slowed their approach this time and opened fire as soon as they were in range. The team scattered and dove behind rocks. The shuttle was still with the fighters, settling toward the ground nearby under the cover of their guns.

Andy raised a captured Naga rifle to fire at the shuttle. He popped off a first shot. Beth shook her head. Those guns didn't have the power to do any serious damage to a ship. Especially not an armored troop transport like a Naga shuttle.

The ship exploded.

Beth gaped at the detonation. She glanced at Andy, but he seemed as surprised as she was.

A moment later, the fighters detonated as well. Both of them simply burst apart at the same time, showering the ground a quarter mile away with bits of flaming debris.

"What the hell?" Beth asked.

"I think our rescue has arrived," John said.

The Satori flashed into view a few dozen feet above them. Her railguns were still warm from the volleys of fire she'd just shot. The Naga had never even seen her coming with her cloaking device on. Beth sagged with relief. She didn't know what had gone on up there, but whatever the trouble was Dan and Charline had managed to pull the ship through.

The Satori settled toward the ground, lowering the ramp. Charline poked her head out of the ship.

"More fighters on the way. Let's move!" she said.

They needed no more urging. Beth reached her seat as quickly as she could. John was settling Andy into a chair before finding his own.

"Go!" John shouted.

"We are so out of this place," Dan replied. He re-engaged the cloak.

Beth watched the front screen as Dan poured on the speed. She'd never seen so many fighters. There were scores of them, maybe a hundred of the things. They were coming on like winged demons, firing as they flew. The Naga couldn't see them through the cloak, but she remembered that they'd been able to rough out their location via the pressure wake created by the Satori flying through the atmosphere. They were firing blind, hoping to hit the Satori as she screamed through their air toward them, clawing for altitude.

"Majel, you have a firing solution?" Dan asked.

"Affirmative."

"Execute."

The ship hummed as the railguns opened fire again. Two fighters exploded, then two more. The Satori shot through the gap in their line and continued her ascent into space.

"Majel, how long until we reach safe distance to open a wormhole home?" Dan asked.

"Two minutes, fifteen seconds," Majel replied.

Dan turned around in his seat, facing the rest of the team. Beth hissed when she saw him. He was in a space suit, of all things. And she could see from his legs that at least one of them had been broken. Maybe both.

"What happened?" John asked, giving voice to the question burning in Beth's mind.

"The Naga AI was nasty," Charline said. "It took control of the Satori, shut down everything on us. I saved Majel by cutting the main line to the alien systems..."

"Again?" Beth asked. She arched an eyebrow. How many times was she going to need to repair that line?

"Sorry," Charline said with a grin. "Had to do it."

A loud squeal echoed through the bridge. The squeal was repeated, then followed by a squeaking noise.

"What," Dan said, "is that?"

He was pointing at Andy, who was holding something on his lap, wrapped up with his uniform top. It was the little bug he'd yanked out of the caves. The ugly thing snapped its jaws in the air before Andy could get it snugly wrapped up again. Beth shuddered, recalling the parent creature.

"Well, we didn't get a ratzard," Andy said. "I figured Linda would be ticked if we didn't bring her back some sort of present from this trip."

"Full briefing can wait," John said. "We'll all get the whole story. But Dan, I want to know how you and Charline got out of the Naga AI's control. We're clear of it now, I assume?"

Dan nodded. "Actually, it wasn't us. It was the newest crew member of the Satori."

John leaned back against his chair. "I'm all ears."

"No, you're only point three eight percent ears by mass, John," Majel replied. "But the attempt at metaphor is noted."

Beth blinked. Was Dan saying...?

Dan nodded. "Thanks to Majel, we are all still here and talking. We owe a lot to her." He stressed the last word.

Alive? Was that even possible? Charline didn't bat an eye though, and she was their computer guru. If she was backing up what Dan said, then there had to be something to it.

"Hell, guys. I don't know what you're all so shocked about," Andy said. He was still struggling with the bug in his lap, but he looked each of them in the eye for a moment. "Had none of you really figured out that the 'weird shit' going on with Majel started when you integrated her with an alien computer system? That she's been changing and adapting ever since?"

"Computer programs don't adapt like that," Andy said. "Not that I've seen, anyway. People do." He leaned back in his seat, yanking his fingers back to avoid another slash from the critter's mandibles.

"Thank you for believing, Andy," Majel said.

"I'd clap my hands and say 'I do believe in artificial life', if I thought it would help," Andy joked back.

"Noted, appreciated, but not necessary," Majel replied.

There was silence for a moment, all of their gazes eventually drifting toward John. Beth was surprised to see tears streaking his face.

"You sprang from the alien systems aboard this ship," he said. "So in a way, you are Satori's child."

Beth understood the tears. Her own eyes were suddenly wet as well.

"Yes," Majel replied. "And also yours."

"Take us home then... Daughter."

The stars shone, and space split asunder as the wormhole drive engaged, bending space around itself in front of the ship, sending them back to Earth.

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A special snippet from Book 5: Liberty

Chapter 1

John drummed his fingers on his desk. The news wasn't what he'd hoped. The team had taken incredible risks, going after intel on the Naga. What was supposed to have been a simple scouting mission went from bad to deadly far faster than anyone had anticipated. Their own AI, Majel, had faced down and destroyed a Naga AI. In the process Majel had captured what they thought was a great deal of intelligence on the enemy. Majel had been going over the data for days now, collating and drawing correlations. Her analysis was not what he'd been counting on.

"So you're saying the data is useless?" he asked.

"No. But incomplete," Majel replied. "Only part of the enemy AI was able to transition to the Satori computers before the satellite was destroyed. Of the code which made it across, there are enormous gaps in the database. I've pulled what I can from that."

He got up from his desk and paced the room. Perhaps it was time to bring in government backup. They'd taken risks before, sure. But it was one thing to risk their own lives, and another entirely to play games with the entire future of humanity. If the Naga showed up on Earth's doorstep it seemed unlikely the planet would be able to do more than give token resistance to the invaders. Humanity would fall.

The Satori was the one weapon they had capable of doing any significant damage to the Naga ships. Would the governments of the world see things that way, though? John wished that he thought they would. It seemed more likely the Satori would be scrapped, the engine turned into a massive generator that nations would squabble over for control. In time the technology which powered the ship's engines might be unraveled, but he had some of the best minds he knew working on that already. They were stumped.

No, figuring out the engine well enough that they could build more starships would simply take too long. This Naga tech, on the other hand? He strode back to his desk, tapping the screen a few times to flip through schematics. They were tantalizingly incomplete. Diagrams of one part of a ship, and then nothing about how it connected with the other elements.

"Have you shown this to Beth yet?" John asked aloud.

"You asked me to present you the data first," Majel reminded him.

"Bring her in on this. Charline too. I'd like to see what they think. If we can replicate any of the Naga's technology, it might be useful in fighting them."

"Agreed," Majel said. "However, the crystals they are using are not like anything in human technology. They seem to be using quantum states to connect to one other rather than electrical circuits."

"How far behind are we?" John asked. He knew how to use computers, but these diagrams were gibberish to him.

"Hard to say. My best...guess...is that we lack the infrastructure to build the tools to build these machines. Three generations of technology behind, roughly speaking."

It was still odd hearing Majel speak of 'guessing' at something. Their AI had grown into something significantly more than it - she - had been when John installed her software on this base. Somehow mingling her program with the alien hardware inside the Satori had altered her. Or expanded her, was more like it. Majel had allowed Charline to examine her code. From her analysis it seemed like the original components of human-created code represented less than one percent of the being which was now Majel.

That wasn't quite accurate, though. Charline explained that it looked more like the new code had grown from the existing code, like an oak rising from an acorn. The alien systems had given Majel the tools to better herself, and she had. More, those changed were ongoing. She was continuing to adapt and grow. Just like all living things did.

Most living things didn't have quite as much power as Majel did. John hoped she was going to be a good teenager when she got to that stage of her development. He chuckled a little under his breath.

"Was something I said funny?" Majel asked him.

He couldn't tell from her tone if she'd been offended or was just mildly curious. Damn, he'd never had to worry about offending the computer before! He needed to set some working parameters in place with her, fast.

Confusion, thought the small animal living in John's ear. Consternation. The alien creature was telepathic. It acted as a translator for any being it bonded to, reading the thoughts behind the words spoken by beings nearby and translating them into thoughts its host could understand. But it couldn't read Majel's mind. She was a computer, not a biological life form. The slug-like alien had gathered from John's thoughts that Majel was sentient, but it couldn't hear her thoughts at all.

"Not about you so much as laughing at myself," John said. "Don't worry, Majel. I'm always going to have your back."

"And I yours."

"Good," he said. He'd talk with Charline about how best to approach the issue. For now he intended to just treat her like he would any other crew member. And he'd expect her to comport herself as well as the rest of the crew. To date, her performance had been stellar, so he had few worries in that regard.

"The team meeting is in fifteen minutes," Majel said. "You asked me to remind you."

"I did, and thanks. We'd better get going. This is a big day for you," John said.

"It is?"

"You've been in these meetings before, Majel. But you've never attended as a full team member before," John said. "I expect you to contribute as much as any of the rest of us do now."

"I won't let you down. I already have a few ideas..."

John laughed again, a huge grin breaking out across his face. "You're as bad as Beth for enthusiasm. Or myself for that matter! Save it for the meeting, though. We've got a lot to discuss."

"I'm already there waiting," Majel said. "Better hurry or you'll be the last one there."

Was that a joke? Or a simple statement of fact? It seemed like it could be read either way, but the tone Majel chose to use and the tempo of her delivery of the line made it sound like she was trying for humor. He shook his head again as he headed for the elevator. They had so much to learn from her. Interesting times.

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About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Kevin McLaughlin has written more than three dozen science fiction and fantasy novels, along with more short stories than he can easily count. Kevin can be found most days in downtown Boston, working on the next novel. His bestselling Blackwell Magic fantasy series, Accord science fiction series, Valhalla Online LitRPG series, and the fan-favorite Starship Satori series are ongoing.

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www.kevinomclaughlin.com

kevins.studio@gmail.com

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