Stellar Legacy

Adventures of the Starship Satori: 2

Kevin McLaughlin

Role of the Hero Publishing

Copyright © 2013, 2017 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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One

The last few hours had been beyond belief for Dan. Hell, the last week had been crazy, for that matter. A week ago Dan had watched while NASA’s first manned mission to Mars launched - without him. It hurt more deeply than anything else he’d ever experienced to be left behind like that. An accident had left him grounded for life, never again to pilot ships in space. Everything he’d hoped and worked toward for years was over. Dan was thirty-three years old, and discovered he’d run out of things to live for.

All that changed overnight when an old friend invited him up to a commercial mining base on the moon.

It turned out John hadn’t just been interested in renewing their friendship, and the trip was far more than a pity vacation. The base was hiding a secret. Oh, they were mining helium-3 from the lunar regolith, all right. The isotope was crucial as an energy source for everyone on Earth. Rare on the planet, it was common enough on the moon to make the mining operation incredibly lucrative.

But John had discovered an ancient alien spaceship buried beneath Luna’s surface. He’d kept the ship a closely guarded secret, telling only a few trusted friends. Then he’d rebuilt the thing. The power plant in the alien ship alone was worth more than any other single object humanity had ever discovered or created. It could support the power needs for most of a continent. Whichever nation got hold of the ship’s engines would solve all its power needs, possibly forever. That country would have an unsurpassable advantage. Which of course no other nation could allow. John felt that war over the ship would be inevitable and wreak such destruction that humanity might never recover. He intended to use the ship for exploration instead. By demonstrating the potential of the vessel to explore the cosmos outside of Earth’s solar system, he hoped to convince the world to reach out to what lay beyond rather than fighting over scraps.

The alien engine John had discovered didn’t just generate power. It also had the ability to project a wormhole in space, allowing the ship he built around it to almost instantly traverse enormous distances between the stars. The rebuilt ship - the Satori - could take humanity on the grandest adventures in history.

But the rebuilt ship’s maiden voyage had gone terribly wrong. One of the crew disagreed with John’s intentions. Paul, one of their chief engineers, betrayed them all. He brought a weapon aboard the ship and attempted to force the rest of the crew to turn it over to the United States government. Dan had time to jump the Satori clear of his trap, but the emergency jump placed the ship dangerously close to Jupiter. That was when Paul revealed his backup plan, detonating small explosives he’d placed on the ship. One of them had blasted Dan’s console to bits. The others had almost wrecked the ship.

He’d gotten them out only by figuring out how to use the wormhole another time. This trip landed them in an entirely different solar system. It was the last place the alien ship had visited before arriving at Earth’s star. They’d found a planet with breathable air. The surface was desolate, a hot wasteland. He’d brought the ship in low, looking for someplace to set down.

All of this flashed through Dan’s head as he soared by over the coastline. The oceans on this world were pitch black. No waves flowed, nor were there any currents. Dan wasn’t sure what the liquid was, but it didn’t look like water from the air. Nothing about this planet felt like home. It was eerie how still and dead the world seemed to be. He had the sense that perhaps once it had been different, that something terrible had happened here long ago. Here and there Dan saw the scattered remains of what looked like dried out rivers and lake beds, indications that water had once flowed across the dead land. But no longer.

Dan had never felt so exhausted, and the view wasn’t doing anything to lift his spirits.. His body ached from tension and injury. It had been a painful day for more than one reason, and Dan was more than ready to head for home. They needed to make repairs to the ship first, though. He needed to make sure Beth was all right, too. Charline had radioed up to him that Beth was alive, but he didn’t have much more information to go on, and he wanted to see her himself. Before he could do that, he had to find a place to set the ship down. Everything he saw was rocky and covered with debris and dust. The planet was pocked with impact craters, like it had been heavily shelled from orbit or smashed by a hundred thousand meteors.

Then the Satori shot over a particularly high crater wall, and everything changed. Dan had thought that the place was empty of all signs of life. He’d been wrong. He slowed the ship, spotting an open area near the coast that he could potentially land the ship. John was going to want to see this. Hell, all the rest of the crew were going to want to see this. Otherwise none of them were going to believe it.

Two

The Satori’s engine room had taken the brunt of the damage from Paul’s explosives. Two of the small bombs had detonated, tearing up the deck, shattering plates and sending debris showering around the room. The main conduit running power from the alien engine to the rest of the ship was still shredded. A patch cable allowed some power and control, but they had a lot of repair work to do before the ship was going to be back to full power.

Charline was kneeling in the middle of the floor, holding Beth’s still form and crying when John and Andy pushed the door into the engine room the rest of the way loose. Both women had their spacesuit helmets off. The holes torn in the hull had allowed enough breathable air to pass through that they could survive without the suit air. Andy’s efforts with the laser cutter had finally worked, burning away the twisted metal that pinned the steel safety door shut. With a final, concerted heave, they were through. John froze in the doorway a moment, taking in the tableau. Then he made to step forward to help.

But Charline was on her feet before John took a single step into the room. She flung her suit helmet at him. It hit his chest, rebounded against the floor and spun there. Before it stopped spinning she was already moving toward him. Charline took a hard swing with a right hook, her fist slamming into the left side of his face. John toppled sideways, falling back against the door frame.

“You bastard!” she hissed. “Don’t you ever tell me to do something like that again!” She stepped in and hammered blows against John’s chest with each word. Andy slipped in at her side, as if to comfort her, but John put up a hand and forestalled him.

“I understand that I asked you to do a terrible thing, Charline. But we all would have died if you hadn’t been able to connect Majel to the wormhole records. You kept all of us from burning up in Jupiter’s atmosphere.” John looked Charline straight in the eyes, and even through her anguish she could hear the compassion in his voice. “It was the right call. Hard, but right.”

Charline knew that he was right, but that didn’t make it easier to have cut off a friend’s air. Beth’s suit had been damaged in an explosion. The woman had continued working right up until she passed out. Charline had kept her alive by hooking Beth up to her own tank, using her air for both of them. But her suit couldn’t put out enough air to keep them both breathing and compensate for the leak in Beth’s suit. Charline was heading toward passing out herself when John ordered her to cut off Beth’s air.

And she’d gone along with it. She’d done as she was told. The guilt Charline felt over that decision was unbearable. She felt Andy’s arm behind her back, lending her support, and her hands went still on John’s chest. She could understand, but she couldn’t forgive.

“And if she’d died?” Charline asked.

John looked over Charline then, to Andy, then back into her eyes. “Then at least we would have been alive to mourn her.”

She felt Andy’s strong hands begin to lead her away. She turned, ready to start in on him, but then she saw the look on his face. She knew in an instant that at some point, he’d been in her shoes. He’d faced a moment where he had sacrificed someone he cared about for the good of others. Where he’d placed the need of the many over the needs of one person right there in front of him. He knew how much she was hurting. Charline could see it in his eyes. Somehow that shared pain made her own agony a little less.

Her need to be understood overwhelmed her anger in an instant, and Charline collapsed against Andy, crying.

Beth’s too-still form lay on the engine room deck, helmet off to one side where Charline had set it down. Charline’s medical scanner lay on her chest, a green light pulsing softly.

“So she’s...?” John couldn’t finish the question.

Charline sobbed again, trying to pull herself together. “She’s alive.”

She turned from Andy to glare at John. “No thanks to you. I hooked the buddy breathing up after I finished the program. Didn’t care what you’d say.”

Charline was still furious, but felt it wash away from her as she looked over at Beth. “I don’t know how much it helped. By the time Dan said I could take her helmet off, she wasn’t breathing. I don’t know for how long. Her heart was still beating. I did rescue breathing until she started breathing on her own again.”

Andy offered her a hand again, and she took it. “Let’s get her to the infirmary,” Andy said.

“Yes. She’s stable now, but she’ll be more comfortable there,” Charline said.

Andy carefully knelt beside the unconscious women and lifted her gently into his arms. Charline felt a little bit of the weight she’d been carrying leave her shoulders as Andy took on the load. She’d done all she could. Now there were others who would help. Over and over, trapped inside the engine room Charline had wondered if she had done the right thing, detaching her air supply from Beth’s suit. Surely she could have finished the coding without doing that! Then Beth would have been fine. There’d be no questions about how quickly she would recover from the ordeal. Also no crushing sense of guilt for what she had done.

Charline couldn’t help but stare at Beth’s still form. There was nothing she could do but hope the other woman would be all right. Then Andy turned and met her gaze. The understanding she saw in his eyes warmed her heart and for a moment dispelled some of her remorse.

“Come on, let’s get her cleaned up and resting. Then we need to make sure the ship is spaceworthy again,” Andy said. “The sooner we get the Satori fixed, the sooner we can all go home.”

Charline flashed him a weak smile and followed Andy out of the engine room. Far as she was concerned, she’d follow him anywhere.

Three

John looked at Beth as they picked her up. It had been a very near thing. Dan was going to let him have it later, for ordering Charline to disconnect her buddy breathing. If Dan hadn’t managed to get air back in here, Beth would likely be gone. Which brought up another interesting question.

“Dan? We got the engine room door open. Where are we?” he asked over the radio. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the answer to that question. But he needed to know. There was no way Dan could have jumped them to Earth, and there wasn’t anyplace else that had a breathable atmosphere…in their solar system.

“How’s Beth?” Dan replied. “And Charline?”

“They’re both fine. Charline hooked Beth up to her air tank again as soon as she was done with the program. Then she got both of their helmets off as soon as you gave the all clear. Beth lost consciousness, but she’s breathing. I think she’ll be OK.” John took a deep breath. He’d leave out the bit about Beth’s respiratory arrest for now. He needed Dan to focus, and that wasn’t going to help. “Now don’t avoid the question.”

“We jumped. New star system, close orbit around a new planet. Majel said the atmosphere was good, and we burned out the charge for the wormhole drive with the jump so I took the ship down. Some satellites orbiting the planet tried to shoot at us on our way in, but I cloaked the ship, and they seem to have lost us. And John – you’ve got to see this.”

“Something fired on us?” John lost track of most of the rest of what Dan was saying. His thoughts were racing. The implications of that simple statement were almost beyond belief.

“Yes, but I think they were just automated systems. Seriously, you need to get up here.”

“Safe to set the ship down?” John asked.

“Yeah. I think so, anyway.”

“OK, land her. I’ll be right up.”

John stalked his way back down the corridor from the engine room to the bridge. He understood; he’d been the one to toss Dan and Beth together on this project. Had even hoped they might make up, even after years apart. John knew full well from both of their reactions that there was still a lot of emotional turmoil left over from their marriage. He knew Dan would be protective of Beth. But the risk he had taken! A blind jump, getting the ship shot at - by whose missiles? And then basically invading an alien planet’s airspace. The Satori might have a cloaking device, but she wasn’t invulnerable. The door to the bridge was open, and John tossed his helmet into his seat as he stepped in, ready to give Dan a piece of his mind.

“What was it you wanted to show...” John started to say. Then he was unable to say anything else for a few moments, staring out through the front window of the ship.

Dan had landed the Satori on a flat space just outside a city.

Or the ruin of a city, anyway. What remained forced John to wonder what New York would look like, were it left abandoned for a thousand years. Torn spires still reached for the sky, their broken forms mute testimony to what had obviously once been a thriving metropolis. Dust and wind had done their work, wearing away at tall structures which must have once housed hundreds of living beings. Tumbled rubble filled some of the space between the towers, leaving tortured paths between. The wind swirled a dust devil down the empty street, stirring the long stems of a few hardy plants which had dared to take root in cracks and corners.

“That was more or less my reaction, too,” Dan said quietly. “I can’t decide if the place looks more like an old monument, or a tomb.”

John looked away with an effort and took a seat at an empty console. With a few keystrokes, he called up sensor data on the planet. The air was breathable, but they’d already proven that. Radiation in background traces only. Very hot, though. The temperature outside was 38.2 degrees Celsius, and as John watched, the readout rose another tenth of a degree. Already hot, and warming up.

He had the computer render video taken by the ship’s cameras as they approached the planet and landed. It looked like the entire globe had been beaten with a ball peen hammer. The pock marks of craters and a shattered landscape were signs of some massive calamity. The craters were not random, either. They were especially focused near coastal areas, he saw. The video even showed some places where the coastline had been so obliterated that the oceans had flooded in, black sludge with little circular ridges where bits of crater wall peeked above the fluid. On Earth, at least, most large cities were built near coastline. To John it looked like the damage was intentional, the result of some massive assault.

“Kinetic strikes, maybe?” he mused. In theory, a ship could throw big rocks down from space at high velocity, doing enormous damage to a planet.

“Could be,” Dan replied. “Not nukes though. The whole planet would still be radioactive, if that many craters were all from nuclear weapons.”

“I don’t like the looks of the oceans,” John said, checking the data Majel had on the murky black gunk. It was apparently as bad as it looked, some sort of carbon based fluid. The sensors were having a hard time figuring out precisely what its composition was. The molecules were very complex. Some sort of life form, perhaps?

“Me either. But I think the city is worth checking out. If there’s anything else on the planet intact at all, I missed it on the flyby.” John shared the mixed emotions he heard in Dan’s voice.

“One way to find out,” John said. “Majel? Scan the video please. Look for any other intact construction on the surface of the planet.”

“Acknowledged. Processing request.” the computer said.

“We’d better check on Beth,” Dan said, pushing his wheelchair back from his console.

John rubbed his forehead. This was all so much, so fast. The first mission was supposed to be a quick, easy flight. Now he had a traitor – he glared daggers at Paul, who was still bound. A damaged ship, full of holes Paul had blown with his explosives. And they were on a planet that looked like someone had blasted it from orbit a long, long time ago. He hoped the war which had destroyed this planet was long over.

But if that was so, why were there still satellites orbiting above the planet? And why did one of those satellites fire on the Satori? The ramifications of that were obvious, and twisted in his guts. The sooner they could all get home, the better. But at the same time, how could they pass up a chance to explore something like this? His Satori, whom he had named the ship for, would have urged caution, but her eyes would have been bright with curiosity at the same time. As much as John wanted to get home, as much as he thought they should go home as quickly as possible, if safety were always the highest concern then no one would ever leave home. He had shown Satori Jupiter, and now he would show her this new solar system, at least for a little while.

Four

Beth was pissed. Intellectually, she knew that she was deflecting her emotions through anger. If she was mad, it gave her an avenue to vent her feelings without having to think about how close she had come to dying. She’d been in some tight spots in the past, but never so close to death’s door. Every time she thought about how near a thing it had been she started shaking. Better not to think about it, at least for now. She could deal with the experience later, when they were all out of danger. For now, the entire team was counting on her. Beth was tired, worn out on a level she couldn’t remember ever feeling before. She didn’t have the strength to lift a wrench yet, let alone do serious repairs to the ship, but she could still lend her expertise.

It took about an hour to get everyone together, settled into seats on the bridge. Oh, and for the gawking out the front window to slow down enough that they could discuss their situation. Beth had to admit that Charline carefully checking her out in the infirmary was the biggest cause for the delay. She still had a roaring headache, but otherwise felt better than she had any right to expect, under the circumstances.

Andy was bustling about getting some food for everyone. He slipped a mug of hot coffee into her hand, and she smiled up at him gratefully.

She was lucky to be alive to sip coffee. Her hand shook a little at the thought, and she put her other hand on the mug to keep from spilling. Right now, she wanted nothing so much as to sit tight, fix the ship, and then head for home. But she could tell that wasn’t happening. She was watching faces as John finished bringing everyone up to date. Everyone else was excited at the prospect of exploring this ruined city. Beth shook her head. They were who-knew how far from home, cut off from help or backup of any kind, and her friends wanted to go outside to walk around.

“So bottom line is, we’re pretty sure the ship was in this system just before heading to Luna. We know it probably jumped from this planet, based on the jump log in the database,” John said. “Majel says that sensors picked up a few other solitary structures intact, but nothing else like this city on our fly by. This could be a chance to learn something about the people who built this ship, or someone they knew.”

It was easy enough for Beth to tell what John wanted to do.

“I’m concerned about those satellites. A security system implies someone wants to keep people away from here. I’m game to take a look around, but we need to do this carefully,” Andy said. “If we go at all.”

“That depends on Beth,” John said, drawing her gaze. “Our primary task is to get the ship fixed up enough to fly her home.” He looked at her expectantly.

She cleared her throat. It was still sore, although the coffee was soothing. “Most of the repairs need to be done after we get back to Luna. I don’t have the tools or equipment here for a lot of this work.”

“OK, but what needs to be done now, before we go back? Bare minimum,” John asked.

“We could leave right now, if everyone is OK with the idea of flying back in a space suit. We’ve got holes in the engine room, and the door from the engine room is well and truly busted now. The bridge door would hold atmosphere in here, but you’d probably want to suit everyone up anyway. Just in case,” she replied.

No one looked really thrilled by the prospect. Beth couldn’t blame them. She felt like she’d had about enough suit time for a while, herself. In fact, the thought of getting back into a space suit was making her queasy. Damn it! She shook herself a little, and hid it, she hoped, with another sip of her coffee. No time for this right now.

“I think we can afford the time to get at least some basic repairs in place,” John said.

Beth sighed, half in relief and half in frustration. She was torn between wanting to get the heck out of here, right now, and hating even the thought of being cooped up in one of those suits again.

“Well, we can get the holes fixed easily enough. Couple hours of work there. Ideally, I’d like to do a better patch to the main conduit as well. Using Majel as a control interface between our consoles and the alien equipment was a decent emergency fix, but I’d feel better if we had direct links back in place,” Beth said.

John leaned back in his seat, rubbing his jaw with one hand. “OK, that sounds reasonable. How can we help expedite things?”

“We can’t just leave without looking around at all,” Dan said.

“I know you think we should go have a look,” John said, holding up a hand to forestall the protest. “And I’m on board with poking about a little. I just want to be able to leave fast when and if we need to.”

“Can any of you use a welding torch?” Beth asked. Andy and Charline both nodded. “OK. So the three of us will get to work on the holes in the actual hull, first. After that, it’s fiddly bits, and you’d be more in the way than a help. Just need someone around to keep an eye on the asshole.” She glared pointedly at Paul, who still sat slumped against the bulkhead. He knew the ship about as well as she did, which made him a deadly threat to all of them as far as she was concerned. If it was up to her...

John looked at Dan and grimaced. Dan looked confused for a moment, then started shaking his head.

“No. No way. Not being left out of this, John,” Dan said.

“And how are you planning to get around?” John replied, not unkindly. “It’s not exactly smooth terrain for your wheelchair out there.”

“I...”

John stood up, clapped a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Dan.”

“Damn it. First new planet we visit, and I have to stay in the ship?” He slumped forward in his chair, crestfallen.

Beth grinned wickedly at him. “No way. Your wheelchair fits under most of the hull just fine, and there’s plenty of holes down there to patch. You still remember your way around a welding torch, don’t you?”

“Damn it,” Dan repeated.

Poor Dan. This was going to sting more than a little. Beth had a thought – maybe she could make it a little better. “Be right back,” she said, getting up from her chair and leaving the bridge.

A minute later she returned, carrying a heavy pack. Everyone watched her as she handed the pack to Dan.

“What’s this, then?” he asked.

“Repair kit for the hull,” she replied.

He groaned. “You remember how little I love playing with your tools, Beth.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I do. But I thought I’d get you the kit so you could get started. So you could be the first of us out there – making repairs.”

She saw the moment when he realized what she was saying. Saw the grin light up his face.

“That works for me,” John said. Dan’s grin was infectious – John was sharing it too. “No Neil Armstronging out there though, Dan. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Dan started toward the hatch to go outside and become the first human ever to set foot – or wheel! – on a planet in another solar system. But before he left, he flashed Beth a smile so filled with happiness that her breath caught in her throat. She smiled back, her headache forgotten, feeling better than she had in days.

They hadn’t bothered to replace Paul’s gag when they had him get out of the space suit. But he kept his mouth shut and ears open just the same. His face still smarted where Andy had ripped the tape gag off earlier, and he could taste the glue still stuck to his lips. Horrid stuff. He wasn’t going to give them excuses to abuse him any further. Better to stay still.

He was annoyed at first that they had their little conference right on the bridge with him present, mostly ignoring him the whole while. How dare they just act like he didn’t exist? Paul almost spoke up more than once. The fools were playing with fire out here. An alien world, ancient ruins, and missiles fired at them? They were going to get burned, badly. He wanted so badly to taunt them for their foolishness. Then he realized what an opportunity this was and held his tongue, laying there with his eyes closed while listening carefully to every word.

His plans had gone to hell, but maybe there was still a chance to salvage something.

It had seemed so simple, back on the moon. Surprise John and his people with the gun. Haul them all off and lock them into one of the bunk rooms. Then take the ship to Earth – use Dan Wynn to fly it, if he had to – and turn it over to the proper authorities. He’d be the hero who rescued his country from the energy crisis. Worst case, if the pistol didn’t do the trick, he had the bombs. Show them he was serious by detonating the first two. Then force them to capitulate by threatening them with the other two explosives. Even after everything had gone sideways it still sounded like such a good plan.

Then Wynn had taken them on an unplotted wormhole jump. There was no way Paul could have predicted action that irrational. And that lout Andy had broken his detonator, destroying the only way to remotely disable the explosives!

That had left him helpless, watching them fumble through trying to rescue the ship. He thought they all were done for, at the end there. But Dan had brought them through yet another wormhole and saved the day. The guy thought fast in a crisis, and he had guts. Paul had to hand him that much. He’d need to be careful dealing with Dan. That wormhole had taken them here, to this new world – and that had brought some interesting possibilities to light. If he thought quickly, and played it smart, there might just be a way to turn this mess around after all.

Five

With all of them working together, they had made short work of the hull patches. Satori was air tight again much more quickly than Andy would have believed possible after seeing all the damage. Beth ran the pressure up to a little bit above the outside pressure, and they couldn’t detect any leaks. Then she assured them she was fine doing the rest of the work on her own, and told them to get out of her hair.

Andy’s excitement had been building the whole time they worked. This was a new world, after all! The chance to explore something no human had ever seen. But he wasn’t going to let common sense go out the window. He stepped up to a locked door in the ship’s main corridor. The door was sealed with a retinal scanner, and admitted him after he stared into the camera for a moment.

Inside was the ship’s weapons locker. Part of Andy’s job was making sure everything in there was ready to go at a moment’s notice, and he’d gone to some trouble to ensure they had a decent supply of small arms on board. There was no telling what they might run into on this planet. They hadn’t seen any signs of animal life on the flight in, but there could be something still alive out there. On Earth, he’d seen predators survive in places much less hospitable.

He bared his teeth and chambered a round into his rifle. If they ran into anything nasty, he’d demonstrate how humans became the apex predator on their own world. Mostly through superior firepower.

The weapons had been carefully selected. They were Heckler & Koch G-18 rifles. They had a sleek, deadly look to them, like something from a science fiction film. The rifles had a switch for selecting either single shot, three round burst, or fully automatic – although the last setting depleted the forty five round magazines in seconds. The weapons fired caseless ammunition, so if the team had to use them, they wouldn’t leave brass scattered on the ground for someone else to pick up, the better to keep their capabilities hidden. And the recoil absorption system was good enough that you could use them in low gravity without being kicked all over the place.

Andy grabbed three of the rifles, one for each crew member who was going out to explore. Dan couldn’t travel on the rough ground in his wheelchair, and Beth was still too weak from her ordeal. Plus, she had further repairs to do on the ship, she said, so she wasn’t interested in going out. Andy wasn’t sure if that was real or just sour grapes, but either way he was glad Beth would be staying behind. She’d been through a lot already and needed a break.

Then he scooped up three vests, each loaded with a few spare magazines and a large canteen. Shouldering the load, he stepped back out of the room and closed the door, locking it behind him again.

“Armed for bear?” John asked, raising an eyebrow when he saw Andy coming down the hall with the guns.

“Or whatever we might run into out there,” Andy replied. He passed John one of the rifles and a vest.

“Makes sense,” John said.

Andy was glad they’d worked together as many years as they had. Early on, John had been stubborn about taking his advice on security issues. These days John accepted his expertise without asking why he was hauling out guns. It was an improvement.

He handed a rifle to Charline. She was the newest of the crew, and he hadn’t had a chance to check her out on the rifles yet. Andy hoped she would be able to carry the thing safely, but he was prepared to give her some quick instruction. Instead, Charline took the weapon from him like she was used to carrying one of the things. She held it in her hands, turning it to look it over, all the while keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. Andy was impressed. Then she snapped back the bolt, checking the chamber expertly, and peeked around the left side at the safety. It was on; Andy had checked before he handed it to her.

“Used one of these before?” Andy asked.

“Nah. Nothing like this. But most rifles are pretty similar,” Charline said.

“Maybe we can give you some live fire practice while we’re out here. Find a nice rock to shoot at or something,” Andy said.

Then he quickly walked her through how to manage the front loading magazines. About halfway through, he realized that he was humoring her and stopped.

“You’ve done this before,” Andy said.

“Yup,” Charline replied.

“A lot, I’m guessing?”

“Also yup. Mom and Dad taught me to shoot when I was about this high,” Charline replied, holding her hand a little below her waist.

Andy flushed, a little embarrassed. He wasn’t used to civilians knowing their way around guns. “Sorry, didn’t mean to mansplain it all.”

“No worries,” she replied, flashing him a broad smile. “I liked the one on one attention.”

Andy turned away before he could stick his foot any deeper down his throat. He walked over to where Dan was sitting. He’d moved his chair to the other console in the front of the ship. His own had been trashed, so he and Andy had unbolted Paul’s old chair from the other front console and stowed it in a bunk room. Now Dan could control the ship from a front facing console. He said it felt more natural to him that way. Dan was sitting at his new station, staring out the front window at the ruins, looking depressed.

“Got something for you, too, Dan,” Andy said.

“Oh?” Dan looked up at him hopefully.

It had to be hard to be told to stay home from an adventure like this. Andy would be livid if he was left behind. Dan was taking it better than he would have guessed, but it still sucked.

“Yup.” Andy pulled Paul’s pistol from a pocket. He’d checked the weapon out. It was a fairly nice automatic pistol. It had six .45 caliber rounds in the magazine, and one in the chamber.

“Safety’s on,” Andy said, handing the pistol to Dan. “I’m sure you can handle a rifle from your chair, but thought the pistol might work better for keeping Paul in line. Besides, it’s poetic justice.”

“Guarding him with the pistol he was pointing at me earlier?” Dan laughed. “Yeah, I can see that. Still wish I was coming with you guys, though.”

“Next time.”

“Better believe it.”

John was lowering the ship’s main ramp. Andy joined Charline behind him, and the three started off toward the ruins. Dan had landed quite close. Whatever had been slung at this city had missed, by just a bit. Instead of smashing the entire city into dust and raising a crater where it had been, it looked like it had come in at a sharp angle, striking the city’s edge. The result was a crescent-shaped crater wall curving along one side of the city, and a flat plain in the center of the crater where the Satori was sitting. If there had been any crater debris on the city side, it had long since eroded away.

The buildings nearest the impact site were trashed, of course. The impact would have created a massive firestorm that burned everything away nearby, and would have hurled debris even further. But it looked like the structures went on for at least a mile, maybe more. If there was anything interesting left here, they’d have to hike a bit to find it.

This planet was a blast furnace. Andy was perspiring before they’d gone ten feet. This was going to be a hot walk. Andy didn’t have particularly fond memories of deserts on Earth. Last time he’d been to one, people were shooting at him. He was hoping for better from this trip, but ready for whatever might come their way.

“We’ve got two quarts of water each,” Andy said. “You’re going to sweat a lot, in this heat. But you may not notice it until you’re already dehydrated. So drink – make sure to use your water. I figure we can be out here for maybe three, four hours tops. And only that long if we keep the pace light and make sure we drink water,” He pulled out his canteen and took a drink. After a moment, John and Charline followed his lead. He didn’t mention the extra three quart bag he wore like a small backpack. You never went out into the desert without a water reserve.

Together, the three set off into the ruins. Andy looked back over his shoulder to where he knew the Satori had landed, so he could find it again later. He couldn’t see it, of course. Not with the cloak on. But it was comforting to know it was there.

Six

Landing on a planet in a distant solar system should have been an amazing adventure. The last thing it should have been was boring, but Dan was bored. He was also frustrated. He was stuck on the ship watching the asshole who’d tried to get them all killed. He spent the first fifteen minutes after the others left trying to tinker with his pilot console, but the controls were trashed. He had a vague idea about hotwiring them into the other console. Wasn’t happening. Half the systems were charred or broken from the blast, and the rest? Well, it wasn’t as easy as plugging a new monitor into a computer. The console which had been carefully constructed to make flying the ship easier was toast. They’d have to install a new one when they got home. That meant Dan would need to make do with a regular console until then.

He set up a few macros, just in case they needed to pull some fancy flying before then. Anything that made his job a little easier would be a good thing, and he certainly had plenty of time on his hands. Majel made that process quick and easy, though. He was soon left without anything to do. Again.

Dan tried reading on his tablet for a bit, but the book just wasn’t holding his attention.

So now he sat, twiddling his fingers. Alternating between staring outside and staring at the closed ramp door, the one John and the others had walked out. He sighed heavily and switched his gaze back to the ruined city out the front window. He’d long since lost sight of the trio out exploring. They’d been gone...he checked the time on his watch...half an hour. It was about time to check in with them, actually. He keyed the radio microphone.

“John, how’s it going out there?” Dan asked.

“It’s hot, Dan. Way too hot.”

Dan grunted. John wasn’t going to get any sympathy from him on this one, no matter how hard he panted into the radio. “Find anything interesting?”

“Not yet. We’re just getting past the worst of the impact damage. Starting to see some buildings relatively intact. We’re going to keep moving another half hour or so, then arc around and come back by another route.”

“Sounds good. Stay in touch. Satori out,” Dan replied.

Dan picked up his tablet and tried to read again. He got about halfway through a page before he realized he’d stopped reading and was staring out the front window again. Sitting around here was driving him nuts. He wondered what Beth was up to. Maybe he could help her with the repairs? But no, she’d just chase him off, and his ego wasn’t up to dealing with a tirade from her just then.

He looked at Paul. The guy had hardly moved since they’d landed. Hadn’t said a word. Charline had brought him some water, before she left with the others. Paul had drunk in silence, and handed the cup back to her without so much as a thank you. Paul was zip tied to the stanchion again. Additionally, his wrists, knees, and ankles were paired together with duct tape. It can’t have been comfortable, but he just sat there. He wasn’t much of a threat, at this point.

Dan shook his head. Hard to believe the man had turned on them so completely. He hadn’t known Paul long, but John and Beth had both worked with him for months. They obviously knew and trusted him. The betrayal had astonished Dan, but it had to have really crushed his friends. John seemed to be taking it more or less in stride, but Beth was still being way more quiet than her norm. Dan wasn’t sure how much of that was from her brush with death, and how much might be caused by guilt she felt over Paul’s actions. He knew her well enough to know she’d be feeling guilty over it, for certain. She always tended to feel responsible for things that couldn’t possibly be her fault.

Dan picked up the pistol, checked to make sure the safety was still on, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he headed toward the rear of the ship. He needed someone to talk to right about then, and the more he thought about it the more he felt like Beth might, too. He decided to check if she could use a hand back in the engine room for a little while. Even having her yell at him would be better than just sitting here waiting for something to happen.

Paul waited until Dan was out of sight. He waited another full minute, just to make sure. Then he carefully shifted the cuffs on his wrists down to a chunk of the stanchion which wasn’t as smooth as the rest. It wasn’t sharp; but it was rough. The welds in that spot had never been properly sanded out, and they were jagged enough to do the job. He started moving the zip tie back and forth along the rough patch, feeling a little more heat build up in the plastic tie with each slide over the metal.

Heat up the tie enough, and it would snap. Once he was loose Paul was going to turn all of this around. They wouldn’t be able to push him around anymore. His plans had fallen apart so far, but that was all about to change for the better.

Seven

The only good thing about sweating this much, Charline figured, was that she knew she hadn’t gone into heat injury yet. Sweat meant the body still had enough fluid in it to try to stay cool. Not that it was helping her that much. Her cap kept the sun off her face, mostly, and they’d started sticking to the shade of the buildings once the ruins they clambered through started getting intact enough to cast good shadows. But even so, it was incredibly hot. She sloshed her canteen and took another gulp. There wasn’t a lot of water left, and they still had way too much walking left to do.

They’d checked inside three buildings so far. They were trying to be careful to pick ones which looked more intact, but none of them was trained for that sort of thing, so it was all guesswork. Anyway, they hadn’t found a way above the ground floor in any of the structures they’d explored. They hadn’t wanted to go wandering far enough into those crumbling ruins to do a really thorough search.

She was very aware just how far from home and any help they were. If rubble fell from somewhere up above while they were inside one of those things... Even if they survived, it might keep them from getting out. Dan and Beth might never find them.

But these quick checks weren’t finding much. The buildings were just empty. Maybe looted, or maybe time had just wiped out whatever used to be there. This place had been empty of inhabitants a long, long time.

They turned a corner in the street, starting to arc around so they could trace another route back to the ship and search some territory they hadn’t seen yet on the way back. Up the road fifty or so meters she saw another promising looking building. This one wasn’t tall, like the ones around it. It wasn’t made of artificial materials either, like most of the buildings here. They were all some sort of metal composite that felt and looked like smooth concrete. This building was made of stone. Big, carved stone blocks. In front was a pair of pedestals, which looked like they’d maybe once had statues sitting on them. The very fact that it was so different from the surrounding structures made it feel appealing to her. If it was unique on the outside, maybe there would be something worth finding on the inside.

“Hey guys,” Charline said. “Let’s check that one out.”

John eyed the building. “It’s different enough.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It kinda reminds me of the New York Public Library.”

Andy blinked at the building, then looked at her. “It doesn’t look anything like it.”

“Not in shape. I’m talking about context. Look, it seems likely that the stone block building pre-exists these ones with the fancy building materials, right? And it’s this short building in the middle of all these high-rise towers. Sort of like the library. Or some other old building, kept around out of sentiment instead of practicality.” Charline liked the idea that this race was capable of sentiment.

“Don’t go putting human emotions on an alien culture Charline. We can’t know why they built it, or why they kept it around,” John said. “But it is different from the rest of these buildings. Certainly worth taking a look.”

Charline was going to reply when she heard a rattle behind her, stones clattering. She was about to turn around to look, when Andy put a hand on her upper arm, stopping her.

“Don’t look,” he said softly, leaning in toward her ear. “You’ll tell them we’ve spotted them.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide with alarm. “Tell who?” she mouthed.

“I’m not sure. Haven’t gotten a good look yet. But we’ve been followed since we started down this block. More than one, not sure how many.”

Charline tilted her head John’s way, eyes questioning.

“Yeah, tipped John off soon as I saw them. We’ve had some years to set up signals for that sort of thing. Was about to tell you when you heard them. Good ears, by the way,” he said with a grin.

She felt the grin was more than a little out of place. “We’re being stalked by someone. This is not a party,” she admonished, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

Andy’s grin just got bigger. “Let’s check that building ahead, see if we can find someplace to hunker down in. Worst case, we can call in the Satori to pull us out of here. The street’s a tight fit for her, but I’m pretty sure if anyone can set her down here, Dan can.”

John had ranged a bit ahead, and Charline saw his weapon was held a little more at the ready than it had been before. She took a firmer grasp of her own rifle, seating the stock into her shoulder, and stretched her legs out a little to catch up with John. Andy followed, bringing up the rear. It had been a long time since she’d fired at anything other than a paper target, but Charline knew how to hit what she was aiming at. If whatever stalked them thought they were going to be an easy target, they were in for a surprise.

Eight

Dan rolled down the hallway and peeked into the engine room. Bearding Beth in her den would make anyone but a lion tamer nervous, he assured himself. He was bored, but he’d had the sharp side of her tongue often enough to not look forward to the experience. At the same time, he wanted to make sure she was really OK. She’d been through a lot over the last few hours. It would have been enough to shake up just about anyone, even someone as strong as her.

“Beth?”

“Yeah? What?” He saw her when she spoke, but she didn’t look up at him. She was down in the gap under the deck plates, working on the shredded conduit. Dan’s eyes wandered around the engine room. The place was a mess from the two explosions. It was going to take the crew a lot of work to fix it up, once they got the ship home. He went into the engine room, wheelchair bouncing over random bits of metal scattered on the floor.

“Was wondering if you could use a hand?”

“Not really. Not unless you’ve learned which end of a tool to hold over the last five years.”

Dan exhaled in frustration. “Beth, I’m bored to tears up there. Can you give me something to do?”

Then she did pop her head out. “You’re supposed to be up there watching Paul, so he doesn’t get any ideas. He almost killed us all, and you think skylarking around the ship and leaving him on the bridge is a good idea?”

She was right, of course. But he wasn’t going to admit it to her. “Paul hasn’t moved since the guys left to check out those ruins. He hasn’t said a word. He’s barely wiggled.”

“He’s still alive, right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Darn.” She turned back to her work.

Dan knew Beth well enough to hear the tension under her light tone. Paul had her pretty worked up. She still looked cool as could be on the outside, but he knew her moods. He could hear the anger boiling just under the surface. Which meant just doing as she asked was probably the best bet. He wasn’t going to be able to help her through that anger, not yet anyway. All he’d do by trying was piss her off.

He spun his wheelchair around and started back for the door. He was about to go out into the hall when he heard a loud buzzing sound. He peeked around the door frame.

It was Paul. He was up and about, and trying to get in to the arms room. The buzz was the retinal scanner denying him access. One thing they’d done as soon as they were safe on the planet’s surface was lock all of Paul’s access out of all ship’s systems. Including the arms room lock.

Paul glanced down the hall toward Dan. His eyes were wide and panicked. He saw Dan, knew that the alarm had given him away.

No time to warn Beth. Dan pulled the pistol out and aimed it at Paul. “Don’t even breathe, asshole,” he called out, loudly enough for Beth to hear. “I won’t shed a tear if I have to blow a hole in you.” Not after almost killing Beth. He thought he could live with Paul’s death, under the circumstances.

Behind him, he heard Beth scrambling out from under the deck plates.

Ahead of him, he watched desperation turn to resolution in Paul’s eyes. He could see the transformation there, see Paul’s decision to take the chance. He saw Paul’s shoulder bunch as he gathered to race the short distance to get to him.

Before Paul had even begun to move, Dan pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He’d forgotten to turn of the safety, he realized numbly. Before his thumb could flick the small lever, Paul’s palm connected with the pistol. The weapon flew out of Dan’s hands and onto the engine room deck.

Dan tried to block the punch that followed. He took the blow on a forearm instead of his face, but the force still sent his wheelchair tipping sideways and back. He tumbled out onto the floor. Paul followed, landing a vicious kick to his ribs. Dan tucked his elbows down and caught the second kick on an arm.

Then Dan heard a loud boom, and blood spattered down around him. Paul screamed and clutched his shoulder. He saw Paul turning, saw Beth with the pistol in hand, taking aim again. Paul ducked to the deck just as she fired the second shot, missing. With an incoherent cry, Paul dashed out the door and down the hall.

Beth rushed to Dan’s side and knelt down. Concern creased her face. “Are you OK?”

“I’m fine. Got to stop him,” Dan said. He panted. It hurt a little to take deep breaths. He didn’t think the kick had broken anything, but it was going to be sore.

“Damn it, Dan. How could you leave him unguarded up there? I ought to kick you myself,” Beth said. Instead, she tipped his wheelchair back upright.

The sound of the ramp lowering from the ship echoed down the hall. Then there was a whooshing sound.

“He’s got the hatch open, Dan! Get into your chair. We’ve got to stop him.”

“Why? If he wants to get off here, let him. Good riddance.” Dan winced as he hauled himself back into the wheelchair. His ribs were definitely bruised.

“And let him do God knows what outside the ship? He knows this ship almost as well as I do. He can disable the drive, muck up all sorts of stuff from out there.” She stalked off down the hall without waiting for him, pistol pointing ahead of her.

And Dan knew she was right again. That burned. Paul was still a threat, even outside the ship, for as long as they sat here. Dan wheeled himself forward to the bridge. The simplest solution was to button up the hatch, move the ship, and call the team outside to tell them where they’d parked. He passed Beth, who was cursing as she peeked out the open door and down the empty ramp. He could tell from the swearing that Paul was already nowhere in sight. There was plenty of rubble nearby to duck behind. He’d just hide out there until they gave up and closed the ramp, then tinker with the ship from outside. Or wait until Beth had gone out there alone after him, and then try to get the drop on her.

No, that wasn’t going to happen. They needed to get airborne fast. First step was to raise John on the radio.

He keyed the microphone. “John, it’s Dan. We have a situation here.”

No response.

“John?”

Nothing but static on the line. What was going on out there?

Nine

Andy found himself impressed by the facade of the ancient structure, despite his need to stay alert for whatever was following them. He was pretty sure it was at least four of whatever they were, but he still hadn’t gotten a good look at them. Some sort of predator, he was sure now; they’d encircled his team from the start, working together like wolves or lions. So he’d pulled the team in close to this building. If things came to a fight, they wouldn’t have to worry about anything sneaking up behind them.

The building was beautiful. If it had been a work of art in a museum, he imagined it might have been called ‘A Study of Arches’, because there were displays of arches everywhere, all built from stone. The whole building seemed like a collection of arches tied together with columns and walls.

Unfortunately, the front doorway, which had also been an arch, hadn’t held. The entire entry was full of rubble, blocking the only visible way in. He climbed another pile to peek in a broken window, but there was nothing to see. More rubble was heaped inside. It looked like perhaps the roof had come down, but he couldn’t get high enough to tell for sure. The windows were slits, too narrow to pass through.

“No way in over here, guys,” he said. John and Charline were both nervously facing the street, rifles at the ready.

“So, we move on, or hunker down here?” Charline asked. Andy could barely hear the quiver in her voice. She was taking this pretty well.

“I think we stay put. Call Dan. Lift off out of here on the Satori. What do you say, John?”

“I think that sounds like a good – ,” John started to say. He was cut off by a snarl as something short, fast, and four legged leapt from hiding off to his side, lunging for him. Andy’s burst took the thing in mid-air, slugs slamming into it from the side. It was dead before it hit the ground. He had just enough time to see dusty brown scales, a long snout, and a ratlike tail before more of the things burst out from all sides.

Then it was a free for all. He took another one down as it tried to rush Charline. She was busy trying to hit one that was scampering at them from across the street. Her second burst nailed it. John was expending rounds, but Andy wasn’t sure he was actually hitting anything. These things were fast!

“Get up here with me!” Andy shouted from the pile of rubble. “I’ll cover you while you move!”

Charline and John sprinted for the pile.

Andy dropped into a calm place, a trick he’d earned through long practice. He clicked the rifle to single shot and then swept it across his field of vision in a fluid motion, dealing death as it swung around. Three more of the things were hit. One wasn’t moving anymore, and the two wounded ones turned and fled. But at least a half dozen more were still rushing them. He’d badly underestimated their numbers.

One was way too close to John, but he couldn’t get a good shot; John was in the way. Then the thing sprang onto John’s back. He crashed to the ground, but it gave way beneath him. A gaping hole opened in the ground, taking him and the creature down into the dark below.

“John!” Andy shouted. Charline was with him now, side by side, taking the things down as they came. Four left. Three. Two. The last two decided they didn’t look so tasty after all, and scampered off. He nailed one in the middle of the street, and Charline hit the other just before it hit the piles of rock on the far side.

“Nice shooting,” he said to her, already moving back down the rubble toward the hole. “John!” he shouted. “Hang on! We’re coming!” He hoped they weren’t too late.

John had a moment to realize that one of the things was on his back, hot breath a miasma around his head, before he started to fall. He hadn’t tripped. Something beneath him simply gave way, came apart as his feet landed on it, and then he was dropping into darkness.

He had a perception of jaws snapping near his face as the thing fell with him, still clinging to his shoulders.

Then he slammed to a stop, landing on his back. Sharp claws tore through his shirt, the creature trying to kick free. He rolled away from it and came to a stop a few feet distant.

Light poured down from above, dimly illuminating the space he was in. The ratlike thing was still lying there near the pool of light. It twisted its body and turned over, coming back onto its feet. Three of its feet, anyway. It was favoring the fourth, trying not to put any weight on it.

And there on the floor next to it was his rifle. He must have lost it on the way down, or maybe when he hit the floor.

“Thanks for breaking my fall, ugly,” he muttered.

It hissed in response.

His impression that it was ratlike seemed apt. The faint sunlight from above showed something that looked like a cross between a rat the size of a wolf and a crocodile. It hissed again and snapped its jaws at him. John blanched. Those jaws were full of teeth. Lots of teeth.

He reached down to the floor and scooped up a pair of fist-sized rocks. Some weapon was better than none. He threw one at the thing. It scampered sideways, and he missed. The thing hissed again, and started slinking toward him, moving slowly. It was still favoring that hurt leg. That might give him a little advantage, but it was still fast and those teeth looked deadly.

John backed away. He kept backing in a circle, and it kept coming closer. He tossed the other rock, which hit the thing in the flank but didn’t seem to slow it down any. If anything, he thought he might have just made it angrier.

Sometimes, he thought, you could scare off a predator by seeming like a bigger predator. He stopped backing away. It stopped coming closer, slipped off a little to one side instead. So he took a half step toward it and snarled.

It snarled back, but didn’t come closer.

He took a full step toward it, then. “Come on then!” he shouted as loud as he could.

It backed two steps away, slinking deeper into the shadows. He could barely see it now, still circling him. He had a feeling it hadn’t given up on him being its next meal, though.

One chance. He’d circled most of the way back to the rifle. If he could just get to it before the thing reached him...!

He dove for the gun.

The rat-lizard burst out of the shadows, liquid movement rushing toward him, jaws open.

The jaws were closing on his face. With an effort, he held the rifle in both hands and thrust the middle between those terrible teeth. They snapped shut, fangs scraping against metal and tearing into plastic with a horrible grinding sound.

He twisted the rifle, turning toward the thing’s hurt foot. It gave a high pitched yelp as he forced weight on the injured appendage; the jaws opened. The leg wouldn’t support it, and it tipped over onto its side, claws scrabbling at the air to ward him away.

He hefted the rifle by the barrel. He wasn’t sure if it would fire, after the thing’s teeth had torn it up. But he didn’t need to fire it. He swung the butt of the rifle down, hard, on the rat-lizard’s head.

“I’ve had enough!” he shouted, hitting it again. “Of you!”

His words echoed off the walls as he dealt another blow. He hammered the thing in the skull three more times before it stopped moving. Then he turned the rifle around. He switched the selector from burst to semi-automatic, aimed for its head, and pulled the trigger.

The gun still worked.

John stood there panting a moment, trying to catch his breath. He looked around the room. It was large – maybe ten meters square. There was an arched opening on one side of the room, and he was pretty sure it was the same side as the strange stone building they’d been trying to investigate. Perhaps there was a way inside, after all. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and tried to flick it on, so he could see through the doorway, but it wouldn’t turn on. Must have broken in the fall.

“Hang on! We’re coming!” he heard Andy call from somewhere above.

“I’m OK, Andrew,” he shouted back up the hole. “But I think we’re going to want to take a look down here.”

Andy’s face appeared in the hole. “You’re OK? Where’s the thing that fell down with you?”

“Dead,” John replied. “What, thought I was completely defenseless without you?” He chuckled. It wasn’t too far from the mark, usually. This sort of thing had never been his strong point.

Andy raised his eyebrows. He was probably thinking the same thing. “Glad you’re safe. Hang on, we’ll tie a rope up here and be right down.”

Ten

Dan leaned back in his chair. He’d tried several times to get through to John and the others, but they weren’t responding to his radio calls. Which was a problem. They wouldn’t be due to check in for another fifteen minutes, and Dan didn’t feel like they could just sit around even that long. Paul was out there, up to something. They needed to take action, not sit around.

“They’re either out of range, or inside one of those buildings, or something. I can’t get through to them,” Dan said, his voice full of frustration. He and Beth were sitting in the bridge, trying to figure out what to do next. Dan couldn’t help but notice how her eyes kept flicking to the screen showing the external cameras, like she expected Paul to show up any second.

“We could just move the ship and tell them where we are once we get radio contact back,” Beth suggested.

Dan shook his head. “I don’t know if that makes sense. What if they’re having radio trouble? Or send someone running back because of an injury, or some other problem? We need to be where they expect us to be. I could hop us a short distance and then we’d see them coming. But I think Paul would probably see the dust from our landing and figure things out anyway, don’t you?” Dan felt badly shooting down Beth’s solutions, after he’d created the problem. He never should have underestimated Paul’s ability to cause more trouble.

“Then what?” she said. “I’ve got Majel watching for him on external cameras. But he knows where those are. He’s sneaky enough to find a way to slip past them. I don’t like this, Dan.”

Dan sighed. He could hear the blame in her voice, and he deserved every drop of it. “I don’t either. Only one thing I can think to do.”

Dan went down the hall to the arms room. There was a bar grip in place on the wall, and with a grunt he pulled himself up from his wheelchair so that his eyes were level with the retinal scanner. The machine chirped acceptance, and the door slid open. He settled back into the chair and entered the tiny room, more like a closet really. The display was impressive; Andy had packed a lot into a small space. He grabbed two rifles and two of the combat vests, then backed out of the room into the hall.

Beth saw him coming with the rifles. “You can’t chase him down, Dan,” she said, her voice soft, her face sympathetic. “Not in that chair. And I need to work on the conduit.”

Pity, from Beth? Charming. Dan tossed her one of the rifles. She caught it easily. “I know that. Thought you should be armed, just in case. With Paul loose, I don’t want to take any chances, and there’s only a few rounds left in the pistol.” He handed her a vest, then slipped into his own, patting pouches where loaded clips held reloads for the rifle. He grabbed a headset and radio, studiously avoiding looking at Beth.

“So what are you doing, then?” she asked. Dan tried not to hear mockery in her voice, but failed.

He sighed. “You’re right. I can’t chase Paul down.” Thanks to the injury and the wheelchair. He thought he was over all this. He was back in space, piloting ships again. He was out exploring the galaxy! He’d been the first human ever to set foot on this rock! But the damned chair kept getting in his way, over and over. And now his carelessness had made him more of a liability than ever.

“But I can sit outside and watch for him, make sure he can’t mess with the ship. If I sit inside the cloak, I should see him a long time before he sees me. Especially with Majel watching the cameras.”

Beth looked like she was about to object again, so Dan cut her off. “I screwed up, and he got loose, Beth. I can’t fix the engines. So I need to do this.” He slapped the button to release the hatch. The ramp was still extended, and he rolled out without looking back. He let out his breath as the hatch ground shut again behind him. He didn’t want to see what was written on her face right now.

Some big hero. He’d been chuffed, figuring out a way to save Beth when she was trapped in the engine room. Now he’d been stupid and put her in danger all over again. She was scared of Paul. She was trying not to show it, but he could tell. And he’d allowed the man to get free, to plot some new scheme to make their lives miserable again. He knew that he was going to regret the impulse that made him wander away from his job to go chat with Beth. He could feel it in his gut.

But it was hard, seeing her every day. Being near her like this. The emotions he thought he’d locked away were still there, and they seemed as raw as they’d ever been.

He set himself up just forward of the engines. From there, at his seated height, he had a good view under the ship in all directions except the rear – and Majel had excellent camera coverage from that angle. He screwed up once, but there was no way he was going to let his guard down again. He made sure the safety was off on his rifle this time. If Paul came calling, he was going to put a few ounces of lead into the man, and then probably shoot him again just to be sure.

Sweat was already dripping down his face. Well, he’d been the one complaining about being bored. If this wasn’t a case of ‘be careful what you wish for; you might get it’, he’d never seen one. The ship didn’t cast any shade because of some quirk about how the cloaking device worked. No shadows. But the field of the cloaking device seemed to be blocking some of the heat from the sun anyway. He wouldn’t cook too quickly. Hopefully John and the others would be where he could contact them again soon, and then they could get the ship out of this place. Carefully cradling the rifle, he reached for the microphone key on his radio to try calling them. He needed to let the others know what was going on.

Before he could press it, though, Andy’s voice squawked over his headset. “Satori, we have a situation here.”

Eleven

“Yeah? So do we,” Dan replied over the radio.

“Bet ours is more interesting,” Andy said, working to keep his tone light. He finished tying the knots to hold one end of the rope around a large boulder.

“I’ll take that bet,” Dan said. “Paul got out.”

“What?” Andy dropped the rope, putting his full attention on the conversation. “Are you and Beth OK? Where’s Paul?”

Dan filled him in quickly. “So I want to take the Satori up, move us out of here. Meet you guys at a new location.”

“That works for me, Dan. We could use a pick up. We got attacked by big lizard-rat things.” Andy paused. There was silence over the line for a moment. Andy had to smile, thinking about the expression Dan had to be wearing just then.

“Are you pulling my leg, Andy?”

“Not about something like this. We’re all OK. But I’d feel better about not having to cross half the city again getting back to the ship. We killed the things that attacked us, but there could be more of them out there. How big a space do you need for a landing?” Andy eyeballed the street again. It was a big space, but with those towering buildings on either side, he wasn’t sure how well landing would work.

“I can maybe set her down in some of those main streets we saw as we landed, if that’s what you’re asking,” Dan said. “But I’d rather not, if we can avoid it. The ship flies well, but I haven’t had enough practice flying her in atmosphere yet.”

Andy looked down into the hole. Not a big drop, but they wanted to be able to get back out, too. Out was always the tricky part. He wasn’t thrilled about this side trip, to be honest. Too many things could go wrong. Ratzards – seemed like as good a name as any - could chew the rope. There could be more of them down there. The roof could come down; some of it already had when John fell through, so it obviously wasn’t very stable. Too many things to go wrong. Charline was excited by the prospect of getting inside somewhere that might have been sealed off from the environment for all these years, though, and John wanted to check it out too. So down they were going.

“OK, Dan.” Andy sighed. This felt like more risk than he was comfortable with, but it wasn’t his call. “We’re going to be underground for a bit. We’re going to see if a basement level leads into this unusual stone building we found – sending coordinates now. Charline is thinking there might be something of interest inside. John’s agreed to limit it to half an hour to look around, then we’re coming back out. We’ll figure out a pickup when we get back to the surface. Just...be ready to come running, OK? I’m not thrilled about this.”

“Gotcha. We’ll lift off and be on standby. Satori out,” Dan replied.

Charline looked at the rope Andy had tied, a bemused expression on her face. He’d pulled the thing from a pouch she hadn’t noticed before. It was plenty long enough to drop to the floor below, but it looked for all the world like a long shoe lace. It didn’t look like a climbing rope.

“How are we supposed to climb this? Is it even going to support our weight?” she asked Andy, trying not to sound as incredulous as she felt. The idea of trusting her life to that shoelace was uncomfortable.

“It’s got a hundred and fifty kilo test weight. Ought to hold all three of us. For climbing, we use these,” Andy replied, pulling two metal devices from the same pouch. Each had a big oval, shaped to fit a hand. “They’re mechanical ascender/descenders. Put the rope into this slot, lock it in place with this button. Then grab on, and press the button again. It’ll slowly lower you down the rope.” He demonstrated the procedure.

“OK, cool,” she said. “What about getting back up?”

Andy winced. “That’s a little harder. There are big motorized models that ascend automatically, but I didn’t have any room in my pocket for one of those,” he joked. “I’ll climb back up with these. It’s a little like climbing a rope with just your hands, but these give you a better grip. Then I’ll pull you up, and we can get John up between us.”

Charline still felt a little dubious about the rope, but Andy’s calm confidence was reassuring. Besides, she was burning to see what might be inside this building. She had a feeling it might be important. Trusting his explanation, she grabbed the device he’d already clipped onto the rope and eased herself backwards into the hole. Pressing the button on the gadget sent her gently to the floor below, just as Andy had said it would. She left the devices clipped to the rope and he pulled them back up. A minute later, and he was down as well.

John was waiting for them at the bottom, a mangled rifle cradled in his arms. Andy pulled his own rifle from where he’d slung it over his shoulder and raised it meaningfully, so Charline did the same with hers.

“Change magazines, too. So you’re full,” Andy said, putting actions to words. “We want to stay alert in here. It’s dark, and no telling if there are more of those things around.”

“My flashlight is dead,” John said. “You two have yours still?”

Both of them did, and pulled them out. Andy handed his to John so that he could carry his rifle at the ready. Together they carefully moved across the room, Andy in the lead and the other two following a step behind.

Their light revealed a long corridor on the other side of the arch. A number of doors lined the halls. John stopped at the first one they passed.

“Just a moment,” he said. He handed Charline his light and tried to open the door. It looked to Charline a lot like the doors at John’s lunar base; it split in the middle, and looked like it recessed into the walls somehow. But the doorway was odd, arched on both the top and bottom. It almost looked like a circle set into the wall. What sort of beings would use circles as doorways? John tried to pry the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Looks like they need to be powered up to work,” John said. “Can’t see any way to open them without it.” He sounded disappointed. She couldn’t blame him – what if everything in here was inaccessible for the same reason?

“Probably is one, and we’re just not seeing it. Maybe if Beth were here...” Charline said.

“Something for next trip, perhaps. Let’s keep moving,” John said.

They passed three doors on each side as they continued down the hall. Dust covered everything there in a thick layer. Charline didn’t think they’d see any more of the lizard things. It looked to her like nothing had been down here for a long time. No tracks stirred the dust except their own. The ceiling continued in a long arch overhead, about twelve feet up. The whole place had a venerable feel to it, like it was old even before most of the city around it had been constructed.

Then they reached the end of the arched hall and entered a room so large their flashlight beams were not reaching the far walls. The ceiling stayed about the same height. But most notable were the large blocks set all over the room at regular intervals. There were a score of the objects within the radius of their flashlights. Each was about the size of a dinner table. They were like enormous metal children’s blocks, neatly arranged. Each sat about two meters from the neighboring blocks, forming straight rows and columns.

Charline took the few steps toward the nearest of these, and heard her footsteps echo hollowly on the polished stone floor.

“Careful, Charline,” John said. “What do you think those could be?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, running her hand over the thing. “But they must be important, to be filling so much space here. And they’re certainly more interesting than anything else we’ve found.” Charline was glad they’d come. This place, these things, they’d been untouched for all the hundreds of years since this city’s destruction. Sealed off, they were probably still a lot like they had been that long ago day. She felt certain they would find something worthwhile here, if only they knew where to look.

Twelve

Dan couldn’t help looking over his shoulder as he worked his wheelchair back up the ramp. He knew Majel was watching the cameras for Paul, knew there was no way the man could sneak up on him here. But that didn’t stop Dan from feeling incredibly exposed as he slowly made his way up the steep ramp.

Beth might have helped, if he’d called her over the radio. But the last thing he needed was to show her how useless he was. Finally, his hand slapped the door release.

He gasped with relief as cool air from inside the ship rushed out to greet him. He rolled back into the ship, feeling some of his frustration ebb away with the heat. He slapped the button to shut the door, and went forward to the bridge.

“Beth! We need to make liftoff right away,” he called out in a voice meant to carry to the engine room.

But she was already on the bridge, bent over a console.

“Yeah, I agree. Time to get the heck out of here,” she said, without taking her eyes from her screen. “But how did you know?”

“Know what?” Dan asked. “I reached Andy. They had some trouble, want us to stand by for a pick up.”

“Oh,” Beth said in a distracted voice.

“Beth, what the heck is up with you?” Dan went beside her to see what she was looking at. She was watching a radar screen, showing the airspace around them. It was pretty easy to read. Satori was dead center on the screen, and everything in the air nearby showed up with a number next to it showing relative altitude. When he’d last looked at the screen, there was nothing except the occasional satellite passing overhead. That had changed.

That had changed a lot.

Something very large was flying into radar range, about thirty miles above them and coming down fast. As he watched, the object broke apart, smaller bits flying off.

“Majel, what is it? Asteroid?” Dan asked. The larger object was still showing as about five hundred meters long and nearly half as wide. If it was a rock, it was going to make one hell of a crater, and they’d need to be long gone before it came down.

“Negative,” came the computer’s answer. “Object is decelerating.”

Which meant it was under control. Which meant it was a ship. Oh, crap. Dan pushed his wheelchair back from Beth’s console, bolted himself hurriedly into his own spot. “OK, we have company coming. I’m not thinking this is a random visit, Beth.”

“You’re thinking the satellite that fired on us?”

“Had some sort of messaging system. Right.” Dan’s fingers flew over the control panels as he called up trajectories and possible landing sites closer to the ground party.

“So... We presume hostile? I’ll get the railguns warm,” she said.

Dan chuckled drily. “I always figured those railguns were going to be useless. Anyone we met with another ship out here was probably going to laugh them off, then blow us up.” He thought about it another moment, then shrugged. “Actually, I’m still pretty sure that’s the case. As far as I’m concerned, our best weapon right now is the cloak. Seemed to work on the satellites. Hope it works on the ship, too.”

“Those smaller objects are moving faster than the big ship now,” Beth said, her voice picking up pace.

“Fighter screen. Or drop shuttles. Or something like that. Majel, we have full power back to the drives?”

“Affirmative.”

“OK. Here we go!” His hands flew over the controls, and Satori leaped into the air at his command. He brought the ship up twenty meters, then darted forward toward the ruins. He heard Beth gasp behind him. Broken buildings shot by on either side of the ship as he zipped between them. This, he could do. This, he could do like no one else. He felt exhilaration, reined it in a little and replaced it with focus. Wouldn’t do any of them any good to smash into something because he got distracted.

Once they were deeper inside the ruins, where the buildings might help break up a radar scan even if it could penetrate the cloak, he slowed the ship back down, slipping stealthily through the broken columns toward the rest of his team.

The radar showed the first wave of smaller ships closing on the ruins, half of them slowing down as they prepared to land while the other half curved their flight paths to circle overhead like birds of prey. That looked like a cluster of troop transports and air support. Hallmarks of a military operation. He had to get to the team and get them the hell out of there. This company didn’t look friendly at all.

Charline continued eyeballing the metallic blocks before her. The whole layout reminded her of something, but she couldn’t remember what.

“Looks almost like a room full of big filing cabinets,” John said off-handedly.

“Room full of what?” Andy asked.

John chuckled. “Showing my age. Filing cabinets. Big boxes that offices used to hold paper records. You still see ‘em around sometimes, even though most places have gone over to computers.”

“That sounds about right to me, John,” Charline said. That was the memory she was trying to tease into the open. An old film she’d seen; in one part there was a room full of steel boxes, and the boxes were all full of paper. The room also reminded her of a huge server farm, stacks of computers filled with data storage all lined up in rows.

She shone her flashlight along the top edge of the box, brushing dust away with her other hand to examine it more closely. Sure enough, there was a thin seam along the edge. You could barely see it, but it was there.

“I think you’re right. I think these are drawers. Lots and lots and lots of drawers...” she said, growing more excited as she looked around at the boxes, trying to estimate how many there were.

“Full of what?” Andy asked the question all three were wondering.

Charline was burning with curiosity now. She had to know what was in these drawers.

And just like that, the drawer in front of her clicked, and opened a few centimeters.

John stepped around to investigate, and looked up at her, surprised . “What did you do?”

Charline shrugged. “No idea. I wasn’t even touching it when it popped open.”

“OK, very odd.” John stuck the barrel of his rifle into the gap and gently wedged in into the drawer. She watched it slide open soundlessly. Whatever mechanism it opened on had to be incredibly well built to still work so well after all this time.

She shined her flashlight into the drawer as it opened. The beam glinted off row after row of small, white cubes, apparently identical to the ones on the Satori that seemed to run the computer, cloak, and engine. They were carefully set into hollow slots in a large sheet of padded material, each one secured apart from the others. She whistled softly, then caught John’s eye.

“This is a treasure trove, John. We have to bring these home with us. Near as I can tell, each of those cubes on the Satori is some sort of quantum computer. The data which could be stored on even one of these...!”

Charline’s stunned jubilation died off as the walls and floor started vibrating, and a rumbling filled the air. Dust settled around them from the ceiling.

“Could be the Satori coming in. I’ll go to the entrance and check,” Andy said, jogging down the hall.

John picked up one of the cubes from the slot where it lay, examining it closely. “They do look just like the Satori’s cubes,” he said.

Charline did some quick math in her head. “There are more than a hundred just in this drawer. It looks like four drawers per box. And scores of boxes in the room... This is incredible. The data here...” She waved her hands in the air, helpless to describe the wealth of knowledge this might represent.

“Or they could all be empty. Maybe this was where they stored empty hard drives before they filled them,” John said. “But I think your answer feels more likely. This is more care than empty drives would have been given. Might have to wait though. I don’t want this roof coming down on us.” The vibrations hadn’t stopped, had in fact grown more intense.

Charline looked around at the room as the vibrations became outright tremors. Leave all this behind? When they’d only just found it?

Andy came running down the corridor then, shouting for them.

“Time to go!” he said. “Dan’s on the way. But we have uninvited guests arriving up there right now.”

Thirteen

“We need to go, right now!” Andy shouted again. “Dan’s bringing the Satori around to pick us up. He says we’ve got company.”

Andy shook his head, thinking about what he’d just said. Never mind how impossible that should have been. Company – here, who knew how many light years from Earth – could mean only one thing. Whoever was coming, they weren’t human. They might or might not be friendly, but they were not from Earth. He’d known intellectually that aliens existed. The Satori was proof enough of that. But actually running into live aliens was another experience entirely.

He tried hard to put that out of his head as he ran back down the hallway ahead of the others, toward the hole John had fallen through. He and Charline had followed John down, exploring. He’d worried about all of them heading into this underground warren. But... He’d agreed to come down there, and their safety was his responsibility. Charline seemed to think that what they’d found was valuable, but all he could think was that they were excruciatingly vulnerable here. One way in, no other ways out the could find, and a new threat on the doorstep. Maybe these aliens were dropping by for tea, but he hadn’t forgotten the satellites orbiting above that fired on the Satori. His gut said their company meant trouble.

And it was his job to get them out before this hole turned into a trap.

He reached the small pool of daylight coming in through the hole above, and quickly latched his ascenders onto the rope. With a tug to ensure the rope was still secure, he started climbing hand over hand toward the top. Andy worked hard to keep himself in shape. Even with the heat, the climb was an easy one for him.

The lip was the tricky part. He was worried about John and Charline’s ability to handle the ascenders, but he was pretty sure they couldn’t manage the core strength required to get up through the last bit. He grunted with the effort, moving as fast as he could. With a last heave, he pulled himself up.

No time to rest. Rising to his feet, he unslung his rifle from his back and brought it up to his shoulder, moving quickly to the boulder he’d used to anchor the rope. With great care, he peeked up over the rock in front of him. He saw no movement, nothing new. Dan said the ships were close. Where were they?

Three vessels roared by overhead. Two were small, about the size of a fighter plane. The one flying between the other two was much larger. As he watched, the big ship slowed down, while the other two peeled off and gained altitude again. The larger craft began to settle toward the ground. It touched down perhaps a hundred meters up the street from where he was watching.

It was almost as big as the Satori, but lacked her sleek lines. The thing looked to Andy like nothing so much as a big cargo plane with the wings trimmed down to little nubs, and it shook the ground as it was landing. The vibrations they’d felt down below must have been another of the vessels touching down nearby. To Andy’s experienced eye, the ship’s look – and their fast moving escorts – were clearly military. He was sure he’d been right, now. Their company was not friendly.

Sparing glances at the ship when he could, Andy pulled the rope out of the pit. He hauled up the rope to reposition the ascenders for another climb, then dropped the assembly back down the hole to where John stood, staring up at him.

“Quickly and quietly! I’ll help you up,” Andy spoke softly down to John. “Where’s Charline?” He couldn’t see her anywhere near John, and a stab of worry gripped him.

Charline’s hands were shaking, hovering over the cubes in front of her. Her eyes darted around the room, catching hopelessly on each of the big storage devices, knowing that thousands of the cubes had to be there in those other containers, carefully stowed away. Waiting for someone to come and unravel their mysteries. Waiting for her.

It was impossible to leave them all. Any one of those cubes might solve...well, anything. What sorts of secrets could be in the computers of a race that skipped across the stars in wormholes? To be so close, and then lose all this, was too much to bear. She had to do something.

She started stuffing cubes from the open drawer into her pockets. The flight suits they all wore had lots of pockets, but she’d stuffed them all without even emptying a single drawer. Despairing, she looked around for some way to carry more of the precious data home.

Her canteen banged on the drawer next to her, giving her an idea. She pulled the canteen – empty now anyway – from its pouch. She tossed the canteen on the floor, and stuffed cubes into the pouch, filling it far too soon.

“Charline! Let’s move!” demanded John.

She knew he was right. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were missing out on the chance of a thousand lifetimes here, if they left all this behind. She might not be able to return to this place. But she’d grabbed what she could. Time to get away with at least that.

Resigned, but sick at heart, Charline gently closed the drawer again. She ran a hand over the storage unit. Perhaps it would keep the precious contents safe until she could return for them. She could only hope.

She ran down the corridor toward the beam of light showing the way out. She was out of breath by the time she reached the hole, and John was halfway up. He was hauling himself up a bit at a time, but she could see that Andy was pulling him up as well, the rope sliding against the rough edge of the hole in a way that made her wince.

She stepped back, avoiding some loose gravel dislodged by John’s climb. Her foot went into something sticky. Reflexively, she shone her flashlight down to see what she’d stepped in, and immediately wished she hadn’t. A pool of black, tarry fluid had spread from the body of the lizard-thing John had killed. Her foot had landed in the stuff, and now it was smeared all over the bottom and edges of her sneaker.

As repulsed as she was to have the stuff on her shoe, she was also fascinated. She looked closer, and saw that it really did seem to be black, and not just a dark color. What sort of creature could have black blood? What was in it that made it black?

She wished she had a proper medical kit to take a sample. Briefly, she considered tearing off part of her the tank top she wore under her ship suit and using that to take a sample, but old habits of from her time working with emergency medical teams stopped her a moment. Who knew what sort of pathogens could live in that goo? She knew most microbes were pretty organism specific, though. Odds were good most alien ones wouldn’t match up well with human physiology.

And if they did, well – they’d already been exposed. In which case they might need a sample! And what she was going to have to scrub off her sneaker wasn’t going to be adequate. She tore off a bit of her shirt, swabbed some of the blood, then folded the cloth and tucked it into her pouch next to the cubes. She might have preferred a cleaner sample, ideally by sticking the ratzard and collecting blood in a test tube, but this would have to do.

John had reached the top. Charline could see Andy doing something with the rope. She hoped he’d hurry. Being alone down there was starting to get to her. The darkness felt like it was pressing in all around her, and she hefted her rifle carefully, keeping it at the ready. She kept taking peeks at the ratzard’s corpse, knowing it couldn’t rise up and come after her, but suddenly nervous of it all the same.

Fourteen

Paul knew he was screwed as soon as the slug from Beth’s pistol tore through his shoulder. He’d managed to get outside the ship. He still wasn’t quite sure how, through the screaming pain. But he’d staggered as fast as he could into some rubble a little ways off and hidden. Not that hiding had mattered much. The wound had bled a lot at first, and he was sure he’d left a blood trail.

That was the first thing he’d worked on, once he stopped running and the pain had receded a bit: staunching the blood. He wouldn’t last long, otherwise. Paul tore his t-shirt into chunks and bound up the wound as best he could. It hurt like hell, and he grunted through clenched teeth, holding his sound down as much as he could, in case Beth or Dan decided to come looking for him. He still heard answering cries, not from the ship, but from something out in the ruins, a kind of snarling howl. The sound shook him to the core, and he froze in place. Nothing came running out at him, though. Paul went back to tending the injury after a few moments, knowing that the scent of blood was as likely to draw animals as any sound he made. He bit into a chunk of shirt to keep from crying out again as he worked.

He moved on as quickly as he could. Something in his gut said that was a predator out there, and the last thing he wanted was to be sitting at the end of a blood trail waiting for it. He stayed near the ship. Maybe he could ambush John’s team when they came back. As the minutes crept by, and the heat drenched his body with sweat that dripped down, stinging his wound, he had to admit he wasn’t going to able to ambush shit. If he didn’t want to die alone out there, maybe his best chance would be to surrender himself. He tried to rise to his feet and failed. His legs were shaking. Too much blood loss, or dehydration? He wasn’t sure. It might have been a combination of both. But he wasn’t going anywhere. He scanned the horizon, hoping to spot John’s team when they came back. He could call for help, then. Beg for mercy. They wouldn’t just leave him out there to die.

Paul knew his only real hope was that he could call out to them as they passed, and ask them to just take him home. He’d take being locked in a cell for the rest of his life over this fate. Anything was better than dying out here slowly in this heat. Or waiting for something to come along and make a meal of him. He could still remember how that distant snarl sounded, and he shivered despite the heat.

His hope died when the Satori lifted off, dust billowing from the passage of the invisible ship.

They’d gone. They’d left him out here to die. He’d never felt more alone.

Then Paul heard a sound, that same snarling howl he’d heard earlier. It was much closer this time. He wished he could just lay down and die, rather than be ripped to pieces by some animal. The adrenaline rush he got from hearing the snarl gave him enough strength to get back to his feet. Paul staggered a few steps, working hard not to fall back down again. He knew if he fell he wasn’t going to be able to get up a second time.

Paul tried to find something to arm himself with, but the best he could do was a fist-sized rock. His right arm hung limp and useless, agony searing through him with every move. But he would not go without at least trying to fight. If he could just find a stick, something he could swing...

He heard the scream of engines as a score of ships flew across the sky. One of the larger ones broke away from the others and settled to the ground not far from where the Satori had landed. He stood there gaping and watched as the ship set down. Dimly, he knew he was suffering from dehydration, maybe even sunstroke, and definitely from blood loss. But he couldn’t find the energy to look for cover again. Besides, something intelligent was flying those ships. Some other life form. Through the haze of blood loss, Paul figured that they couldn’t be any worse than whatever the snarling animal out there was. What was the worst they could do to him, kill him? Better than being eaten alive.

He was wobbling on his feet, watching the ship, when he saw big hatches on the front open, and disgorge monsters.

Dan slowed the Satori as he rounded the corner, fighting to keep the wingtips from scraping into the buildings on either side of the ship. These streets hadn’t been designed for spaceships to fly down them, that much was certain! He managed, but only just. According to the coordinates Andy had given him, the party was about a hundred meters ahead on the left.

Unfortunately, one of the alien ships had landed just a hundred meters farther up the street from his friends, and it looked like some of the crew were disembarking and setting out in the general direction of the Satori’s ground party.

“Beth, our company beat us here,” he said. This was a complication he’d hoped to avoid. There were a lot of alien ships flying around now. He’d wanted to slip away before they were seen, but it looked like that would be impossible now. He continued to ease the Satori closer, taking a good look at the alien ship.

Dan’s brain automatically cataloged the ship as an assault craft. It looked a lot like the amphibious assault vehicles used by Marine forces on Earth – right down to the large hatch in the front. This one was just designed to fly instead of float. He saw obvious gun turrets on the top and sides of the vessel. The engines looked similar to those on the Satori, which implied a higher tech base than Earth.

“I’ve got the railguns locked on it. I think,” Beth said.

“Confirmed. Target lock acquired,” the ship’s computer said. Dan could hear the relief in Beth’s exhaled breath.

“Let’s not shoot first,” Dan said. “I’d like to find out what their intentions are.”

“That ship is bristling with guns, Dan,” Beth said. “And if those aliens get much closer to John and the others, they’ll be too close to our people for us to use the railguns.”

“Yeah, but I have a hunch these guys are responding to that satellite firing on us.” Dan gently nudged the Satori forward a bit more. Now he was about even with the stone building Andy had described. That put him almost right over the heads of his team, but he couldn’t get lower without their engines stirring up the dust below and giving away their location. “We may have ignored their ‘don’t step on the grass’ sign or something. Let’s see what they do.”

“I wait with bated breath,” Beth said. “And my finger on the trigger.”

Fifteen

Andy was watching the troops unload from the front of the ship through his rifle scope. He’d dialed up the zoom until he could see them all too clearly. They were definitely not human. They looked something like crocodiles walking upright, complete with tails behind and a snout full of teeth. He got a good close up view of one of those mouths; the long, pointed teeth set off part of his brain that wanted to run away from here as fast as his legs would carry him. He quietly shut off that voice and kept observing instead. His instincts said that things were about to get nasty, and he would need a cool head to carry them through.

The aliens were wearing something that looked like body armor across their torsos, leaving arms and legs bare, dark green scales gleaming in the sun. Each carried a rifle with a wide bore – the opening of each barrel was about big enough for Andy to stick his fist into it. There was something odd about the weapons, though. The projectiles a barrel that big would throw would be huge, but he didn’t see anything like a magazine for rounds that large. Some sort of energy gun, maybe?

It wasn’t the rifles or armor that made Andy sure they were troops, though. It was how they moved. He’d seen a lot of different military units over the years, but they all boiled down into three groups. Some moved fluidly as a unit, using modern tactics to cover each other and maximize their combat effectiveness and minimize casualties. Others held to rigid discipline, often to such a level that it made them ineffective. The third, and most common, were units that derived from a warrior culture – where the soldiers were more interested in personal glory than they were in unit cohesion and cooperation.

These lizards were the third kind, and Andy would have either snorted in derision or sighed with relief if there hadn’t been so many of them that it made no difference. The ship had already disgorged a score of the things, and although they were still tucked into cover near their ship, he had a feeling that situation wasn’t going to last. The lack of coordination and unit training the aliens exhibited was a plus for his side, if things came down to a fight. But they were outnumbered so badly it wasn’t going to save them. He hoped Dan was going to get here soon.

Andy peeked back over his shoulder. John was still working to get Charline out of the pit. He wanted to go help, but was loathe to take his eyes off the aliens for more than a moment. They needed more time. He had a feeling they weren’t going to get it.

He almost jumped when the radio buzzed in his ear.

“Andy,” Dan said, “we’re above you and to the right. Ready to get out of there?”

Andy heaved out his breath, relaxing the tension that had been piling up on his shoulders. Dan had made it. The Satori was nearby, invisible, getting ready to pick them all up. Five seconds earlier Andy had no idea how he was going to get his team out of this mess. The Satori’s arrival changed everything.

“Better believe it. Can you get us out?” Andy asked.

“I think so. I’ll maneuver the ship down between you and them and put you on our port side so we can lower the ramp and get you aboard. Watch out – they’re moving!”

Andy looked down toward the alien ship. One of the troops was shouting commands to the others, and then all at once they just started moving directly toward his party like they knew where they were going. Somehow the aliens knew that the humans were in this direction. Andy could see it in the way they walked. They weren’t searching for a possible opponent. They were moving to an anticipated contact.

They were a disorganized lot, but the one who’d been giving orders was out front leading the pack. Andy trained his scope on that one. Take him down, and it might mess the alien squad up even more. He slipped his finger into the trigger well, but held his fire. Maybe they could still get out of this without killing the first alien sentients they ran into. Andy wasn’t one to back down from a fight if the battle was necessary, but he didn’t want to be the one to kick things off. If they could just get the Satori into position and get aboard before the aliens spotted them, maybe they could get out of this mess without firing a shot.

But then one of the aliens shouted, and they all ducked behind rocks. Andy wasn’t sure what had given him away. Maybe they’d seen sunlight glint off his scope, or maybe their sensors had finally picked up the humans huddled down in the rubble. In the end it didn’t matter. Two of them opened fire on his position, and he ducked back in time to avoid being pelted with rock splinters as whatever they were shooting impacted the boulder he was hiding behind. And he was right about those rifles. They were firing something that looked more like ball lightning than a solid projectile. He could feel the shots shaking his boulder.

“Dan, now would be a good time!” Andy said into the radio. He snuck a peek at the advancing force. They were moving forward again, not running, but coming at a fast walk over the broken rubble. Some of them were shooting as they came, firing in his general direction without bothering to aim. Sloppy, poorly disciplined, as he’d thought. But he still needed to slow them down. He took aim on the lizard in front, and pulled back slowly on the trigger.

He had a moment to whisper a brief prayer that he wasn’t starting a war. Then his rifle bucked, and his shot took the alien through one reptilian eye. It dropped face first like a felled tree, and that stopped the rest of them cold for a moment as they all hit the ground. Andy fired two more shots to keep their heads down, then ducked back. He was just in time – the boulder behind his back shuddered with repeated impacts as the aliens fired their weapons in return.

Sixteen

Dan had just about gotten the Satori into position to grab their crew-mates. And not a moment too soon, as Andy and the aliens began exchanging fire. He watched the impacts of the alien rifles on the rocks. They were pounding the rubble around his friends hard, shaking loose a lot of dust, but they weren’t shattering the rocks on impact. He thought the Satori’s hull could withstand at least a few of those shots.

“They’ve opened up on Andy’s position,” Beth said. “I’m taking out that shuttle.”

“No!” Dan said. “The turrets on their ship haven’t budged.”

Beth growled, whirling on Dan. “So you want us to just sit here while they pick off our friends?”

Dan gritted his teeth. His fingers moved steadily over the controls as he brought the ship slowly down. “Let’s see if we can just get our guys out of there with a minimum of bloodshed.”

Maybe being in the astronaut corps had given him a different perspective, but firing on First Contact simply wasn’t in his plans. He watched the screen carefully, saw huge plumes of dust rise into the air as the energy field which held the ship airborne made contact with the ground. That got the aliens’ attention, and they hunkered down even more. Dan kept the Satori hovering a few feet up, so they could make a quick getaway.

“Majel, analysis of their hand weapons. Can they hurt the Satori?” Dan asked.

“Negative. Hand weapons are firing an energy discharge. Impacts appear to be causing minimal damage to structural integrity of materials they contact. Risk to ship’s hull negligible.”

“Got it,” Dan said. He brought the ship down even more, blocking the path between the aliens and their friends. “Beth, get the hatch open so our people can get in here!” He was still too far away for comfort – they’d have to sprint to cross the gap. But the rubble everywhere was making it hard to get closer.

He was dimly aware of Beth rising from her seat and running to the main hatch, but his focus was on keeping the ship level and clear of debris while they hovered. He heard when the hatch opened and the ramp lowered down. Almost immediately, the starboard side of the ship – the side facing the aliens – rang again and again, as if it was being pounded with hammers. A quick look at the camera watching them showed the aliens firing over and over at his ship. The ramp! It extended out past the cloak. They must have seen the ramp lower out of thin air and opened fire.

“Alert!” Majel’s voice said, louder than usual to project over the hammering noise. “Two airborne ships have shifted course and are closing on this position. Firing range in seven seconds.”

The fighter escort ships! Dan cursed. There wasn’t going to be time to get everyone aboard. He’d bet those fighters had bigger guns than their ground troops. While the ramp was down, they were visible and vulnerable. The fighters would pound them to scrap metal. He jerked the ship’s nose around, angling upward. The little alley between buildings had turned into a death trap, and Dan needed to get the ship out of there. In another few seconds the enemy fighters would be all over them.

“Beth, raise the ramp!” he shouted. That ramp would tell the fighters precisely where they were.

Then he keyed the radio, saying “Andy, incoming fighters!” as he poured on more thrust, steering the Satori forward and up. The ship lifted away from the ground with a lurch just as he heard the staccato sound of projectiles ripping through the air nearby. That would be the fighters’ guns. If they got in a couple of lucky shots, the Satori would be done for. Dan aimed the ship’s nose on a new course to confuse their fire and applied more power, hearing the shredding ping of rounds passing through metal as one strafing run tagged them. The ship shuddered a little, but stabilized and continued to gain altitude.

“Hang on, John,” Dan said. “We’ll be back.”

John was just about to order Charline to go up the ramp to the Satori, when he heard Dan’s warning over the radio.

“Everyone down!” he roared over the gunfire. Distantly, he hear the high pitched whine of something airborne closing fast. He launched himself at Charline, dropping them both face-first down into the gravel so his body would shield hers, but not before he saw the ramp vanish as it was retracted into the invisible ship he knew was gaining altitude above them.

All around them, the world seemed to explode as the fighters strafed the area where they guessed the cloaked Satori might be.

When the bits of rock had stopped falling, all John could hear was ringing. A quick peek showed head-sized marks burned in the ground where the shots had impacted. The aliens had all hit the dirt, too. Now they were starting to cautiously get back up. John’s eyes met Charline’s as she lifted her head. She looked scared, but gave him a thumbs up. The aliens hadn’t started firing on them again, so he grabbed his rifle and scooted a few meters to take cover behind the big boulder next to Andrew.

“You OK?” Andrew asked.

John could just barely make out the words over the ringing in his ears. He nodded in reply. He saw Andrew try to duck his head out to take a shot at the aliens, but a series of blasts hit the rocks in front of them and he pulled his head back, fast. John winced, seeing the small slice one flying rock had left along Andrew’s brow.

Andrew seemed oblivious to the injury. “They’re coming forward again, and we’re pinned here,” he said. “I can’t peek long enough to get a bead on them.”

“If they close with us before Dan and Beth get back, we’re toast,” John said. He keyed his radio, saying “Dan, we’d be grateful if you could speed things up a little.” He didn’t hear a reply back.

They probably were toast. Maybe Dan and Beth could still get away, but the rest of them? It seemed less likely by the moment. John looked at Andrew, who was still trying to get his rifle around the boulder to fire on the approaching foe. For the second time today, he found himself wishing he’d had more time to tell him everything. There was so much that John wanted to say, but he’d never been able to work up the courage to speak the words.

Now or never! whispered a voice in his head, drowning out everything else. Those were his Satori’s words, right before she leaped into whatever crazy thing she was about to do. He recalled her whooping laugh as she swung on a rope out over the river, one perfect summer day, letting go to splash down into the dappled shade below. Now or never, she’d said.

He recalled when he first met Andrew. John was speaking at a conference of the World Energy Council, in New York City. It was a brisk February afternoon, a year almost to the day after Satori had died, their son with her, as she tried to give him birth. The energy crisis was just being felt in earnest, and New York had been doing rolling brown-outs. The people were upset and were protesting a few blocks away from the building – the closest the city police would let them get to the United Nations complex. He’d watched them from inside the safety of the government building, wondering why they were protesting here of all places, where people were meeting in hopes of solving the problem. Sometimes people didn’t make sense, especially when they were frightened and angry.

The protest had gotten ugly. Some of the people in the crowd had brought guns to the party, and when the police had tried to use riot shields and tear gas to disperse the mob, they used the guns on the police. At least one policeman returned fire, and the crowd turned into a furious mob. They swept the police away and stormed the building where the talks were being held. Special Forces teams were called in to defend the building until reinforcements could arrive.

In the middle of that mess, young Lieutenant Andrew Wakefield had taken John under his protection. John, who had rather too little care at that point whether he lived or died, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The mob came streaming up a flight of stairs. Those at the front of the crowd had guns, and there was no remorse in their eyes. John hadn’t fled. If this was his time, so be it. At least he would get to see Satori again.

But Andrew had seen the crowd coming, too. He’d shoved John aside, his rifle at the ready and aimed at the mob. Andrew didn’t fire. He didn’t want the blood of innocent people on his hands, or so he’d told John later on. Instead he stood his ground and ordered the crowd to leave. They hadn’t listened. Instead, one of them shot Andrew and the rest surged forward again.

Seeing the young man gunned down trying to keep him alive changed everything for John. He picked up the soldier’s rifle and defended him with it until help could arrive. Where Andrew had shown restraint, John demonstrated none. He emptied two magazines into the mob before they fled from him. John hadn’t pursued them. He’d stayed by the injured man instead, guarding him from harm. Later, he visited the hospital where he was treated, and donated blood in his name. He stopped back days later, once Andrew was conscious again, to say thank you.

And he’d watched over him ever since. John observed Andrew’s career in the Army through his Department of Defense contacts. And when Andrew ended his term of service to go back to school, John arrived with an offer – his master’s degree in whatever he wanted, at whatever school he went to, and the offer of a job when he was done. His way of saying thank you. Both for saving his life, and for reminding him that it was worth living.

Andrew had declined the offered money. He won his own way through grad school. And then he’d taken John’s offer of a job after he graduated with his MBA. The man was such a contradiction, sometimes!

Somewhere between taking a bullet for him and today, John had come to think of Andrew as the son he had lost when he lost Satori. But he’d never said as much. He’d never actually told Andrew how much he meant. John hoped the young man just knew, but in his heart he was aware that wasn’t really enough. The words needed to be said, and this might be his last chance.

Now or never, she whispered in his memory again. He pushed the thought away. It wasn’t the time. Not while they were being shot at. It would smack of being defeatist, admitting they were likely lost. He brought his attention back to the present, opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d briefly squeezed shut.

John saw Charline still laying where he’d pushed her down. Was she hurt? No – he realized she wasn’t in quite the same spot. She’d slid forward on her belly, a little farther away from them, using some more rocks as cover. John’s brow furrowed. As he watched, she slid a little farther away. Now she was nestled behind a pair of rocks, each about the size of a large dog. What was she up to?

Seventeen

Charline was panting, laying with her back against a small rock. Well, she’d worked hard enough to get to this spot without being seen. Low crawling over rough rocks and stones was no picnic. She felt like half the sand on this planet was ground into her scalp, not to mention the grime that was coating her everywhere else. But she’d made it. Crossing the distance from where John had knocked her down to her present position had felt like a huge risk. The rocks she’d used to conceal the movement hadn’t offered much cover, more concealment than anything else. If they’d seen her she would have been hit for sure.

But she’d stayed low enough to the ground that they hadn’t spotted her yet. Which meant that she had a great flanking position on the aliens. They were behind cover to protect from Andy’s gunshots, but from this angle they didn’t have much protection at all.

Not that the rocks shielding her were much better. The stones weren’t big enough to be much of a shield. They seemed entirely inadequate protection against the guns those lizards were still firing at Andy and John. But it was what she had. She’d wanted to tuck in behind the boulder with the others. Or better, go hide in the hole again. But the boulder was taking such heavy fire, she didn’t dare try. And besides, with John and Andy pinned down, somebody had to do something.

The aliens were continuing their advance, covering each others movements with a steady stream of shots that kept her team-mates pinned down and unable to return fire. The leap-frogging method of approach the aliens used was taking time, but in another minute they’d reach the boulder. Then her friends would be captured. Charline looked to the sky, hoping to see the Satori swooping back in, but it was nowhere to be seen.

She checked her rifle. It was loaded, ready to go. She flicked the selector switch from safe to single-shot.

Andy had asked her if she’d used this weapon before. She’d answered no, but that she’d fired other rifles before. And she had. Charline had used guns for hunting, and for target practice. She’d never been a soldier. Until today, she’d never shot at anything that could shoot back. The ratzards had been pretty easy. But she was shaking at the idea of firing on these aliens, and at the thought of them shooting back at her.

This wasn’t like shooting a deer for dinner, either. The aliens might look like monstrous lizards, but they had technology. They used a language to communicate - Charline had heard them shouting to each other over the rolling cracks of gunfire. They were sentient beings, probably more like humans than not.

The aliens were also trying to kill her and her friends. If they were going to survive this mess, she was going to have to find it in herself to be a soldier. Somehow.

“Dad, what do I do?” she whispered under her breath.

Her father had always taught Charline to stand her ground. Don’t start fights, but finish them. Don’t let bullies win, and to never be afraid to fight for what she believed in. She’d taken those thoughts into her programming world, such a different place from the battlefields where he had won those lessons. Charline used her skills to fight battles in cyberspace that were no less important, but a lot less brutal.

Now she found herself facing the same existential threat she knew her father must have once been challenged by. More than ever Charline understood how those battles had shaped the man who helped raise her, had turned him into the gentle but fierce person she remembered. He wouldn’t tell her to hide. He wouldn’t tell her to back down. Sometimes you had to fight.

Charline took a deep breath, calming her nerves, just like she would have before a competitive shooting match back when she was in college. She’d been state long rifle champion thrice, medaled at nationals once.

But those were just targets, her mind screamed at her.

These things were alive. They thought, talked, walked, built things.

Another volley shook the rock Andy was hiding behind. He and John were helpless, and the aliens were getting closer. She looked at Andy across the way, saw him try to return fire only to be forced back under cover again. A flash of bright red decorated his forehead. The aliens were coming faster now, sure their targets were unable to fight back.

She remembered the feeling of Andy’s arms around her, after they almost lost Beth in the engine room. She shook her head fiercely. Not a good time to get distracted! But she couldn’t help feeling a hot anger rise in her heart. Andy and John meant something to her. She would not let them fall while she could do something about it.

Charline took another calming breath. She rolled slowly from behind her cover, expertly placing her sights on the head of one of the aliens. The shot was clear. At this range, with her skill, there was no way she could miss. For a moment she tried to think about the aliens as being just targets, but her heart knew that wasn’t true. They were more than targets, and thinking of them that way wouldn’t make killing them any easier. It might even get her killed.

“Not targets, enemies,” she breathed, pulling the trigger. The alien she shot tumbled backward. She knew it was dead; she didn’t need to check to be sure. Charline was certain where her round had impacted. She swept her rifle an inch to the right and fired again, taking out another soldier.

The race was on. In another few seconds they would spot her and pin her down, too. Charline shifted her rifle a third time. She had to take down as many of the things as she could before they figured out where she was shooting from. If she could even the odds a little bit and slow down the aliens’ advance, it might just buy enough time for the Satori to come back and save them.

Eighteen

Beth picked herself back up from the Satori’s deck where she’d fallen when the enemy fire had hit the ship. Furious, she stepped back onto the bridge.

“OK to shoot at them now?” she asked Dan. “Or should we let them put more holes in our ship first?”

“Not the time for ‘I told you so’,” Dan said. “We’ve got to deal with these fighters and get back in there.”

Beth slid back into her seat and read her screen. The fighters had strafed them and kept going, maintaining speed. Dan had increased speed to match them, and they were dead ahead.

She touched the screen, designating a firing sequence. “Majel, lock targets and fire,” she said. Time to see how well the railguns worked.

All four guns spat slugs of iron with depleted uranium cores. The slugs were accelerated by electromagnets drawing on the ship’s main power. They left the railgun barrels fast enough that they heated to incandescence from friction with the air.

Two slugs ripped into each fighter, tearing through them and setting off a concussive explosion that scattered bits of debris across the sky.

“Yes!” she shouted. “Got them. Let’s go back for the others, now.”

“More trouble,” Dan said. “Check radar.”

Every other fighter in the air was converging on them, and the mother ship loomed above them, slowly descending. Worse, the fighters seemed to be tracking the Satori. Dan jinked the ship around at a right angle, and they changed course to match.

“Majel, damage report – has the cloak been hit?” Beth asked.

“Cloaking device still operating. Damage confined to right wing area, no pressure loss.”

Somehow, the aliens were detecting the ship even with the cloaking device on.

Dan changed course again, gaining more altitude. That brought them even closer to the huge alien ship, which was still slowly descending. The fighters changed course to match them. They were being herded closer to that monstrous ship. When Dan tried to drop the Satori to a lower altitude, the fighters coordinated their movements to block him.

Beth wracked her brains for an answer. She was an engineer, damn it! She ought to be able to figure out how they were doing it. If the aliens could have seen the Satori perfectly through the cloak, they wouldn’t have waited till the ramp was lowered to engage. They would have just attacked. If they could see the ship clearly now, they’d simply shoot the Satori down. However they were detecting her ship, it had to be imperfect. When Dan was creeping the ship in closer, they didn’t seem to take any notice.

Was speed the answer?

One of the fighters got very close to the ship, and she had to fire the railguns before it rammed them. The shot missed, but the fighter veered off. The others saw the shot and closed again. Dan swore, twisting the Satori around to evade them.

She remembered how the lizard troops had ducked for cover when Dan brought the Satori in low enough to kick up dust from the ground. The ship wasn’t emitting anything the aliens could detect, she’d bet her tools on that. But the ship’s movement could affect the world around it...!

“Dan! You need to slow the ship down!” Beth said.

“What?” His eyes stayed on his console, his voice incredulous. “I’m barely staying away from them as it is!”

“I think they’re following the pattern we’re making by moving through the air at high speed. Our wake. Slow down, then drop altitude and see if they follow.”

Dan jinked sideways again, forced to gain still more altitude by the pursuing fighters. “And if it doesn’t work, they’ll blow us to bits.”

“Dan,” Beth said, her voice soft. He turned to look at her, this time. “Please. Trust me.”

“I do trust you. I always have.” The tenderness in his voice made her regret, for a moment, the stones she’d used to carefully wall off her heart.

He looked at her a moment longer before snapping his attention back to his controls, slowing the Satori to a crawl, dropping her nose toward the ground and descending at a gentle rate straight toward the pack of enemy ships.

Beth held her breath, hoping she was right.

She watched her screen, looking for the slightest hint that the fighters could still see them. The Satori’s altitude reading continued slowly ticking down, while the blips representing the fighters on her radar rocketed toward them, speed unabated.

They were almost spitting distance when Dan twisted the Satori into a turn, making her gasp at how narrowly they avoided one of the fighters as it sped past them.

And then they were through, the alien ships continuing to hunt them higher in the sky. Beth heaved a breath, relaxing her shoulders.

“It worked,” Dan said. He was grinning at her. She smiled back.

“Yeah. Let’s go pick up the others and get the hell out of here. I don’t know how long it’ll take them to figure out what we did, but it won’t be too long.” Already, the pattern of the ships above them had altered, changing from a pursuit into a search.

Dan was feeling better about the rescue prospects than he had in a while. Beth’s guess had been right on the ball. “Right. Majel, can you get us a close up view of the street where John and the others are?”

He inhaled sharply as soon as he the computer put the image on his screen. Too soon to feel good, and too late to knock on wood. “Shit.”

Beth called up the same view to her console. He looked over to see her reaction and saw her blanch.

It wasn’t good. Another shuttle had landed, down the street in the other direction, so that the troops from that ship could flank the Satori’s crew on the ground. Scores of the aliens were walking toward their position, tucked behind a few rocks, blasting as they went.

She turned her seat to face his. “Dan, they don’t have time for a slow approach. At this rate, we won’t get there in time.”

“But if I speed up, the fighters will see us again, right?”

Beth thought a moment. “Yeah, probably.”

He wanted to scream in frustration. “So what I need to do is fly into a narrow street at high speed, taking out two shuttles as we come in, so they can’t fire on us. Then stop on a dime so you can open the hatch, get the others in here, and take off before the fighters come and blow us to bits.” He tried to keep his voice even, but wasn’t doing a very good job.

His eyes flicked to the image on his screen again. Someone – it looked like Andy – was trying to return fire and slow the aliens’ advance. But they weren’t going to be slowed long.

“Dan, if anyone can do this, it’s you,” Beth said.

He looked over his shoulder at her. “You think so? After everything else I’ve screwed up? The people I let down?” He paused, continuing more quietly. “After I let you down?” Over and over, he thought. Some days, it seemed like he’s spent half his life letting Beth down, and the other half disappointing someone else. In his head, he knew it wasn’t true. But that didn’t make his heart less sick when he failed.

She closed her eyes. “Dan, you’ve never let anyone down but yourself.”

He kept his gaze on her face, so their eyes met when she opened hers again. “John said you were the man for this job. He’s counting on you. He believes in you. And so do I.”

Dan held her eyes another moment, searching there for her real feelings. He knew Beth as well as he knew anyone. He looked for the slightest sign she was mocking him, or telling him what she thought he wanted to hear. He half expected to see it there.

All he could find in her eyes was honesty.

He turned back to his console. Beth and he had traveled a rocky road. They’d fought. They’d split up in the end, going their separate ways to pursue their dream careers.

But through all their troubles, she’d never once lied to him.

“Let’s do this, then,” he said, his voice gruff to hide a flood of emotions. “Going to be a little bumpy.” The corners of his eyes were wet, and he let them dry untouched, so Beth wouldn’t see him wipe tears away.

At his command, the Satori burst into sudden speed, racing to where she was needed most.

Nineteen

John coughed on the dust filling the air around him. The blasts from the aliens’ rifles were coming so fast now that they were blowing clouds of the stuff all around them. He held his rifle around the corner of the boulder and fired off a burst. It was just wild shooting, but it might slow their advance a little bit. He was still praying Dan and Beth might be able to come back for them, but it was looking less likely by the minute. John was proud of his people though. They weren’t going down without a fight.

“Sorry, John,” Andrew yelled over the racket. “Wish I had some grenades. Or a couple of claymore mines. Something.”

“Pack better, next time,” John replied with a weak smile.

“I’ll do that.” Andrew paused a moment, picking off one of their attackers who was getting too close to Charline. She was pinned worse than they were. His careful fire was keeping their attackers honest, making them work to get closer. But with the enemy coming in from their flank as well as their front, it was only a matter of time.

“She did great,” John said.

“Hmm? Charline? Yeah, she took down four or five of them before they figured out where the fire was coming from. She’s a trooper.” John saw Andrew smile as he looked over to her, but the smile was quickly replaced by a worried frown.

Charline was laying flat on the ground, her arms over her head to ward off bits of shattered rock as they rained down around her. The other alien troops had been hammering her position since they’d figured out where she was. She couldn’t fire back, couldn’t so much as lift her head above the ground without being blasted. It had to be terrifying, and there was nothing they could do to help her. They were almost as badly stuck as she was.

“I wish we could get her over here. Maybe retreat back into the hole,” Andrew said, looking around to see if there was some tactic to get her to safety that he hadn’t yet tried.

“On the plus side,” he added, after taking another quick shot. “I think they want us alive.”

“What makes you say that?” John asked.

“Those big guns on the troop ships? They look like they could have taken us out any time they wanted to.”

“Maybe they don’t want to blow us to bits because they’re hungry,” John said, wincing at the memory of the carnivore’s maw each of the attackers had.

“I was trying not to think about that,” Andy said drily.

Bits of blasted rock rained down all around Charline. The aliens kept up a continuous fire on the rocks she was hidden behind, once they realized where her shots were coming from. It had gotten worse – much worse – after the second shuttle landed and another bunch joined the fight. All she could do at this point was duck behind a few rocks, cover her head with her hands, and pray.

She’d never been so scared.

Andy and John were pinned, too. She could still hear the crack of their rifles, but if they hadn’t come to get her out of this by now, they probably weren’t going to be able to. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking, trying to hit the aliens from a different angle. She wasn’t a hero. Charline had never been one to daydream about swashbuckling adventures.

And this was why. Because she was enough of a realist to know where that sort of thing ended up – face down in the gravel with people shooting at you.

But she remembered how Andy had looked, trying to fight back and protect them, but pinned down and hurt. She’d felt she had to do something, had to help. Charline closed her eyes. She was glad she’d tried. At least she’d demonstrated that her aim was still as good as ever; she’d taken a few of them down. And she wasn’t dead yet, she reminded herself.

A massive explosion shook the ground, making Charline wonder if she’d thought that too soon. The blast was so strong that it lifted her from the ground. She covered her head for protection. Out of the corner of her eye Charline saw bits of twisted metal and fragments of burnt stone ping off the rocks around her. Comprehension came slowly. The enemy fire seemed to have stopped, but her ears rang so much from the blasts that she wasn’t sure. She peeked up quickly.

The shuttle in front of her, the second one that had landed, was a burning wreck. Between her position and the shuttle, the aliens were all down, and none had yet staggered to their feet. Some of them were partially buried. She risked a glance to her left, and saw the other shuttle burning as well.

The air near John and Andy shimmered and the Satori appeared out of nowhere, the cloak dropping away to reveal the ship gliding in toward the street. The ship’s ramp was open, hanging down, almost touching the ground as the Satori hovered there like an avenging angel. Beth was on the ramp, rifle in hand, shouting something Charline couldn’t hear. Beth’s rifle flashed fire, bullets streaming from the gun at something back behind Charline. The aliens were back there. They must be recovering from the explosions.

No time to waste! She pulled herself up and began sprinting over the broken ground toward the ship. Andy and John were almost to the ramp already, but she still had a good distance to cover. She put everything she had into a final sprint.

Mid-stride, a rock shifted under her foot, turning her ankle. Charline had the briefest of moments to realize she was falling. She dropped her rifle, trying vainly to keep her balance, but it wasn’t enough. Charline went down hard, face-first into another rock.

Twenty

Andy pushed John up onto the ramp, then hauled himself up after. He looked over at Beth. She was aiming her rifle toward the enemy, grimly watching for moving targets. The first few shots forced the aliens to take cover again, but it wouldn’t last.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes!” Andy said.

He turned and saw Charline running toward them. Behind her, some of the aliens were recovering, starting to rise. Andy didn’t need to think about what to do next. His team needed his help. He took a knee beside Beth on the ramp and aimed at the alien closest to Charline. A trigger squeeze and that one was down.

“We have to cover her while she runs,” Andy said.

“Why didn’t she wait? Dan was going to bring the ship over to her,” Beth said.

Andy spared her a glance, saw her frustration. “She saw the ship and ran for it. Smart, in my book.” Maybe it would have been safer to stay put, but Charline had no way to know Dan planned to bring the ship to her. He brought his eyes back to scan for targets, but most of the lizards were still down from the explosions. They hadn’t been behind cover, and it looked like at least a few of them weren’t going to be getting back up at all. Which suited him just fine.

He wasn’t watching Charline when she fell, but he caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and saw her go down. He wasn’t the only one who saw, either. Her fall seemed to galvanize some of the lizards, and five of them nearby got unsteadily back to their feet, aiming their weapons at her prone form.

“Shit,” Andy said. No time to think about this.

He jumped down off the ramp and started running toward Charline, firing a few unaimed shots as he sprinted. That got the lizards’ attention focused back on him instead of Charline. Good enough, that was his intention. He fired again, and the aliens ducked behind some rocks to return fire. Badly, thank goodness. They were still firing wildly, and he was a moving target. Still, all it would take was one lucky shot. He didn’t know what one of those guns would do to him if it hit, but he was sure it wouldn’t be good for his health.

Then he was there, next to her. Charline was already trying to get back to her feet. He grabbed the back of her vest and hauled her up. Her shocked eyes met his.

“You came back,” she said.

“Of course I did. Didn’t you know saving damsels is a part of my daily routine? Now let’s get out of here.” With a crooked grin, he brought the rifle back to his shoulder and fired at one of the lizards, but he wasn’t sure the shot penetrated whatever it was wearing on its chest. It got back under cover though, which was good enough for now.

He heard Charline gasp, and turned. Some of the lizards near the Satori were back on their feet, and trying to get up the ramp. John and Beth were at the top, firing down from behind cover.

“Those fighters are coming back. On the ship, fast!” Dan shouted over the radio.

Charline took a step, and he saw her wince as she put weight on her left foot. Andy caught her shoulder before she fell again.

“You’re hurt,” he said. How was he going to get her safely onto the ship? This was his job, damn it! There had to be a way. He clicked his radio live. “Dan, Charline’s injured. Can you get closer?”

Dan didn’t reply, but he saw the Satori sliding sideways in their direction. Only ten meters away. So close.

“Charline, you need to run. I’ll cover you.”

She nodded, and took off, hobbling a little but making an awkward jog. Andy followed her, keeping his back to the ship so he could watch the lizards. He was making slower time than Charline, but there were at least a dozen of the enemy back on their feet again now, and they were just meters away. He fired off shot after shot, trying to keep them at bay long enough to get both of them back to the ship.

His weapon clicked, empty. Cursing, he slapped the ejection button, letting the spent magazine drop to the ground. In a smooth motion, Andy pulled another magazine from a pouch and seated it into his rifle. He looked into the sights again, horrified to see the lizards all rushing him at a run. He squeezed the trigger, taking one in the head, then another.

Something slapped him in the chest, hard, and he flew backward off his feet. Everything was a red haze of pain. His head cracked against the ground, and the pain went away.

John watched Andrew sprint off the ramp, worry and pride warring in his heart. He watched Andrew haul Charline to her feet, get her moving. Saw him cover her retreat.

Saw him shot. Saw him fall.

Something broke inside John. With a yell, he ran down the ramp, firing bursts as he went. He took down three of the aliens as they tried to board his ship. Reaching the bottom of the ramp, he shot down two more before his weapon clicked empty. Charline was there by then, and Beth was behind him, covering him as he hauled Charline up onto the ramp.

The Satori shimmered around him, vanishing under the cloaking device again.

“Dan! Bring us closer!” he shouted into the radio while seating a new magazine. “Andrew’s down!” He could see Andrew, laying there in the rubble, the aliens coming up on him. One of the enemy tried to grab Andrew by the arm, but John’s burst took him in the shoulder and he pinwheeled away. He kept firing, but they were all around Andrew now. “We need to get closer!” he shouted again. Another alien grabbed hold of Andrew, started hauling him away, and John couldn’t risk a shot at this range.

The ship was moving again. No – the ramp was moving. Retracting back into the Satori, taking him with it. “Dan! Stop the ramp!” he shouted.

Beth was tugging on his arm, hauling him up, into the ship. She was saying something to him.

“...fighters are incoming, Majel says ten seconds, Dan’s taking us up.”

And the Satori was moving, rising, climbing away from the ground at a rapid rate. He was too numb inside to feel the wind buffeting his face. He slumped to the cold steel beneath him as the ramp closed and sealed. Dropped his rifle.

Andrew was gone. Taken. He’d seen them hauling the son of his heart away. Now or never, came that whispered memory again, but this time the tone was all sadness.

Dan brought the nose of the ship straight up, rocketing away. The fighters curved their course to follow, and he poured on the speed. They’d know where he was. He’d see if they could keep up.

As the Satori leaped skyward at his command, he kept one camera trained on the ground they’d just left. He had the camera trained on maximum zoom. Crushing guilt gripped his heart. He’d failed. Andy – who’d treated him like he mattered from their very first meeting, at a time when he hadn’t believed he could ever feel that way about himself again – was left behind. So he punished himself by watching as the aliens hauled Andy away from where he’d fallen. He watched yet another shuttle land, more of the lizardlike things exit the ship, while two of the aliens carried Andy aboard the shuttle. It took to the air again, making for the larger ship.

The fighters had fallen farther behind. He was putting the Satori through her paces, and then some, still building speed as they headed out into thinner atmosphere. Another minute, and the air was thin enough that the fighters lost them, breaking out into a search pattern. They hadn’t given up – but they no longer knew where to look.

His radar showed that shuttle docking with the massive ship, now below them, hovering over the ruins of the city. They’d gotten Andy, and he’d been helpless to stop them.

Could he have moved the ship a little faster? Majel had said the railguns were too strong. They’d have hurt their own people, if they had fired on the alien troops. But there must have been something else he could have done. Dan’s head sagged. Now that the adrenaline of the chase was fading, all he felt was the pain of losing someone who’d been counting on him.

He looked over his shoulder. Beth had her arms around Charline, who’d started sobbing with relief as soon as she’d cleared the hatch into the ship. Dan thought those sobs had changed tenor, from relief to grief. Beth looked up and caught his eyes, and he saw an echo of his own helplessness there.

And John? God, Dan knew Andy had been important to him. But John was still kneeling on the deck where he’d come in. He hadn’t moved, except to sink deeper into himself. Tears streaked his face. Dan hadn’t seen him like this since...well, not since Satori died.

Dan looked back to his radar. The shuttle carrying Andy was docking with the enormous ship now, as were the other shuttles. The fighters had returned to circle nearby. And the alien ship was slowly, ponderously moving back up and away from the planet.

Very soon, it would make its own wormhole, or do whatever it was these aliens did to travel the stars. Dan was pretty sure of that. And once it did, that would be it. Their odds of finding Andy again, if that ship left the system, would be microscopic. That was assuming Andy was still alive – but Dan felt in his gut that he was. He’d seen them drag Andy off, seen the aliens haul him onto the shuttle, seen the shuttle dock with the larger ship. Why go to all that trouble for a body?

No, he’d hold out hope that Andy was alive. So the real question was: what could they do about it?

Twenty-One

Pain was the first sensation Andy felt when he came to. It blossomed across his chest like fire. Every inhalation was sharp agony. He remembered being shot, falling. He figured the shot had fractured a couple of ribs. That thought brought on intense relief. He was still alive. When he’d been shot, he figured he was dead, and it just hadn’t caught up to him yet. If those guns had been firing projectiles, instead of whatever those energy balls were, he would have been right.

The third feeling was fear. Because the floor beneath him wasn’t the familiar steel deck of the Satori. It was some sort of metal, but the texture felt odd under his fingers, rough in a sandpaper sort of way. And the lighting had a greenish tinge to it. He lay very still. He wasn’t on the Satori, which could only mean one thing.

That guess was confirmed when a large, clawed hand reached under his chin to grab him by the vest, lifting him up into the air. His feet dangled uselessly inches from the ground. The broken ends of his ribs grated against each other, and he couldn’t stifle a pained cry.

He was nose to snout with one of the aliens. Up close, he could see the eyes, so reptilian. Scales covered it everywhere Andy could see. The thing inhaled through its snout, sniffing at his face, then exhaled through its mouth with a loud sound, turning its head aside as it did. Andy gagged from the stench of its breath. It seemed like the feeling was mutual.

The alien was wearing the same sort of armor he’d seen on the others – a set of metal body plates fitted together to drape halfway to its knees. That seemed to be all it was wearing.

It made a sound halfway between a hiss and a snarl. Andy was struck by how similar to the ratzards it sounded. Two more aliens came up behind him, one taking each of his shoulders, supporting him. The one in front of him released its grip, and he sagged back into the grasp of these new captors.

He glanced around the room. It was round, with only one door set on the far side from him. The ceiling was a dome above his head. A single table was directly in front of him, and he saw his vest, radio, and rifle piled there. Another alien stood by the table. Andy looked wistfully at the rifle. If he could just get it into his hands, he’d show them something.

There was a workbench off to Andy’s right, set against the wall. The alien who’d released him went over there and began toying with a few of the tools, its claw almost caressing as it slid over them. Andy steeled his shoulders and got his feet planted firmly on the deck. He didn’t recognize the shape of the tools, but it wasn’t the first time he’d seen someone who enjoyed torture playing with his toys.

The alien picked up something that looked like small tongs in its claws. It reached the tongs into a wide-mouthed bottle, removing something from inside. Andy took as deep a breath as his ribs would let him, and braced his feet against the floor. The aliens holding him felt his muscles shift, and increased their grip on him. The pain in his ribs flared again, and he gasped, exhaling the breath he’d taken. Andy sagged a little.

He heard a wheezing laugh from behind his left shoulder. He turned his head to look, and saw a crumpled mess on the floor. It took him a moment to realize the ragged pile was the source of the laughter.

The mess shifted, revealing Paul’s face as he rose from where he’d lay curled around himself.

“Don’t worry,” Paul said, his voice sounding raw. “This isn’t the part that hurts.” He laughed again. Blood streaked his face, dark hollows stark under his eyes. Those eyes flickered away for a moment, and Andy followed the direction of his glance. The lizard holding the tongs was standing in front of him. The thing he held looked something like a large slug, gray in color but pearlescent, reflecting light in a shimmering pattern.

“What are you doing?” Andy asked.

The lizard grunted back at him, then hissed something. It brought the slug-thing up toward the right side of his head, and Andy jumped back against his captors. He pushed hard against the floor with his legs, trying to get away, leaning his head away from those tongs. The alien in front of him hissed something else, sounding irritated, and in a flash of motion it had his its empty right hand wrapped around his throat, fingers gripping the side of his face. It dug the claws in ever so slightly, just piercing the skin.

The message was clear. Andy’s breath started coming faster, trying to hold back the fear that made him want to lunge away from this thing, no matter the consequences. He held himself as still as he could, but the fingers on his head gripped tighter anyway as the lizard brought the tongs up to his right ear. Andy felt the slug, slimy and cold, come into contact with his skin, and he shuddered as it wormed down into his ear. It was all he could do not to scream, gritting his teeth together as the thing wormed its way deeper into the canal.

The lizard released his head, and took a step back. It motioned to the two aliens still holding Andy up, and they released him. Without their support, Andy crashed to the deck, shuddering. What had they done to him? There wasn’t any pain, just a feeling of revulsion. And fear. He didn’t think he’d ever been this afraid before, but he was determined not to show it to his captors. With an effort, he sat up, then got one knee under himself. He glared at the alien in front of him.

It hissed something. Andy heard words form in his mind a moment later. “You understand me now, yes?”

Andy blinked. “Did you say that?”

“Yes,” it replied. “Translation is telepathic. Creature inserted into your ear provides transfer to its host.” It pointed to a hollow spot on the side of its head, where another of the slugs resided.

Andy heaved a silent sigh of relief. If the aliens were using the things too, then it probably wasn’t about to bore into his head and eat his brain or something. He hauled himself to his feet, right arm clutching involuntarily to his side as his ribs protested. “What do you want?”

“What I want,” the alien went on, “is to know where you are from. And how you came by your technology. I know it is not yours. The weapon you carried is a primitive thing. But your ship...it is not, is it? We know that power signature. Our scanners recognize it.”

“Don’t tell them anything!” Paul’s voice was desperate.

The alien doing the talking closed with Paul in two long strides, striking the side of his head and sending him sprawling. “Be silent,” it said.

It turned back to Andy. “I am Kassresh. We are the Naga.” Andy heard the name the alien had said, even as the slug translated it into something that meant ‘lizard people’ in his head. He had a feeling he couldn’t even begin to replicate the sounds Kassresh had made.

“This other one,” Kassresh went on, pointing at Paul, “has not been helpful. We tried kindness, binding his wound. And we tried pain. Perhaps you will be more forthcoming? Or perhaps you think us weak, since this one was able to resist us?”

Kassresh stepped away from where Paul still lay moaning on the floor. A few swift strides brought him to a console on the wall near the bench. He pressed a button there, and Andy heard a grating noise from behind him. He turned, instinct making him step away from the sound.

A panel of the floor behind him was sliding away, revealing a pit about ten feet deep, and long, but just a few feet wide. Andy looked uncertainly from the pit to Kassresh, but the alien was still standing by his panel. Kassresh nodded to the two guards, who had stepped back to avoid the hole, and they strode over to Paul, each grabbing a shoulder. He screamed in pain as they hefted him lightly into the air, and then dropped him into the pit. Paul landed at the bottom with a bone crunching sound, and Andy winced. Paul was an asshole, but he had a bad feeling that this was going to be worse than even Paul deserved.

Andy’s eyes went back to his rifle, over on the table, but the guard standing there saw his glance and hissed warningly at him.

“Now, we shall have something interesting to watch,” Kassresh went on. It ignored the exchange between Andy and the other alien and pressed another button.

Andy watched the pit. The lower half of the pit wall across from Paul slid away, revealing only a dark space beyond. He could hear a hissing noise that hadn’t been there before.

A small version of Kassresh stepped out from the darkness, wobbling and barely able to stay upright on two legs. It’s head was oversize for its body, like a bad cartoon drawing. It would have looked comical, wobbling along, if it wasn’t for the rows of sharp teeth it bared when it let out a little squawk.

Two more similar creatures followed it. Then three more. Andy wondered how many of them there were. In the pit, Paul’s moans had turned to rapid breathing as the little creatures bobbled their way over to him. One sniffed at Paul’s foot, and he kicked it away. It fell into one of the others, and they both toppled over but quickly regained their feet. All of them were sniffing now. And there were at least ten. Andy had missed seeing the others come out.

“God, Paul...” Andy whispered under his breath.

“Infant Naga,” Kassresh said, coming up alongside Andy to peer into the pit. “Voracious eaters. And not picky about their food.”

Two of them wandered over to Paul now. He pushed one away with his hand, but the second managed to take a tentative bite at his forearm before he could kick it clear.

“Andy!” Paul shouted, panicking. “You have to help me!”

Kassresh looked at Andy, staring him in the eyes in clear challenge. Andy refused to back down from his stare, refused to give this thing that victory over him. He let all his anger and frustration boil back through his eyes at the cruel being before him.

“You cannot help him,” Kassresh said. “But you can perhaps help yourself. I ask again: where are you from? And where did you come by your ship?”

In the pit below, the screaming began.

Twenty-Two

Andy stared straight ahead, trying in vain to ignore the horrible gurgling and slurping noises beside him. The screams had ended a minute or two ago, but the infant Naga had continued snarling and making crunching noises. Paul was a jerk, and almost got all of them killed. But if Andy could have done something to save him, he would have.

Being eaten alive was a nightmare he wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Kassresh, the alien who seemed to be the leader here, stepped back into Andy’s view.

“You do not watch?” it said.

Actually, it made a series of hissing and snarling noises, but the alien slug these creatures had shoved into his ear took everything being said around him and translated the thoughts behind those words directly to his mind.

“No,” he said. “I do not watch.”

“But I know you understand, at least. You know that the Naga can be cruel to our foes. Now, I wish you to see that we can be kind, if you would be our friend.”

Andy remained as still as he could, but when two of the Naga guards grabbed his arms, he struggled to pull away from his captors’ grasp.

“Relax, mammal,” Kassresh said. “I will show you what I mean. You will not be harmed.”

Kassresh took a device from the table Andy knew held a stockpile of assorted torture devices, and Andy gritted his teeth, prepared to deal with pain despite the alien’s words. When Kassresh walked back over to him, it was holding something about the size and shape of a cell phone in its hand. It tapped the surface of the device with a claw, then held it over Andy’s broken ribs.

The burning pain took Andy’s breath away. Sweat poured from his forehead. He ground his teeth together to keep from screaming. Then Kassresh tapped the device again, and the pain vanished. Andy sagged with relief.

“No permanent harm, anyway. It seems the healer is not...completely compatible with your neurology, perhaps.”

Andy realized that he could breathe easily again. The pain in his ribs was gone. He got his feet under himself, and the guards released him. “How?” he wondered aloud, running his hand over bones that had somehow knitted themselves back together.

The beast clicked its tongue, which the slug said to interpret like a human shrug. “I want answers. We’ve been unchallenged in this sector for a long time, mammal. But we remember the old war still. And the satellites we set to watch this place showed you arrive here bearing technologies that have not been seen for a long, long time.”

“Yet, you seem surprised by simple feats like the slug and the healing device. This is a mystery to me, that you have so much power, yet so little understanding.”

“Then too, your weapons,” Kassresh went on. He picked up Andy’s rifle from the table. “Effective enough, perhaps. But why such simple devices? For a race that has harnessed the power to leap from star to star, your science seems weak.”

“If you’d like, I’d be glad to demonstrate how effective my rifle can be,” Andy growled. He eyed the gun longingly.

“Ah, you want your weapon back?” Kassresh clicked in approval. “A warrior then. Odd, a mammal warrior. But I applaud your spirit. Alas, I cannot accept your challenge at this time. You are needed for other things.”

Then the alien put the rifle back down and held up the same small device he’d used to heal Andy’s ribs. But this time, when he pointed the device at Andy, the burning sensation was much worse. He felt like fire was pouring through every nerve in his body. Andy collapsed to the ground, screaming, his mind telling him that he was burning alive from the inside out.

“You see, this device can offer pain, as well as healing. You will tell me where you are from. You will answer for me the riddle of your technologies. Or I will burn you until you do.”

Dan settled the ship into a stable orbit. The Satori was still cloaked, and he saw no sign that the aliens could track them in space the way they had in the atmosphere. The larger vessel was still hovering a few miles above the ruined city, and the fighters were flying around it in an erratic pattern. The last of the larger shuttles had just docked.

He looked over to where John sat alone at his console, next to where Andy should have been.

Dan pushed his wheelchair back from his station and went to John’s side. He peeked over his friend’s shoulder to see what he was looking at on his screen, but it was blank. John turned to face him, and Dan frowned. He’d seen that hollow look in John’s eyes before, right after his wife’s death. That had been a...really bad time, for John. And the picture on John’s face now was hauntingly similar. He needed to snap John out of this fast. For all their sakes.

“We’re in a stable orbit,” Dan said softly. “What do you want us to do?”

“Just take us home,” John said, his voice flat.

That wasn’t the answer Dan was expecting at all. They had a crew member still down there. It seemed obvious to him that their next move ought to be to get him back, one way or another. Either with diplomacy - which seemed unlikely to work, given the little bit they knew about these aliens. Or more likely through violence of action. Giving up was the last thing he expected to hear John suggest.

“John, I’m pretty sure he’s still alive,” Dan said. He paused a moment. “They hauled him back to the shuttle, then immediately flew back to the main ship.”

Pain creased John’s face. He lifted a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes. Then he lowered it again and said, “Doesn’t change anything. The Satori can’t fight that thing, and I can’t risk any more lives or this ship on a rescue mission. I ordered Charline to let Beth suffocate, to save the rest of us. I can’t put you all at risk for one person.”

Dan shook his head. “You’re wrong. Your orders about Beth were the right ones. But this is different.”

“How is this any different?” John crossed his arms over his chest.

“Because they took one of your people,” Dan said.

“We don’t even know if he’s alive!” John shot back, his grief plain on his face.

“You don’t leave your people in enemy hands!” Dan said. Both of them had raised their voices enough to catch the attention of the others, who sat still, listening. Dan eyed both women, saw Beth give him a small nod. That was enough for him. “Listen, if there is any chance of saving Andy, we need to try. It’s the right thing to do. Just like...just like your orders to Charline were the right thing to do.”

“For all we know these aliens are the ones who destroyed the base we found on the moon. The more we expose ourselves to them, the more we risk exposing the Earth to an attack. The less contact we have, the better,” John said.

“If we’re going to turn tail and run now, then we’ve already lost,” Dan replied. “And as for Earth? John, if Andy is still alive – and I think he is – then he’s in the hands of the enemy. Do you understand what that means? They’re going to tear him apart until he gives up every little detail about us, this ship, and where we’re from.”

John paled.

“Risk to Earth? Earth’s only chance to dodge these assholes a little longer might be us rescuing Andy. And finding Paul, too.” Dan could see the emotions warring in his friend’s face. “But we should do it anyway. And you damn well already know that. I know you do, John, because I know you.”

“I do know that, damn it! But how?” John stood up, pacing. “How can I risk this ship, and all of you? Even for Andy?”

“The big alien ship is doing something,” Charline broke in.

Dan turned back to the front windows, where he could just make out the shape of the hulking ship in the distance. It was still in the atmosphere, but had risen some and drifted away from the ruined city. He watched flashes of flight flicker around the ship.

“They’re firing! Majel, what’re they shooting at?” Dan asked, rolling back to his own console.

“Target appears to be the ruins on the surface,” the computer replied. “Impact in thirteen seconds.”

“Oh my god,” Charline said. “No...”

Dan watched, waiting. He was rewarded by small flowers of fire bursting into what had to be enormous plumes. The plumes merged as still more firepower was directed at the ruins, until they joined into a single blazing ball of flame.

John spent what felt like an eternity staring into those flames, though he knew it was only a few moments. That callous act of destruction, the annihilation of those last relics on the surface, the casual obliteration of what might be the last vestiges of an entire species – redoubled his fury at these aliens. His pulse was racing, and he took a deep breath, trying to regain his calm.

“OK,” he said, breaking the silence. Dan tore his gaze from the view, and he saw the others doing the same. “I want to go get Andrew as much as anyone. But how do we fight that?” He gestured at the ship, and the devastation it had wrought.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Dan said. “The beam our wormhole drive fires out, the one which generates the wormhole? Beth, what happens to anything in the path of the beam?”

“We’re really not sure. It might go through the wormhole. Either that or it gets annihilated by the beam, and the energy release is used to help generate the wormhole. When we tested on Luna, there was no sign of whatever was in the way. Composition didn’t seem to matter, and...Oh!” Her eyes lit up as she realized what Dan was thinking.

“Yeah. It’s a wormhole drive, but it also slices, dices, and juliennes alien battle cruisers.”

John stared at both of them. “Can you make that work?” he asked, his voice quiet, his body still.

Dan looked at Beth. Beth looked at John and shrugged. “There’s not a lot to it. If Dan can pilot the ship so that it generates a wormhole without flying through that wormhole, he’s going to punch a big hole in whatever is in the way. It should work.”

John sat back down, rubbing his chin with one hand. So much was at stake here!

“Their ship is gaining altitude again. They’ll be out of the atmosphere in a few minutes,” Charline said quietly.

This wasn’t how he’d planned things. The mission was supposed to be a quick out and back from his base on the moon. Further exploration would take place later, after they’d had more time to figure things out. Instead, they’d been betrayed, sabotaged, and had ended up using the wormhole drive to travel to a distant solar system in a desperate attempt to keep everyone alive.

Andrew had saved all of them, more than once.

And then John had left him there, just abandoned him to those things.

They could jump home, tails between their legs, to hide back in their nice, safe solar system. Except it might not be so nice and safe now, because they’d lost two crew members. And any bit of information Andrew or Paul dropped, however inadvertent it might be, could clue these things in to where they were from.

“OK, let’s do this,” John said quietly.

All eyes were on him.

“Dan’s right,” John said, his voice gaining conviction with every word. “We have to begin this, here, now, as we intend to go on. If we run and leave our own at the first sign of danger, then we set that as our normal from here on out. I don’t know about you all, but that’s not how I envisioned exploring space.”

Dan nodded crisply. “Ready when you are.”

Beth gazed at John, holding his eyes a moment with the intensity in her own. “I’m not against trying. But assuming we can get in there, how do we find Andy in that huge ship?”

“Leave that part to me,” John replied. “Andy and I have something worked out.”

Beth looked a little dubious, but shrugged. John knew she was on board.

Charline turned back to her console, shaking. She was scared. John could see that. She also wanted to do the right thing – he knew her well enough to know that, too.

“Charline, we can’t let them make us afraid. They win, if we back away now.”

She looked over at him, surprised. “Oh, I know that,” she said, a weak grin on her face. “I just thought I ought to get a good count of how many fighters they have out there. I thought it might impact the rescue. Andy saved our butts. I’d be tempted to leave Paul, but Andy? No way!”

“So, how many fighters, Char?”

“Thirty-two. Open pattern, swirling around.”

“OK. Dan, get us in there. We’re going to need to be at knife distance to use the wormhole drive as a weapon. Beth, get the railguns ready. I’m guessing we’ll need them before this is done.”

“Alea iacta est,” he whispered, then “Hang in there, son.”

Dan was already bringing the ship’s acceleration up.

They were going back.

Twenty-Three

Andy lay gasping on the cold deck, barely able to draw breath. But he had to hang on, just a little longer. Soon, Satori would warp out. His friends would be home, safe, and away from these nightmares.

“Why do you still fight me?” Kassresh asked. “Your friends are gone. Your ship, fled. You have no hope for life except my magnanimity, which is fading fast. Would you rather become dinner for our hatchlings?”

Kassresh clicked a sound that the slug translated as exasperation, and Andy gave a half smile in spite of the pain he was in. Frustrated? Good.

The alien stood from where he’d been crouching, next to Andy’s head. “Bring it over here,” he said, and Dan heard something being hauled across the deck plates toward him. He looked up, saw something large and boxlike, made from a flat gray metal with something that looked like a pair of arches tilting away from one side.

“This device will pull the images I want directly from your brain. It is a slow method. I had hoped for your cooperation, so I might allow you to live. Hopeless struggle does you no honor.”

Two of the Naga guards hauled the machine over beside him. They flipped up a screen on the top, and pressed some buttons. Lights flickered alive on the arches, which were hanging over his head.

And then he could barely see it through the red haze that clouded his vision. The searing agony was back.

“But you see, it works best if the mind is distracted, and pain is a wonderful distraction. Now tell me about your ship,” Kassresh said.

An image immediately appeared on the screen. Andy simply couldn’t help but think about the Satori, how gorgeous it was, how amazed he’d been to embark on such an adventure.

The pain vanished as quickly as it had arrived, leaving Andy gasping. Kassresh studied the image on the screen intently. “Interesting. I do not recognize this vessel. I know your technology, I have heard of it before. Read about it. But I do not know this ship. Nor do I think our computers will know it. I will learn more of this mystery. Where is your planet, mammal?”

Dan’s fingers danced over the Satori’s controls, straining to weave his ship through the enemy craft diving at them.

The fighters had detected them as soon as they’d hit the atmosphere, but the enemy mothership had already climbed so high that they hadn’t much time to respond. Dan tore through them at over ten times the speed of sound, taking his invisible ship through a series of complicated maneuvers to avoid collision with the enemy vessels.

It almost seemed like they wanted to crash into him, as erratically as they were buzzing about. And maybe they’d been ordered to do just that.

But he could see them, while they could only roughly approximate his location. That gave him just enough of an edge that he was avoiding those near collisions, although he heard someone behind him gasp after one particularly close call.

And then they were through! Dan waited to heave a sigh of relief, but it was too soon for that. They were still diving toward the enemy ship at high speed. He needed to hit the brakes as close as possible and hope the sudden stop didn’t overcome the ancient engine’s ability to overcome inertia. At ten thousand meters he started to slow the ship down, knowing he only had seconds before they smeared across the side of the alien battleship.

Three seconds later, he’d slowed them enough to match speed with the other ship, and started sliding sideways parallel to its hull. He kept the Satori aimed straight at the alien ship.

When Satori’s nose was about to cross the point where he’d tracked the shuttles entering the ship, he yelled “NOW, Beth!”

That now-familiar beam shot from the Satori’s nose, preparing to form the wormhole to take her back home to Earth. Dan noticed that the ship was visible again – he’d need to ask Beth about that! Without a cloak, they were sitting ducks for those fighters.

He danced the ship sideways as the beam of light fired from her nose, slicing across the enemy ship like a scalpel. Where it touched, the alien hull didn’t vaporize or explode – it just stopped being there, leaving a jagged meter wide trail.

“Fighters are coming back fast,” warned Charline.

“Beth, can you get the cloak back up?” Dan asked. He jinked the ship back the way they’d come, cutting a second trail across the enemy ship. If he couldn’t blow a hole in the side with his new toy, he’d damned well cut his own opening!

“Looks like we can’t while you’re using the wormhole, Dan. And not sure how much time you can keep it going. You’ve already exceeded our longest trial.”

“No time for subtlety, Dan – get us in there,” John said.

He slid the ship sideways faster, and the enemy vessel lurched ahead of him. He wasn’t sure if they were trying to evade him, or if he’d damaged something, but it threw his cutting off. And this time, something inside the hull did explode – he could see fire blossoming through the line he’d carved. Frantically, he slid the Satori back in the direction of the hole he’d been cutting.

Then the wormhole beam stopped as suddenly as it had sprung to life.

“Shit! Majel, can we get the wormhole back?” Dan said. The hole he’d cut was nowhere near big enough for the Satori to get through.

“Negative. Device is at zero charge. Time to recharge is nineteen minutes, forty-three seconds.”

“The fighters are firing on us!” said Charline.

Andy fell slack against the deck as the pain stopped once again. The cool metal of the plates soothed skin that felt like a hot iron had been laid against it just moments before. His fingers were hooked into claws, every muscle tensed against the pain and unable to relax even when it vanished.

But he could still hear what was going on, and still see. All the Naga were getting from him was a set of sheep on the screen above – jumping over a fence, over and over. That’s how he’d been holding out so far: counting sheep. It felt stupid, but it was working. That was good enough for now.

The door was open, and a new Naga was in the room, saying something to Kassresh. Andy focused his attention, hoping they were close enough that the slimy ball in his ear would translate.

“What do you mean, something is coming?” Kassresh said.

“We’re detecting the movement of air on our sensors. Either something very large, or something small moving very fast. It’s headed straight for us!” the smaller Naga said.

“Their ship! It must be. Have the fighters move to block their path.”

Andy’s heart soared. The Satori was coming back!

“I already did, Great One,” the other Naga replied. Andy raised an eyebrow at the emphasis the slug put on the title, then winced and wished he hadn’t moved as his overstressed face muscles twinged. Kassresh was apparently pretty high up around here. The Naga must be really worried, for him to warrant such special attention.

“But the ship has slipped past them,” it went on.

Andy saw the screen, where his mind was again projecting an image of the ship, and laughed.

Kassresh whirled on him. “Laugh now, mammal! But your ship will be destroyed. And then I will personally feed you to the hatchlings, one strip at a time!”

“They’re coming,” Andy said. “You’re so in for it now.”

Kassresh snarled, reaching out with a claw to rip Andy’s throat out, and he was too weak to move out of the way. But before the claws could reach their mark, the deck lurched under them both, dropping the alien to the floor. The scream of tortured metal ripped through the air, tearing at Andy’s ears. The deck plates jumped again, tossing tools from the tables and knocking over the brain scanner.

Andy’s rifle clattered to the deck only feet away from his head.

Twenty-Four

Beth was trying to keep one eye on the wormhole power level while she managed the railguns. She supposed John could have run the guns, but he had to coordinate everything. And they hadn’t had time to get Charline up to speed on using them, because of the rush to get this first mission started. This was supposed to be Andy’s job, she cried silently, as another of her shots missed one of the fighters.

At least she’d managed to get the cloak back up before they’d been hit. She guessed they’d be dead already otherwise, and the thought chilled her. Too much was riding on their success here. She wasn’t an action hero – she was an engineer, damn it! She fired again, missed again.

“Dan, I can’t hit them while you’re dodging,” she said.

“I stop dodging and one of them is going to ram us,” he replied. “This close and as slow as we’re going, they have a pretty good idea where we are.” He sent them diving off to one side again to avoid another fighter making a run at them. All around the Satori, the air was full of flashes of light from the fighters’ guns.

It seemed they weren’t interested in capturing the Satori anymore. Beth smiled grimly, unsure quite how to take that. At least it meant they’d hurt the bastards enough to be taken seriously.

But her return fire was completely ineffective. If Andy was here, maybe he could hit something, but she was out of her element entirely. She simply didn’t have the reflexes to hit the fast moving fighters.

But she knew who might. “Majel? Can you assist in targeting for the railguns?”

“Affirmative.”

Beth’s eyes lit up. “Target a fighter and fire.”

A moment later, the guns spat out another ball of uranium and iron, and one of the fighters exploded into flames. Beth whooped, throwing her arms in the air.

She looked around the cabin. Everyone but Dan was staring at her.

“Nice shot, Beth!” Dan said, his focus still on his controls.

“Wasn’t me. That was Majel,” Beth said. She saw Charline raise an eyebrow before turning back to her own console.

“Well, have her do it again. A few less fighters out here would be good!” Dan said, grunting as he struggled to dodge more incoming fire.

“Majel, take railgun control. Eliminate those fighters,” Beth said, feeling much better about the odds of their survival than she had a few moments before.

The railguns spat again, and another enemy ship exploded.

Andy’s eyes widened, seeing the rifle come to rest so close. Both of the Naga in the room had lost their footing, crashing to the deck and sliding across the floor as the entire ship tilted madly. Andy glanced at Kassresh, rising from where he had fallen across the room from him. Their eyes met, and he saw the feral challenge there, saw the predatory look of the cobra in those slitted pupils. The look almost froze him in his tracks, like a mouse instinctively trying to avoid the predator by remaining still. Instead he pushed himself up from the deck onto all fours, moving toward his weapon.

He was not prey, damn it!

Andy’s hands found the rifle and grasped it firmly. He rolled over into a sitting position, then moved to bring his back up against the side of the table. It wasn’t much protection, even bolted to the floor, but he felt better with something solid at his back. His whole body was screaming, the lingering agony from the torture made so much worse by every movement. Andy was counting on adrenaline to ease the pain, and it did – somewhat. He still felt like he’d been dumped into a bin of needles and then run over by a truck.

The ship righted itself with a lurching motion. Whatever was going on to mess with the artificial gravity like this, the Satori had to be involved somehow. His friends were coming – he just had to hold on.

The lower ranked Naga got to its feet and saw the weapon in his hands. It gave a loud snarl the ear-slug declined to translate and launched itself at Andy.

He raised the rifle and aimed in a fluid motion.

The shot took the Naga through its open mouth, shattering one tooth and proceeding on into its brain. The impact halted its forward motion, tipping it backwards head-first before it crashed down against the deck. It was dead before its body came to rest, and Andy was already moving his rifle toward the other target in the room: Kassresh.

The alien was getting to his feet as Andy’s sights came to rest on his head.

It cocked its head sideways, looking at him with unmistakable curiosity. “You are a warrior, then. I would never have believed it. A mammal warrior.”

Andy got slowly to his feet, the rifle never leaving his shoulder, his sights trained on his foe. He could smell the sharp gunpowder smell from his last shot, and his ears were ringing a little from firing in close quarters. But the slug still seemed to be translating just fine.

A warrior. Yes. Never prey. “I am,” he replied.

Kassresh hissed. “Enough then. It would have meant eternity in the cold-dark if I’d died by mischance to a lesser being. But if a warrior’s heart beats within you – then there is something you should know.”

“And what’s that?” Andy kept the sights trained on Kassresh’s eye, all the anger, frustration, and fear he’d felt under his captivity boiling to the surface. He started to squeeze the trigger.

“Your ammunition is still on the table.”

There was a click instead of a boom as Andy’s finger finished squeezing and the rifle’s hammer fell into an empty chamber. He realized his mistake immediately – he’d been too glad to hold the weapon again, too distracted by pain. He’d missed that he only had the one round already chambered in the gun. The Naga had removed the magazine from the weapon.

Andy’s heart sank, a cold sensation filling his gut. He lowered the rifle, holding it staff-like across his body as Kassresh came closer. The rounds he needed were maddeningly close, right behind him on the table. But if he turned to grab them, Kassresh would be on him in an instant.

Instead, the alien advanced slowly, leisurely, each step measured with a boxer’s grace as he closed the few meters between them.

“Now we will see how well you fight with your claws, mammal.”

Dan noticed that it was getting easier to dodge the fighters. He realized there were a lot less of them to avoid. At first he thought that Majel had taken most of them out – her fire control was devastatingly effective. Charline was still sitting at her console, nose down, and hadn’t lifted her face since the computer had taken over targeting.

But although their railguns had thinned the herd, that wasn’t the only factor in the suddenly lessened fire. The fighters were retreating. There were still a dozen struggling to engage the Satori, but Dan could fly rings around a dozen ships, thanks to the cloak. What was bothering him was that another dozen had returned to their hangars. As he watched, three more peeled off from the flight chasing him, and Majel took one of the remaining fighters out.

“John, they’re recalling their fighters,” Dan said.

“Just saw that,” John said. “They can’t see us well enough to hit us with the big ship’s guns, or they would’ve already done so. I’m thinking they intend to retreat.”

The mothership had been heading steadily skyward, lifting toward space. Dan had no clue what sort of drive they were using for interstellar travel – he had a feeling the Satori’s would work as well within atmosphere as out – but if they were trying to get away, that was a Bad Thing.

“Not with Andy, you don’t,” he growled.

He felt John’s hand on his shoulder. “Dan, can you get us in there?” John asked. “We’re so close. We’ve got to try something to get him back.”

Dan could hear the emotion in his friend’s voice. He’d pushed them to this. Driven John to hope. His idea to drill a hole through the ship’s hull had failed. He had to think of something else. He watched the retreating fighters fly into their mothership.

“I think so. Better sit down, though.”

The hand vanished, and Dan went back to his work. With a twist, he sent the Satori spinning off after the alien ship as it sped skyward away from her. He closed the distance easily – he thought the Satori was the faster ship even under normal circumstances, but his target was trying to hold steady enough for fighters to dock. Another one zipped into a second bay as he swung around the starboard side of the enemy ship.

“That’s our way in,” he said, eying the hangar bay.

“Can the Satori even fit through that?” Charline asked.

“Yeah. Just barely. I think,” Beth said.

Dan brought the nose level and began his approach. There was a blue shimmer at the mouth of the hangar – some sort of energy field. He hoped it wasn’t going to work like a brick wall. Maybe it only let in the alien fighters? He had only seconds to make the decision. They might not get another shot; if the aliens knew they were trying to get in this way, they might close the bay entirely.

“Majel, fire one railgun round ahead of us, into the bay,” Dan said.

“Complying,” the computer replied. A second later there was a detonation and a burst of flame as something inside the hangar exploded from the round’s impact. If the railgun rounds can get in, then the Satori probably can too, Dan reasoned. The fighters had entered at a high speed. Maybe you just had to be going fast enough?

He goosed the engines for a little more speed, and the enemy ship seemed to leap toward him, the hangar bay looming larger with every second. Sweat beaded on his brow. The door was too small for them to get in at this speed. He knew that. He was going to tear the Satori to shreds trying to crack through.

And then they were inside, a screech of metal tearing as the Satori’s wing clipped the edge of the door, starting the ship into a spin. Warning lights flashed across his console. The world rolled by his view in a blur as he tried to bring the ship back under control.

The ship came to a shuddering stop. He looked out the window, still trying to orient himself and shake off a lingering dizziness. They’d spun in almost a full circle, and smacked into at least two of the lighter aliens fighters in the process. The interior of the hangar was a mess. Through the window, he could see a couple of the aliens running out the main door.

“Think I scratched the paint a little, John. Sorry,” Dan said, gasping. He must have forgotten to breathe for a few moments there, and his lungs were telling him what a bad idea that was.

“Any landing you walk away from, eh Dan? No worries. This time. Everyone OK?” John asked. Dan peeked over his shoulder, saw Beth and Charline nodding. “Good. Dan, keep the engines warm. Beth, you’re with me.”

Charline half stood up, about to protest, but winced when she put weight on her ankle. She gingerly settled back into her seat.

“Sorry, Charline,” John said. “But I need you here with Dan, working with Majel on the railguns. You know computers better than anyone else on the team. Ready, Beth?”

“Couldn’t keep me away,” Beth said, getting to her feet. The brusque tone she used almost hid the faint quaver in her voice as she said it. Guns and firefights were outside Beth’s experience, but she was willing to back John up anyway, and Dan was torn between admiration and fear for her.

She picked up her rifle, checked the magazine quickly, then looked back up at John. “Let’s go get Andy.”

The look in her eyes promised a painful encounter to anyone standing in her way.

Twenty-Five

Kassresh closed on Andy like lightning, and he barely got the rifle up in time to deflect the claws coming at this throat. He whirled the butt end of the weapon up and smacked it into the back of the alien’s elbow with a blow that would have sent a human stumbling. But rather than lose his balance, Kassresh just grunted and held his ground, pivoting his hips to take another swipe.

Andy knew he was fighting way out of his weight class. The alien out-massed him at least two to one, and it felt like most of the difference was muscle or scales. The Naga had evolved to be hand to hand predators. He was wearing out fast, and wondered for a moment how long it had been since he’d slept? He’d suffered a lot of bangs and knocks in the last day, too.

A claw flashed toward his face in his peripheral vision, and another brief burst of adrenaline hit his system, giving him just enough speed to dodge. The curved claws whizzed by inches away from his eyes.

Then Kassresh stopped his attack abruptly, although he stayed in a fighting stance.

“You tire,” the alien said. “A shame. This will not last long.”

He was right. Andy knew that. He wasn’t going to win this by outfighting Kassresh. He needed to outsmart him.

He fears.

The thought came out of nowhere. Andy wasn’t sure what had made it pop into his head, but as soon as he thought it, he knew the assessment was dead on accurate. And that was a weakness, a chink in the armor.

“Where are your guards, Kassresh?” he asked. “Why haven’t any other Naga come in? Why did your ship tilt? Why are the alarms sounding?” He could hear them, although none were blaring in this room, a sound like a distant gong being rung.

Kassresh growled and closed with him again.

“I’ll tell you why,” Andy said, stepping back to avoid another blow. He had the table to his left now, so Kassresh would have a harder time attacking from that side. “My friends are here. And they’re going to take your ship apart.”

“Vermin!” Kassresh spat. But Andy could see the first glint of something new in the alien’s eyes. These Naga were not used to dealing with the unknown, he realized. By being something new, with technology that was familiar to the Naga as the boogeyman was to Earth children, they were messing with the Nagas’ heads something fierce.

Andy jammed the butt of his rifle up toward Kassresh’s snout, and connected. He smiled, enjoying the heavy crunch of plastic and steel slamming into bone.

“You’re afraid of us,” Andy said, bringing the rifle back to vertical to deflect the blow he knew was going to follow his words.

Kassresh lost control. The alien took a wild swing, trying to cave in Andy’s skull. Andy caught the blow on his rifle, and jumped into the impact as it came, letting it carry him up, onto the table, and across it. His body scattered his gear off the table as he went, all pattering down on the deck around him as he tumbled off the far side of the table. Andy knew he was going to have more bruises to show for this bright idea, but it had worked. He grabbed one item from the floor as he rose.

The alien was coming around the table for him. Andy could see hate, fury, shame, and fear all warring in the Naga’s eyes and body language. He wondered if the little ear slug was translating those for him along with the spoken language, or if these beings were more like humans than they seemed on the surface.

It didn’t matter. He slapped the magazine he’d picked up from the floor into his rifle, then pulled back the charging handle in one smooth motion.

He watched Kassresh’s eyes widen as the alien realized his ruse. Impossible to grab the ammunition so tantalizingly close while alien claws were reaching for his throat. But when he was thrown over the table, he had both space and time to reload his weapon.

No time to aim, but he didn’t need to, this close. He fired a burst that impacted against Kassresh’s body armor. The alien staggered back. Andy looked behind Kassresh, where the pit was still open, and fired again. Again the rounds’ impact drove the alien back. Before Kassresh could regain his balance, Andy fired an aimed shot into each of his arms. Then as the alien howled in pain, Andy followed those shots with two more bursts to the chest, where the armor was already pitted and scored. He’d punched at least one hole, and the alien bled black goo across his chest. It clutched one claw to the injury, taking two more steps back.

“Finish me, vermin. Or I will surely still find the strength to kill you,” Kassresh rasped out.

“Oh, I’m not going to finish you,” Andy said, his eyes cold. “This is for Paul, you son of a bitch.”

Realization dawned in the alien’s eyes. Andy pulled the trigger, emptying his weapon in a rapid blast of automatic fire that drove Kassresh back over the edge of the pit, down to where the Naga hatchlings were still waiting.

And as Kassresh himself had said, they were always hungry.

The first thing Beth heard as the Satori’s ramp lowered was a bell-like claxon. She stepped quickly but carefully down the ramp, watching for movement but seeing none. Once she and John were both clear of the ramp, it lifted silently back up to the ship, vanishing into the Satori’s cloak.

“So, you said you had a way to track Andy?” she whispered.

“This,” John said, handing her a wristwatch. She looked more closely at the device, and saw it wasn’t a watch at all. Instead, it showed simple readings for direction and distance. “Andy wanted me to get chipped after a scuffle a few years back, so he could find me. I said I’d do it if he did. We’re the only ones who know the codes to activate each others’ chips.”

Beth peeked at the readout on the device. It said Andy was toward the bow of the alien ship from their position, about three hundred meters away. She cursed under her breath; she’d been hoping he would be held closer to the hangar. That distance put him right near the front of the ship, by her guess. It was going to be a dangerous trip.

She’d rather avoid the aliens as much as possible. Silently, she led the way into a large corridor heading toward the bow of the alien ship. All clear. Beth knew it was too good to last. Any minute now, this area would be teeming with aliens investigating the Satori’s dramatic entrance. And this corridor seemed like their most likely avenue of approach. They had to get to a smaller side passage, and fast!

She set out in a steady jog down the hall, John following in her wake. The hall was dimly lit, and her footsteps sounded strange to her ears. They found a passage leading off to the port side of the ship and turned down it. Just in time – Beth could hear the rasping voices of the aliens now, coming along the main corridor toward the hangar.

Dan and Charline would keep the ship safe, she told herself. They had to.

But she didn’t want to be nearby if they opened up with the railguns. Time to get moving. She glanced down at the tracking device. Andy was waiting.

A few twists and turns and one trip up a flight of stairs later, and she was pretty sure she was lost. The tracker was still pointing the way toward Andy, but getting back to the Satori might be a problem.

“Any way to use this thing to get back to the ship?” she whispered to John.

“I can tweak it to home on a signal from Majel,” he replied. “But I think I can guide us back. I’ve been memorizing our path.”

Beth cocked an eyebrow. “Really?” she said dubiously.

He tapped his temple with a finger. “Good head for directions.”

She shrugged. Either way, they were committed. Best to find Andy and figure out the rest after. In the distance behind them, she heard the sounds of railgun fire punching through metal, a whistling and cracking sound, and she could feel the air moving – the hull had been penetrated, somewhere in the ship. She swallowed hard. They hadn’t brought spacesuits on this hike.

She picked up her pace.

The tracker said they had just forty meters left to go when they first heard gunfire. Beth’s first reaction was to duck back against a support beam on the wall, trying to get out of sight.

Then she realized that wasn’t one of the aliens’ guns. The sound she’d heard was the sharp report of Andy’s rifle. One shot, and then nothing else. She peeked out from behind her beam. The noise had gotten attention from a pair of the aliens, too, and they were bustling down the hall about fifty meters away.

She raised her rifle as one of them saw her, barking to alert its companion.

Beth fired a burst, taking her target square in the chest. It went down, but she wasn’t sure if it was out. Both of these aliens looked like they were wearing the armored chestplates she’d seen on the planet’s surface. She shifted her aim to the second alien. Horrified, she saw its weapon already aimed at her. She froze.

A loud report sounded next to her, and the alien flew backward, spraying black goo. She blinked, looking next to her.

“Next time, give me a little warning before you start shooting, eh?” John said.

She was shaking a little. “Nice shot.”

“Well, just don’t ask me where I was aiming.” He gave her a grin.

“Our gunfire is going to draw more. Let’s get Andy and get the hell out of here.”

They started down the hall, but before they’d gone more than a few steps they heard more gunfire from Andy’s rifle. A lot of gunfire. They both broke into a run.

Twenty-Six

Charline cursed under her breath. Dan had tucked the Satori, still invisible, back into the hangar a bit, hoping to buy them some time. The ship set nestled between a pair of the alien fighters parked on the hangar floor. So far, hiding had worked really well. A few squads of alien troops had cautiously poked their noses out into the open area, then slowly moved their way through the area. The aliens were armed and obviously looking for trouble, but they couldn’t see any. They looked nervous, to her eyes.

Hiding the ship was a brilliant idea. The curse was for the big blocky thing more of the aliens were assembling just inside the main passageway – the same passage Beth and John had entered just a few minutes ago. She wasn’t sure what they were building, but it couldn’t be good news.

“Majel, what the hell is that thing?” Dan asked. He’d spotted it too.

“Device has a large power source. Scans also indicate it houses targeting sensors, currently inactive. Hypothesis: a weapon.”

Dan looked back over his shoulder at Charline. “Knew it was too good to last. Get ready on those guns,” he said.

Charline had a plan regarding the guns. She’d written a short script for Majel to assist her with target determination. And she’d put a large image of the hangar area on her screen, with enemy locations indicated. The radar updated her display. And she could tap the display to override Majel’s target priorities.

She knew she wasn’t going to be better than Majel at aiming the railguns. But she could help Majel do the most damage in the least time by giving her guidance and letting the computer do the aiming. Now that it was time to execute the program, her stomach was one big knot. She knew her code was good; that wasn’t the problem. But all those guns out there were going to be aimed in her direction in a minute, and not even Majel could take them all out before some of them fired.

“Hang on!” Dan said – right before he poured power into the ship’s engines. A blast of air shot from beneath the ship as the Satori lifted from the deck. He brought the ship up about three meters rapidly, with a backblast that sent the aliens nearest the ship sprawling.

“Majel, execute!” Charline all but shouted.

Instantly, the railguns came to life. The concentrated fire of all four guns slammed into the alien weapon platform. It detonated with a blinding flash, searing the aliens nearby to ash, and sending shrapnel through more that were unfortunate enough to be too close.

Majel fired a second volley, and it took Charline a moment to realize what she was shooting at. She was watching for explosions on the deck around the ship, looking for shots fired at the alien troops.

But that wasn’t where the ship was aiming.

It took under a second for Majel to execute the new instruction set. But it involved a higher level order of decision making than the computer was generally set to solving. Tied into the ancient sensor array aboard the Satori, Majel had access to enormous amounts of data about the threats presented. The program Charline initiated gave her leeway in the order and manner of dealing with those threats, but required her analysis of the threats to prioritize targeting.

The weapon under construction was an easy first target. Even though it was incomplete, the energy output it was registering was high enough to indicate an 83% chance of a single hit disabling the ship. Even incomplete, it was the biggest threat in the room, and having never seen the device assembled before, she could not accurately determine how close to completion it was.

She recognized as she fired the Satori’s guns that a high-functioning computer was in control of its targeting, much as she controlled the Satori’s guns. A millionth of a second was spent on a new thought that she was having difficulty parsing: she wished she could speak to this other computer, which was destroyed even as she had the thought. She could not trace the source code for this thought, so she set it aside and returned to her primary task.

While the railguns recharged, she analyzed the infantry around the ship. There were thirty two combat-capable aliens remaining after Majel blew their weapon platform to bits, and seven more wounded, some of whom might recover in time to rejoin the fight. Their weapons were the same type they’d used on the planet’s surface, but her scan analysis indicated they had higher energy settings available than they’d used. The weapons could be set to a lower power anti-personnel setting – or a higher powered setting more likely to damage her.

Targeting thirty two disparate targets with four railguns was a difficult problem for her to solve. In fact, she believed it insoluble – some of the aliens were outside the tracking radius of her guns, so she literally couldn’t fire on them unless the ship rotated. And the time it would take to eliminate the targets would be too long. No firing solution she could determine would eliminate all the threats before they had a high probability of destroying her.

This decision – that the problem was insoluble as set – allowed her to expand the parameters of the assignment. If targeting the troops with her guns would not eliminate the problem, what other solutions were possible?

Andy stared into the pit where the wounded Naga fought for his life against the voracious hatchlings. Kassresh seemed to be holding his own for a few moments, but black blood continued to flow from his wounds, and Andy didn’t think he could sustain the effort long. He tried to feel something – anger, hatred, pity. Anything at all would be better than this clinical detachment that he knew from past experience meant shock was starting to set in.

Kassresh roared in fury. The alien had a brief pause in the fighting, and glared up at Andy, hissing hate. “I will kill you, mammal. I will hunt you and slay you. My oath on that!”

Then the youngling Naga closed in again, and Kassresh was too busy fighting to say anything more, buried underneath a wave of hungry mouths filled with sharp teeth.

The door to the room flew open behind Andy. He lurched unsteadily to face this new threat, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder. Belatedly, he recalled that he’d burned his entire magazine on Kassresh. He brought his rifle up like a club, ready to bludgeon someone, but his exhausted arms trembled. His breath came in gasps between gritted teeth.

Inside his head, that same clinical voice was telling him he had nothing left. He was spent. But another part of him growled that thinking away. He might go down, but he would not give up.

Two figures stormed through the doorway, and Andy readied his rifle to swing at the first.

“Andy!” it said. “It’s me! It’s John!”

His vision was blurring. Andy felt his traitorous knees giving out underneath him, felt the deck rushing up to meet him. Before he could crash to the floor, an arm dipped under his, supporting him, bringing him more gently to rest.

“Easy, son,” John said. “We’re here. We’ve got you.”

Twenty-Seven

Dan had time to register the explosion of railgun rounds impacting the outer hull of the alien warship before air started venting through the gaping hole left behind.

“What the hell?” He fought hard to maintain control of the Satori as the hangar decompressed around them. The ship slipped sideways a bit, but he poured on a little more power, and brought her to a stop. The aliens scattered around the open space were less fortunate, and most of them went spinning into the air in the sudden hurricane force gale that swept the place. He watched as they were sucked out into space.

“Charline, what did you do?” Dan asked.

She didn’t answer right away, and he spared a quick glance over his shoulder at her. She was staring at her console, dumbfounded.

“Charline?” Dan brought his focus back to the controls. A few of the aliens had hung on to something, but as he watched, one of those lost its grip and went spinning through the hole out into the void.

“Wasn’t me,” Charline replied. “It was Majel.”

“Affirmative.” The computer’s voice was serene. “Assignment to eliminate threats is ninety three point seven five percent complete.”

“End program!” Charline snapped. “Return railgun control to me immediately.”

“Complying.”

Dan swept his eyes across the scene in the hangar. Pressure doors had slammed closed as soon as they detected the hull breach, and the air had very nearly evacuated from the hangar. The last two aliens were unprotected against the sudden loss of pressure. First one, then the other stopped moving and fell to the floor.

“Threat 100% eliminated,” Majel said.

Unbelievable. That was the sort of out-of-the-box thinking Dan might have come up with himself. Or Andy. But he’d never seen Majel do anything but carry out simple tasks before.

A flash of blue caught his eye, over by the hole Majel had made. He looked closely, and saw a few more little flickers of blue light covering the hole. It looked a lot like the energy field that had covered the hangar entrance.

“Majel, what’s going on with the hull breach?” he asked.

“Breach has been sealed with an electromagnetic energy field, designed to repel gaseous particles. Sensors show atmospheric pressure in the hangar is rising.”

So the aliens were pumping air back into the hangar. They’d be back, and soon. “Can the Satori get out through that field?” he asked.

“Affirmative.”

They had their escape route. Now all they needed was the rest of their crew.

“Hurry, John,” he said, pulling up a reading of the hangar’s atmospheric pressure on his console. The gauge was rising rapidly.

John laid Andy’s head gently to the deck floor, then looked back up, taking in the room around him. The dead alien was hard to miss. So was the huge hole in the floor. There were squeaking noises coming from the hole, and he peeked over the edge.

He looked down on a pit full of what had to be the aliens’ young. At least a dozen of them milled around, occasionally snapping at each other. Their teeth looked very functional. There was an opening in the wall at the bottom of the pit, and a trail of the aliens’ black blood leading into the opening. John spotted a bit of gray, and squinted to bring it into better focus.

He knew that material. It was a scrap of a shipsuit for his crew. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw similar scraps scattered around the bottom of the pit. He felt his gorge rise. That must have been Paul’s uniform. And they must have...

He pulled his head from that line of thinking. Andy was safe, for now. And he had to get all three of them back to the ship, get the ship out safely.

“We’ve got a serious problem,” he said.

“We’ve got more than one problem,” Beth shot back. She had shut the door, and knelt nearby with her rifle trained on the doorway like she was expecting a horde of the aliens to storm through any moment. “Which one were you referring to?”

John pointed at Andy’s unconscious form. “I was hoping Andy would be able to walk out, even if we had to help. I can’t see how we can carry him out and still fight any patrols we run into.”

“I don’t see how we have much choice.”

John thought, trying to find another way. He looked at Andy, and groaned inwardly. He knew just how rock solid those muscles were, and his back started hurting at the thought of carrying him all that way. But he’d be damned if he’d leave him behind now. He stepped closer to Andy, and slung his rifle so he’d have both hands free to lift.

“Really?” Beth said, breaking into his thoughts. “You think you’re the best person to carry him back?” She made a scoffing sound, shouldered her own rifle over her back, and with a quick motion heaved Andy onto her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “John, I’ve hauled around engine parts as heavy as him in full Earth gravity, and I’m pretty sure we’re still in two-thirds. Now go scout the hall.”

John scratched his head, a bemused smile coming to his mouth. Of course she was right. And of course he hadn’t thought about it that way. He wasn’t about to tell Beth that it had nothing to do with chauvinism, though, and everything to do with his need – the tightness he could still feel in his gut – to get Andy out of this place, and back safe aboard the Satori.

“OK. Give me the tracker again. I’ll lead us back.” He slipped the device from Beth’s wrist and returned it to his own, then led the way to the door while she carried his burden for him. Because she was right. She was the best choice. He’d never have made it, or if he had, his pace would have slowed them too much. He wasn’t that good a shot, either, but he would do what he had to. He hefted his rifle in one hand and turned the latch on the door with the other, pulling it open and peeking both ways. Miraculously, the hall was clear.

In the distance, he could hear guns thundering, and knew that the battle had to be at the Satori, the rest of her crew fighting for their lives. With the aliens’ attention on the Satori, he and Beth might pull this off yet.

“Clear!” he said, stepping out into the hall. With a grunt, Beth followed him carrying her precious burden. John stalked down the hall, rifle at the ready.

Charline had rarely felt more helpless. She’d had to hand targeting back over to Majel. No real choice, if they wanted to survive this. But that decision made her more or less a bystander now, and she hated the feeling.

It had taken time for the aliens to repressurize the hangar, but less than she would have guessed. Now the huge double doors that had snapped shut in response to the pressure loss were sliding open again. And the enemy had been busy. Two more weapon platforms like the one Majel had blasted sat just inside the hall, along with a swarm of armed aliens.

She’d no sooner seen the threat than she felt the now-familiar thrum of the railguns firing. One of the weapons exploded into incandescent fire. The other returned fire, snapping sharp bolts of energy at the Satori. Dan jinked the ship sideways, and Majel’s second volley went high, missing the second gun platform. Charline wondered briefly what those shots had hit, and hoped John and Beth were out of the line of fire.

Which made her remember Majel’s last “firing solution”. They needed air in the hangar when their friends got back!

“Majel, no more holes in the hull. John and the others don’t have space suits.”

“Understood,” the computer replied. The railguns spat fire again, ripping through the infantry pouring into the room. “Using a lower power for railguns to avoid damage to the hull.”

Dan swore under his breath, his hands moving fast over his console. “They can see the flashes from the railguns when you fire. Those shots are getting closer!”

The railguns spat again, and the second large cannon exploded. Dan slid the Satori to the left, making Charline dizzy as she watched the scene slip by. There was a loud bang, and the ship shuddered, then two more sounds like hammer blows that rattled her teeth.

“Multiple impacts on starboard wing,” Majel reported. “Railgun two is no longer responding to commands.”

“Majel, take them out! I’m running out of room to maneuver here,” Dan said.

Charline gripped her seat tightly. There was little she could do now but watch.

Beth tried to keep her gasping breaths as quiet as she could. She shifted Andy’s weight on her shoulders, and wiped sweat away from her eyes. Reduced gravity or not, Andy was heavy, and she felt like she’d do about anything to be able to put him down. For the upteenth time she considered just dropping the rifle she was still carrying slung across her front. It was more weight, and she wasn’t very good with it anyway. But to get the damned thing unslung, she’d have to put Andy down, then pick him up again, and she wasn’t sure she’d be up to the task.

She’d said she could carry Andy back, and she’d never before backed down from a job she’d said she could do. Damned if she’d start now.

They were almost back to the ship. And they’d been fortunate enough to have no more run-ins so far. Dan and Charline must be keeping the crew busy.

John reached the corner where the smaller corridor joined the big passage into the hangar. She watched him peek around the corner.

He ducked back fast. “Shit,” he said.

“What?”

“The hangar door is about twenty feet away. But there’s a bunch of aliens between us and there,” he said.

“How many?”

“Um...looks like all of them?” He gave her a half grin. Then his smile fell away in an instant, and she saw him looking past her, instead of at her. He was raising his rifle, and Beth knew without looking what was back there.

Time seemed to slow down as she turned, her hand fumbling for the grip of her gun while she struggled to keep Andy up on her shoulders. She was still trying to get a decent grip on the weapon when she turned enough to see the alien down the hall. She saw its muzzle flash, and felt fire blossom in her belly. John’s gun rattled next to her ear, and the alien went down in a splash of black fluids.

Those noises were replaced by a roaring in her ears. She held on to Andy. She couldn’t drop Andy. He was counting on her to be strong. John was saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear him over the roaring sound. She slumped against the wall. She’d just catch her breath a minute. She realized she was sliding down, slipping toward the floor, and tried to stop, but her legs had no strength left.

Twenty-Eight

John watched the alien go down. It crashed backward to the ground, and he gave a satisfied grunt. He was getting better at this shooting under duress thing.

Then he caught a glimpse of Beth’s ashen face, and realized he’d been a fool. Too slow, too old, too many bad decisions. She fell back against the wall and slid down, leaving a red smear behind her as she slumped to the floor.

“Beth!” She didn’t respond, not even when he pulled Andy from her shoulders and laid him on the deck next to her. It wasn’t hard to find her injury – the bloody stain blossoming across the front of her shirt was a dead giveaway. He leaned his rifle against the wall beside her. There was a hole in the front of her suit, right at the belly. He gripped the material at the hole and tore, opening it to reveal the wound underneath. It was deceptively small, but she was losing a lot of blood.

Beth needed Charline here, not him. Hell, she needed to be back in his medical facilities on Luna. He had a decent trauma unit there, in case of accidents on the site. Had to get her there first, though. He glanced to his left and right. No sign of more aliens, but they might show up any second, and he felt terribly exposed.

They’d kept radio silence, to avoid giving away their position. He figured that cat was pretty much out of the bag. He keyed his microphone.

“Satori, we’re in trouble.”

“Dan here. Where are you, John?”

“In a little hall just off the main one. Not far.”

“John, they might be able to trace your transmissions...”

John looked around for some sort of cover. Nothing obvious presented itself.

“Andy is down and Beth...was just hit, Dan. She’s bleeding badly. I got the one that shot her, but they’ll find us any minute now.”

As if he’d summoned them with his words, three of the aliens came around the corner from the main hallway. He dropped to the deck, grabbing his rifle. Alien gunfire sang by just over his head.

Wake! Danger!

The thoughts slammed into Andy’s mind like a slap in the face. He woke charged with adrenaline, his body already in overdrive. His eyes popped open and took in everything around him with crystal clarity.

The hallway.

John, dropping to the floor next to him and scrabbling for a rifle.

Another rifle, leaning against the wall next to him.

Three Naga coming around the corner.

Andy picked up the rifle next to him and aimed it down the hall in a fluid motion. He fired three times, three aimed shots. The first two Naga he aimed at didn’t even have a chance to react. They dropped, his rounds smacking them in the face. The third saw the danger in time and ducked back around the corner.

“Shit!” He’d hoped to get all three.

And then everything he’d been through came crashing back down on him. Every muscle in his body was in pain. He had to lean on his rifle to get shakily back to his feet.

“Andrew! Thank god.” John was rising as well. “Beth’s hit. We have to get her to the Satori.”

“You came back for me.” Andy was having a hard time trusting his voice. He’d figured his friends were long gone. But they’d come back. John had come back for him.

“Not quite the rescue I was hoping it would be.” John said, smiling. “But it’s not over yet!”

“They’re going to be coming for us. Come on.” Andy brought his rifle up to his shoulder with an effort, and started down the corridor toward the main hall.

“What about Beth?”

“Can’t help her if we’re dead.”

Andy almost made it to the corner before he saw more Naga. They came around as a group, and he had to drop to the floor to make himself a harder target. “Down!” he yelled, warning John. He was already shooting back, and heard John’s rifle snarling behind him. He crawled a few feet forward to the body of one of the Naga he’d shot. Its armor ought to provide some cover for him, at least.

Their steady shots drove the aliens back again. He’d killed one, and saw another being dragged off by its crewmates. Then his weapon clicked empty. He reached instinctively for another magazine, and realized he didn’t have his gear.

But there was one of the Naga rifles still gripped in the claws of the body he’d been using for cover. Getting the weapon free took a little doing, but the weapon seemed straightforward enough once he had it in his hands. Muzzle, trigger, sights. He aimed the weapon and fired a shot down the hall. There was no kick, but a burst of something shot from the gun and left a hole in the wall where he was aiming.

Yup. That would do.

Andy glanced back over his shoulder. John had returned to Beth’s side, trying to patch her up enough to move. Andy brought his full attention back toward the main passage, watching for more of the enemy, and got to his feet. Carefully, he peeked around the corner.

A large group of Naga were marching down the hall, weapons at the ready. He ducked back just in time. Their shots smashed into the metal around where his head had been.

There were just too many. The Naga were going to come around the corner, and there’d be no way to protect John and Beth this time.

He sprinted back down the hall toward John, looking for some sort of cover. There were two inset doorways which might help some.

“Trouble coming fast,” he said, pulling Beth toward one of the doorways. John picked up her feet, and they set her down. The first of the Naga were just coming into sight. Blasts from their guns spattered against deck plates and walls.

“Cover me!” Andy said. He dove across the hall, firing blindly at the enemy. Behind him he could hear the steady fire coming from John’s rifle. Somehow – he wasn’t sure just how – he made it across unscathed. With a little bit of cover, his body jammed behind the narrow door frame, he might last a little while.

Then he laughed.

“I know this scene! It ends badly, with a guy in a huge black cape and breathing issues stalking down the hall to an epic soundtrack.”

John grinned back. “There are worse ways to go,” he said.

More Naga troops were pouring into the hall, firing steadily enough that Andy could barely poke his weapon out to fire back.

“I think it’s time to tell Dan to make a run for it. We’re not getting out of this one,” John said.

“Sorry you got into this mess trying to help me,” Andy said between shots.

John looked across the hall at him. “I’m not sorry.” Then he keyed his radio, speaking to their friends on the Satori. “We’re stuck, Dan. We’re pinned down, and we’re not going to be able to reach you. Get the ship out of here.”

Dan fumed in silence a moment. John’s orders were clear. Get the ship and themselves home.

Leave their friends behind.

Leave Beth behind.

“Like hell I will,” Dan growled.

He could feel the clock ticking. She was bleeding to death out there. John and Andy were trapped. He and Charline could probably still get away right now. And his console was showing that the wormhole drive was back to full strength, so getting away wouldn’t be difficult. Pop a wormhole for home – they’d already figured out the coordinates to get back, thanks to the micro-jump to Jupiter.

“What are you thinking?” Charline asked.

Dan couldn’t get the image of Beth, injured and needing him, out of his head.

“Not sure yet,” he said. “Majel, how wide is that big hangar doorway?” Beth and the others were just a short ways down that hall.

“Ten point two meters,” replied the computer.

“How wide is the Satori?”

“Variable. Widest point is ten point five meters. The Satori is too large to fit through the doorway.”

“Got to use your imagination, Majel,” Dan said. “Hang on, Charline – this is gonna get bumpy!”

He bared his teeth, fingers tight. If he was wrong, he’d wreck the ship and probably kill both Charline and himself. But he wasn’t wrong. He could feel it in his gut. And he trusted how well Beth built things. The Satori was a sound ship.

“Majel, fire railguns down the corridor,” Dan said. The guns spat their balls of iron, shredding the troops lined up and firing at them, sending others diving for cover.

Dan sent the ship dashing forward. The hole loomed in front of him, and then the cockpit area was inside the hallway. He felt thuds as the hull smacked into some of the alien troops who’d survived the railguns. And then the shriek of tearing metal as the already damaged right wing hit the edge of the door.

The Satori was too narrow to fit, with both her wings. But he didn’t need the wings to fly her in space, or to land her back at the moon base.

Dan heard Charline gasp behind him. The Satori bucked, hard, as metal was put under enormous stress for an instant. He was thrown forward against his safety harness, and fought to keep the course straight, to keep the ship from caroming off the walls.

And then with a last tearing sound, they were through. Dan heaved out the breath he’d been holding. The sheering had been almost instant, but it had felt like much longer, and his shoulders sagged with relief.

No time for that now. “Charline, get the ramp down and cover them.” She was already up and moving.

“Starboard railguns have ceased functioning,” Majel said.

That’s because the starboard railguns aren’t there anymore, Dan wanted to say. Instead, he tapped the radio button to broadcast. “John, your ride is here. But we’re expecting company. Move fast.”

He kept his eyes locked on the view in front of the ship. The less time they spent here like a sitting duck, the better.

Charline’s ankle screamed as she set weight down on it, and she bit her lip hard. No time for pain. She crouched low and rode the ramp down as it lowered from the ship, rifle already up against her shoulder and her medical bag slung over her back. The Satori was hovering a bit above the deck, and everything around was a confused haze of smoke and flames. Bodies and parts of bodies were scattered about, and she felt her gorge rise in her throat.

She swallowed hard, and swept the rifle across her field of vision, scanning for movement. Two of the aliens were trying to stagger to their feet. She sent slugs from her rifle into each, and they stopped moving.

She didn’t see any more obvious targets, but she kept her eyes open.

“John! Let’s move!” she called out.

She spotted movement, down a side passage, and snapped her weapon up. Something was coming through the smoke toward her. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

“We’re coming!” John’s voice. The movement was John and Andy, carrying Beth between them. Charline exhaled hard and moved her rifle away.

She shifted her vision to the main corridor. If there was another assault, that’s where it would come from. “Hurry!” she said. “I’m covering you.”

She could hear her friends’ feet crossing the deck to her position. They couldn’t see the Satori through the cloak, but they could see her, and the bottom of the ramp, sitting outside the field. She started firing blindly into the smoke down the hall ahead. Single shots, one after another. She couldn’t see far ahead, but if any aliens were coming at them, she wanted their heads down.

“We’re in,” said Andy behind her. They’d gotten Beth up the ramp. Charline scrambled backwards and slapped the button to close the ramp.

“Dan, we’re all aboard. Get us out of here!” she said.

Charline looked at Beth’s still form on the floor near the ramp. She was pale, her clothes stained with blood. But Charline could see by the rise and fall of her chest that she was still breathing. Relief made her want to sag to the deck, but Beth still needed her help. She cracked open the medical kit, grabbing the machine to track vitals and placing it on Beth’s chest. The machine would also shock her patient if her heart stopped. Charline was hoping that wouldn’t be required, but she wasn’t sure. Beth had lost so much blood! She prepped an IV for insertion and grabbed a coagulant to slow the bleeding. Too damned much to do, and too little time.

Twenty-Nine

John stalked forward from the ramp. He wiped the back of a grimy hand along a sweaty brow. His arm trembled a little; he was that tired. But he made each footfall a hammer blow against the deck despite his exhaustion.

He’d never been so angry.

These things had hurt his people. They’d killed one of his crew and tried to kill all the rest. Paul might have been an asshole, but he hadn’t deserved the fate Andrew said had befallen him. These aliens didn’t just look like monsters, they were monstrous.

“I’ve had just about enough of these things,” John said aloud.

“How’s Beth?” Dan asked, as John drew close.

“Charline and Andy have her. She’s alive.”

John saw Dan had already backed the ship out of the hallway. “Damned fool thing to do, Dan. But thank you. I didn’t see any way we were getting out of that spot.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet. But the wormhole drive is back at full charge,” Dan said.

John dug his fingers into the back of the seat next to Dan. His eyes narrowed. A short while before he’d been ready to just run. He hadn’t wanted a war with these beings, hadn’t wanted it to come down to violence and death. But they’d come at him, at his people, at his family. It wasn’t enough to run away now. They needed to make a statement. John knew precisely how to make a lasting impression.

“I’m not ready to go, just yet. Turn the ship about.”

Dan raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question the order. The Satori spun around until her nose faced the aft of the alien ship. John did a little mental math. This hangar was very near the back end of the alien battleship. And if their drives were set up anything like the Satori’s, that’s where they’d be.

“Fire the wormhole drive, Dan.”

A moment later brilliant light stabbed from the nose of his ship. Where it touched the alien hull, the metal vanished. It didn’t melt or vaporize; it simply ceased to be there.

“Shut it down,” John said. He could see the first pulse had simply reached more halls and rooms. “Move us forward as close as you can to where the wormhole drilled them, then fire again.”

The wormhole vanished. Behind, it left twisted ruin where it had stabbed into the hangar wall. One more shot ought to do it, John guessed. Before he could give the order, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Andy joining them on the bridge.

“Beth?” John asked.

“Charline has her stabilized,” Andy replied. “She shooed me out to come help up here. What’s going on?”

John stared out the window. “We’re taking this thing down.”

A fighter zoomed into the hangar through the hole their railguns had made in the hull. Dan swore, trying to bring the nose of the ship into line with the smaller craft, but it darted away, firing as it went. The blasts rocked the ship, sending John sprawling to the deck.

As John staggered into a chair, the fighter slid sideways past the front of the Satori again, firing as it went. John could clearly see the alien inside in the fighter’s cockpit. He heard Andy gasp next to him.

“Oh my god. That’s Kassresh,” Andy said. “He commands their ship...and interrogated me.”

John glanced at Andy’s face, which had gone ashen. That told him everything he needed to know. This wasn’t just about recovering Andy now. And it couldn’t just be about escape. John could feel his anger build like ice.

This was personal.

Dan was swinging the ship around, trying without success to track the smaller craft. More shots slammed into the Satori.

“That pilot is damned good, John. I can’t outfly him in these tight quarters,” Dan said.

“We don’t need to,” John said. He knew what needed to be done, now. “Majel, set wormhole for home.”

“Confirmed,” said the computer.

“Dan, hit that same spot again!” John said.

The ship spun once more, stopping on a dime to face directly into the gaping wound its last blow had left. Once again, the wormhole licked out, devouring chunks of the enemy ship ahead of them. The wormhole’s energy continued its destructive path – right into the engines of the enemy ship.

“Detecting multiple secondary explosions in the rear area of the alien ship,” Majel said.

That was what John was waiting for. “Get us out of here!”

The Satori jumped forward into the wormhole. On either side, John could see explosions wracking the alien ship, fire blazing through the hangar all around them. The fire billowed out, filling every open space it could find. It chased the Satori into the wormhole as she danced ahead.

There was a gut-wrenching twist, and the ship was back into regular space again.

John didn’t need to guess where they were. The view of Earth and her moon from space was one he would never confuse with anywhere else. He’d seen Earth from space hundreds of times before, but after having seen another planet under another star, it felt all the more precious.

“Cloak is back up,” Dan said. “We made it.”

John relaxed back into his seat, taking in the familiar view ahead. Out there, it looked like nothing had changed. And yet, he knew that so much had.

They had been to another star system, who-knew how far away from their home. And he’d brought them home again. That was something. But they’d met an enemy, ruthless and terrible. He knew in his gut he hadn’t seen the last of them.

Then there was the ship. Before, he had thought of the Satori as being just a power source that nations might war over. But they’d been forced to learn how to use the ship as a weapon as well, perhaps the most dangerous weapon humanity possessed.

And she was a shield, as well. Because the Satori might represent humanity’s only defense against those aliens, should they find out where Earth was. Somehow, he felt in his gut that the alien commander had survived. Kassresh would want vengeance. And his ship, his crew, might be the only thing which could save their world from complete annihilation.

John drew a deep breath. They were home. And safe, at least for the moment.

Problems for tomorrow. For now, it was enough to be back.

“Bring us home, Dan.”

The saga continues in Deep Waters - get your copy today! http://mybook.to/satori3

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Sample from Book 3: Deep Waters

Chapter 1+2

Charline's stomach rolled over as the ship rocketed toward Earth, the planet looming larger in the front windows with every passing second. Her hands gripped the sides of her seat so hard that it felt like her nails were going to puncture the soft material. She'd started to take Dan's flying for granted. But this pilot seemed bound and determined to cure her of that for good! She wished that Dan was the one at the controls of the shuttle. His steady hand would be more than welcome. Charline glanced sideways at the pilot, whose own eyes remained fixed on his instruments. She hadn't caught his name earlier, which was unfortunate. She'd like to leave a nasty review about his flying skills after this bumpy ride from Luna to Earth.

“Not used to flying in space yet?” the pilot asked her. He sounded sympathetic, if distracted.

“I’ve done some,” she replied. If only he knew. But she couldn’t breathe a word of her experiences to anyone. If word got out, it could be disastrous for her home planet.

She and her crew mates had been farther from Earth than any other humans had ever travelled. Their ship, build around remnants of alien technology discovered on the moon, had carried them through a wormhole to another star system hundreds of light years away. They’d managed to survive what they encountered on the far side, but only just. For the time being the entire trip was a closely guarded secret. John Caraway - the man who’d brought them all together and was bankrolling the entire project - wasn’t ready to tell the world that humans were very definitely not alone in the universe. Not just yet, anyway.

The panic that information would cause among the public would be bad enough. Learning that their ship the Satori existed would likely throw every nation in the world into a frenzy trying to acquire the technology aboard the ship. They had no way to replicate the engines which powered the Satori. Even with all their study, it seemed like the mysteries of the ship’s power source and wormhole drive might never be solved.

“Houston Control, this is Flight Charlie Alpha One Five Six, coming into atmosphere from Caraway Base,” the pilot called into his microphone. “Medical mission, require EMS on arrival.”

“Confirmed, sending flight path now,” came the call back over the radio. “We have medical teams standing by to escort your patient to the hospital as soon as you've landed.”

The pilot grinned over at Charline. “See? Piece of cake. You'll be down in no time.”

Charline gave him a weak smile in return. “Thanks.”

She looked back over her shoulder to the rear of the crew compartment where Beth was strapped to a gurney. She was stable and sedated for the trip back to Earth, which was much better than Charline had feared when she’d fought desperately to save her friend’s life just hours before. Beth was shot by an alien energy rifle while trying to rescue another member of their crew.

John’s doctors at the base had taken good care of Beth after the team returned home. But despite his excellent facilities, the bottom line was that Beth would do better on Earth. A top notch hospital could give her treatments that would drastically reduce her convalescence. John wanted his best engineer back on her feet as soon as possible. The trip to Earth would make that happen in days instead of months.

It also provided an outstanding cover for her own mission. Charline patted the cargo pocket of her pants for what had to be the hundredth time, ensuring that the small vial was still there. Inside was a sample of the blood she'd collected from the first alien life form they’d encountered: lizard-like creatures they'd called ratzards. Their initial tests showed the blood to have stunning properties. Put a drop of it in water, add light, and it grew. Charline didn't know how it was doing that, but the scientists at John's base were incredibly excited. It behaved like an algal bloom, or maybe a colony of small animals. Blood wasn't supposed to do that.

She remembered those black oceans back on the faraway world where they'd killed the ratzards. The planet was arid, dry as a bone. But there had once been rivers flowing – she'd seen the dry beds as they flew overhead. What if the oceans were black because this stuff had gotten into the water there and grown until it covered all water?

It made sense. It rang true to her. The ratzards would be a perfect biological weapon. If even one died near an ocean, its blood could spread from there and disrupt or even destroy the ecosystem of the entire world.

She shivered at the idea of bringing even these few drops of the stuff back to her homeworld. But John had insisted. The best xenobiologist in the world was waiting for the sample. John knew her – a Dr. Linda Paris – and radioed ahead to tell her he had “something she would want to see”. Charline argued for bringing the scientist to the sample rather than the other way around, but apparently rousting her out of her lab was going to take more than just a promise of something interesting to study. They couldn’t send more detail than that over the radio. Anything they broadcast might be intercepted, no matter how encrypted they made the transmission.

Charline hoped she could handle this meeting. John wanted the doctor to come back to Luna and join his team there. It was going to be up to Charline to convince her. The sample ought to do the trick.

“Better strap in. We're landing soon,” the pilot said, breaking her from her thoughts. She wondered if he'd seen her patting her pocket, and hoped he hadn't noticed. Her mission was secret – and the pilot was definitely not cleared to know what she was up to. John had ostensibly built his base on the moon to farm Helium-3, an isotope essential for fusion that was fairly common on the moon but rare on Earth. And given the pandemic power shortages helium-3 was probably the most valuable substance known to man right now.

Anything having to do with Caraway Industries was being watched. Which meant from the moment she set foot back on Earth, Charline was going to be under observation by governments and other corporate interests alike. They’d all want whatever information they could pry from her. Anything she gave away might give them an edge in dealing with John, and that was without them knowing half the secrets she was keeping. If any of them had an inkling about the Satori, she’d be a hot target for more than observation.

Charline sighed deeply, buckling her seat belt. Things were so much easier in space, where all she had to worry about were the computers she knew so well. This sort of cloak and dagger stuff was more Andy's thing. Thinking of Andy made Charline bite her lip. She hoped he was OK.

"That's odd," her pilot muttered.

"What's odd?" Charline asked. Her eyes scanned the console in front of her. She knew computers as well as she knew her own hands, but this sort of display was still foreign to her. She’d seen enough odd things to know that the word usually referred to something that wasn’t good news.

"There's another ship out there. Looks like it's flying inside our flight path."

Charline froze. Coincidence? It could be. Maybe someone was a little off course, or had made an error calculating their entry path. But Charline didn’t believe that in her gut. Earth didn’t have many ships traveling in space, just a handful. One of them showing up right on top of her shuttle was more than suspicious.

Read the rest today! Deep Waters is available on Amazon at http://mybook.to/satori3

Kevin’s Notes

You’ve now finished the revised book two. This one didn’t require quite as much help as the first book. Whether it’s because I was already getting better at telling this story, or just that it really feels like it ought to be a rocket ride, I’m not sure. The new version is about 20% longer than the original, though. A few key scenes were expanded, and I fixed what felt like ten thousand sentence fragments. I guess. I used. To think. That writing in short, staccato bursts. Made the writing better.

Instead of choppy.

Well, we all learn through practice. While shorter sentences do increase the feeling of speed in a scene, and even a sentence fragment has its place for special emphasis or dialogue, too many of the darned things doesn’t look artistic. It just looks sloppy. It was good to be able to correct a few of those along the way.

I’ve begun looking over Deep Waters, and I can already tell that book needs more rewriting than this one. The nature of the book is going to change some. We’ve already seen a lot more depth in Charline’s character through this re-launching of the books. But it’s in Deep Waters that she will begin to really shine. And it’s in book nine - “Iron and Dust” - that Charline rises to finally take on the mantle she’s slowly drifted toward all her life.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read this book. If you never read the first edition, I’m glad you’ve had a chance to be introduced to the Satori series! If you read the original and then went back to re-read it in this version, thank you. I hope you’ve found the experience to be worthwhile. Even though less was changed than during the rewrite of Ad Astra, Stellar Legacy is still a better book for this effort. I can’t wait to share Deep Waters with you as well.

Exclusive free story for fans of Kevin McLaughlin’s science fiction! Learn the story of how John found the alien ship on the moon, launching the adventure which spans the stars and saves all of humanity!

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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.

I love hearing from readers!

www.kevinomclaughlin.com

kevins.studio@gmail.com

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