Strange New Worlds

Adventures of the Starship Satori Book 11

Kevin McLaughlin

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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One

Beth glanced around the briefing room and smiled. It was good to see so many old friends back together again. In the two months since the battle above the Naga homeworld, she’d seen little of the other original Satori crew. Overseeing the repairs of her ship kept her far too busy to do much socializing.

Everyone was on edge. This new enemy race, the ones called the Kkiktchikut? Charline had coined the more straightforward term ‘bugs.’ Beth thought that fit the centipede-like creatures. No one had seen the Bugs since that last, pitched battle. No one thought they were likely to vanish, though. It was only a matter of time before they struck again, and Earth wanted to be prepared.

Bad enough if the Bugs hit the Naga another time. But it was probably just a matter of time before they found Earth. Once they did, humanity would be the next on their list.

But something new was up. The Satori and Independence were both back to full operational status as of yesterday, and last night Beth had been notified of a briefing first thing in the morning. That wasn’t a coincidence. She wondered what was being planned.

“Charline, any idea what’s going on?” Beth asked.

The other woman shook her head in reply. “Not sure. Does Dan know anything?”

“Nope. I asked him earlier,” Beth said. Whatever this mission was about, it was a hush-hush project.

She looked at Charline. The woman had changed since they’d last been together. A little scarring tinged one side of her face, remnants from a bad plasma burn which hadn’t entirely healed. Her face had a harder line to it. The young woman who’d first boarded the Satori to explore the stars was all but gone. What Beth saw before her was a hardened commander.

Then Charline smiled, and that old twinkle was back in her eyes. “Whatever it is, it looks like someone is getting the band back together!”

Beth laughed. She looked around the room again. Only one member of their old team was missing. “Any word from Andy?”

“No, I haven’t seen or heard from him since he left the hospital,” Charline said. She frowned. “If he wants to talk, I’m not hard to find.”

Ouch, that was a little cold. Beth winced, then tried to bring a pleasant smile back to her face. Andy and Charline had been something of an item early on, a little budding romance on board the ship. Beth was pretty sure everyone but them knew about it pretty much from the start of their voyages.

They’d had a rough time of it on Dust, and again after escaping that dead world. Whatever happened to them both seemed to have fractured their relationship. Beth wondered if they’d ever get back what they used to have.

She glanced over at Dan. The same could easily have been said for them. She still used his last name, after all, even though they’d been divorced for years. Coming back together on board the Satori had been hard as hell, at first. But over time, they’d gotten closer again.

Their different commands kept them apart much of the time, but Beth spent what time she could with Dan. Earth was effectively at war. You never knew what might happen next, so it was essential to spend one’s time wisely. With the people one loved.

The thought made Beth’s cheeks feel warm, but it was hard to deny that she and Dan were both still nuts for each other at this point. She might be too embarrassed to admit it aloud, but that didn’t make it any less real.

The conference room door opened, letting General Hereford and an aide through. The general strode to the center of the room and cleared his throat.

Everyone else was seated on risers above the center. The room could hold scores of people, but today there were very few. Beth was present, along with her second in command, Major Ayala. Dan was there, of course. He had a Marine colonel seated next to him, and the two were deep in conversation with each other that silenced the moment Hereford arrived.

Charline was there as well as a few of her people, officers from her new armored combat unit. Beth still had a hard time believing that was for real. It seemed like something out of a B movie. Giant robots armed with machine guns and rockets? But the machines had proven their effectiveness during Charline’s first attempts, and the design had only been refined further after she returned home. The new Armor was a killing machine.

The captain of the Constitution, Colonel Wheeler, and his second were also present. Beth wondered a bit at that. The Constitution and Independence were still Earth’s only big battlecruisers. A few ships had been captured from the Bugs by Charline’s team, but Earth’s scientists were still going over those craft with a fine-tooth-comb, hoping to eke every bit of new technology they could from the vessels.

The room was a mixed bag of senior ranks from the budding Space Force. The place could hold a lot more people, though. Most of the time, a briefing would include more staff. The fact that only senior officers were present shouted to Beth that something big was up. Something big and secret, she amended.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today,” Hereford quipped. There was a mild chuckle from those assembled.

“We’ve started a pool,” Beth said drily. More chuckles followed.

Hereford flashed her a smile. “Just make sure I get part of the take.”

He looked about at everyone, seeming to check off names in his head. Making sure everyone was there, Beth thought. Then Hereford nodded his head at his aide, who pressed a button on his tablet. A large screen slowly lowered from the ceiling. Once it was unrolled, the aide pressed another button, and a slide was displayed.

“Here’s what we saw over Patala,” Hereford said, pointing at the screen.

“Patala?” Colonel Wheeler asked.

“The Naga homeworld. Keep up,” Hereford barked. “That ship there is the important one.”

He tapped the tablet, and a circled appeared on the screen around one gigantic ship. Beth sucked in a breath. She remembered that one, the massive super-dreadnought the Bugs brought into the battle. It was the largest ship Humans or Naga had ever seen. Bristling with weapons and filled with smaller craft, the ship was a powerhouse. But its real purpose wasn’t just the regular weapons it housed.

That dreadnought had a main gun running through its spine, a weapon capable of enough power discharge to annihilate an entire planet. Whether it would blow up a world or just scorch it to bare rock, no one was precisely sure. Scientists were still arguing over the specifics. The answer everyone was certain of was that you didn’t want to be on the planet they hit.

It was a doomsday weapon the likes of which they’d never seen before. Worse, the super-dreadnought was jump capable. It could open a wormhole and instantly arrive almost anywhere. The only good news was that the weapon seemed to take a long while to charge and had a relatively short range.

That would be small comfort to those living on a world the weapon actually hit, though.

“Yes, you’ve all read the data we have on the Bug super-dreadnought. It’s a world-killer, the final answer to wiping out an enemy for good,” Hereford said. “We’ve gotten news from the Naga that every world they control except their homeworld has been wiped clean by the Bugs.”

“If the Naga lose that last world, they’re gone. Wiped out. Annihilated. They’ve brought every ship they have home, and they’re madly building defenses to try to stay alive,” Hereford said. “Which brings me to my next slide.”

He pressed an icon, and the image changed to a picture of Earth.

Two

It was what they were all worried about, of course. They’d almost lost the planet when the Naga attacked. Now they were up against a foe with even more enormous destructive potential. If the Bugs showed up in Earth orbit, they’d be hard-pressed to stop their planet-killer ship before it annihilated all life on their world.

Their hope to set up a secret colony on the abandoned world they’d named “Dust” was a failure. Maybe it had once been a Bug colony, or perhaps it was the Bugs’ ancient homeworld. Whatever the case, they clearly had an interest in the place. Humans settling there wasn’t going to be an option.

Beth thought over all the ideas they’d had for exploration. The hopes that they would be able to soar to distant stars and see new worlds, increase humanity’s knowledge of the universe, and see things no one had ever seen. Those had been John Carraway’s dreams, but they seemed as dead as he was. In all their trips, the Satori had only visited three alien worlds. Four if you counted seeing one at a distance.

Hereford began speaking again. “We all know the Earth is at risk. If Humans want to survive this mess, we need a failsafe. An Alpha Site, a backup if all else goes wrong.”

“We tried that once, sir. It didn’t work out well,” Charline said.

She should know. It was her job to lead the colony mission. Most of the people with her died, instead, and the ones who made it back to Earth only barely survived.

“I know. Which is why we’re looking at a different location,” Hereford said. “The mission is still just as important as it ever was. Our error was in looking too close to home. But thanks to Captain Wynn and the Satori, we may have an answer now.”

Beth sucked in a breath. She knew what he was talking about. “That was an accident, sir! A fluke.”

“Our scientists think they’ve figured out how it happened, and better still how to repeat the process,” Hereford said. “The best part? The Bugs might not have this tech. They seem to only use the wormhole drive for long-distance travel. None of the ships we captured have a Naga-style hyperdrive on them. Which means they may not know what happens when the two drives operate in the same place at the same time.”

What happened was that the hyperdrive added enormous power to the wormhole. Instead of traveling just a few hundred light-years, the accidental jump had taken the Satori and a Naga warship out beyond the limits of the Milky Way. They’d found a star system. Probably, the gravity of the star had warped the wormhole and brought them in. They’d managed to repeat the process to get back, but the idea of journeying so far intentionally...!

“Sir, if anything goes wrong, even a little bit, those people will be stuck out there,” Beth said.

“Yes. At which point, they will be the Alpha Site. But we won’t be tossing all our eggs into this basket, Captain,” Hereford said. “We have multiple wormhole ships now, thanks to Colonel Foster.”

Charline nodded back to him. She’d captured several Bug ships during her astonishing adventure.

“We also have three hyperdrive ships now, with more on the way. We can’t build new wormhole drives — yet,” Hereford emphasized. “But we can send a rescue team if need be.”

Beth closed her eyes for a moment. It sounded like this trip was a certainty. Well, hadn’t she just been wishing for more exploration a short while ago? She opened her eyes, smiling ruefully. Be careful what you wish for, she supposed.

“We sure on those numbers?” Dan asked.

A melodic woman’s voice came from the room’s speakers. “I checked them myself,” Majel said.

“Good enough for me,” Dan said with a chuckle. “If Majel says the math works, then it works.”

She was an AI, after all; numbers were her thing. She was also the beating heart of the starship Satori. In many ways, it was her body. In all the universe, Majel seemed to be unique. The Naga had incredibly intelligent computers, but they never displayed the sentience Majel did.

“Good, because you’re going on the mission. The Independence will be the hyperdrive ship,” Hereford said. “She’ll carry a complement of Colonel Martelle’s Marines and a platoon of Colonel Foster’s Armor units. Just in case you run into any problems while you’re there.”

“And the Satori, sir? I assume we’ll be the wormhole ship for this op,” Beth said.

Hereford nodded. “Yes. While the Independence and her personnel examine the surface of the Goldilocks world you spotted, the Satori will be checking out the rest of the system. I don’t want any surprises, so you’ll do a full survey of the place.”

“And me?” Colonel Wheeler asked.

“You’re in command of the defense of Earth, Colonel. Don’t let us down,” Hereford said.

Colonel Wheeler opened his mouth as if to say something, then subsided again. Beth wondered if he was bothered by being left behind again or relieved. He’d always been a play-it-safe sort of officer. Not that he was terrible at his job. Far from it. No one got to command a starship without being superb. But she couldn’t help noticing that the team was made up of most of the original Satori crew. Plus Martelle, who’d already proven himself in close combat with the Bugs.

Hereford was sending his first-string team out there. He must really want this mission to succeed, she figured. Which made sense, in a horrific sort of way. If the Bugs showed up to blast Earth to smithereens tomorrow, there would be nothing any of them could do about it.

“I don’t have to tell any of you how important this mission is,” Hereford said, his words echoing Beth’s thoughts. “If we can’t set up a secret colony someplace, then all our eggs are in one basket — the one we’re sitting on right now. But if this works, if that world is habitable, as it looked on the long-range scans? Well, we might have a place to run that even the Bugs will take many years to reach, and that’s assuming they can find it in the first place.”

The star was far outside the spirals of the Milky Way. Still closer to that galaxy than any others, so that the stars of the Milky Way formed a brilliant disk in the distance, the system was so far away that it might in fact represent the best, safest place to flee if things got bad. Of course, the Naga knew where it was, too. But if they didn’t know Humans planned to build a colony there, the Bugs couldn’t discover it from them.

“You have your orders,” Hereford said. “Make preparations to depart. You’re leaving in two days.”

Three

Dan slipped into the captain’s chair of the Independence. It felt like this ship was his real home now. He certainly spent more time there than anyplace else! The past days had been busy as hell. Getting the Armor loaded aboard was a complicated process. They still needed to work out a better way to stow the stuff. The drop shuttles took up an alarming percentage of his fighter bays, too. That would leave the Independence with a lot fewer teeth if they ended up in a firefight with another ship.

But the Armor and Marines were the core of the mission, along with a large component of scientists who would survey the surface after the ground-pounders cleared a safe zone. The whole point of this mission was to be as quiet as possible about it. If they engaged another ship out there, then the trip was a bust. They’d have to look for some other bolthole.

The whole idea of running off to another planet bothered Dan in ways he couldn’t quite put a finger on. It felt like defeatism to him. Like they were planning to fail. He wasn’t about to let Earth go under, not to the Naga, not to the Bugs, not to anyone. But he’d seen that massive Bug ship. How many of those did they have? Hope might not be enough to keep humanity alive.

“Status?” Dan asked, glancing around his bridge.

Martelle was there, legs crossed, reading an ebook on his tablet. He looked bored, but Dan knew better. There was a quiet tension in the man’s shoulders that he would never have spotted had they not spent so much time together. He knew how much was riding on this journey. Luckily, Dan knew that Martelle’s Marines were the absolute best of the best. If anyone could handle the unknown, it was them.

“Green across the board, sir,” Lieutenant Scott replied. “We’re ready to link up with the Satori.”

“Open a channel for me,” Dan said. There was a brief burst of static, then Majel’s voice came through the speakers to him.

“We’re all set over here, Dan,” the AI said. He smiled at that. He might be a colonel to everyone else, but never to her. The old crew of the Satori was all forever on a first-name basis.

“Independence is a go for hyperdrive,” Dan told her. “Link with our computer system, and you’ll be in control.”

Dan’s helmsman seemed a little less than comfortable as he leaned away from his console. It looked a little like he was sucking on a lemon, in fact. Dan couldn’t blame him. When he was piloting a ship, he hated handing over the controls to anyone else.

But Majel wasn’t just ‘anyone else.’ She was a computer and could do the precise calculations required for this jump better than any other living being. Dan had more faith in her piloting skill than just about anyone else.

Himself being perhaps the only exception.

“Jumping in ten seconds,” Majel said.

Dan gripped the arms of his chair, trying to will calm into his posture. Beth had survived not one trip like this but two, after all. The Independence was up to the task. They’d come out the far side in one piece. Keep telling yourself that, he thought, and hopefully everyone else in the room will think you actually believe it.

Majel’s voice intoned the last digits of her countdown. “3...2...1...”

A bright light came into being across the viewscreen that dominated the Independence’s bridge. At the same moment, he felt the thrum of his ship’s hyperdrive click on. The ship leaped forward, and Dan could see on his scan that the Satori jumped right alongside them. Both ships surged into the wormhole.

Which felt longer and more intense than usual. Dan had been on a great many wormhole jumps before. Every time, their watches said that no time passed while they were in transit. The time in the outside universe from arrival to exit was zero. It was an instantaneous transit.

That wasn’t what it felt like, though. There was always a sense of some time passing. An illusion the mind put out to make sense of the impossibility it was experiencing, scientists said.

But if that was so, why did this wormhole jump seem to drag on and on...?

Then with a burst of photons, they exploded back out into real-space. Dan shook himself, trying to recover from the strange experience. His crew seemed likewise affected.

“Scan the area,” Dan called out, trying to put all the strength he could into his voice.

“Aye, sir. No encroachments,” Ensign De Toro replied. “We’re five AUs from the target planet.”

Not bad at all! That was reasonably close targeting, as a jump of this distance went. Majel had done the numbers incredibly well. “Set course for the target planet.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And put it on screen, so we can take a look at what we’re dealing with,” Dan added.

The screen blanked, then presented a high-resolution image of the world they were headed toward. It was a bit like Earth, but also not. There were oceans of some sort, if that blue he saw was actually liquid water. The landmasses seemed to have as much red as they did green, but the presence of even a little green was a good thing. Green probably meant chlorophyll. If the planet had plants that much like the ones on Earth, then it was that much more likely the world could support human life.

It was a mystery they hadn’t solved yet. So far, all the worlds they’d visited hosted life of one sort or another. Vastly different on each planet, of course. But none of them were so strange that they weren’t recognizable to Humans. Maybe life just had certain patterns it tended to fall into, and thus ended up with similar results every place it came into being?

The other possible answer was that the jump coordinates in the Bug database were only for worlds that matched their own biology enough to be attractive to them. That also made sense. But this was a new world, a new place. A star system that as far as they knew, the Bugs had never visited.

If it too had life which resembled that of Earth, it was possible that life was just similar, no matter where it popped up.

“Looks good from here,” Martelle said.

“Promising. But we’ll need to get closer to know more,” Dan agreed.

“You mean my men will need to get down there in the dirt to find out,” Martelle said with a chuckle.

“Yup. That’s what you Marines love best though, right?” Dan replied. They’d done enough ribbing of each other’s services for it to be a habit for both of them now. “Don’t worry, we’ll be waiting here with the donuts and coffee when your guys are done.”

Martelle laughed. “You do that! All right, I’m going to go make sure my Marines are all locked down and ready to go. How long until we arrive?”

“Not long. A couple of hours, maybe,” Dan replied. “I’ll give you a warning as we get closer.”

“Much appreciated.” Martelle stood and exited the bridge.

Dan resumed his look toward the planet. So much hope rested on that place being inhabitable. Would it prove a viable home for humans?

“Incoming transmission from the Satori,” De Toro said.

“Put them through,” Dan replied.

“Independence, we’re getting ready to begin our sweep,” Beth said. “We’ll be out of radio range for much of the survey, but we’ll report in every six hours. That work for you?”

The Satori would be jumping all over the system, collecting as much detail as possible on other planetary bodies, asteroids, and anything else of note. The Independence had a quantum communication device that let them call Earth. It was a Naga design, and not something Humans had been able to replicate yet, so the Satori lacked one. Dan felt a little concern about Beth being out of touch for so long. He shoved aside the worry. Beth wouldn’t like him playing mother hen to her. She was smart and tough.

“Understood, Satori. We’re en route to the target planet. We’ll broadcast our findings to you via radio as well as to Earth via the Naga systems, so you can stay in the loop on whatever we find,” Dan said.

“Sounds good, Independence. Be careful down there!” Beth said.

“You as well. Good hunting, Beth,” Dan replied.

There was a flash of power on his display as the Satori engaged her wormhole drive again. Then the ship was gone, flitting off to some other corner of the system.

Dan turned his attention back to the planet on the main screen, wondering what mysteries it was about to reveal to them.

Four

“All right, everyone! Hold on to your hats,” Charline called out. “We don’t know what we’ll run into down there, so the pilots plan to run this as a hot drop. You know what that means.”

Groans were the only response over the radio. Charline smiled to herself. They’d drilled this sort of drop enough times that everyone knew some bruises were on the way. Their mechs would protect them against a lot, but enough rattling around inside the tin cans would give some bumps and bruises anyway.

She reviewed the scan data Independence was feeding her on her Armor’s computer. The planet looked uninhabited. It was a little bigger than Earth, and the local gravity was about one-point-one Earth normal. Not enough to make it really hard to get around, although the Marines riding along with them would have a tougher than usual time.

Weather nominal, air content breathable. The temperature was warmer than Earth on the equator and cooler at the poles. They were bound for a temperate zone in the middle of one of the big patches of green, hoping that would give them better odds of finding a habitable region.

The timer ticked away the last seconds before launch. No backing out now! Not that she would have. Charline felt more at home inside her Armor than she’d ever been behind a computer keyboard. That old hacking life felt like it had been eons ago, not just a couple of years. At last, she felt like she was where she was supposed to be.

“Here we go!” Charline called into the radio. There was a massive burst of acceleration that cut off any responses from her platoon as the shuttle took off. Independence was in orbit over the strange planet, so they didn’t have far to go. But the shuttle pilots were taking them in as rapidly as possible, treating the target as potentially ‘hot.’ Even if the readings from Independence’s scans showed no power signatures or signs of construction on the surface, it never hurt to be careful.

Not being careful got you dead in this business.

The burn continued for a long time. Moments after the engines shut down, she felt the beginning kicks of the planet’s atmosphere buffeting the ship. As the turbulence picked up, some of the Armor pilots started cat-calling one another, cracking jokes and making remarks. It was lousy radio protocol, but she let it go for the moment.

Let them get it out of their systems now, before they were down. Some banter would burn off the stress they all had to be feeling. Once they had dirt under their feet, she’d expect proper call etiquette and knew they would be as disciplined as ever.

The wind buffeted hard against the shuttle’s wings, rocking her around inside her suit. Charline was thrown against her support straps more than once, and she was glad to be wearing a helmet after her head cracked noisily against the side of her cockpit.

Then the engines flared again, slowing the ship down as it approached the ground. Charline ground her teeth together against the strain she felt as her weight quadrupled in seconds. The shuttle was slowing so rapidly they were pulling a lot of Gs. It was hard to breathe. She saw stars form around the edges of her vision.

As quickly as it had come on, the extra weight subsided, and Charline was able to breathe freely again. Ugh, she was never going to entirely get used to that! The shuttle slowly came in for a landing, two more of the small ships setting down nearby so that they made a little triangle on the ground.

All units were split among the shuttles so that each carried a couple of Armor units, a bunch of Marines, and a handful of scientists. That way, if a shuttle didn’t make it, the mission could still go on. Technically, so long as one of the ships made it to the ground, they could still accomplish their objectives, but Charline figured if the planet was bad-ass enough to take out two of their shuttles on approach, it was probably time to abort the mission.

A loud clang sounded as the shuttle set down. Almost immediately after, the main hatch dropped with a thud Charline felt even through her Armor. Daylight spilled into the hold.

“Let’s move, Armor! Time to earn our pay,” she called out. Then Charline set her mech into motion, storming forward across the deck plating and down the ramp.

When she was out in the open air, she took a moment to survey her surroundings. The sky had a reddish tinge to it. The ground underfoot was mostly rocks and pebbles. It looked arid. But green plants were growing in clumps all around. Most of them were a meter tall or less, but some stretched up several meters. They looked like something out of a dinosaur picture book, the sort of plants that hadn’t existed on Earth for a very long time.

She stepped forward, moving toward the nearest copse of tree-like growths. Motion sensors picked up nothing from the plants. No movement at all? Charline tapped the screen. No birds, no small animals, nothing? That seemed strange.

But even coming right up on top of the nearest trees showed no movement at all. Maybe all the animals fled when the shuttles touched down. Charline expanded the range of her sensors, looking for anything that might pose a threat. Nothing presented itself.

“Armor Platoon, what’re you seeing?” Charline asked.

“Lots of rocks, lot of little trees, nothing else,” Tessa replied.

“Same over here,” Arjun said.

Every unit reported in the same results. The LZ seemed clear. “Foster to Martell. Looks safe. Send your boys out.”

“Roger. We’re sending in the Marines,” Martelle replied.

She grinned. He had to be hating that a little bit. Marines were used to being the first down in a hot zone. Instead, Dan ordered that her Armor lead the way. Of course, each mech was much better able to survive damage than a Marine was. If they ran into anything nasty, the mech was a hardier target.

That he was second in had to gall the Marine colonel at least a little, though. Charline made a note to rib him about it later on. Her unit was still a new thing, and everyone was trying to determine how best to use them in battle. As she saw it, part of her job was to make sure her people shined as much as possible.

Marines poured from the shuttles. Each wore a combat suit, basically a spacesuit with armored plating. Nobody wanted to take chances of breathing the air here until they were confident it was safe. They hadn’t yet run into any alien micro-organisms that could infect humans, but there could always be a first time. Let the scientists check shit out first.

The Marines fanned out, one squad ahead of each Armor mech. Charline kept a careful watch on the guys assigned to her. They were squishier than her by a long shot, and they were counting on her guns for fire support if they ran into trouble. So far, so good.

She started her mech forward, walking along close enough to the Marines to provide support, but not so near that she got in their way. They were moving away from the shuttle, sweeping an arc to clear it. As they went, one of the squads placed sensors. Charline was careful to avoid stepping on or near those. They’d form an early warning signal if anything came at the shuttles.

They went out a full mile before Charline called them back. The looping return went by a different route, to lay down another line of sensors.

“We’re on our way back,” Charline radioed to Martelle. he was back by the shuttles, ready to coordinate a defense if it became necessary.

“Find anything interesting?” Martelle asked.

Charline glanced around. Everything was the same dusty red rock and bright green proto-plants she’d seen when they first landed. “No. Nothing but rocks and those plant-things.”

“That’s good news,” he replied. “Maybe this will be one of those boring missions where we sit around a lot.”

“Now you’ve gone and said it,” Charline replied with a laugh. “Any second now, a giant sandworm is gonna come up underneath you and suck you down into the dirt.”

There was no answer on the radio. Charline glanced back toward the shuttles, alarmed. “Colonel? You OK?”

There better damned well not have been a giant sandworm...

He came back on the radio, chuckling. “No monsters here. Come back to base, Foster. Good first scouting trip.”.

Five

The worst part of any mission had to be the waiting around. Dan drummed his fingers on his armrest. The shuttles were down safe and sound, and so far their scouting run was going according to plan. Colonel Martelle had his people digging in and preparing defenses, just in case they needed them, but it was starting to look like the planet was precisely what it appeared to be.

“How’s our sensor sweep of the system progressing?” Dan asked. The Satori would be doing a more in-depth survey, but Dan had the Independence scanners looking anyway. Never hurt to have a second set of eyes peering around.

“We’ve got one weird bit, sir,” De Toro replied.

Dan leaned forward in his seat. Out in space, ‘weird’ often meant ‘dangerous.’ “What’s up?”

“The planet we’re orbiting is the fourth from the sun, sir. And there are at least two more decent-sized planets further out.”

He knew all that from preliminary scans. “And?”

“Well, sir, it’s planet number three. The one just a shade closer to the star than we are. It’s not normal. It’s not even vaguely normal.”

Dan called up the data on his screen. “Explain.”

“It’s bigger than this world, for one. Not just a little bigger. It’s a lot larger, but given the size, it’s much less massive than it should be. It’s not kicking up much gravity, which is why we didn’t spot it right away,” De Toro said. “But it’s moving crazy fast. Running around the star in only a few Earth-days.”

Dan glanced through the readings they were pulling from the strange object. It was spherical and enormous. So it probably wasn’t a ship — although he couldn’t discount the possibility of planet-sized vessels. But there was no power reading coming from it. The thing was flat black, hard to spot against the background of space. Their instruments were only detecting it because of the gravitational anomaly it created.

“Any threat to our people down on the planet?” Dan asked. He’d pull them all out in an instant if there were.

“I don’t think so, sir. I mean, something that big so close might have a little tidal impact, but it shouldn’t be enough to mess with our target planet too much. There might be some mild earthquakes, but maybe not even that because its mass is so low,” De Toro replied.

Their data on the other planet continued to grow as it came around closer to them. It was going fast. Faster than it ought to have. Planets tended to have fairly predictable orbital velocities, which meant their orbits were determined by physics. Too slow, and they’d fall into the star. Too fast, and they’d probably fly off into deep space. This dark planet was going fast enough that it ought to have flung itself out into deep space long ago.

“Ping Satori with a radio message,” Dan said. “Ask them to check this thing out. I’ll call the surface and warn our people down there about the possibility of a quake or two.”

While Dan set up the call to Martelle, he kept glancing back at the data stream his ship’s sensors were giving him. The more he looked over the readings on the dark planet’s data, the more worried he felt. No atmosphere, even though it should have been in the Goldilocks zone. No detectable water. The surface was pocked with craters, but none of them were significant, indicating that the ground was made of some extremely dense material.

But based on its gravity, the object couldn’t possibly be that dense. Either the long-range images were playing tricks on his eyes, or the rogue planet’s core was made of something much less dense than its outer shell. Like an egg, or a manufactured object.

If Dan didn’t know it was impossible, he’d swear he was looking at a starship. A vast, planet-sized starship. If there was one thing he was sure of after all his adventures, it was that in space, literally anything was possible.

“Bring the Independence to alert status,” he said. “I want a flight of our fighters in the air.”

Sure, it might be nothing. Or it could be a ship closing on their position, waiting until it got closer to strike. It never hurt to be as prepared as possible for whatever was coming.

“Independence reports that there could be some ground disturbances coming up,” Martelle radioed to Charline.

“How bad?”

“They don’t know. Some sort of weird planetary shit,” the Marine replied. “Told us to be careful.”

She laughed. “If we were going to be careful, we would have stayed home.”

He gave her a dry chuckle in return. “Kid, when you’ve been on as many beaches as I have, you know that careful isn’t staying home. It’s staying alive wherever you find yourself.”

“Good point,” she replied. “Scouting sweep is complete. How’s the base camp looking?”

Her unit was closing on the shuttles again, so she could already see part of the answer to her question. A big dome stood on the ground between the three shuttles. That had gone up quick enough. It was an inflatable shelter, so it wouldn’t take a lot of damage if things got rough, but it wasn’t supposed to. That was where the science part of their mission could get their work done.

“Preliminary results say the atmosphere’s OK to breathe, but they want to keep checking for potential contagions. Everyone is on hazmat precautions until they finish,” Martelle said.

Charline felt for his Marines. Her people at least had a little room to move around in their walking coffins. Martelle’s troops would be stuck in their stinky suits until they could be decontaminated or given the all-clear to take them off. Better safe than sorry, but those suits had to be smelly hells already, after all the tromping around.

“Understood. I’m standing down half my units for a rest. The other three will remain on overwatch near the shuttles,” Charline said.

She tried to ease the tension in her back, rolling her shoulders and hearing her spine crack. The march hadn’t been that long, just a quick hike out and back. But the stress of maintaining careful vigilance when one didn’t even know what a threat might look like, never mind when it would strike, had taken a toll.

Still, so far, so good. Everything was proceeding according to plan. With a little luck, they’d soon be able to get the data Hereford was after. Maybe this planet would prove to be the perfect hiding spot humanity needed.

Something gnawed at the edge of her thoughts. The planet was strange in too many ways. Plenty of plants. Why were there no animals? Even a mile away from the shuttles, her motion sensors hadn’t picked up anything. Surely there would be some sort of animal life? Not seeing anything, not even bugs, felt off.

She set the thought aside to consider it later and went about issuing orders to her teams for guard rotations.

Six

The Satori burst out of a wormhole, back into real-space. Beth shook her head to clear it. The exit still shook her some, even after god only knew how many jumps. Her vision cleared rapidly, and her thinking was as sharp as ever moments after arrival.

“Report,” Beth said.

“No encroachments detected,” Ayala replied.

Beth heaved a sigh of relief, but in truth she was starting to get bored. The thought made her smile. Generally, being bored was a good thing out in space! It meant you weren’t at immediate risk of dying. But there she was, hoping for adventure. Wildly different from her old normal. How much had these missions changed her?

This was the Satori’s fourth jump. They were working their way slowly outward from the star at the center of this strange solar system, checking the ‘lay of the land’ every time they exited from a jump. Then they’d charge up the engines a bit while taking some more readings and jump again to the next coordinates on the list. So far, they’d found precisely nothing out of the ordinary.

If the system was as clear as it seemed, it might be the perfect place Hereford was looking for. One thing was sure; Beth agreed with the general that humanity needed a bolthole badly. The Naga had more ships than Earth and a lot more technical know-how. Humans were new on the interstellar scene. While Earth was doing its best to play catch-up, they were still behind, and she knew it.

But the Naga were on the ropes against the Bugs. They’d lost entire worlds to the attacking force. Only with the combined efforts of every ship the reptilian race had plus the help of Earth’s fleet had they managed to hold on to their homeworld. It was barely a win even then. If that same fleet showed up on Earth’s doorstep, it would be game over for humanity.

They needed a backup site badly. She prayed this would be the place.

“How’s our charge looking?” Beth asked.

“Good for another two or three jumps,” Lieutenant Foster said.

“All right. Majel, you have the next jump plotted?” Beth asked.

“Of course,” the AI replied.

Beth tapped her fingers on her console. She wanted to continue the search of the system as quickly as she could. Any possible dangers to the Satori or Dan’s ship needed to be spotted as promptly as possible. But she had to balance that with being able to get away if they ran into any serious trouble! She was allowing enough time for the wormhole drive to recharge a little after each jump, so they always had some power to spare in case the ship needed to make a quick exit.

“Communication coming in from the Independence,” Sergeant Harris said.

Beth turned toward him. “What’s up?”

“They’ve got something weird near the target planet. Requesting we check it out,” Harris replied.

“Send the data over to my terminal,” Beth said.

She looked over the information Dan sent. Weird was one way of putting it! The planet they’d detected shouldn’t exist. There were far too many irregularities. It was too large for its mass, the outer shell was too hard for its mass, and it was moving around the star at far too high a velocity for its distance from the body it orbited. None of it made any sense, but that last bit was especially concerning.

An orbiting body had certain natural speeds that it could travel at and still maintain a stable orbit. If the planet went too slowly, it would fall toward the sun and either accelerate or continue dropping until it impacted the star. If a world were going too fast, like this one, it would spin off into deep space, eventually either settling into a much wider orbit or flying away from the star entirely.

The only way it could be maintaining an orbit that rapid at that distance from the star was by the continued presence of some other force acting on it. She ran calculations in her head, trying to figure out if the nearness of its orbital path to the third planet could be causing the strange orbit, but it shouldn’t. In fact, that was another problem — their orbits were too damned close together! They ought to have collided or settled into some sort of binary planet system. Neither had happened.

“Majel, what do you make of all this?” Beth asked.

“Most likely answer is artificial outside interference,” Majel said.

Beth nodded. “That’s my take, too. All right, we have enough juice for two jumps?”

“More like three now, ma’am,” Foster replied.

“Jump plotted to approach the planet at scanning distance,” Majel said.

She was getting better at predicting Beth’s moves all the time. “Good. Send the jump course to the helm, and let’s get going. I want to take a closer look at our strange little friend.”

If that planet was held on its strange course by some sort of alien tech, it was beyond anything Earth had encountered so far. The kind of power requirements to move a planet-sized object at that speed were astronomical. Beth couldn’t imagine how someone had done it. The Satori lacked the energy required. Hell, a dozen Satoris couldn’t have accomplished that.

But she was increasingly sure someone had. “Let’s do this.”

The wormhole opened up brilliantly in front of the ship, and the Satori slipped through to the other side.

“Got the planet on our scans,” Ayala said. “It’s dark. Barely reflecting any light at all.”

Which explained why they hadn’t seen it on their first trip to this system. Not that she’d been paying much attention to the local system back then. All the crew had been more concerned with staying alive and finding a way home than they were with checking out the scenery.

“Put it on screen,” Beth said.

The main screen on the Satori’s bridge lit up with an image of space. Stars were everywhere, and in the middle of it was a large black blotch. There was barely any reflection from the surface at all. Mostly, she could tell where the planet was by seeing where it blotted out the stars.

“What’s it made of?” Beth asked.

Ayala looked over at her. “Our scans can’t penetrate the surface. Looks like a metal, to me, but I can’t get more information.”

That matched Dan’s guesses. But if the surface was metal, the object’s low mass meant it had to be hollow. She was looking at a huge, round eggshell. “What’s inside there, you mystery?”

There was no way to find out from this distance. They had to get closer, might even need to land on the thing to get the readings they would need.

“All right, stand by on an emergency jump to get us clear. If that thing reacts at all to our presence, we jump back an AU away from it at once,” Beth said. “Otherwise, bring us in. Let’s see what this little package is made of.”

Seven

Martelle’s Marines were getting bored, just standing around waiting for the all-clear to take off their suits. Bored Marines were a bad thing. They tended to do things that everyone later regretted as a way to alleviate boredom. The better option was always to put them to work and keep them busy. He set up a patrol route, so his troops were circling the base watching for any potential problems.

He didn’t see anything, though. The planet was practically bare. No movement at all, no bugs or mice, or much of anything else. Just the strange plants.

“Second squad, third squad, report,” Martelle ordered over the radio. He was embedded with first squad. Boredom was as much his enemy as everyone else’s.

“Nothing here, sir,”

“Just plants.”

“Same thing in our arc,” Martelle said. “Keep your eyes open. This might look something like Earth, but it isn’t. Heads on a swivel.”

“Roger, sir.”

His patrol was moving toward a small copse of tree-like plants. Martelle figured they’d enter the trees to see if they could spot any other signs of life there. He walked near the front of their line. Entering the tree-filled area was a strange experience. Although they weren’t tall, the trees blocked most of the light from entering. The ‘forest’ floor was only dimly lit. Martelle felt a tingle on his neck, always a warning sign for him.

There was a rustle from behind him, followed by a thud. Martelle whirled, bringing his rifle up as he was turning. His finger ventured near the trigger well, ready to fire a burst of rounds into any threat. But there was nothing, no monster rising out of the trees to eat them all. Just a dumb private who’d fallen against a tree.

“Williams. You couldn’t keep your feet under you?” Martelle bit out.

“Sorry, sir! I tripped,” Private Williams responded. Another Marine was getting him back to his feet.

He’d fallen against one of the trees, and now there was a large well-lit area around the space where he’d gone down. The tree was — well, it was still there. The trunk, anyway, and the major limbs. But the strange growths on each limb that looked like an analog for leaves were all gone.

“What happened to the tree?” Martelle asked.

“When Williams banged into it, the thing just whipped itself up,” Sergeant Keaton replied. “Like a crab going into its shell.”

Well, that was damned peculiar. Martelle reached out to another tree next to him. His fingers brushed the smooth surface of its trunk. As soon as he touched it, there was a series of quick movements all over its boughs. Every leaf and most of the smaller branches just rolled up into balls!

He reached out to tap one, and his armored knuckle thunked against its surface. It was hard, like a shell. Some sort of protective reaction? He tried to pry it free from the tree, but it was too well secured. The little lump wouldn’t budge.

“Pull security. I’m going to see if I can get a sample from this thing to bring back. The docs at the shuttles will love seeing this shit,” Martelle said.

He slung his rifle and whipped out a knife from his belt. With a grunt, the colonel pried at the shell, trying to peel it free from the bough. His eyes widened a bit when the thing refused to give way against his blade. Curious, Martelle tried hacking at the wood, then sawing into it. It resisted all his efforts.

“Damn tough stuff, sir,” Keaton said. The sergeant had been watching over his shoulder.

“Impressively tough,” Martelle said. If they could find a way to harvest this stuff, it had to be useful for something. It was hard as hell but at the same time felt lightweight. How had a plant grown like this? He’d never heard of anything like it on Earth.

Another thought occurred to him. Why would a plant evolve a defense like this? It wasn’t like they’d seen a lot of critters out there that were munching down on the trees. It didn’t take a degree in botany to know that movement cost plants a ton of energy. They wouldn’t evolve the ability for no reason.

So why had they?

“Everyone stand back. I’m going to get a sample of this thing, one way or another,” Martelle said. He clicked his radio. “Base, this is Martelle. Blast at my location in one mike. No immediate threat.”

Charline’s voice came back right away. “No immediate threat? You need backup?”

He thought about it a moment before replying. There was no telling just how the plants would respond to what he was about to try. “No, but stand by.”

Then he wrapped det cord around the low-hanging branch he’d been sawing at without success. The thing might survive his blade, but he’d bet it couldn’t just shrug off an explosion. The thought made him smile, remembering days when he’d helped clear trees away back home with this stuff. It wasn’t hard to take down a big old tree with a chunk of det cord! This was just a small branch. Tough as it was, there were limits.

Once the cord was in place, he moved away until he was at a safe distance. They still didn’t have the all-clear on taking off suits, and Martelle was damned if he was going to let some splinter of tree blast a hole in his suit and infect him with alien plague or something. No sense taking chances. He backed up another few steps and then triggered the cord.

A sharp crack was audible even through his suit, and the flash of light from the explosion was clearly visible. Smoke obscured his view for a moment, but the light breeze cleared it away rapidly. As it did, he saw that all the other trees near the blast had closed themselves up as well. Their leaves were all tightly furled into little balls, just like the others. It was a damned impressive reaction, one he was more confident than ever was defensive in nature.

Martelle walked toward the tree. He’d managed to sever the branch all right, but that was all. There were no tears in the tree itself from splinter fragments. No sign at all that the explosion had even taken place except for one small branch laying on the ground. It should have blasted shards all over the place, embedded bits of branch into the tree, maybe knocked loose some other limbs as well, but there was nothing. His explosive had barely done anything to the plant.

He scooped the branch up from the ground. All the leaves were still furled into tight balls, their armored surface unchanged. Martelle clicked his radio again. “We’re OK here, base. First squad is coming in. I’ve got a sample that the eggheads are going to want to see right away.”

Then he turned back to the rest of the squad. “Let’s move, Marines. Eyes up. Stay alert. I don’t think we’re the only things moving around on this planet.”

Eight

The Satori exited a wormhole only ten thousand miles away from the strange planet. It loomed large in the screen, so big that Beth had to double-check their distance. She’d expected it to look smaller from this far away, but it was a lot larger than Earth.

“God, how big is that thing?” Beth asked aloud.

“Just over twelve thousand kilometers,” Majel replied. “About twice the size of Earth.”

“Gravity?” Beth asked.

“Negligible. Just a few percent of Earth normal.

How was that even possible? The planet was bigger than Earth but massed so much less? What was it? Beth drummed her fingers on her armrest. “Curious. Bring us in on standard engines. I want to see if it reacts to our presence.”

“You’re assuming it’s a ship?” Ayala asked.

“With that mass? About the only way that could be possible is if it’s hollow,” Beth replied.

“Could be the universe’s biggest geode,” Ayala said with a smile. “No, I concur. As impossible as a planet-sized ship sounds, I have to think that’s what we’re looking at here. It’s the only hypothesis that matches the data. Between the speed it’s moving and the weird density…”

“Jump us clear the moment it so much as twitches,” Beth ordered.

But there was no reaction from the sphere as the Satori glided slowly toward it through the endless night of space. They approached a point near the day/night line, where the star’s rays touched. That would allow her to maintain radio contact with the Independence. If the Satori slipped around the far side of the world from the other ship, it might interfere with their communications.

It was pitted, pock-marked with what looked like hundreds of small impacts, but the surface must have been nearly smooth once upon a time. How long had it been out there drifting to collect so much damage?

“Still no energy readings,” Ayala said. “I’m not getting anything from it at all.”

“And yet, it is producing energy of some sort,” Majel said.

“How so?” Beth asked.

“The planet’s speed is such that it must be exerting a nearly constant thrust in some manner, or it would tumble out of this orbit,” Majel replied. “Also, it isn’t spinning. At this distance from the star, there’s no reason for it to be tidally locked. And yet, it is.”

The Satori was only a thousand miles away now, and Beth could only see the planet’s horizon, not the whole sphere. “Give us a full orbit. Let’s see what we’re looking at.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Foster replied.

Their ship picked up speed, gliding over the planet’s surface toward the bright side. Daylight sprang into view and with it an even better look at the surface. Despite its black color, there were bits of the planet which gleamed in the light.

“Definitely metal. Picking up traces of it around the surface, almost like an atmosphere. Probably flung out as dust by meteor strikes,” Ayala said. “I’m betting the entire surface is made of it.”

“Larger perturbation of the surface ahead,” Majel said.

“Holy shit,” Beth breathed.

‘Perturbation’ was one way to put it. From Beth’s point of view, it looked like something had blasted into the planet’s surface with enough force to churn up the grand-daddy of all craters. The ground around the impact site was wildly torn, shredded edges reaching into the sky like a wound. She’d never seen that sort of damage to any planetary surface before. The ragged edges of the crater must have extended hundreds of miles up from the surface.

Beth zoomed in on the image as they flew closer to the impact site. She couldn’t see the bottom. How deep did the thing go? It was all in shadow.

“What’s our scan say about the bottom of that hole?” Beth asked. The Satori’s scanners were alien in origin, and far more detailed than anything humanity had come up with.

“That there isn’t one,” Ayala replied. He made a gesture with his hand and threw the image from his screen onto the main one.

There wasn’t a bottom to the crater because they’d been right about their assumptions. The planet was just a shell, perhaps a few kilometers thick. The inside of the thing was hollow, and whatever hit it tore right through the crust like it was tissue paper.

“Moving us toward the mouth of the hole,” Foster said.

He sounded nervous to Beth, and she supposed there was good reason for concern. But this could be an incredible opportunity as well! Tech like this was beyond even that of the Naga and Kkiktchikut. The knowledge they gleaned from this place could save humanity.

“Steady as we go, Adam,” Beth said. “Be ready to jump out if we see anything weird down there, but let’s go have a peek.”

“Weird? Ma’am, that whole thing is weird,” Foster replied.

She couldn’t disagree. The sheer scope of the object was remarkable, and everything they saw just added more questions to the growing pile.

“Got something strange on our scans,” Ayala said.

“Dangerous?” Beth asked.

“Not sure yet. It looks like an energy reading, but it’s not. The scans aren’t sure what to make of it,” he replied. “Whatever it is, it’s at the precise center of the sphere’s hollow center.”

“A power source for their ship?” Beth asked.

“That would be logical, but I can’t give you any conclusions without more data,” Ayala replied. “We are getting some scan data now on the interior of the shell, though. It’s riddled with open spaces. Looks like rooms, hallways…architecture.”

Whatever had blocked their scans from penetrating the surface obviously didn’t cover the hole in the shell. As the Satori slowly descended into the pit, more data flowed across Beth’s screen, faster than she could read it all. The place was big enough that finding any specific details would be like digging up a needle in a haystack. Luckily, one member of the crew excelled at that.

“Majel, look over this scan data. Find me a way into the interior of the shell,” Beth said.

“Processing now,” Majel replied. “Multiple locations found that appear to be points of ingress. Marking the nearest one on the main screen.”

A spot not too far away lit up red. “Make for that point and set the ship down,” Beth said.

Not much gravity, so they wouldn’t be able to land, but the Satori could keep itself in position with mild thruster use easily enough. Their EVA suits had magnetic boots that would hopefully hold on the shell’s alloy.

“Major Ayala, go round up a security team. We’re going to take a peek inside this thing and see if we can figure out what makes it tick,” Beth said as she rose from her seat.

Ayala looked her in the eye and gave Beth a half-smile. “I suppose you’re planning to come along?”

Beth grinned back. “Wild space horses couldn’t keep me away. I’ll meet you in the cargo bay.”

Nine

Charline parked her Armor near the camp and snapped her helmet into place. Air hissed in her ears. Annoying, but until they were cleared to take off their suits and try breathing the air, she agreed it wasn’t worth taking chances. Fresh air might be nice, but on a biodiverse world, there was always the chance some bug or another might be bad for them.

She shook her head, thinking back to the days when they’d gone without such precautions. The first couple of planets the Satori’s crew explored might have melted their faces off with plague. Breathable atmospheric gases didn’t always mean that it was safe for humans.

The canopy of her suit raised at a touch. She stepped clear of the Armor, climbing down the built-in rungs to the ground. One of the lab bunnies had found something interesting, and she’d been asked to come take a look. She made her way to the hab unit where their science team worked.

Martelle’s Marines had been busy. They already had two buildings up, the lab and a combination barracks and galley where everyone could eat. An airlock and tube connected the two structures, and they were already putting up a third. Better still, the entire area was already surrounded by an electric fence. Sure, they hadn’t met any wildlife yet, but the memory of ratzards and other dangerous fauna were still fresh in her mind. The fence was a damned good idea.

Or maybe she was just getting more cautious in her old age. Charline chuckled at the thought. She hadn’t even hit thirty yet, but the things she’d seen and done made her feel much older sometimes.

The lab had an airlock. Charline’s access code let her in. Once she was inside, the door sealed behind her, and jets of mist streamed down from above. Her suit was being sprayed with decontaminant. She raised her arms so the spray would hit her entire outfit. When it was done, the inner door hissed open.

“You’re clear to remove your helmet,” Martelle said. He stood just inside the door.

“Colonel, good to see you. Your people have been going gangbusters out there,” Charline replied.

“That’s what they do. Come on, the doc said you were going to want to see this, too,” Martelle said.

He led the way to another door and opened it, ushering her through. Charline thought the gesture antiquated, but she didn’t complain. She knew he meant well.

Only two people worked inside the main room of the lab unit. One of them was a man she didn’t recognize. The other scientist was someone Charline knew very well. Linda Paris had briefly worked with the crew of the Satori, venturing out with them on a couple of missions. One went badly, and she’d never gone out again. Charline was surprised to see her with the team here.

“This is Dr. Lawrence, and Dr. Paris here is the team lead,” Martelle said. “She’s a xenobiologist.”

“I know. We’ve met,” Charline said. She flashed the other woman an uncomfortable smile. The last time they’d been together, Linda fell under alien mind control. While controlled, she’d kissed Charline — very thoroughly. When the aliens were done using Linda, they’d tried to get her to kill herself and almost succeeded.

Charline drowned her friend to knock her out, rather than letting her just walk out into the ocean. She managed to bring Linda back with CPR. But things had never been the same between them since. She missed the loss of their conversations; Linda was brilliant, and Charline was smart enough that she had trouble finding someone to talk to who could keep up with her.

“Charline,” Linda said, her voice flat, eyes down.

“Linda, it’s good to see you,” Charline replied.

“Likewise,” Linda said. Her body language said otherwise.

Martelle coughed, seeming to sense the uncomfortable situation. “I brought in a sample. They’ve been analyzing it. The plants here are crazy.”

“Crazy how?” Charline asked, grateful for the diversion.

Linda seemed to snap out of wherever her thoughts had taken her as well. “They have far more defensive capability than any plant on Earth, for one thing.”

In front of her on the workbench was a large glass container. Inside it rested an arm-length section of branch. Charline recognized it as belonging to one of the alien trees native to this world.

The case had a pair of gloved entry points. Linda inserted her hands into them and reached out toward the branch. Nothing happened as she brought her fingers in close, but as soon as she made contact, the entire branch jumped like it had been jolted with electricity. The movement was fast! All the leaves furled up into small balls.

“Wow,” Charline said. “So, like a Venus fly-trap?”

“But in reverse. Most moving plants on Earth use movement to trap prey. It’s worthwhile because catching insects is a high-value process. They get more energy from digesting the prey than they spend moving,” Linda explained.

Which made sense. Charline felt like there was a catch. “What’s different here?”

“These trees aren’t reacting to prey to catch it. They’re responding to touch with a defensive movement,” Linda replied. “That’s incredibly expensive, in terms of a plant’s metabolism. To evolve a movement for defense, there must have been enormous evolutionary pressure.”

Charline’s thoughts raced, putting the ideas together, and drawing conclusions of her own. “Something made it so inhospitable here that the plants had to develop defenses like this or die.”

Linda nodded. “Yes. What’s even more telling? We’ve only seen six individual species of plants, and all of them have similar defenses.”

“But we haven’t seen signs of anything that might eat the plants,” Charline said. There’s been nothing during any of her patrols. No movement of any sort. Well, except for the trees, apparently. But no animals, not even bugs.

“No, we haven’t. Which worries me,” Martelle said. “Doc, shouldn’t there be something here trying to eat this stuff?”

“Judging by where we are in the planet’s evolutionary cycle? I’d say definitely yes,” Linda replied. “The air here is oxygen-rich, akin to Earth in early prehistory. We should see very large arthropods, for sure.”

Martelle gave her a blank look that made Charline stifle a chuckle.

“Big bugs,” Linda added, seeing the lack of comprehension on his face.

“And me without even a single can of raid,” the Marine replied, his face so deadpan that Charline wasn’t sure whether he’d actually known what an arthropod was after all. She wouldn’t put it past the man to pull the wool over their eyes.

“But there are no bugs at all. Not even little ones,” Charline protested.

As she said that she pulled out her tablet, checking the reports from her roving Armor units. A quick scan told her there was no change. They’d swept a five-mile perimeter around the little base. Nothing was moving except the plants, and they jumped only when something touched them. Peculiar? It was starting to feel outright spooky, the way Linda was talking about it.

“Right, which begs the question, where did they go?” Linda said. “We’ve got a planet with flora that has evolved incredible defensive measures and no sign of fauna at all. Either there was a highly efficient predator here that was wiped out…”

“Maybe by its own effectiveness? Starved itself out?” Martelle asked.

“It’s possible. But generally, enough prey survives to sustain the predator population, once the predators have died out in enough numbers,” Linda said. “The other possibility, of course, is problematic, but I’d say it’s more likely.”

Charline said what they all had to be thinking. “That we’ve got a very efficient predator out there somewhere, and we haven’t seen it yet.”

Ten

Luis Ayala was unhappy with this mission for more than one reason, but he’d already learned that his captain wasn’t one for following standard procedure. He’d have more issues with that if her success rate weren’t so damned stellar. Whether it was luck, brilliance, or a combination of the two, Beth Wynn had carried her crew through multiple ordeals with courage and honor. He appreciated that. So did the team, for that matter. Ayala was pretty sure they would all fly into Hell if she asked them to.

God knew, he probably would, too.

But she was all about taking chances, and he hated that. The captain belonged on the ship. Beth was taking both the captain and her XO off on an exploratory mission. It would have been unthinkable on a purely military vessel. The Satori was special, though.

Among other things, it had Majel looking out for it. Once he’d gotten used to the idea of the AI looking over his shoulder all the time, Ayala felt much warmer toward her. “Majel, we’re in the cargo hold. Ready for you to depressurize the area.”

“Copy. Stand by,” Majel said.

Warning lights flashed as the cargo bay depressurized. Ayala glanced down at the readout from his spacesuit. The heads-up display gave him not only full readings on his own gear but also basic information on everyone in the boarding party. He was ‘mother’ to the team, in essence. Although again, he felt confident their ship-mother would keep a watchful eye as well.

Everyone was green. He had four security personnel, himself, and Captain Wynn along for this first survey mission. Ayala shook his head. Six people, to explore a complex the size of a planet? They could bring a thousand people to this place and still be years exploring all its nooks.

All the same, he couldn’t help but feel excited as well. After all, this was why he’d volunteered to join the US Space Force. His experience with Air Force security forces plus an advanced degree in astrophysics made him a shoo-in for the position. Which was why he’d done those things. Sometimes it felt like his entire life had been leading up to this one job, and it wasn’t far from the truth. Since he’d been a small child, Luis loved watching rockets go up into space. That was where he wanted to be, more than anything.

Twenty years later, he was out there on the cutting edge of everything humanity could accomplish in the great beyond. Some of it was more frightening than anything else he’d ever been a part of, but even then it was still worth it.

“All right, by the numbers. Bravo team, follow me out. We’ll secure the area around the hatch. Alpha, follow us in,” Ayala said. Then he opened up a private channel to the two men accompanying Captain Wynn. “Don’t come back without the Captain.”

“Understood, sir,” they replied.

Someone chuckled in his ear. Then Majel spoke. “Feeling overprotective, are we?”

“Listening in, were we?” Ayala replied.

“I monitor all local communications. Part of our security protocols. I approve of your caution, Major. I have a bad feeling about this thing,” Majel said.

“Noted, and for what it’s worth, I agree,” Ayala said. “Keep in touch. We might need you.”

“I’ll be right there watching over your shoulder,” Majel said.

That should have been creepy, but it was comforting instead. Every suit had a built-in camera. Majel would monitor the feeds from all six, tracking and identifying objects seen with a speed no human could match. She’d take special care to watch for any possible threats they saw, alerting the teams to them more quickly than they could have reacted on their own.

He took two steps forward toward the open hatch and leaped, turning off his magnetic boots at the last moment. The momentum from that step carried Ayala outside the Satori. He was floating through space. For an incredible moment, he felt like he hung suspended above the yawning chasm some ancient cataclysm had carved into the sphere’s surface. Looking down into darkness, it felt like he would fall forever into that black void.

But he wouldn’t. His momentum was more than enough to carry him across the gap. As Ayala drew close to the object’s surface, he pivoted his body in place so that his legs faced the edge of the hole. It was torn, shredded metal creating jagged spots. But most of it looked like it had been liquified by the impact, cooling into huge rounded globs of metal. He’d still need to be cautious about his approach, but the odds of one of them tearing a suit weren’t likely.

Ayala tucked his knees on approach and activated his mag boots. The boots touched down, and their electromagnets clicked into place. His knees soaked the remaining velocity of his short trip across. This sort of jump was child’s play for a man who used to jump out of airplanes.

“Touched down. Magnetic lock is solid. Whatever this metal is, it’s got a ferrous component,” Ayala reported. “Rest of Bravo, you’re clear to jump. As soon as you touch down, Alpha will cross.”

Captain Wynn might chafe at being in the last group to land, but he had to draw the line somewhere! The captain going into danger was one thing. Her being first in, last out like she seemed to prefer? Out of the question. How was he supposed to keep her in one piece if she insisted on putting herself at risk?

This time she hadn’t protested his group assignments or jump order. Maybe she was just getting more used to working with him? Hard to say for sure. The woman was always full of surprises.

Jacobs and Kahale landed on either side of him, their boots touching down with the same ease his had. One advantage of working with this crew: everyone aboard was the cream of the crop. There were no weak links, not on a ship like the Satori.

Ayala stepped out, unlimbering his rifle from where he’d slung it during the jump. He made his way to the spot Majel had tentatively identified as a hatch. It was round and recessed slightly into the structure, which did make it look like a circular doorway. But he couldn’t see a control panel or anything else that might let him open it from the outside.

“Found the spot. No obvious controls. We may have to make our own entry point,” Ayala said. He’d brought along explosive charges in case of that eventuality.

“We’ve touched down. I’m making my way to you now,” Beth said. “Let me take a look before you blast it to bits.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ayala said, smiling. One of the main reasons Beth was the right person to have along on this trip was her experience as an engineer. If anyone could figure out how to open this tin can up, she was the person for the job.

He looked over the doorway, increasingly convinced that was precisely what it was. But near as Ayala could tell the mechanisms for controlling it and those for actually moving the door itself were cleverly hidden from view. This wasn’t going to be an easy door to open using anything except force.

Eleven

Lieutenant Rodriguez drummed his fingers to the music playing in his cockpit. Anything to relieve the boredom of this stupid patrol. Sure, there was something out there. Big as a planet, it was hard to miss. But the idea of a planet-sized spacecraft was too much for him to swallow. That was the sort of thing you saw in bad sci-fi films, not in real life.

Of course, everything he was living was sort of like those films. He kept one eye on the scanners. He might be itching for some action during this dull patrol. Still, Rodriguez had enough experience to know that sometimes boring was good.

“That planet-ship-thing can stay nice and quiet. I’m good with that,” Rodriguez muttered to himself.

“You can say that again,” Perkins drawled over the radio. His wingman, flying another fighter just a few thousand meters away. “You bored, kid?”

“Yeah,” Rodriguez replied. No sense denying it.

“Bored means you’re alive, don’t forget that,” Perkins said.

He was always nattering on like that. Just because he’d been on board the Independence during the big fight over the Naga homeworld, he thought he could lord it over the newer pilots? Rodriguez shook his head, smiling despite his annoyance. Perkins meant well, but he’d seen the numbers. One fighter in five made it back from that battle. The odds sucked.

Nonetheless, he was out there anyway. Doing his thing for god, country, and a paycheck. Perkins had come back out again, too. Most of the old guard had. Rodriguez thought that was impressive on an almost spooky level. It was one thing to risk life and limb. Every pilot did that. But tossing yourself back into a blender where most of the guys you were flying alongside didn’t make it home? That took guts.

He’d never say it out loud, but Perkins had balls. Same for the other survivors on the Inde’s flight wing.

“Man, breathing means you’re alive. But a little action might make me breathe faster, if you know what I mean,” Rodriguez said.

His radio chirped, a new signal coming in from the Independence. “Alpha Flight, we’re re-tasking you. Something about the unidentified object is screwing with our radio signals. Once the Satori got close, we lost contact. The Captain wants you to fly closer so you can provide relay service.”

“Me and my big mouth,” Rodriguez said before clicking his microphone. To the CAG, over on the Inde, he replied. “Roger that. We’re on our way.”

“Stay in touch, Alpha Flight. We want radio checks every five minutes,” the CAG replied. “Holler if you need backup.”

Then the Independence went off the radio. On the fighter-to-fighter link, all Rodriguez could hear was laughter. Perkins had a big, rolling belly laugh that was infectious enough it made Rodriguez smile.

“Sure, laugh it up. But when the alien buggers start crawling out and zapping at us, who’s gonna have your back?” Rodriguez said.

“Kid, you have a mouth and a half, but you’ve got guts. You’ll do,” Perkins said. “Follow me in. Tight formation. I don’t trust that whatever it is out there any further than I can throw it.”

“You’ve been lifting weights if you can throw planets around now,” Rodriguez said.

“Nope, still old and flabby. Which was my point. Watch your scanner. First blip of anything...”

“Oh, I’ll sing like a bird,” Rodriguez said.

They both poured on the thrust. The F-51 class fighter was a leap forward from the birds used for the defense of Earth against the Naga. Those fighters could barely break orbit. But reverse-engineering captured Naga tech had spawned quantum leaps forward for human engineering.

The F-51 was still more of an interceptor than a long-range ship. It was designed primarily to provide defensive cover for its mothership against enemy fighters. But where the old craft could never have made the voyage between two planets, no matter how close they were, the new fighters could manage. It involved some uncomfortable levels of acceleration, but by pushing five gravities for a little while, they had enough velocity to streak toward their destination.

As they drew closer, Rodriguez pondered the enigma of that weird planet. It wasn’t where a planet should be. It didn’t have the mass a world ought to have. It blocked their scans. Now radio nearby was being jammed, too? It was all way too ‘that’s no moon’ for him.

It took hours to bridge the distance, even as fast as the fighters were traveling. Rodriguez tried to keep his eyes on the scanner, but his leg kept tapping a nervous beat. He could see the planet through his canopy now, looming darkly in space, only a little glimmer of light reflecting from the edge facing the sun. He shook his head. No way that thing was normal.

Checking the timer, he saw it was time for another radio check. “Independence, this is Alpha Flight, checking in.”

Every other time the ship replied as quickly as the speed of radio waves would allow. Not this time. Rodriguez waited an extra minute over the time they should have had a reply. Nothing.

“Negative reply on my radio check,” Rodriguez said.

“Trying on mine,” Perkins replied. A few minutes later, he gave the answer Rodriguez had been expecting and dreaded. “No dice here, either. Looks like we’re being jammed.”

There was only one possible source for that jamming. Somehow, the planet was blocking their radio. The Satori losing contact might be explained by the bulk of the planetoid blocking her signals, but the fighters still had a direct line of sight with their mothership.

“Perkins, you got any ideas?” Rodriguez said. He tried to keep his mounting fear out of his voice. He eyed the thruster and checked his fuel levels. They could still turn around, slow their burn, and get back to the Inde in a jiffy.

“Yeah, a few. We can push ahead and find the Satori, or turn and run,” the other pilot replied.

“That’s not much help,” Rodriguez said.

“You’re the team lead this run, skippy. Make the call. I’ll back your play.”

Damn it, just because he’d held his rank a little longer than the oldtimer didn’t mean shit out here! He wanted to hand off the responsibility. To Perkins or anyone else who’d take it. Rodriguez sucked in a deep breath, working to find that calm center he relied on while flying.

“All right. We arc our flight path. We’ll make an orbital pass close by the planetoid. Hopefully spot the Satori and tell them the Captain would really like to hear from them,” Rodriguez said. “But we’ll maintain most of our velocity so we can just zip right by. Sound good?”

“Works for me, champ. Initiating thrust vector now,” Perkins said.

Both fighters used small steering thrusters to change their attitude, then fired their main engines again, burning at a new vector. This path would shift their course into a tight orbit just a few miles away from the planetoid. Acceleration slammed him back into his seat as the drive kicked on at full power. It was uncomfortable as hell, but the more speed they built up, the less time anything down there had to squish them like bugs.

He just hoped he’d made the right call.

Twelve

So far, everything was going well. It was almost too quiet. Dan was growing more nervous as the minutes ticked by. When was the last time he’d been on a mission to a new planet and they hadn’t run into crazy trouble? He couldn’t remember a single time that had happened.

No, there was bound to be a problem sooner or later. That was the nature of exploring space, he figured. They were venturing out and finding things no human had ever experienced before. Of course, they’d run into complex troubles along the way.

“Captain, there’s a problem,” De Toro said softly.

Dan looked up from his console, feeling somewhat prophetic. He’d been reading the report on surface flora from the ground team. Curious stuff, but at least nothing dangerous had cropped up yet. They were on full alert down there just in case. A cautionary measure he approved of.

“What’s up?” Dan replied.

“It’s Alpha Flight. They’re overdue for radio contact, and our scans show they’ve shifted vector. They’re burning hard toward the planet,” De Toro replied.

Dan flicked his fingers over his console, pulling up the relevant data. The computer plotted out the pilots’ projected path for him. “They’re not headed for the planet. They’re going around it, making a hard turnaround to get back to us.”

He tried to put himself into the shoes of those pilots. What was causing them to react like this? Losing contact? Or had they seen something else? If they’d spotted the Satori in trouble, they would have slowed down to assist, not accelerated.

Whatever was going on out there, he didn’t like it. Luckily, the Independence could cross the gap between the two worlds much more quickly than its fighters. Dan loathed leaving the ground team without any support from space, but if Beth and her crew were in trouble, he had to go. He tapped open a radio link to Martelle.

“What’s up, Captain?” the old Marine replied.

“Got something going on over by that planetoid. The fighters we sent to take a peek might be in trouble. We need to jump over and check it out,” Dan replied.

“Leaving us high and dry, are you?” Martelle asked. He smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s all quiet down here right now. A few tremors, probably from that planet getting closer, but nothing we can’t manage.”

“All right. We’ll be back soonest,” Dan said. He cut the link. “Ready the main drive.”

“Aye, sir,” Ensign Scott replied.

Dan plotted the coordinates. He wanted to end up just on the far side of the strange planetoid from where he was. That ought to put him into visual range of the Satori. If they needed help, it had to be his top priority. But the course should also place the Independence roughly in the path of Alpha Flight so they could be recovered more quickly.

“Recall Bravo Flight,” Dan said. It would mean taking a little more time while the second pair of fighters on patrol flew back in and landed, but he didn’t want to leave the small ships out in space alone. Not with evidence of possible enemy action.

That’s what he had to be looking at, right? Why else would signals near the planet be jammed? It certainly looked intentional. “De Toro, have you figured out what’s jamming our signals yet?”

“Yes, sir. The planetoid is emitting very high-powered EM waves over a broad spectrum,” De Toro said. “They’re simply overwhelming the fighters’ transmitters.”

“Any chance they’re natural in origin?” Dan asked.

“I can’t say for sure, sir,” De Toro replied.

“Your best guess.”

“I’d say...intentional, sir. That much power being poured into EM emissions? I mean, I guess there are ways it could possibly happen. But it doesn’t make sense given the mass of the object,” De Toro said. “It would have to be much denser.”

That matched up with his thinking. Energy output like that would require a significant power source. Maybe a radioactive core or something similar. But there wasn’t enough mass to account for that. Occam’s razor said the signals were most likely being transmitted by a machine, not a natural phenomenon.

Dan nodded. “Good enough. We’ll assume we’ve got a contact situation here until we learn otherwise. General quarters.”

Klaxons rang on the bridge, and Dan knew elsewhere every crew member was scrambling for their duty stations. At the same time he prepared for battle, Dan reminded himself that jamming transmissions was not necessarily a hostile act. This might be a first contact with a new alien race, but that didn’t mean whoever they were about to meet was an enemy. Earth could use more friends and needed new enemies like a hole in the head.

“Fighters are docked, sir. Main drive is at full power and ready,” Scott said.

“All right. We’re going in, but they haven’t fired on us as far as we know,” Dan said, hoping he was right, and the Satori was still undamaged. He worried about Beth. She wouldn’t have sat still if they came under attack. She’d have jumped the Satori back to him to pass along a warning.

Taking a breath, he went on. “If this is a new form of alien life we’re meeting, we will not fire first. But our people are coming home with us. That’s our number one priority.”

He looked around the bridge, catching the eye of each crew member. They’d fought alongside him before. Dan saw in each pair of eyes the determination to do so again if called on. He had a damned exceptional crew.

“Let’s go get our people back,” Dan said.

Thirteen

Charline lingered behind as Colonel Martelle stalked from the room, off to check in with his Marines. She’d heard his conversation with Dan on the Independence. Without support from space, they were on their own for the time being. It made sense to ensure their security was as good as it could get.

She tapped her radio. “All Armor units, I want you back in your suits and in defensive positions until further notice.”

It might be an unnecessary precaution, but it was one she felt comfortable taking, anyway. The last time she’d been abandoned on a planet by her starship, it was an unmitigated disaster that she and her people had barely survived. Some hadn’t.

But this wasn’t Dust, and she wasn’t unarmed this time. The Armor they had with them this time was worlds better than the hacked together suits they’d constructed to defend themselves back then. Charline was cautiously optimistic.

“I’ve got to go, too,” Charline told Linda.

The other woman nodded, not looking up from her work. Was she that engrossed in the alien flora, or was she avoiding Charline’s gaze? It was hard to tell.

Another little tremor shook the room. She had to get going, but Charline loathed the idea of leaving Linda without trying harder to bridge the gap that had opened up between them. They’d been friends, for the brief time they’d been crewmates aboard the Satori. Confusing as that last mission had been, Charline hoped they still could be.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Linda mused aloud. She continued poking at the stick in her containment area.

“What’d you find?” Charline asked, stepping closer.

“Metal,” Linda replied, pulling free a little sliver of something.

That sounded weird. “Is that why the plants are so tough?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Linda said. She maneuvered the object under a microscope and peered inside. “Take a look for yourself. If that’s naturally occurring, I’ll eat my degree.”

Linda stepped back, allowing Charline to peek into the eyepiece. It looked like a tiny bit of shrapnel. Definitely not something the planet grew. There were tears and cracking along the edge where it had split off from something else.

“Maybe from the equipment the Marines used?” Charline asked.

“I don’t think that’s from our gear. I’ll have to do more analysis to be sure, but I’d be willing to bet those shards aren’t from Earth,” Linda said.

“Those shards?” Charline asked.

“Sure. The branch is peppered with a bunch of them. Looks like the plant grew right around the fragments, just absorbed them into its structure,” Linda said.

Charline peered at the bit of metal again, trying to imagine what it had been a part of. Some sort of explosive shell? A lawnmower? There was no way to tell. It could have broken off from almost anything. But the object did have a machined look to it, like it had been made. More evidence that there was something out there they hadn’t seen yet. Or at least, that there once had been. She clicked her radio, opening a command channel.

“Martelle here,” the Marine replied.

“Dr. Paris found some more interesting bits. Metal shards stuck in that branch,” Charline said.

“Metal? I used det cord, not a grenade. There shouldn’t be any metal,” Martelle replied.

“She doesn’t think that it’s ours. She’s pretty sure it’s native,” Charline said.

There was a pause while Martelle digested that information. “Understood. I’ve got my people on full alert.”

“Mine, too,” Charline replied. The ground moved a little beneath her feet, a reminder that they still had to worry about the steady chain of quakes, as well.

“Damned bad timing for the Independence to go haring off. It almost feels like it was planned that way,” Martelle said.

That felt paranoid to Charline. There was no way an emergency in space could be connected to them happening to find evidence of metal-working on the planet. Was there? “Could be a coincidence.”

“I tend to view strange coincidences as probable enemy action until proven otherwise,” Martelle drawled. “It’s part of why I’ve lived as long as I have.”

“Noted. Colonel, I suggest we dig in here. If the Inde is delayed at all, we might be glad to have some defenses,” Charline said.

“The mobile lab has a big fabricator in the next room,” Linda interjected.

Charline glanced up at her. She’d been staring off into space while she talked with Martelle. For the first time since Charline entered the room, Linda was looking directly at her. Her face flushed under Charline’s gaze.

Before she could duck her head away again, Charline flashed her a smile.

“Thanks! That’s an excellent idea,” Charline told her. Then she returned to the radio conversation. “Colonel, Dr. Paris tells me there’s a big 3D printer here in the lab.”

“Can you do a little computer magic and whip up a little fort for us?” Martelle asked.

Her reputation with the damned things was probably overblown. In the wake of Charline’s return from Dust, wild rumors flew about how she’d managed to program the 3D printer they had on-site to build a robot army that took out an entire army of Bugs. Then supposedly, she’d designed and constructed a dreadnought-class starship and whomped her way through the Bug fleet before finally capturing a wormhole-capable vessel to return home.

The truth was much less dramatic, and she hadn’t even done most of the work. A mechanic named Roger Halcomb had been brilliant in his design of the upgrades to a simple cargo-carrying suit that turned the thing into full-fledged battle armor. Sure, she’d helped and inspired the original idea. But she couldn’t have done it without him.

He died saving her and the rest of the team. Worse, he took her place, sacrificing himself instead of allowing her to die. Charline promised herself that his memory would go on, and it had. The Armor in which he’d been killed was burned, melted, and half-fused together. Now it stood at her new training camp as a memorial to their dead and inspiration to their new recruits.

“Maybe not a fort, Colonel, but I think I can come up with something,” Charline said. Her mind was already whirling with ideas. She’d need to see what they had available for raw materials, but a big fabricator could 3D print just about anything she could design.

“Get to it. I’ll have my men do what they can to dig in out here while you work. Ping me as soon as you have anything. I don’t know much time we’re going to have,” Martelle said.

Charline heard the urgency in his voice and felt it raise her adrenaline level a notch. He might be right. If the Independence had been intentionally lured away, they might be attacked at any moment. Best case, they were scrambling around for nothing. Worst case?

“I’ll get right on it,” Charline replied. She cut the connection and turned back to Linda. “Where’s the printer? And thanks! That was an awesome idea.”

“You’re welcome. Out that door,” Linda replied, pointing. She was already nose-down in her work again.

A frown creased Charline’s face. They needed to have a conversation. Why was Linda so distant toward her? She didn’t understand. But there wasn’t time to ask what Linda was feeling. It would have to be later.

She turned away, walking toward the door Linda pointed out. Charline opened it and glanced back toward the other woman, opening her mouth to say something, but she closed it again. What could she say in a few seconds that would make any difference? Nothing came to mind. She stepped into the fabrication room and shut the door behind her.

Fourteen

Linda watched her friend go. She wanted to call out and say something, but the words turned to ashes in her mouth. How could she explain? What could she say after what she’d done?

It was forever before she felt up to traveling back into space again. Linda thought she’d been ready. Oh, was she ever wrong. She might have been prepared to face the vagaries of space travel and strange worlds again. But seeing Charline again brought all the old memories boiling back to the surface of her thoughts. It was all she could do to keep her composure with the other woman in the room.

“Hey, I’m going to head back to the bunk unit and get some rest,” Dr. Lawrence said. “You OK solo here for a bit?”

“Sure,” Linda replied, her thoughts elsewhere.

“OK. See you in a few hours,” Lawrence replied before stepping out.

If only they’d pulled another field commander for the Armor team. Then she wouldn’t have to deal with seeing Charline. But who else would they send for a mission of this importance? Of course, the best would come. She should have known Charline would be there.

Linda still remembered every second of the brief span where she’d been controlled by the Cyanauts. Small, grublike telepathic beings, they lived in symbiotic relationships with the fish analogs on their homeworld. The Naga used the creatures as translations devices, effectively enslaving the race.

When the Satori’s crew discovered that, they came up with a possible fix. But rather than letting her responsibly test the solution, rogue elements of the Cyanaut population attacked. They were able to collectively take over her mind and force her to hand over her bacterium. Then they’d tried to make her commit suicide by walking out into the ocean.

Charline had barely saved her from that fate. When Linda woke, she was horrified. That her mind was controlled was little help. She still recalled doing each of the things she’d done, including her slow walk out into the waves with no intention of stopping. Theft of her free will was the most profound form of violation Linda had ever encountered.

It left her feeling broken. Therapy helped, some. But at long last, her therapist told her that the best way to heal the rest of her mind would be to get back out there in the field. She needed to rebuild her confidence and restore faith in herself.

Perhaps worst of all, during the first few moments of contact with the Cyanaut minds, before they had complete control, their efforts released her inhibitions and self-control. The casual attraction she’d felt toward Charline since their first meeting came bubbling up to the surface, magnified a thousand times over.

The kiss they’d shared wasn’t just the Cyanauts forcing her into action. It was their influence, releasing her own emotional controls. Charline saving her life made those feelings more intense, not less.

Every time she looked at the Charline, all she could think about was how she’d felt in that moment and the uncontrollable passion the Cyanaut telepathy had shown her.

Charline thought the kiss was part of the Cyanauts’ attempt to gain control, and that was true, after a fashion. But they hadn’t forced her to do it. They’d just shown her what she already wanted to do.

How was she supposed to work with Charline after that?

The thought made her grip the branch too hard. It shifted, slipping inside her gloved hand. The saw bit more deeply than she’d intended, buzzing and then freezing up as it encountered something too hard to slice through. Linda’s eyebrows drew together, her worries of a few moments before lost in the curiosity that enveloped her. What was this?

She’d been slicing into one of the leaf-balls, the curled-up balls of armored leaf which covered the branches after it reacted to movement. But unlike all the other balls on the branch, this one didn’t unfurl again as the tree relaxed. It looked damaged, maybe even dead, so it seemed like a good target for her saw. What was different about this pod?

She pulled one hand free from the case and tapped her tablet to turn on dictation. “Dr. Linda Paris, recording a sample of unknown plant life. I’ve been cutting into one pod, and my saw stuck on something inside. Is it a seed? Something new that we haven’t seen yet?”

Linda reached out and withdrew her saw. The small blade was bent, the teeth badly damaged. Whatever it hit was made of remarkable material! She put down the branch to replace the blade with a fresh one, but before she could go back to cutting, she noticed the branch rocking. It made a few small, jerking motions. What was going on?

“A new type of motion seen. Not the previous furling and unfurling. This is different,” Linda said. It reminded her of something. Like the ‘jumping beans’ of Earth. Was it possible she’d found some sort of animal life, hidden inside the dead-looking pod?

Cutting it was risky. She could kill whatever was inside if she wasn’t careful enough. But there seemed no other way to extract it. As slowly as she could, with painstaking care, Linda sliced away at the pod. She scored it deeply on all sides, working to split it down the middle so she could simply lift off the top side of the globe.

She’d just finished slicing around the entire circumference when Linda heard a popping noise from the pod. She jerked away from it, worried she’d damaged whatever was inside. If she had, it didn’t seem to be too badly hurt. The pod was rocking and shaking with ever more violent motions. Another pop and a crack ran along the edge near where she’d made her cut.

It was breaking out! Linda pulled one arm out of the tank and brought a magnifying lens in front of her face so she could see the object more clearly. There was definitely movement inside the pod. There were enough little gaps in the shell to see flickers of motion. Another cracking sound, and the top of the pod broke away entirely. It tumbled off the branch.

Inside was a small, crablike creature with four legs. It seemed to be made entirely from metal. That explained why her saw had been damaged! Linda spotted one leg that looked scraped up.

What was it? Was it a living creature, or some sort of robot? “Pod opened. My attempts seem to have revived the object inside, which broke itself the rest of the way out.”

She eyed the thing again before going on. “I’m unsure if the thing contained within is alive or not. It is motionless now. Made of metal, approximately two inches in total diameter, including the legs.”

It looked something like a large spider, a thought that made her shiver. Not that she hated bugs. It was hard to hate any form of life in her line of work. But the resemblance made her uneasy.

She set the saw down and picked up a probe, then reached out to tap the object. It had been moving a lot just a minute before. Why did it stop? Would it move again if prodded? She touched it very gently on one side.

The metal creature burst into motion, launching itself out of the pod toward her face.

Fifteen

“You will absolutely not blow this hatch, too,” Beth said. She tried to make her voice sound sharp, but she was having a hard time holding back a laugh. That made her words have less effect than she’d wanted.

“But I have all these charges, just begging to be used,” Ayala said.

She shook her head. “You’re incorrigible. No, seriously. I think I can get this one open without blowing it to bits.”

Beth pulled out tools and went to work on the panel beside the hatch. She hadn’t been able to crack the first one, so she’d been forced to allow Ayala to blast it open. That felt like failure to her, and it still grated on her nerves. The place felt like a vast tomb, and blowing their way through it didn’t seem respectful to her.

Plus, there was no telling if it was actually a tomb. If the place still had any active defenses left, it would be bad to trigger them. Just because she had a security team with her didn’t mean she wanted to get in a firefight.

The place was old, she could tell that much already. How old, she couldn’t even guess, but it had to date back at least as far as the original ship they’d rebuilt into the Satori. The handheld instruments couldn’t date the materials well enough, so she’d pocketed a sliver of the hatch Ayala blew up for analysis later.

Despite being really ancient and horribly damaged, the ship had power running through it. Not a ton, but there was the faintest of vibrations running through the walls. The thing was built to last.

Beth had already begun thinking of it as a ship rather than a planet. Sure, it was as big as a planet, but it didn’t seem like any part of it was naturally formed. The place was built. That made it a ship, as far as she was concerned, no matter how big it was. She tried to avoid thinking about its size. The scale of the place was daunting. Who could build such a thing? Why would they create it?

So many questions. The scale of the ship was such that they could be years trying to discover all the answers. On the flip side, the technology the ship represented was far more advanced than anything Earth had. It was at least on parity with the Bugs. Maybe even further along. The things they could learn by studying this vessel were beyond imagination.

The panel came loose. What lay on the other side was a tangled mess of something that looked vaguely like conduits for power of some sort. Electricity? Something else? She ran a scanner over the stuff and wasn’t getting any electromagnetic signature from it, so what was it?

“Um. Might need those explosives after all,” Beth said without looking up from her work.

“Ready when you are,” Ayala replied. But he didn’t move closer, continuing to give her room to work the problem.

There was gravity, but it was a fraction of what it would have been on Earth. Mag boots were keeping her feet locked to the lower surface, but whoever built the ship had understood how the lower gravity would allow them to operate. Instead of hallways, the place was full of tubes. In fact, they resembled the smaller tubules she’d found inside the wall. Darned near the same thing.

“I’m going to try something,” Beth said. “Might want to stand back.”

The rest of the team backed away a few more steps. Beth slid herself off to one side and brought a wire-cutter up to one of the tubes. If she was wrong and there was a charge of some sort running through it, she might be about to get a nasty shock. It was a gamble, but she felt pretty confident about her hunch.

Snip. The cutters sliced through the tubing without trouble. There was no blast, no rush of energy or power. Beth heaved out a laugh. “Ha!”

But her eyes got wide as she looked over the split conduit. Her wire cutters were coming apart, the tip breaking down before her eyes. She dropped the tool before whatever was destroying it reached her hand. It floated slowly toward the floor, continuing to dissolve.

“What’s wrong?” Ayala asked.

“Stay back,” Beth warned. She stepped further away from the conduit herself, careful to also stay clear of the others. Her spacesuit glove remained intact — so far, at least. But there was no way to tell if it had been hit with whatever was wrecking her cutters.

Ayala came up beside her. “Captain?”

“Back off. I cut one of the tubes. It spilled out something that’s doing that,” Beth said, pointing to the tool. It’s cutting tip was already gone.

“Did whatever it was get on you?” Ayala asked.

“I don’t think so,” Beth said.

She kept eying the glove like it might begin coming apart at any moment. Beth wanted to run for the Satori, but she couldn’t risk that, either. Not without knowing what they’d come in contact with. She held her scanner back up with her other hand. This time she was detecting small traces of electricity around the conduit she’d cut. Just trace amounts, and it was diffuse, like it was a little cloud of electric motes…

“I think we’ve got nanites,” Beth said. “Probably trying to repair the damage I did.”

Ayala peered at her scanner. “That sounds reasonable. Look! They’re repairing the tube.”

A glance at the cut conduit told her the same thing. The slice she’d made was being knit back together again. The repaired area had the distinct sheen of stainless steel. The ship was using materials from her tool to fix itself.

“Wild. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Beth said.

Some of the Bug ships had drones capable of performing repairs, but they were full-size robots. Human beings had done some experimentation with nanites. Medical nanites helped people heal serious injuries in much the same way this ship was healing itself.

“I think you’re safe. Look, the repair is done, and the nanites didn’t even use up half of your cutters,” Ayala said. “On the other hand, we probably ought to avoid doing a lot more damage if we can help it.”

Beth thought about the damage an explosion would have caused in the hallway. How much material would the ship have needed to restore itself from a large blast? She looked around at her team, all of them wearing suits made mostly from components that could easily be used in such a repair. They had no protection against microscopic robots intent on breaking their protective gear down into small parts. The nanites might not stop with inorganic material, too.

“Whoever built this must have had a way to travel through these doors,” Beth said, frustrated.

“Yes. But that method might have been specific to their species,” Ayala said. “If you can figure it out, that’s one thing. But I don’t think we should be blowing any more holes in the ship.”

“Why didn’t it heal the first breach we made, the one in the outer hull?” Beth asked,

Ayala shrugged. “I don’t know. Why didn’t it heal the massive hole in its outer shell? Maybe the area around the cratered section is considered too damaged to bother fixing, and the hole I blasted was close enough to be inside that exclusion zone?”

“You’re saying that as we went deeper, we passed into the areas the ship is willing to spend resources repairing?” Beth asked.

“Something like that.”

“That implies a fairly complex intelligence guiding the ship,” Beth said. It didn’t feel wrong, though.

“Not necessarily. It could easily be a pre-programmed protocol. If resources are finite, it makes sense to focus repairs on the places most easily fixed,” Ayala said.

A clanking sound on the other side of the closed hatch got their attention. They both turned to stare at it and were rewarded by a few more pings of sound, like metal tapping on metal.

Beth unslung her rifle. Taking their cue from her, the security guards stepped forward and joined her, their own weapons also leveled at the door. Ayala paused, then followed their example.

“Be careful of your targets,” Ayala said. “We don’t want to damage the ship if we can avoid it.”

“Maybe it’s nothing,” Beth said.

But as soon as she finished saying those words, the hatch dilated, sliding open to reveal what was in the passage beyond.

Sixteen

Rodriguez corrected his course for what felt like the thousandth time. ‘Arc around’ had sounded so easy when he’d said it. With any other planetary body as big as this thing, it would have been, too. But he’d forgotten to account for its low mass. There wasn’t enough gravity to slingshot around, so they had to change vector with thrusters. The fighters were nimble, but they couldn’t turn on a dime. Without a gravity well to assist their pivot, they’d have to dump far more of their velocity than he liked.

“How are you doing over there?” Rodriguez asked.

“Fine, champ. Following you in,” Perkins replied. “Looks like the Satori is in one piece. That’s good news, anyway.”

Rodriguez looked down at his radar, expecting to see the ship’s signal, but there wasn’t anything. Confused, he looked toward the planetoid. There she was! Tucked in tight against some sort of giant crater. “What’s she doing down there?”

“Exploring, most likely,” Perkins said.

Rodriguez checked his flight path. They’d slowed down quite a lot but were still going too fast to rendezvous with the Satori. They were going to sail right by. Better try to make radio contact, at least. Maybe they were close enough to break through the jamming.

“Satori, this is Alpha Flight from the Independence. Please respond,” Rodriguez said.

Nothing. He tried several more times, but the jamming must be blocking them. Rodriguez cursed and slapped a palm against his radio. It might as well be a block of lead for all the good it was doing him. They simply couldn’t broadcast far enough.

“No dice,” Rodriguez said.

“Figured as much. Got an idea, champ. Hang tight,” Perkins said.

Before Rodriquez could ask what his wingman was up to, Perkins accelerated a little and rolled his ship so its nose was aimed toward the planetoid. What was the man up to?

Then his board lit up. Perkins had activated his targeting laser! He was lining his guns up for a shot at the Satori!

“Are you crazy?” Rodriguez asked.

“Nope. That ship has a great ECM suite. Have you met Majel? The AI running the show over there? She’s sharp as a tack. Watch this,” Perkins said.

He proceeded to flash the targeting laser in a series of rapid patterns. Rodriguez couldn’t figure them out at first, but then he realized what Perkins was up to. “Holy shit. Is that Morse code?”

“Got it in one,” Perkins replied.

“Nobody uses it anymore,” Rodriguez said. He didn’t know more than the standard S.O.S. himself. “Will they be able to figure it out?”

“The ship’s systems will show they’ve been painted and give them the laser pattern. Majel ought to be able to figure it out from there,” Perkins said. “It’d be easier if we had communication lasers on our fighters, but this should do in a pinch.”

“What’d you say?” Rodriguez asked.

“Couldn’t make it out?” Perkins drawled. “It’s OK. Most folks can’t. I just told them about the jamming field, and to report in to the Inde as soon as possible.”

More flashes lit up Rodriguez’s board. At first he thought it was Perkins, using his targeting laser again, but this was different. His fighter’s ECM suite was telling him that he was being painted.

“Um, you doing something funny out there?” Rodriguez asked.

“Not me,” Perkins replied, his voice tight. “It’s not the Satori, either. It’s the planetoid. I think I might have made it mad when I painted it with my targeting laser.”

“You did what?”

“I hit the planet a bit while I was lining up the Satori. It’s a long way away and a small target. It was only on the planetoid for a few seconds,” Perkins said. “But it looks like that was enough to get more attention than we wanted.”

Rodriguez rotated his ship so he had a better viewing angle of the planetoid. At least they weren’t being blasted to bits by death rays. Yet. It was something. But he saw what looked like movement on the surface, subtle shifts in the reflected sunlight. He zoomed in on the spot.

It was writhing with..something. Hard to make out what it was at this range, but it was a lot of small objects moving around. Then he saw little blasts of energy reflect off the planetoid’s smooth surface. One, two, three, then more of the small bursts than he could count.

That couldn’t be good.

“I think we’re about to have company out here,” Rodriguez said. A quick check verified his assertion. The objects he’d seen moving on the surface were lifting off, blasting themselves off into space. They were on an intercept course with the flight path he and Perkins were taking.

“Evade or fight?” Perkins asked.

“Evade,” Rodriguez said. There were too damned many of the things to fight, and with their radar jammed, it would be like combat with one arm tied behind their backs. He plotted a new course, one which would veer them away from the projected path the objects were following. Tapping a key, Rodriguez sent the new route to Perkins and then ordered his ship to follow the path. His wingman followed a few seconds later, both of them burning hard to change their vector.

But it rapidly became apparent that the objects weren’t giving up that easily. They, too, adjusted their flight path. When Rodriguez calculated a new course for his wing, the objects changed direction to match.

Worse, there was now a second cluster of the things coming up from behind Alpha Wing. The objects were getting ready to catch them between two groups.

“Looks like they aim to pick a fight anyway,” Perkins said.

“Looks like,” Rodriguez replied. He wiped sweating palms on the legs of his flight suit.

One fighter in five, he remembered. That was the percentage that had survived humanity’s last fighter battle in space. The odds were if anything worse this time. God damn it, this was supposed to be an easy mission! Rodriguez sucked in a deep breath, trying to slow his pounding pulse.

More flashes from his combat computer caught Rodriguez’s eye. They were being painted by another source, now? Was it the planet-base, finally deciding to just take them out with some sort of long-range gun?

No, he realized… That wasn’t the planet. The emission was coming from the Satori. She was lighting them up, the same way Perkins had. The reading flashed on and off, on and off, working in a now-familiar pattern.

“Perkins, what are they saying?” Rodriguez asked. If he survived this mess, he promised himself that he’d set aside the time to learn Morse code.

“It’s Majel,” Perkins replied. “She’s computed a new vector for us. Sending it to you now.”

The course came over to Rodriguez’s flight computer. It was a twisting route, and it would cause them to dump most of their speed. Some insane acceleration to manage that, too. It was gonna hurt taking that many gravities. But that wasn’t the most alarming thing.

“She wants us to fly toward the planet?” Rodriguez asked. That was the last place he wanted to be!

“Looks like. I suggest we follow her advice,” Perkins said.

Rodriguez thought about it another few seconds. If she was wrong, they’d be in worse trouble. But if those objects closed in and attacked, they were as good as done for anyway. If the Satori had been boarded and taken over, they were toast anyway. He looked at the projected course and swallowed hard.

“Let’s do this,” Rodriguez said.

He shifted course and slammed on the thrusters. The force tossed him back against his acceleration chair with so much power that it rapidly became hard to breathe. He’d been right. This was going to suck.

Seventeen

Charline waited impatiently for the printer to finish booting. It was a chunky machine, bigger than a desk. It had to be. A 3D printer could only produce objects smaller than itself.

This one had a ton of buildable designs already in its memory, but it was taking a crazy long time to load everything. She drummed her fingers on the flat surface beside the console. Just because she was good at managing computers didn’t mean she loved everything about them. Waiting was always the worst.

A crashing sound from the room behind her made Charline’s ears perk up. A moment later, Linda cried out with alarm. Charline was on her feet and moving in an instant, hand reaching for her sidearm. She popped open the door with her left hand while drawing the weapon with her right.

She took in the scene quickly. Linda sat on the floor, crab-walking away from something. Shards of glittering glass were all over. Then the thing Linda was fleeing from came into view.

It was the size of a giant beetle but looked more like a four-legged spider. The thing scurried across the floor toward Linda but halted when it saw Charline. It almost looked like it was sizing her up.

“Dangerous?” Charline asked.

“Smashed through the container,” Linda replied, which explained the bits of glass all over.

“Sounds like a yes to me,” Charline said. She took her pistol in a two-handed grip and squeezed off a shot at the bug.

She missed. Or rather, the bug dodged aside, almost impossibly fast. Charline cursed and fired a second time. The bullets were frangible rounds, so they wouldn’t go through the deck. Pinging sounds as bits of bullet bounced off the lab walls were a good reminder that she couldn’t afford to expend rounds thoughtlessly, though.

“Damn it, that thing is fast!” Charline said. She missed with the second shot as well, but at least the critter was moving away from Linda now instead of toward her. “What is it?”

“I wish I knew. It was inside one of the armored leaf balls,” Linda replied. She was back on her feet, moving away from the creature.

Was it some kind of native life form? The more she examined it, the less it looked like a bug. The thing’s ‘skin’ had a sheen to it which reminded Charline of metal. The way it moved looked somehow off to her as well. Less flowing and organic than her eye said it ought to be.

“I think it’s a robot,” Charline said. She kept her pistol trained on it, but it had gone very still.

“A robot?” Linda asked. “But who built it?”

“I’m more worried about how we deal with it,” Charline replied, “We can look up its manufacturing record later.”

It waggled one leg in her direction. Then all at once it rushed in, running straight toward Charline’s legs. She fired. The first round was another miss, but she was growing used to its speed. A lesser marksman might have missed again, but Charline managed to nail the thing. One leg blew off. It went skittering across the floor and pinged against a wall. The robot — if that’s what it was — staggered. It slid along the floor a few inches before it managed to right itself on the remaining three legs.

Then it scooted under the lab table, moving almost as quickly as it had before.

“After it!” Charline said.

Before she could take aim again, the robot found its way to one of the lab table’s legs. Then something strange happened. The air between the little machine and the leg shimmered. Charline hesitated, unsure what she was seeing. Before she could react, a new limb was growing from the stump of the one she’d shot off.

Then the table collapsed, tipping toward them. Charline jumped clear. Linda was behind her, so she was all right, too. But she couldn’t see the robot anymore. It was hidden by the fallen table.

“What just happened?” Linda asked.

“Our little robot ate part of the table leg to regrow its own,” Charline said. If she hadn’t seen it herself, she wouldn’t have believed it. “Radio for some backup.”

“Will do,” Linda said.

Had to be nanites. Some sort of micro-robotics which deconstructed the steel from the table and built it into a new leg for the machine. That was bad news. The little thing would be damned hard to destroy if it could just reconstruct itself from whatever materials were handy.

She moved around the side of the table, gun raised and ready. There! As Charline rounded the edge of the lab table, she caught a glimpse of the robot spider. She fired but missed as the thing jumped through the air toward her. It landed on her pistol. A hissing sound told her its nanites were already going to work on the weapon. What would they do to her hands?

Charline didn’t want to find out. She tossed both the gun and spider away from her. They bounced against the far wall of the lab. The bug seemed shaken by the fall. Maybe all this work was finally overtaxing it or damaging it somehow.

Her fingers felt fine, but there could be traces of nanites on them even now, slowly eating their way through her skin. The thought made Charline’s skin feel like it was crawling.

But her hands could be dealt with later. The robot was still a threat. She advanced on the thing, unsure how to deal with it. Hard as hell to kill. Maybe a flamethrower would work? Explosives? Impossible to contain it, too, since the nanites would eat through just about anything.

Just about anything. The bug hadn’t been able to eat its way out of the plant’s shell, had it? Charline snatched the branch up from where it had fallen on the lab floor. Brandishing it like a club, she advanced on the robot again.

“I hear you’ve got a bug issue?” Martelle’s voice came over her ear radio.

“Yeah, although this one is more like a robot spider,” she replied. Linda must have reached him and let him know what was going on.

“Spider, bug, all the same to me,” Martelle said. “I’ve got a squad of Marines on their way to you. Sit tight.”

“Easy for you to say,” Charline said. He wasn’t stuck in the lab with a killer machine on the loose. She continued closing on the robot, watching it carefully.

It observed her in turn. As Charline circled around it, the robot pivoted in place, little legs beating a staccato rhythm on the floor. Smart little bug. Incredibly well-designed, too. She couldn’t help but feel admiration for whoever had created this thing. It was potentially deadly, sure. But it was also infinitely versatile. Those nanites would allow the robot to perform all sorts of functions.

“We could use tech like this,” Charline said.

“If it doesn’t kill us, first,” Linda said.

“Now you sound just like Beth,” Charline chuckled, careful to never take her eyes from the robot. Her friend’s distaste for medical nanites was legendary, even though using them had saved her life on more than one occasion.

“Well, maybe she has a point,” Linda said.

Maybe she did. Nanites under their direct control were one thing, but this robot was a perfect example of how deadly they could be if they were weaponized. Charline took one step closer to the bug.

Without warning, it sprang through the air toward her again. She swung the branch more out of instinct than anything else. Wood connected with robot. Like she was swinging for a home run, Charline’s club hammered the bug out of the air. It rebounded, smashing against the far wall of the lab.

“That’ll teach you,” Charline snarled.

The robot staggered back to its legs. Part of its side was crushed in. It was no longer steady on its feet. She’d hurt it! Time to finish the job. Charline closed with it, taking several quick steps.

But before she could get in range to swing again, Charline saw the same sparkling mist she’d spotted before surrounding the robot. She stopped in her tracks, not wanting to get too close to the nanite cloud. It wasn’t after her, though. The cloud sank against the lab floor. In seconds it had bored a hole the size of her head through the reinforced steel. Air hissed through as the pressure equalized from the lab to the world outside. The lab was elevated, and now it was exposed to the planet’s air.

“Hull breach!” Charline said. So much for all their careful isolation precautions!

The robot paused at the edge of the hole like it was looking up at her. Then without another sound, it jumped down, scuttling away.

Eighteen

Martelle’s boots crunched on the gravel as he double-timed his way back to the lab, a squad of men in tow behind him. Sure, he could have just sent the soldiers. But if Foster was calling for backup, he felt confident it was a dangerous enough situation to warrant his personal attention.

“It’s broken out of the lab. Target is outside, on the ground,” Charline said over the radio.

“What is it?” Martelle asked. He slowed his pace as he approached the lab, unsure just what he and his men were up against.

“Looks like a spider about twenty centimeters across. I think it’s some kind of robot,” Charline replied. “Colonel, be careful. It’s hard to hit, and it bleeds nanites capable of deconstructing matter. It ate my pistol and burned its way through the floor of the lab.”

“Got it,” Martelle said. Of course, there were deadly space-bugs on the planet. He rolled his eyes. Nothing was ever easy.

“Contact!” Corporal Harris said.

Before Martelle could respond, the corporal fired a burst from his rifle at something under the lab. That was when Martelle got his first look at the robot as it scuttled out from under the laboratory and then burst into motion, flying at Harris’ face. The corporal screamed as the spider connected with his faceplate. Martelle saw a shimmer in the air around the bug. That had to be the nanites Foster was talking about. They were burning through Harris’ faceplate.

There was no time to waste. On instinct as much as thought, Martelle raised his rifle to his shoulder and took careful aim. If he were even a few inches off, he’d kill Harris as surely as the bug would. Martelle stroked the trigger, sending a single round down the barrel of his rifle. It slammed into the robot’s side. The force of the impact sent it flying.

“Harris! You all right?” Martelle asked.

“Yes, sir. Shaken, but alive. It was cutting through my helmet!”

“Did it breach?” Martelle asked as he stalked after the robot-bug. He fired another round into it.

“Yes, sir,” Harris said. “Small holes, but it cut through.”

The man was shaken up but didn’t seem to have suffered any significant side effects. Was the bug only chomping down on inorganic matter? Or would the nanites make short work of people too? He clicked his radio over to a private channel with Colonel Foster.

“What’s up, Colonel?” Charline asked.

“I got your bug,” Martelle replied. He fired a third round into it, just to make sure it was really dead. It didn’t move, didn’t respond at all. Whatever was keeping it going and directing the action of the nanites must have been damaged by one of his hits. But Foster was right. It was damned hard to kill.

“Anyone exposed to the nanites?” Charline asked.

“One man.” Martelle looked over at Harris, who still seemed to be OK. For now, anyway.

“Send him into the lab. I was exposed, too. Linda and I are working on a solution,” Charline said.

“You think there’s still a danger?” Martelle asked.

“You saw what those nanites can do. Do you want to take chances? I sure don’t,” Charline replied.

“Point taken. I’ll bring him in,” Martelle said. He switched back to his squad radio channel. “Harris, you’re with me. The eggheads inside are going to make sure your face doesn’t melt off. The rest of you, pull security around the lab. Radio if you see anything out of the ordinary.”

Harris followed him in. The man paled a bit when Martelle mentioned his face melting off, but to his credit, he kept it together. They went through the airlock, letting it cycle, but Martelle shut off the disinfectant process. No point to it now. The lab was open to the outside air. Everything inside was contaminated at this point. If there was anything in the air worth worrying about, they already had at least three people exposed.

He opened the door to the lab and stepped inside. The place was a mess. Glass was scattered all over the floor, and one of the lab tables was tipped over, spilling everything that had been on top of it in a heap. Paris and Foster worked over the other counter, both of them tinkering with some sort of contraption there.

“That your guy?” Foster asked, looking up as Martelle and Harris entered.

“That’s him,” Martelle replied. “Corporal Harris.”

“Corporal, come here to me. Linda, you and the Colonel need to head back out of the room. Just in case,” Charline said.

Harris took a step toward the machine, then looked back at Martelle, who just nodded and shooed him forward with a hand motion. The soldier seemed to recall Martelle’s comments about his face melting and hurried over to stand next to Colonel Foster.

“Just a big magnet,” Charline said, patting the corporal on the arm. “Nothing to worry about.”

“A massive, highly improvised magnet,” Linda said. “I wish you’d let me test first.”

“No time,” Charline said. She held up her hands. They were both red and raw-looking. “The nanites are already adapting to consume organic material.”

Linda paled. “You didn’t tell me.”

“There wasn’t a point. Now go,” Charline said.

Dr. Paris stepped back to the door with Martelle. Both of them exited the room as quickly as they could and then sealed it up behind them. Martelle had left his helmet on for the entire thing, but Linda Paris was exposed to any pathogens that might exist. “You sure none of those nanites got on you?”

She shook her head. “I was too far away. Behind Charline.”

Martelle nodded in reply. “Well, I hope this works.”

“Me, too,” Linda said.

A sound like a dull whine came from the other side of the door, something like what you’d hear for an old-fashioned camera flash warming up, only much louder. The noise grew in pitch and intensity. Then there was a sharp crack! After that, no sounds at all came from the lab.

“Foster, you all right in there?” Martelle asked over his radio. There was no response.

He rushed to the door. If anything had gone wrong inside, they might need help. But even as his hands fell on the handle, the door opened up. Foster stood there, Harris beside her.

“You all right?” Martelle repeated.

“Fine, Colonel. We’re both OK. The magnetics fried most of the circuitry in the lab, along with whatever nanites were still hanging around. It took out our radios in the process,” Charline said.

Martelle flashed her a grin. “You’re a handy person to have around. Keep your head in a fight, and you can come up with cool gadgets, too. Ever think about becoming a Marine?”

Charline made a face. “Nope. I’ve heard too many war stories.”

“From who?” Martelle asked, mock-shocked.

“You,” Charline replied with a smile, poking him in the chest to punctuate the word.

Then the ground shook under their feet, rattling the entire lab unit and everything inside it. It felt like the land itself was buckling and heaving. They all grabbed onto something to remain on their feet. The shaking subsided, then started again.

“Now what?” Martelle said. Staggering across the room, he went to the door, so he could get a look at what was happening outside.

Nineteen

“Holy shit,” Beth breathed.

She backed up against the wall as a metal monstrosity crawled through the open hatch. It had to be a robot or drone of some sort. There couldn’t possibly be someone inside it, could there? It wasn’t big enough to contain much. Its four legs stretched to about the size of a small dining room table, but the body in the middle was nowhere near big enough for even a human child. Each leg clamped itself to the hull as the thing walked into the hall, enabling it to walk even in the microgravity just like her own magnetic boots.

“What is it?” Ayala asked.

“No idea,” Beth replied. “Nobody make sudden moves. I don’t know if it’s interested in us.”

The robot didn’t seem to take notice of her at all. It just walked past, then turned and faced the wall section where she’d removed a plate and damaged the wiring. It went right to the hole. Smaller arms descended from the front of the ‘bot. They reached out toward the damage and went to work. Beth saw shimmers and little lights flash. More nanites, from the look of it.

“This might be our best chance,” Beth said.

“Chance at what?” Ayala replied.

“To get in there,” Beth said, pointing at the open hatch. Once the robot was done working, it would probably go back wherever it came from, and the door would likely shut behind it. They’d be cut off from the inner workings of the ship again.

“You’re joking,” Ayala said. Then he sighed. “No, of course you’re not.”

Beth chuckled under her breath. “You’re getting to know me so well! There’s a mystery afoot in this place. I intend to learn more about it.”

She took a tentative step toward the open hatch. The robot continued to ignore her movements, even after she walked right up to the doorway. Steeling herself to run if it reacted, Beth took one step over the threshold then followed with the other leg as well. She was through! The robot continued its work. It was printing a new bulkhead panel right in place. No wonder there were so few seams in this place! The metal was grown right there.

“Come on,” Beth said. She beckoned the rest of her team in. They followed, Ayala bringing up the rear. He kept a close eye on the robot as the others passed through the doorway. But when it continued to ignore them, he shrugged and followed Beth.

The space beyond the doorway was another corridor just like the last. This one ran perpendicular to the other. Beth couldn’t be sure, but it looked like one direction led deeper into the hull while the other went toward the outer edge. She eyed the deeper course. That was where she’d find answers.

Vibrations from behind her alerted her to the robot’s movement. Beth whirled in place, her rifle automatically coming up, but the robot wasn’t attacking. It walked right past them again, all her crew moving carefully out of its way to allow it to pass. As she’d expected, the hatch slid closed after the robot was through.

They were past it, but they were also going to have an interesting time getting back out again.

“We should call the ship,” Ayala said, clearly thinking the same thing.

She opened a com channel to the ship. “Satori, come in.”

“Here, Beth. I was just about to call you,” Majel said.

“Why? What’s up?” Beth asked. The skin at the back of her neck prickled.

“Two fighters from the Inde are nearby. They’re under attack by some sort of projectiles fired from the alien planetoid,” Majel said. “Worse, we’re clearly being jammed. I can’t reach the fighters by radio, nor can I contact the Independence.”

That screamed enemy action. But if that was the case, why had the planetoid allowed the Satori to get so close? Why did the robot ignore her and her crew? The actions seemed unpredictable and inconsistent, two things which machines very rarely were — if they were operating correctly.

On the other hand, this planetoid, ship, or whatever it was had been heavily damaged. Catastrophically damaged; any smaller or less well-build vessel would have been obliterated from the impact this one had survived. But while the ship had survived, they hadn’t found any living crew, just robots. Automated systems might still be kicking out the best responses their damaged computers could manage, long after the beings who programmed those machines were gone. Was this a ghost ship, the only activity machines lingering on after the living had died?

The thought was exciting. Think of what they might learn from this level of technology! But they had to survive it if they were going to take advantage of it.

“Understood. Can you assist the fighters?” Beth asked.

“I’ve already directed them to change their flight path so that we can help,” Majel replied smoothly.

Beth was confused. “I thought they were jamming radar?”

“One of the pilots was intelligent enough to think of using his targeting laser to signal at me in Morse code,” Majel said. “I’ve responded in kind, and they are changing course. I should be able to fire railguns on their pursuers in just under two minutes. But I need your permission to fire.”

Sure, she did. Beth privately suspected Majel could co-opt all the Satori’s systems any time she wanted. That the AI was willing to follow the chain of command so well was a relief, but it would be a mistake to consider her helpless. Unlike the machines of this planet-ship, she was fully capable of thinking through her own solutions.

If she fired on the projectiles, the alien ship might register the Satori as hostile. That was the only fly in this ointment. “Is the ship ready to jump away if needed?” Beth asked.

“Affirmative. We have a full charge on the wormhole drive, but I don’t want to leave you behind if I can avoid it. Can you return to the ship?” Majel asked.

Beth eyed the closed doorway. “Not at this time, no.”

“Are you in danger? I can send more crew…”

“No, we’re OK. Just temporarily cut off,” Beth said. She figured if worst came to worst, she could get a robot out here to make repairs again. Trick it into opening the hatch, and they’d be home free. “You’re clear to take offensive action as needed, Majel. Just be careful!”

“Always. You too,” Majel replied. “Satori out.”

Ayala shot her a questioning look. “Are we staying?”

“For the moment, we’re probably safer here than trying to make it back to the ship,” Beth said. “If she has to jump out, we don’t want to get caught in the wormhole.”

The destructive power of the wormhole drive was absolute. It would rip through deck plates, tearing apart the atoms of anything in its way. You didn’t want to be in the line of fire if the Satori happened to be facing the wrong way when she fired up the drive!

“Deeper, then?” Ayala asked.

“I think that sounds best. Let’s try to figure this puzzle out. Maybe we can find some sort of control center and take the heat off the Satori,” Beth said.

“Bravo team, with me. We’ll take point,” Ayala said.

Beth decided not to protest his overprotective nature just then. They were in a dangerous place, and these soldiers had almost as much experience as she did dealing with the unknown, plus a lot more experience fighting. With luck, they wouldn’t need to do battle in this place. The nanites flowing through the walls would make that a deadly game. But if they did, she had good people backing her up.

Twenty

Rodriguez sucked in breaths of air through his mask. Each inhalation hurt; the acceleration made it difficult to breathe. But the pain was a reminder that he was still alive. For the moment, at least. That was something.

The fighter was feeding him breaths of pure oxygen; otherwise, he figured he would’ve passed out long ago. The heading Majel directed them to take had required both pilots to dump most of their existing velocity, come around to a new heading, and then take off again at high speed. All of this meant they had to spend extended time under a lot more gravities of force than was comfortable.

The rapid course changes hadn’t thrown off the objects tracking them. Quite the contrary. They had taken advantage of the situation and were moving to cut the fighters off.

But Rodriguez and Perkins reached the heading and speed Majel had directed them to follow. They cut their engines cut off, letting the fighters coast. Rodriguez took a deep breath, the first he’d managed without struggle in too long. Thank god that was over. Long high-G maneuvers were the suck. He eyeballed the blips on his radar, still moving toward them.

“Do you think those are missiles or drones?” Rodriguez asked over the radio. “Can’t be fighters. Any pilot would’ve been splattered all over the inside of the cockpit by the maneuvers they’ve made.”

“Any human pilot, maybe,” Perkins replied. “Out here, who knows what we’re dealing with? Alien physiology isn’t necessarily the same as ours.”

“I don’t want to meet the critter they can make 25G turns without breaking a sweat,” Rodriguez said.

Perkins laughed. “For sure. I would guess they’re drones, though. They seem way too smart to be missiles. But like I said, who knows? I imagine we will find out in about a minute or two.”

“Why a minute or two?” Rodriguez asked.

“Because right around then, I’m guessing they should be in firing range,” Perkins replied. “If they’re drones, they’ll shoot. If they don’t shoot, they are missiles.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a fatalistic outlook on life?” Rodriguez asked. But he was chuckling, as well.

“My ex-husband,” Perkins replied blithely.

“You, with an ex? Given your bedside manner, I cannot imagine how that would be possible,” Rodriguez said.

“Yeah, me neither,” Perkins said. “Quiet a sec. Majel is signaling to us again.”

Rodriguez shut up. He didn’t want to do anything to distract Perkins from translating the Morse code coming his way. Their lives might hang on whether or not they could communicate with the Satori. He didn’t know what sort of plan the AI had come up with, but both pilots knew they were putting their lives in her hands.

“All right. She wants us to maintain this course and speed. We’re not to waver even the smallest bit,” Perkins said.

A flashing red light began glowing on Rodriguez’s console. Of any alert he could’ve received, that was the one he dreaded most. “Ah, Perkins…”

“I see it, too. I guess that answers the question. They’re not missiles,” Perkins said.

The alarm light told Rodriguez that a hostile ship was targeting his fighter with some sort of weapons system. It was incredibly vague and nonspecific. Just, ‘someone is about to light you up,’ with no more explanation than that. The idea behind it was simple. If you were being targeted, you were about to be shot. The pilot’s best move at that point was to dodge like hell.

The problem was, the Satori had just ordered them to stay on course.

“We need to break off,” Rodriguez said. He grabbed his control stick, preparing to make radical course changes. Anything that might keep him alive through whatever those alien ships were about to send his way.

“Trust Majel,” Perkins said. “She’s not steering us wrong.”

“She’s not here,” Rodriguez replied. But he hesitated. What if he veered off course and it screwed up whatever stunt she was planning? He might blow any chance either of them had.

Rodriguez sat there, staring at his radar for several agonizing seconds. Perkins continued to fly along the same course. Was he right? Would the Satori somehow come to the rescue? They were both sitting ducks, flying like they were. Dodging, at least they would have some chance. Rodriguez took a deep breath… Then he took his hands off the controls, taking a leap of faith.

“You’d better be right about this,” Rodriguez said.

“Why? What are you going to do if I’m wrong?” Perkins replied. “We’ll both be dead at that point, so I think I’m safe.”

Rodriguez couldn’t help but laugh at that. He was still laughing when, a moment later, five brilliant points of light lit up space ahead of him. The explosions were still a long way away, but bright enough to be seen even at that distance. He glanced on his radar, trying to figure out what had just happened. The enemy contacts were gone. Just vanished. Rodriguez felt a surge of hope.

“And that is why I always bet on the AI,” Perkins drawled.

“What did she do?” Rodriguez asked, still astonished.

“Railgun rounds, I would guess. She must’ve fired them a while ago,” Perkins said. “Probably shot about the same time she gave us our marching orders. She fired the rounds into the space she predicted those drones would be.”

That explains why she’d been so adamant that they stay on course. Rodriguez sucked in a deep breath. If he’d maneuvered, some of the enemy ships almost certainly would have changed their own paths to match his. Which would have made the railgun rounds miss. He’d come that close to screwing the whole thing up.

“Next time, I’ll listen without complaint,” Rodriguez said.

Perkins laughed in response.

Another alarm chimed. Rodriguez glanced over his radar and saw new enemy contacts rising from the planetoid. But they weren’t headed out toward him and Perkins this time. And there were a lot more of them.

“They must’ve figured out the Satori fired those shots. They’ve identified her as a threat,” Rodriguez said.

“Looks like there’s an awful lot of them,” Perkins replied. “What do you say we go return the favor and help her out this time?”

Rodriguez was already plotting the course correction required for them to bring their fighters in close and assist the Satori. At least this time, they were already vectoring in roughly the right direction. This jaunt wouldn’t require all that much acceleration.

“Sending you the new course now,” Rodriguez said. “Let’s motor!”

He tapped his thrusters to life, stars spinning in front of his screen as his fighter pivoted toward the new heading. Then he poured power into the main drive, and the tiny ship shot forward toward the battle. He just hoped they would be in time to help.

Twenty-One

The ground heaved underfoot, almost throwing Charline from her feet. She grabbed on to the lab table in an effort to stay upright. This was no minor earthquake! Either the gravity perturbations from that rogue planetoid were far more severe than expected, or this was something else entirely. Charline was betting on the latter.

“It’s not safe here,” Charline said to Linda. “Get to one of the shuttles. You should be more secure in there.”

If things got bad enough, nowhere would be safe. But the lab was compromised. The hole on the floor and multiple entrance points made it impossible to defend. The shuttles were a better bet.

“What about you?” Linda asked.

Charline glanced at her, confused by the question at first. “I’m going to my Armor.”

“Good luck out there,” Linda said. “Be safe.”

“I’ll do my best,” Charline said. Even as she spoke the words, she knew it was a lie. It wasn’t that she wanted to die. Far from it. But she saw it as her job to defend the others around her. The soldiers under her command, the scientists like Linda, Martelle and his Marines, all of them.

It was ridiculous, and she knew it. No one person was actually responsible for all that. Knowing it didn’t change the way she felt. Charline had survived so many times when others had died. She felt that weight every day. It was her job to preserve the lives of others now, even if it did finally cost her own someday.

She hurried to her Armor unit. Sure, the shuttle might be relatively safe. But Charline would feel better when she had a couple inches of steel between her and whatever was going on out there. Two quick steps and she was into the cockpit, buckling straps around herself. She tapped the button to lower her canopy as she ran through the startup sequence as quickly as she could.

“Somebody give me a situation report. Do we have enemy contact?” Charline asked over the radio.

“Negative, Colonel. Just the shaking. No signs of any action,” Arjun said.

Nothing yet, anyway. Charline wasn’t counting on that to last. Sure, it was possible that the high-tech alien spider-bot escaping and the massive earthquakes which occurred right afterward were entirely coincidental. If that were the case, she’d eat her hat, cute military insignia and all. No, something was up. Something bad.

Charline rushed the startup process, probably more than she should have. If she didn’t know that their maintenance teams were the absolute best at their jobs, she might have had to take more time. No sense blowing herself up in a rush to get out to the front line and get blown up! But her techs really were that good, so Charline felt confident enough to take the risk. This time, it paid off. Her Armor purred to life without problems. She engaged the controls and stalked forward.

“All right, I’m up and moving,” Charline said. “Spread out. Eyes open, stay sharp. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“Oh, shit. The last time you said that…” Arjun started to say.

“Don’t finish that thought,” Charline said.

“… You got eaten by a shark!” Arjun finished.

“It wasn’t a shark,” Tessa corrected. “It was a whale.”

“Shark sounds better,” Arjun protested. “Space shark, even!”

Tessa laughed. “Better than a giant alien whale?”

It was lousy radio protocol, but Charline let them have their banter. As soon as things heated up, they would lock it down, just like they always had. Letting out some of the tension before a fight was good for them. Without chatter, it was easy to feel awfully alone inside their armored shells, like each pilot was the last person left on the battlefield. Nothing could be further from the truth. They would all have each other’s backs throughout whatever was coming.

“Got something over here,” Arjun said. “The ground’s shaking.”

“Yeah, we noticed. The ground is shaking everywhere!” Tessa said.

Arjun came back on the radio. This time he sounded worried. “No, this is different. Not like the quake. It looks like sand being sifted through a sieve.”

Charline spotted a place where the ground almost looked like it was shimmering. She took a few steps toward it and sure enough, it was the same effect Arjun described. The sandy soil shook back and forth, like flour being sifted.

The sand wasn’t moving around by itself. Something was making it shift that way. Something below it. Or maybe something was coming up through it! Her gut said they were about to be attacked. She heeded the warning.

There wasn’t a moment to waste. Charline opened a radio channel to every Armor unit. “I want every unit within range of one of those shifting sand spots to open fire on them immediately. Give it everything you’ve got. We have incoming. The enemy is underground.”

Around her the evening air lit up with bursts of gunfire as her people followed the order. Charline did so as well, targeting the pile of shifting dirt in front of her with both arm-mounted guns and then opening up. Rounds from her weapons tore into the soil. Then they hit what was hiding just beneath.

Robot spiders just like the one that had been the lab earlier boiled out of the ground. There were dozens of them, no… Scores, maybe hundreds. Far too many to fight, but Charline kept up a steady stream of gunfire as she slowly backed away from the swarm. Every second more of the little robots swelled up from beneath the soil. Holding them off with her guns was like trying to fend off the ocean. Charline would halt them in one spot, but more would swarm forward toward her from other directions instead.

“Retreat toward the center of camp,” Charline said. They needed to be close to one another if they were to have any prayer of defending themselves. Interlocking fields of fire would keep the robots from approaching their blind sides. They had to pull back and get close enough to lend each other support.

The Armor unit to Charline’s left went down, suddenly swarmed over by dozens of little robots. She tried to go to the pilot’s aid, but his collapse had opened a gap in their already ragged defensive line. Spiders poured through the hole and rushed toward Charline.

She blazed away with everything she had, firing guns and missiles alike into the oncoming mass of enemies. But Charline had been in enough battles to know even that wouldn’t be enough. She took one step back, and then another, intent on taking as many enemies down with her as possible. If she could buy the others even a few extra moments, it might make a difference.

All at once gunfire erupted on either side of Charline’s Armor. Glancing down, she saw that her position had been reinforced with a squad of Marines. She called over the radio to them, irritated and relieved at the same time. “I ordered everyone back toward the center!”

“You look like you could use a hand,” Martelle drawled. “Or should I just leave you to deal with this target-rich environment by yourself?”

Charline found herself laughing despite the desperate nature of the situation. Trust a Marine to refer to this mess as a ‘target-rich environment’! “Sure, you and your boys can stay. Just be careful not to get my way. I don’t want to squish anyone!”

“Squishiness noted, ma’am. We’ll try to stay out from underfoot,” Martelle said. “Bounding back by teams! Bravo Team first, move!”

The Marines on Charline’s left beat a hasty retreat while those on her right continue firing on the spider robots. Once Martelle’s Bravo Team had retreated about ten meters, they opened up fire again while Alpha Team bounded backward. Charline held the line until Alpha had begun their retreat, then rushed back to join Bravo’s firing line.

It was working. Together, their fire was effective enough to keep the robots at bay while they made their escape. Charline watched as their gunfire blasted one approaching spider after another into shrapnel. Most of the robots didn’t seem to be getting back up again, either. That surprised her. The one in the lab had been remarkably resilient, able to repair itself. Maybe doing enough damage all at once was enough to somehow overwhelm the robot’s ability to self-repair?

With the Marine support, it didn’t take her long to retreat to the center of their camp. Charline glanced around. Most of the armor units had made it back, but she was missing a couple. She cursed under her breath. She should have somehow seen the attack coming sooner. Found a way to prepare people better.

But at least most of them were alive, and most of the Marines as well. They stood their ground in a large circle around the lab building and shuttles. Charline was about to order a retreat onto the shuttles when she realized the patter of gunfire around her was slowing.

The robots weren’t rushing in as much. They’d mostly pulled back, in fact, forming a circle of their own about a hundred meters away from the human defensive line. A few straggling robots still ran in, but they were picked off quickly. The rest stood there, motionless. Like they were waiting for something. But for what?

Twenty-Two

Beth clanked her way forward, acutely conscious of how much noise her magnetic boots were making against the metal deck plates of the alien ship. She wanted to creep along, but that was impossible. Besides, she figured that since they were dealing with robots and nanites that even her best efforts at avoiding detection were probably useless. The spider robot they’d run into seemed to ignore them. It had to have known they were there, but it hadn’t paid them any attention.

Beth’s best guess was that she and her team hadn’t been perceived as a threat. The robot was programmed to do repairs and possibly even to deal with hostile intruders. If they went out of their way to avoid damaging anything, Beth had high hopes they would continue to be unmolested by whatever defenses this place had.

She rounded the corner and, as if to punctuate her thoughts, ran headlong into another of the spider robots. Beth froze in place. For a nervous moment, she thought the robot was sizing her up. Examining her. Then she saw that two of its legs were moving randomly. The motion looked uncoordinated and uncontrolled. What was going on?

“Is it malfunctioning?” Ayala asked. He peered over her shoulder at the robot.

“I don’t know,” Beth replied. That was what looked like, though. Like a machine left on its own for too long, the robot was still trying to do whatever it was supposed to be doing. But it had long since lost the ability to carry out its programming.

She approached it with caution. The robot still didn’t react, even when she was near enough that it could have reached out and touched her. Beth took another step. She stretched out a hand toward the thing, curious.

“Don’t!” Ayala hissed at her.

Beth glanced over her shoulder at him and waved him back. No sense anyone else getting hurt if the thing reacted badly to her touch. Then she reached out and ran her fingers along one of the spiderlike legs.

The robot continued its monotonous twitching, to all appearances oblivious that she was there at all. Beth stepped in closer still, scrutinizing it. Engineering was her first love and passion. Captaining a ship was new to her. But understanding machines and how they worked? That was her thing.

She gave it a once over, looking for signs of external damage. There were none. That meant it probably hadn’t been damaged by whatever cataclysm had shattered the ship so severely. Why did it break, then? Given the nanites flowing through everything around them, Beth thought such malfunctions shouldn’t be possible. Or rather, they could happen. But when they did, nanites should step in and either repair the damaged machine or break it down into its component parts to build a new one. Something was very wrong in this place.

Beth backed away from the machine and waved forward the rest of the team. “Looks like it’s safe to go on.”

Ayala pinged her over a private channel. “That was reckless.”

“A calculated risk,” Beth replied.

“I’m not sure you understand just how important you are. To the mission and the ship. And its crew, to be honest,” Ayala said.

“Nonsense. You’d all do okay without me,” Beth said.

“Would we?” Ayala replied. “I’m not so sure. Would Majel? You’re one of her oldest and most trusted friends, Beth. If I lost you, I think she’d space me!”

The thought made Beth chuckle. “She might, at that.”

The funny thing was, Beth wasn’t sure if either of them were joking or not. Sure, Majel was a trusted member of the crew. But the AI had suffered losses before and not responded well to it. There was so much they didn’t know about Majel, and far more they still had to learn. Did Beth trust her? Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt.

But sometimes the AI’s method of thinking seemed almost human, while at other times she felt utterly alien.

Which was a lot like the planetoid itself, now that Beth was thinking about it. On the surface, it looked a lot like a human ship despite its enormous size. They were hallways, doorways, and panels set into the walls filled with electronics. Sure, the type of wiring was wildly different. But the concept was the same.

And yet, there were notable differences as well. Small bits of nuance which set everything off and made the place seem weirder and more alien than her perceptions told her that that was.

But look back over her shoulder at Ayala. “Am I imagining it, or is there a geometry to this place?”

She’d sensed something along those lines for a while. Each hallway brought them to another branching point with more tubes. There weren’t many rooms. Most of the place was just long corridors all connected to one another. Recalling the spider-like drone they’d encountered earlier, Beth couldn’t help thinking that what she saw around her resembled a spiderweb.

“I’ve been tracking our progress and trying to extrapolate what the unexplored areas might look like,” Ayala said. “Take a look. I have it mapped out on my tablet.”

He handed the device to Beth. She peered at the image displayed there, trying to make sense of it. The whole thing looked like a jumbled mess. It took her a minute to realize what was wrong.

“This is a flat map,” Beth said.

Ayala nodded. “Yes.”

Beth gestured around her. “But these hallways all intersect at angles to one another. Even the ones ascending toward the surface, or descending toward the center. It’s not flat. The map should be three-dimensional.”

Beth fiddled with the tablet’s controls, struggling to get it to render the map the way she wanted to see it. The way it actually was. She wished that she was back on the Satori where she could access a holotank, but for the moment would have to make do with what she had. At last she got the render to display more or less the way she wanted it.

Swiping her finger right or left now pivoted the image around a central axis. Sliding a finger up or down did the same, turning the map around so she could see it from the top or bottom. As Beth swung the map image around, viewing it from all different angles, the true shape of the place became immediately apparent. It wasn’t a web all. In fact, it didn’t look like anything she’d seen before. The whole thing was a tangled mess, confusing passages and tubes all interconnected in seemingly random ways.

“Okay, I can’t make head or tail of this. Take a look,” Beth asked.

She handed the tablet over to Ayala, who nodded appreciatively as he swiped his finger across the screen to pivot the image. “Nice job.”

“Thanks. What do you make of it?” Beth asked.

“I’m more of an astrophysics guy. Engineering is your thing,” Ayala said, shaking his head. “Although, to be honest, this doesn’t really look like something that was built. It almost looks biological instead of mechanical.”

“Let me see that again,” Beth said. This time it was easy to see what Ayala was talking about. It was all those weird tubes connecting at odd angles. The lack of uniformity and structure in the overall design. The map looked like something designed by a blind madman. Or like something that hadn’t been designed at all. Like something that had grown that way.

“Neurons,” Beth said.

“Come again?” Ayala asked.

This time it was Beth’s turn to shake her head. “Not even vaguely my specialty. But, I mean, just look at it!”

Now that she’d seen it, she couldn’t get the idea out of her head. Every time she looked at the map, she saw something strikingly similar to images of neurons interlinking inside of a human brain. She’d seen the pictures back in college and hadn’t thought about them for years. But the memories came back now. And she couldn’t deny the similarity.

“What kind of place is this?” Ayala asked. He saw it too, now. Beth could see it in his eyes. There was that same vague sense of awe she was feeling.

“I wish I knew,” Beth said.

She was starting to wonder if the planetoid was a ship after all. The alternative suggested by the evidence was even stranger: that this place wasn’t a vessel at all, but rather a body. The body of some impossible new life form.

It was a wild and speculative thought, more based on intuition than evidence. But Beth couldn’t shake the idea that it was the correct answer. Or at least an answer close to the right one. Which then begged the question: if the planetoid was a body, was it dead? Was the activity they saw around them just the lingering vestiges of life?

Or were they wandering around inside something that was very much alive?

Twenty-Three

Majel had expected that opening fire might cause problems for the Satori. She wasn’t surprised, therefore, when the planetoid launched a new wave of fighter craft. This one was flying directly toward her.

It was a calculated risk she’d opted to take. Saving the pilots in those two fighters had been a priority, even if it put her and the rest of the Satori’s crew at risk. Taking chances was always a factor in space exploration. That didn’t mean Majel was unprepared to defend her ship.

“I have gunnery. Lieutenant Foster, remain at the helm,” Majel said.

She’d long since discovered that despite her enormously fast reflexes, having a human pilot steering the ship lent a level of intuitive awareness she still had difficulty matching. Coupling machine speed with human gut feelings had gotten the Satori out of more than one scrape in the past. Majel hoped it would do so again now.

“Keep us in as close as you can to the planetoid,” Majel said. She’d already shunted a chunk of her awareness over to the fire control systems so that she could accurately plot out the approach factors of the alien craft and calculate effective firing solutions.

“Why close?” Lieutenant Foster asked.

“Close enough, and they’ll have a harder time tracking us with any guns they have on the surface. Do you want to find out the hard way what sort of weapon systems a planet-sized spaceship might have?” Majel asked, answering his question with a question.

“No, ma’am!” Lieutenant Foster replied. “Keeping the ship low as ordered.”

Lieutenant Foster took the Satori through a series of erratic twists and turns, hoping to foil any incoming attacks. As near as Majel could tell, the enemy fighters hadn’t opened fire yet. She was sure they were fighters. Whether manned or drone craft, she couldn’t tell, nor did she know what sort of weapons they might have. Everything about this adversary was an unknown factor, making it difficult to accurately calculate the best courses of action.

Beth needed to be informed of the new course of events. Majel opened a direct channel with her. “We saved the fighters. But we seem to have attracted some hostility toward ourselves.”

“Is the ship in danger?” Beth asked

“Unknown at this time. Preparing to fight the ship,” Majel replied.

There was a pause on Beth’s end, and then she answered. “All right, we’re going to try to make our way back out. Stay in the area as long as you can, but if things get too hot, jump out.”

“I won’t leave you behind!” Majel said.

“You will if it’s a choice of leaving or losing the ship,” Beth said. “That’s an order. We can take care of ourselves in here for a little while. But the Satori is the only way anyone from this mission is getting home. Don’t forget that.”

“Understood,” Majel said. “Enemy fighters almost in range. Signing off for now.”

Majel left the channel open in case Beth needed her but brought her focus back to the ship that was her body. She was going to need all of her attention for the battle ahead. A dozen small craft streaked toward the Satori. Majel opened fire with the ship’s railguns, obliterating two of the tiny enemy vessels.

That still left far too many of them, and they were coming in fast. The ships hadn’t fired yet, which worried Majel. Whatever weapons they had must be designed for close-in combat. It was too much to hope that might be due to technological inferiority. Besides, the evidence put the lie to that idea. Logic said the enemy was simply holding their fire until they were close enough to unleash one devastating barrage.

“Jumping the ship,” Majel said. She always had emergency jump coordinates plotted at any given moment, ready to go. This sort of situation was precisely why. At Majel’s command, an enormous wormhole opened in space just ahead of the Satori’s nose. The ship darted into the hole, which closed immediately behind it.

But this was no long-distance jump to another star, nor even hop between planets within the same system. Majel had learned through trial and error how to use wormholes for short-range transit with near-pinpoint accuracy. The Satori emerged from its destination wormhole the same second it left. Only now, the ship was a few hundred kilometers directly behind the alien fighters.

“Engaging with railguns,” Majel said. “Keep the ship moving in evasive patterns. We don’t want them to get close to us.”

“I’m on it,” Lieutenant Foster said.

A flurry of additional fighters launched from the planetoid’s surface, rocketing toward the Satori to join the battle. Hall saw them almost as quickly as Majel. “We have another wave incoming,” he said.

Majel made a note of them, but she had most of her processing tied up with targeting the first set of enemy ships. As powerful as she was, Majel found tracking the small, dodging fighters tasking enough that it required most of her attention. She was beginning to see why humans had such strict divisions of duty and labor. Trying to perform multiple processor-intensive activities at the same time meant none of them received the attention they really needed.

In the same moment that Majel realized the source of her difficulty, she created a plan to deal with the problem. “Hall, I need you to take over gunnery.”

“Why?” Hall asked. “Is everything all right?”

That was a question only a human could ask in a moment of crisis. If Majel had a head, she would’ve shaken it with wonder. Of course, something was wrong! But she understood what he was trying to ask. Hall was inquiring about Majel, herself. She found that concern touching if misplaced at the moment.

“I’m fine,” Majel said. “But targeting the enemy ships is eating up too much of my concentration. I need to be able to focus on the big picture.”

Then she added, for Hall’s benefit as much as anything else, “Besides, I know you can handle it.”

“Yes, ma’am! I’m on it,” Hall said. He was already taking over where she’d left off. Sure, Majel had done some of the heavy lifting when it came to calculations, but Hall stepped in competently enough that Majel felt she’d made the right decision.

With one task off her plate, Majel was able to more easily assess the overall tactical scenario. The two human fighters had changed course and were now making for where the Satori used to be before she jumped. Presumably they’d been trying to link up with her. The alien fighters from the first wave appeared confused, casting about for a target which had disappeared. All the better.

Majel opened a radio link to the pair of fighters she’d rescued. This time, they were close enough that she was able to break through despite the aliens’ jamming. “Satori here. Are you able to engage that first group of fighters?”

“Yes, ma’am! It looked like it was getting a little hot around you,” Rodriguez said. “You pulled our bacon out of the frying pan back there. We’re here to return the favor.”

“Excellent. Sending our sensor data to coordinate targets with you now,” Majel said.

The two fighters would help solve their short-term issue of dealing with the enemy fighters. But the underlying problem wouldn’t be so easily fixed. The planetoid had clearly identified the Satori as hostile. There was no telling how many planes it had in storage, how many waves of attack the place could send against them. The theoretical maximum was enormous, and even the most conservative estimate would be enough to overwhelm and destroy the Satori, given enough time. She needed a better plan, and soon.

Twenty-Four

The spider robots stood motionless as statues. How could something so small be so deadly? Any one of those things would fit in the palm of Charline’s hand. And the truth was, they could handle any one of them. Even any dozen. But there were a lot more than that.

“There must be hundreds of them,” Charline said.

“Well over a thousand, actually,” Linda said over the radio. “I’m using the shuttle sensors to collect as much data on them as I can.”

“Good thinking,” Martelle said. “Let us know if you turn up a secret weak spot, will you?”

“I don’t think real life works like that. But if I do, you’ll be the first to know,” Linda said.

Watching the spiders stand there watching them back became unnerving. Charline found herself wishing something would happen, even if it was just another attack. At least then they would know what was coming next. She glanced toward the shuttles. There was enough space on board the small ships to get everyone out. The problem was if they began evacuating and the robots pressed the attack, they’d be overrun in seconds.

“What are they waiting for?” Tessa asked, echoing Charline’s thoughts.

More rumbling underfoot answered her question. This quake felt even more severe than the last. Of course, the previous shaking hadn’t actually been a quake. It was the effect of the robots tunneling their way toward the human camp. A new earthquake with increased intensity couldn’t be anything good.

Charline raised her guns and targeted the nearest spiders. “Get ready. I suspect they’re about to come over and say hello again.”

“Tessa, you had to ask!” Arjun said.

Tessa snorted. “I’d rather be fighting than standing around waiting any day.”

“Speak for yourself. There’s a lot to be said for standing around waiting,” Martelle said. “Some days, it means you get to live a little longer.”

Movement in the middle of the pack of robots caught Charline’s eye. At first, it looked like the robots themselves were somehow rising. Then she realized it was the ground beneath them swelling like a massive blister.

“Got movement over here!” Tessa said.

“Ditto,” Arjun said. “Big dirt mound.”

Should they wait for the attack Charline knew was coming? Or take action as quickly as they could, and hope they might do more damage by attacking before the spiders were ready? Either way was something of a gamble, but in her experience taking direct action was almost always the right call.

“I don’t know what’s under that dirt. But I highly doubt they decided to send us all birthday presents,” Charline said. “Colonel Martelle, what are you thinking?”

“I’m right with you. Open fire. Tear those things down!” Martelle said.

Marines and armor alike unleashed all the firepower they had on the new targets. Sand and dirt blasted away, revealing what was hidden beneath. Flashes of light reflecting off whatever was rising from the ground told Charline it was metal. But this was no new swarm of fist-size robots. Whatever these things were, they were huge. Bigger even than her armor unit.

“Holy shit,” Arjun said.

Wind swept the rest of the dust away, giving Charline her first good look at what lay beneath. The new robots towered over the battlefield as they rose to their full height. In form, they looked almost identical to their smaller cousins. These were just much, much bigger. Enormous was not too strong a word to use.

Gunfire was bouncing off the metal monstrosities, so Charline shut down her right arm and to conserve ammunition. Her left arm housed a railgun, though. The weapon took time to charge up for each shot, so the rate of fire wasn’t great. But it did a lot more damage when it hit. Charline lined up the giant spider nearest to her and sent a railgun round blazing toward it.

The shot streaked toward her target, leaving a glowing trail behind it. The railgun round traveled with such velocity that it ionized air molecules, creating a laser-like effect. But that was nothing compared to what it did when it slammed into its target.

Armor plates buckled and shattered in a nanosecond as the iron pellet begin converting its mass into energy. Charline’s shot kept moving, burning a path through the robot in less time than it took to blink. The remaining energy blasted through the far side of the machine, lighting up the evening in a fiery explosion.

“Yes!” Charline said. Her target teetered like it was about to fall.

But before it could, streams of the smaller spiders went running up its legs, then scampered along its carapace toward the damaged area. One by one, they poured into the hole her blast made. Charline checked the charge on her railgun. It wasn’t ready yet, and it looked to her like the small robots were repairing their bigger brethren. It was healing before her eyes, all the damage being undone.

“The little ones are fixing the big ones, Colonel,” Martelle said. “I hope you have some ideas. This one is out of my bailiwick.”

“What, they didn’t teach you how to deal with self-repairing giant killer spider robots at Parris Island?” Charline asked.

“I think that one would have to be filed under the general orders to blow up whatever the enemy is throwing at us,” Martelle replied.

“Works for me,” Charline said. “We’re going to need to focus fire on one of the behemoths at a time. If we do enough damage all at once, maybe we can take one down.”

“Maybe?” Martelle asked.

“It’s all I’ve got. Unless you have a better idea?” Charline asked.

The monstrous robot trundled toward her. Charline could barely see the spot where she’d damaged it. The repairs were so fast! Even with coordinated fire, how were they going to take these things down?

“All right. Marines, cover the North and South. Try to slow those big ones down,” Martelle said. “Armor units, form up on the east and west sides of the camp. Focus fire on one target at a time. Let’s knock a couple of these beasts on their tails!”

Their troops begin moving, but so did the giant spiders. They weren’t as fast as the smaller robots, thank goodness. But they were still closing on the defensive line more rapidly than Charline would’ve liked.

Tessa and Lieutenant Arnold, one of their newer pilots, came up alongside Charline and added their fire to her own. All three of them hit the giant spider robot with everything they had, but it kept staggering forward despite the onslaught. Worse, the smaller ones were advancing now as well!

“Ready with my railgun,” Tessa said.

Charline checked the charge on her weapon. “I’m green here, too.”

“Ready, ma’am,” Arnold said.

Charline dropped your crosshairs directly onto the center of the monstrous robot bearing down on her. “Target its center of mass and fire!”

All three projectiles spat from their muscles a fraction of the second part. The brilliant beans left behind by the passage illuminated the battlefield almost as bright as daylight. The railgun rounds tore through the robot’s armor like it was paper, ripping huge chunks of metal away from its frame. Secondary explosions lit up as something inside the spider, damaged by their attack, detonated in a furious blaze of heat. Chunks of metal rained down a dozen meters in every direction.

Despite all the catastrophic damage, the robot still managed to stagger forward one more step. Then a second step. Smaller spider robots swarmed over it, desperately trying to repair critically damaged systems. But this time, Charline was ready for that trick. She and the other armor pilots opened fire with heavy machine guns, blasting the smaller robots away before they could affect repairs. Without their help, the mortally wounded giant spider staggered one more step and then collapsed.

“We got one!” Tessa said.

Charline put another railgun round into the robot’s shattered frame. “Just to be sure.”

“Good idea,” Arnold said. He fired another shot as well, blasting the robot’s burned-out shell.

Martelle’s voice came over the radio. “Glad you got one of them! But we could use some help over here. There’s two more advancing on the north line, and nothing we’ve got is even slowing them down.”

He was right. One down still meant there were five more to deal with. Charline turned her armor toward the north. “Arnold, stay here on guard. Tessa, with me. We’ve got some more spiders to burn.”

Twenty-Five

Majel had wondered what sort of weapon systems the tiny fighters could possibly house. They were incredibly small craft, nimble and fast. But the same diminutive size that made them a complex target to hit with the Satori’s weaponry meant they couldn’t possibly be carrying all that much in the way weaponry. That was the AI’s theory, anyway.

Her guess had been proven accurate, after a fashion. Each of the alien fighters appeared to have but a single weapon: one relatively short-range laser. The good news was that the Satori’s railguns had far more range. All they had to do was keep jumping the ship far enough away that the alien fighters couldn’t fire on them effectively.

The bad news was, that was easier said than done.

“Power level down to twenty-five percent,” Foster said.

Majel detected strong elements of stress in his voice. Her humans didn’t handle danger the same way she did. The AI felt fear, at times, but it was a sense of concern over failure, loss of her own being, or the lives of others she cared for. It was worry over discontinuation, much the same as she guessed a human might feel.

Where the difference lay was in her ability to prevent that fear from interfering with her processes. Her ability to calculate probabilities and come up with solutions was unimpacted. Humans, on the other hand, reacted in variable manners to the same sorts of stressors. One human might freeze in a crisis while another performed at above-normal levels in response to the same event. Nor was it merely that some humans reacted one way and others a different manner. Sometimes the same human might freeze in one emergency and plow through the next.

It was one of the many things Majel failed to understand completely about human beings. They were endlessly fascinating for her, and she hoped to be able to study them for many years to come.

Which brought her back around to the reason for her fear of imminent death. If the wormhole drive ran out of power, they would no longer be able to escape the alien fighters. The ship would be overwhelmed and destroyed. So far, they’d used small micro-jumps to stay just outside the enemy’s range while able to return fire with their own guns.

But a quirk of the wormhole drive was that each short-range jump took up enormous power. Jumping from one system to another would deplete the ship’s capacity completely. Jumping in-system generally gave them a dozen or so short hops, but it didn’t matter whether the trips were thousands of kilometers or tens of astronomical units. For such short range, it was the act of opening the wormhole itself which used most of the energy.

“Prep another wormhole,” Majel said.

“Coordinates?” Foster asked.

Where to run? That was the key problem. If the Satori fled too far, they’d leave the pair of human fighters behind. The alien ships were ignoring them for the most part, but Majel thought that wouldn’t last if they no longer had the Satori to focus on. They needed to run. The enemy outnumbered them by too vast a fleet to effectively fight them. Almost a hundred alien fighters zipped around through space like a swarm of angry hornets, despite their best efforts to whittle the numbers down.

“Sending coordinates now,” Majel said.

Foster hesitated, then replied. “That’s almost in the middle of their swarm.”

“I know. But they’ll have moved some before we arrive. If we can meet our fighters there, then jump out with them alongside us…” Majel said.

“Yes, ma’am. Where do we go for the second jump?” Foster asked.

“Got the Independence on scanners!” Harris all but shouted. “They’re heading our way.”

“That’s your second destination,” Majel told Foster. “We’ll link up with the Independence. Set up two jumps, back to back.”

By her estimation they had enough power for probably three more jumps. There was a little room for error or problems, but not much. Majel reached out via radio, trying to contact either the Independence or Beth, but predictably the alien jamming was blocking their contact. She used the Satori’s targeting system to stab out at the human fighters in the same code she’d used before. Quick flashes of a targeting laser in rapid succession allowed her to tell the pilots what she had in mind.

With luck, they’d follow through.

“Enemy ships closing toward their firing range,” Harris warned.

“Jump the ship,” Majel said.

Foster didn’t waste time with a reply, which she appreciated. He was always focused on what needed doing. With the exit coordinates already plotted, the jump was a simple matter of engaging the drive. A wormhole blossomed to life in front of the ship. Seconds later, they were in transit.

And emerged just past the enemy fighters, traveling away from them. The alien ships spun about to give chase, but they would need to dump all their velocity first. It bought the Satori much-needed time.

The two human fighters fell into formation on either side of the Satori. One of them opened a radio channel. They were too near for the jamming to be effective.

“What’s the plan?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked. Majel’s records marked him down as the leader for this two-pilot team. “Our fighters are low on fuel and ammunition, and there are more of those alien ships than ever!”

He wasn’t wrong. The swarm seemed to keep growing despite their best attempts to thin the herd. They were facing a planet-sized defense force. For whatever reason, the planetoid was only sending ships up a few at a time, but even at that pace they would eventually smash the human forces by sheer weight of numbers alone.

“We’re getting out of here. Independence is moving toward our location. I plan to jump the Satori out to meet them,” Majel said.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Rodriguez replied. “I can see the Inde on my radar, but I’m not sure our fighters have enough fuel for the trip.”

“I agree,” Majel said. “Which is why you’ll jump with us.”

“Say what?” Rodriguez replied, startled.

It was a difficult feat, sending more than one ship through a single wormhole. But it wasn’t impossible. They’d accomplished it using the Independence and Satori together to reach this star system, for example. Adding a third ship created a level of complexity that was giving even Majel difficulty solving the math, however. It seemed like the computation had a geometric curve in complexity as more objects were added. Even subtle differences in vector could throw off their exit point.

There was a better way. “I’ll need to take control of your fighters for the trip, if you’ll allow me?” Majel asked.

To his credit, Rodriguez only hesitated a moment before replying. Many humans would have required more time and convincing. “You got it, ma’am. Giving you access to my flight control…now.”

The other pilot — Perkins, she saw — did likewise. The controls of both fighters were now under her direction. Majel concentrated, sending flight paths to both craft which gently brought them together. Subtle thruster fire aligned the pair of fighters perfectly with one another, bellies facing each other.

The tiniest additional bit of thrust brought them into contact. Magnetic landing gear did the rest, locking the two fighters against one another. Now she wasn’t computing a course for three ships. The two fighters had effectively become one vessel. This was math Majel was used to performing. The numbers flowed fluidly through her processors.

“Wormhole plot complete,” Majel said over the bridge speaker. “Adam, sending it to your console now.”

“Got it,” Foster replied.

“Make sure the fighters are through before us. Same as the jump from Earth,” Majel reminded him.

“No trouble. We’ve done this a couple of times now, right?” Foster said.

True enough. Majel missed Dan. He’d been the finest pilot she’d ever met, his skill and intuitive sense of flight control approaching something that almost made the AI believe in magic. Dan was a better pilot than her. He was the only human she’d ever met that she could say that about.

But Foster was good; outstanding, in fact, and getting better all the time. She felt more than comfortable with him at the helm of her ‘body’, in no small part because Foster had always addressed the AI like she was a person, even from his first day on board. She appreciated that consideration.

“Ready to jump,” Foster said.

Majel brought the thrusters to life on both fighters, steering the coupled ships so they would slip into the wormhole ahead of the Satori without getting cut in half by the beam generating the hole. “Execute jump.”

Brilliant light bloomed in space. The fighters dropped into the wormhole, the Satori following a moment later, leaving the swarm of alien ships far behind.

Twenty-Six

Beth’s party worked their way back in the direction of the planetoid’s surface as quickly as they could manage. They’d lost contact with the Satori entirely, which meant things had to be heating up in space. It was time to make an exit. If she could get her team to the surface, Beth felt sure she could find some way to signal the ship. Majel would certainly be watching for a signal.

But every time they reached a turn which would lead to that outermost ring of passages, the door was closed. The same thick blast doors barred their way everywhere she looked. While it was likely they could blow or cut their way through, after the nanite experience earlier Beth wasn’t sure she wanted to risk it unless they were entirely out of other options. After running into six proverbial brick walls in a row, it was beginning to feel that way.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Beth said.

Ayala nodded. “I agree. This door, at least, used to be open, according to the map I’ve been making. It’s not anymore.”

“Something is trying to keep us in, then,” Beth said.

“Maybe. It could just as easily be an automated system trying to keep everything else out,” Ayala said, shrugging. “No way to really know for sure.”

“No, that feels right,” Beth said. Now that Ayala had brought the idea up, it meshed well with all their other observations. The whole place appeared to be running on autopilot, right? It made much more sense for those doors closing to be the results of some sort of automated defense system, rather than a concentrated effort to trap their team.

The planetoid had effectively closed blast doors to seal off its outer ring of tunnels and passages. From a defensive perspective that made good sense. If someone were attacking, it would certainly slow their advance if not stop them entirely. Well, it would if there hadn’t been a gaping hole in the planetoid’s surface. The breach was big enough she could have flown the Satori right inside! But automated defenses might not be aware that actions designed to protect the innermost systems were futile.

“It’s a good answer. I think it’s the right answer,” Beth said. “The better question now is, what are we going to do about it?”

“Well, if we can’t go out, I guess that leaves only the other direction,” Ayala said. “Unless you want me to blow a hole in that door?”

“Down it is.” Beth twirled her finger around, directing her party to change direction. “No blasting. Not yet, anyway. Don’t want to wake our friends.”

Beth pointed at the still, silent robot standing a short distance away. Ayala nodded and set off in the new direction.

She hoped she was making the right decision, but staying put wasn’t going to help them any. Moving would at least let them do some more exploration, and might help them unravel more of the mysteries behind this place.

This time, the going was easy. Trying to move toward the surface, she’d encountered barriers almost every step of the way. Moving toward the core was entirely the opposite. No doors barred their passage, and if anything the corridors themselves were becoming larger as the party went deeper. Like a series of rivers flowing into one another, getting ever wider as they ran downhill toward…what? What would they find when they went as deep as they could go?

Here and there, they saw more of the robots, others just like the ones they’d already encountered. Most of these were utterly motionless. They stood like statues waiting for an order to march. Beth had her team steer clear of them. There was no telling when those sleepers might awaken. They crept on, leaving the slumbering guardians in their wake.

The deeper they went, the more frequent their encounters with those robots grew. Beth began seeing smaller ones as well, about the size of her fist. Like their bigger brothers, these too were mostly powered down, although a few demonstrated repetitive twitches. More than ever, Beth was sure those were the result of damage or corrupted programming. The planetoid was dying. It had been in the process of doing so for a long time, and it would take a lot longer before it ultimately ‘died,’ but it was gradually falling apart. The evidence was everywhere, in the half-finished repairs and barely functioning robots. In systems that worked and others that did not, apparently at random. There was no sense of organization or structure about the place.

Only after they’d traveled a couple of kilometers deeper into the planetoid did they begin seeing more signs of life. The robots at that depth were more likely to show at least some motion. More than a few of them were actually performing one task or another, working to maintain the ship.

“Like a tree trunk that’s rotting from the outside in,” Beth murmured to Ayala.

“I think we’re stretching all our metaphors here,” he replied. “This isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. Not really.”

He was right. The whole place was remarkable, and they’d barely even begun exploring the tiniest fraction of it all. The planetoid’s surface area was larger than that of the Earth! The interior space was scores of times bigger again. If teams of thousands explored the alien device, it might still take a hundred years or more to delve into all its secrets. The scope was enough to take her breath away just thinking about it.

“Ma’am, we’ve got some company here,” Evans called out. He was the security man watching their rear.

Beth stopped and turned around. A dozen or so of the smaller robots were following them down the passage. When she stopped, so did they. “Curious. I wonder what we did to set them off?”

Everything they’d encountered so far was running on autopilot. Basic programming, set in place long ago. What program were these little guys following? Were they assessing Beth’s team as a possible threat? Now that they were deeper into the ship, their presence might be considered more dangerous.

She took a step toward them. They didn’t move, so she walked forward a few more paces. At about a meter away, the robots all raised their forelegs and waved them in the air at her. The message was clear. She’d gotten too close. Beth backed up a pace, and their legs all settled back to the deck again.

“Well, I guess we’re not going back that way,” Beth said. “Evans, keep an eye on them? They start doing anything different, let me know.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Evans replied. He eyed the robots nervously and raised his weapon a bit. Beth stopped him before he could actually aim it at the robots.

“Don’t,” Beth said. “Our ships outside got in trouble for targeting the planetoid with lasers. Anything which can be perceived as hostile seems to rile them up. Everyone keep your weapons aimed at the floor.”

She didn’t want to see what those little bots would be capable of if they decided her party was an enemy. Sure, they were armed, but they were up against an entire planet of potential hostiles. Sometimes the best way to win a battle is to never fight it at all.

“All right, let’s keep moving,” Beth said.

They pressed on with more speed now, everyone fully aware of the little band of spiderlike robots scampering along in their wake. The passages were still growing wider. Beth looked down a side corridor that stretched off to her left, wondering where it might go. She took a step toward it so she could get a better look, but before she could enter the passage, a trio of small robots appeared there, waving their arms at her like the others had.

Beth backed away and returned to the central passage. “We’re being herded.”

“I saw that,” Ayala replied. “Any idea where they’re taking us?”

“Nope. Just down. We know the ship is hollow. There has to be something at the innermost layers. Right?” Beth asked.

“Probably the dining room,” Ayala replied with a dry chuckle.

“Always the optimist, you,” Beth said. “Besides, robots don’t need dining rooms.”

That didn’t mean they were safe from the alien machines. Despite the light conversation, both of them had enough experience to understand the depth of the danger they were in.

Twenty-Seven

Dan saw the Satori vanish from radar about the same second that it emerged from a wormhole on the starboard side of his ship. A little warning would’ve been helpful, but at least he’d been able to figure out what she was up to. The rest of his bridge crew, not so much. The atmosphere on the bridge was tense. There was that sense of an impending storm around the room, which was typical for pre-combat situations in Dan’s experience.

“Wormhole arrival off the starboard bow!” Will said.

“Targeting with weapons,” Bill said. But he was as quick to recognize the true nature of the situation as he had been to react in the first place. Before Dan could tell him to stand down, he already had. “False alarm. It’s the Satori. Looks like she brought our wayward fighter pilots back to us, too.”

It was a good response time, both in the alert and the realization that the arrival wasn’t a threat. Dan was pleased to see his crew more vigilant than they needed to be. Had that been an enemy arrival, every second of hesitation would’ve hurt their chances of survival. Sure, it was a friendly ship. This time. It wouldn’t always be.

“Get our fighters docked. They must be running on fumes, after everything they’ve been through,” Dan said. The pilots as well as the ships, he figured. “And patch me through to the Satori. I need to find out what’s been going on over there.”

“They’re calling us, sir,” Will said. “Audio only. Putting them on the bridge speakers now.”

Dan had a moment to wonder why the Satori wasn’t using video. Was the ship that badly damaged? Then the answer became apparent. It wasn’t Beth talking. It was Majel.

“Independence, good to see you. I released control of your fighters,” Majel said. “They should be winging their way toward you.”

“Thanks for bringing our people home,” Dan said. “What’s your situation over there? Where’s Beth?”

Was it his imagination, or did Majel hesitate a moment before replying? “She’s down there, Dan. On the planetoid. I couldn’t get her out.”

Dan swore quietly. Of course Beth had decided to go down to the strange, potentially hostile, and unexplored environment. That was completely her style. He shouldn’t have been surprised. “Where’s Ayala?”

“With Beth.” Majel replied. “He went down there with her exploration party. They left me in command of the Satori.”

Dan blinked. That certainly wasn’t what he’d been expecting. They’d left the AI in charge of the ship? Then again, she had more experience than most of the Satori’s crew. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Majel said.

Dan smiled at her words. It was rare to hear Majel sound so unsure of herself. Pretty much only happened when it came to understanding some human foible. “It’s customary to congratulate an officer on her first command. Especially when she’s handled it as well as you have.”

“I’m not sure congratulations are in order, then. I left my captain behind,” Majel replied.

“To save the ship and the rest of the crew. You did well. Now we can figure out how to get Beth and her team back together,” Dan said. He thought quickly, trying to plot a way through this mess. One possible answer presented itself immediately.

“The Independence hasn’t been attacked yet,” Dan said.

“Yes. Your ship hasn’t done anything that should be construed as hostile,” Majel said. “The aliens might not view you as a threat.”

The Satori would probably be attacked if she went anywhere near the alien planetoid again. But Dan’s ship? The Inde might be their best shot at getting Beth out of there.

“We’Il give it a shot. Stand by in case we need assistance,” Dan told her. “But once you’ve verified that the Independence can safely approach the planetoid, I want you to take the Satori back to check on our surface teams.”

Dan hadn’t wanted to leave the forces on the ground without air support, but he hadn’t seen any choice at the time. Now that he had a better understanding of the threat the alien mega-ship represented, Dan was even more concerned about the people left behind on the planet’s surface.

“Understood. Dan, be careful,” Majel said. “This ship isn’t like anything else we’ve come across so far. It’s wildly different. The power it’s generating is enormous.”

“What’s it doing with all that power, though?” Dan asked. To him, it looked like it was just sitting there.

“Nothing,” Majel replied. “That’s what worries me. It’s like a sleeping giant right now, and it’s already causing us this much trouble.”

“So what happens if it wakes up?” Dan asked. A rhetorical question. There was no way the AI could know for sure.

“Precisely,” Majel replied.

She was right; that was a frightening thought. The alien construct was the most massive manufactured object Dan had ever seen. It was difficult for him to imagine the scope of the work that had gone into building it. If it was a sleeping giant, it wasn’t one he wanted waking up while he was nearby!

If Beth hadn’t been stuck over there, Dan figured it would probably have been time to pack it in and head for home. They certainly couldn’t set up a colony with the planetoid looming so close. But she was over there, and he’d be damned if he would leave her behind.

Mind made up - like there was ever any question, he thought with a self-deprecating chuckle - Dan turned to his helmsman. “Take us in. No overtly hostile moves, but I want to see if we can slip in as close as the Satori did.”

“Aye, sir,” Ensign Scott replied.

Dan heard the tension in the young officer’s tone. It would be hard to handle a ship the size of the Inde in such tight quarters. Dan pursed his lips, knowing he could take over and manage the subtle control required. But he wanted to show trust in his officers, too. If he took over at the first sign of real difficulty, then how would they grow?

“Keep a steady hand, Lieutenant,” Dan said. “You’ve got this.”

“Thanks, sir,” Scott said.

The Independence picked up velocity, jetting ever-more-swiftly away from the Satori on his screen. Dan watched the screen impatiently as the minutes ticked away. There was no response at all from the planetoid as his ship shot closer, still building velocity.

Dan reached out to Majel once more while they were still near enough to overcome the planetoids’ jamming. He’d made a decision. They were poking a sleeping bear by hanging about in this system. It was time to get out of there, head for home. Maybe they could come back later and investigate the planetoid more cautiously, but taking the time to plan it out in advance would be safest.

“Satori here,” Majel responded to his call.

“We’re inside the range where they should have reacted if they were going to. Head out to the planet,” Dan said. “I want you to mobilize our people there and get ready to leave. We weren’t prepared to run into something of this nature, and I won’t lose lives needlessly. As soon as we get Beth and her team out of there, we’ll join you and return to Earth.”

“Understood,” Majel replied. “Preparing to jump now. Good luck, Dan.”

A few moments later, the Satori winked out on his screen as she flashed away to the nearby planet. That allowed Dan to apply all his concentration to the primary problem at hand: how to get Beth out of that thing. He didn’t have a lot of time to figure it out, either. They’d be there in less than thirty minutes.

Twenty-Eight

Asharp pinging sound filled Charline’s cockpit. She saw bits of robot spider fly past her viewscreen. They were getting sneakier. If it hadn’t been for the Marines picking off the smaller ones, her Armor would’ve been taken down long since.

“Thanks, guys,” Charline said.

“Not worried about the scratches on your paint?” Martelle replied.

“No, I figure I’ll bill you for the damages later,” Charline replied with a laugh.

“You just keep dealing with the big boys,” Martelle grunted. “Leave the little ones to us.”

That was their strategy, and so far it was working. The Marines didn’t have anything heavy enough to take the giant robots out, but the Armor did. The tiny spiders were too fast for the Armors’ weapons to track well, though. Given a chance, they could carve right through the armored protection around their suits. With the Marines focused on taking down the smaller robots before they could inflict injury on the Armor, the ground forces were holding their own. For the moment, anyway.

Charline looked up at the battlefield around her, taking advantage of a brief pause in the action. There didn’t seem to be any end to the attackers. Or maybe it was just that they were repairing themselves almost as fast as they were taken down. Which didn’t really matter, because it didn’t take much mental math to calculate that they were going to run out of ammunition long before they ran out of enemy combatants.

They’d already circled the wagons, so to speak. Their defensive perimeter surrounded the lab building and their shuttles. There was nowhere they could run to and no way to cut a path through the robot army even if they wanted to try escaping. Trapped, they dug in and held on, fighting for each foot of ground.

Two of the monstrously large spiders advanced on her position. Charline checked her ammunition stores. She was running out faster than she’d like, but conserving ammo wasn’t an option. Not if she wanted to keep breathing.

A tone inside her helmet alerted Charline to a private channel request incoming from Martelle. She flicked it on as she advanced to meet the nearest giant spider, raising her railgun and taking aim.

“This isn’t a winning strategy,” Martelle said. He sounded out of breath.

The iron slug from her weapon tore into her target’s torso, opening a massive tear. But as she watched, it was already beginning to repair itself. Before more than a couple of seconds passed, another round slammed home. That would be Tessa, firing the railgun for her from her Armor off to Charline’s left. Their target staggered under the double impact, but it still didn’t go down. Charline watched the energy gauge on her gun as it charged up for her next shot. As soon as it was full, she’d trigger another blast and hopefully take the thing down for good.

“I’m aware of that. You have any brilliant plans?” Charline asked.

“I was hoping you did,” Martelle said. “Right now, it’s all I can do to keep these little monsters away from us.”

A red light flashed on Charline’s console. Another armor unit was down. They weren’t dropping like flies — yet. But each loss opened more holes in their line and made every survivor more vulnerable. At this point it was just a matter of time before the line faltered completely somewhere, and the spiders came pouring through.

In her heart, Charline had always figured she would wind up in a situation like this. Well, ever since she and the rest of the original Satori crew had first run into the Naga, anyway. It just felt inevitable. The odds were so stacked against humanity that dying on some alien planet surrounded by enemies seemed more likely than not. It was something she’d made peace with when she accepted command of the Armor unit.

But now that she was faced with imminent death, she wanted nothing to do with it. Charline fired her railgun again. The blast dug a deep hole in her target’s side, and it crashed to the ground. While she was still breathing, there was still a chance. She’d keep fighting as long as she could.

Charline marched her mech forward, blazing a path through the smaller robots with her heavy machine gun as she closed on the other giant spider. Maybe she was running out of railgun rounds, but there was still the blade mounted under her arm, bayonet style. It would have to do.

“Foster, you trying to get killed?” Martelle asked.

“No, sir. I’ve got a plan,” Charline replied.

“This doesn’t feel like a really great plan,” Martelle snapped. But Charline could hear him ordering his Marines to cover her. Their gunfire joined hers, cutting a swath through the smaller robots and opening a path for her to engage the big one.

The robot sprang forward to meet her, its speed uncanny. Charline swerved in her approach to avoid its charge. She dodged most of its mass, but one leg tapped her on the shoulder almost hard enough to throw her to the ground. It pivoted and reared back, preparing to crush her.

“Not today!” Charline cried out. She stabbed upward with her blade, cutting a mighty gash into the robot’s underbelly.

It fell sideways, trying to get away from her, but Charline continued on, relentless. She triggered a shot from her railgun into the gap her knife had made, opening the hole even wider. Then she used that gap as a target for her heavy machine gun. Hundreds of rounds poured past the robot’s external armor into its more delicate internal mechanisms.

The damage was more than it could handle. Secondary explosions went off inside the robot’s body, rocking the armored shell. A leg blew off, then another blast blew a new hole in its torso. It collapsed backward in a heap and stopped moving.

“Another one down,” Charline said.

“Up for doing that a few more times?” Tessa asked. “Because here they come!”

Charline glanced up and saw four more of the giant spiders bearing down on her. She checked her ammunition. Just two railgun rounds and a little over five hundred bullets for the machine gun remained. It wasn’t enough, not nearly.

“I’m almost dry,” Charline said.

“Me, too,” Tessa replied. “Still got four more shots with my railgun, though.”

“Make them count,” Charline said.

Some of the Marines were already fighting the spider bots hand-to-hand, using their rifles as clubs. She admired the effort, but they’d be overwhelmed in seconds. Charline fired a short burst of rounds to clear away some of their attackers and buy them a little more time.

Then a massive boom shook everything. It was loud enough to be audible even through her Armor. Charline looked around but couldn’t find the source of the noise. “What the hell was that?”

The Satori shot by overhead at an astonishingly low altitude. She must have jumped in via wormhole practically on top of them! The sound had been the sonic boom caused by their sudden arrival.

“Attention ground forces,” Majel’s voice came over Charline’s radio. The AI was broadcasting to everyone at once, she realized. “Prepare for danger-close artillery fire. Take cover.”

The Satori had swept a short distance away and was already banking back around. Charline took a step back, then another. There wasn’t much cover out there for her, but the bigger problem was Martelle’s Marines. They were a hell of a lot squishier.

“Armor, cover our small friends. I think the Satori is about to unleash some hell,” Charline said.

“Who are you calling small?” Martelle joked. “Taking cover now. This is gonna be good.”

Charline hunched her Armor down, covering the torso area where her body was with her arms. She’d be able to watch the show via external cameras, anyway. Better to hunker down.

The Satori screamed in toward the enemy line. The spider robots had halted in place when the ship appeared. Now the larger ones were shifting, the shape of their carapaces changing, and cannons slowly rising from their backs. They were adapting to deal with the aerial threat!

But they weren’t quick enough.

Once, the Satori had been armed with only a pair of railguns. When the ship was rebuilt, the larger size allowed her to accommodate many more of the weapons. As she unleashed her full fury on the robot battle-line it was like the ground had opened up and spewed fire thirty meters into the air. The railgun rounds impacted with enough velocity to annihilate anything in their path and destroy whatever else was nearby.

The ship came overhead in an arcing path that carried her in a full circle around the camp. She hammered the robot army, turning a twenty-meter perimeter around Charline’s forces into a dead zone. Debris, both dirt and bits of broken robot, rained down over her Armor as the Satori swept past her position, but she sustained no real damage.

Thank god. Charline heaved a sigh of relief. “You were just in time, Satori.”

“You’re welcome. But this isn’t over yet. We’ve got more incoming,” Majel said.

Charline saw she was right. If anything, there were more spider robots than there had been before. How was it even possible? They’d destroyed so damned many of the things!

“It’s time to go, Charline. I’m setting the Satori down. Have your people get aboard,” Majel said.

“Gladly,” Charline replied, passing the orders along. A ride off this dust ball of a planet was the best offer she’d had all day.

Twenty-Nine

It was another half kilometer before Beth’s team finally reached something different. Rather than passages, the tunnel they followed dumped them out into a massive room. It was full of columns, stretching from one end to the other. Beth struggled to orient herself. What she was seeing was difficult to comprehend.

Where the upper layers of the planetoid’s ‘crust’ had all been filled with twisting strings of conduit and tunnel, the innermost layer looked like it was one large room. One truly massive room, the size of a planet, wrapping around the entire bottom of the crust. Here and there, a column reached out to hold the inner layer in place.

The innermost layer of the hull was some transparent material. She could see through it clear to the other side of the planetoid’s core. At the precise center of the planetoid’s hollow core was something dark. It was hard to tell precisely what it might be. Some sort of power generator, maybe? The ship’s drive? Whatever it was seemed to not be functioning anymore. But that didn’t make sense; the ship’s engine was the only way it could be hurtling through space at the speed it was. It had to be active!

“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” Ayala said.

Beth realized he wasn’t talking about the engineering of the room. His eyes were locked on that darkness in the center. “What is it?”

He glanced over at her. “I’m not one-hundred percent sure, mind you. It’s not like I’ve seen one before.”

“But…?” Beth asked.

“But I think that’s a singularity,” Ayala replied.

Beth opened her mouth to protest. That was impossible. The gravity of the planetoid was nowhere near strong enough for even a tiny black hole to be nestled in its center. Besides, with the crust so close to the singularity, it would never be able to stay intact. It would be swept inside and crushed. Unless the singularity had somehow been captured, its gravity held in check?

“You’re suggesting whoever built this contained a singularity?” Beth asked. The idea stunned her. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how such a feat would be accomplished.

“Science fiction has talked about the possibility for ages,” Ayala replied. “In theory, a singularity could be used as a power source with enormous potential.”

“You could be right,” Beth said, staring at the blank area. There was no reflection in that space. Nor could she see through it to the other side. It was unnerving, looking at it for too long.

Movement outside caught her eye. At first she thought they planetoid was beginning to heal itself. The motion was from the gaping hole. Then Beth realized the movement wasn’t the planetoid at all. It was a ship, flying in through the opening. She couldn’t quite make it out at this distance, but it was definitely too big to be the Satori, so that had to be the Independence. Dan was flying his big-ass ship through the hole, which meant he was coming for her. Coming to help her out of this mess. The thought warmed her heart.

Ayala squinted at the ship, reaching the same conclusion she had. “I think that’s the Inde.”

“Yup,” Beth replied.

He glanced over at her. “You two are lucky to have each other.”

“Yeah, I know,” Beth smiled. A moment later, a chill overtook her heart. “He doesn’t know about the singularity. We need to warn him!”

Beth clicked her radio on, trying to reach out to the Independence. “Satori away team to Independence. You’re flying into dangerous space. Please respond.”

There was no answer. Beth looked hopefully at Ayala, but he shook his head. “Nothing here, either. I think whatever is causing the jamming must be stronger this close to the center.”

He looked pointedly at the black splotch squatting in the middle of the planetoid. Beth cursed under her breath. How close could the Independence get to a contained black hole before the ship was adversely affected? It sounded like a question from an exam parody. One of those things for which there was no answer because the data was incomplete. She couldn’t even guess. By all rights, the ship, the planetoid, and everything else nearby should already have been sucked in.

“We have to try to get through to them,” Beth said. “Ayala, take Jacobs and Kahale, get as close as you can and continue trying to broadcast. See if there’s anything you can do to punch through the interference.”

“Evans, DeCosta, you’re with me. Pull security while I do a sweep around the area. The robots channeled us down here for a reason,” Beth said. “There must be something useful or important nearby.”

Ayala shot her a look like he wished that she would reverse their roles. But he kept his mouth shut this time anyway, which she appreciated. They hadn’t gotten on well, at first. But he’d turned into an exceptional second in command. Far better than she’d ever have guessed in those first days. She figured she owed him a little more explanation.

“It’s got to be me, Luis,” Beth said. “You know the space stuff. Your observations of that thing out there will be much better than any I could make.”

Ayala nodded. “But you know machines. I get it. I’m not fond of seeing you take the more dangerous role on yourself. Again. But I understand why.”

“With luck, neither of us will be in any danger,” Beth said.

Ayala barked a laugh. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“I’ve been in space for more than ten minutes. What do you think?” Beth chuckled. “Stay safe.”

“You too,” Ayala replied.

Then he was off, taking his men down toward the transparent deck that formed the planetoid’s inner shell. The stuff looked like it was made of glass, but that was impossible. Something so fragile would never withstand the stress involved. Frankly, Beth wasn’t sure what would. She guessed that the material was some sort of exotic alloy, custom-made for this purpose.

Beth and her security duo set off. She’d spotted increased robot activity not far away in the three o’clock direction. Whatever they were doing over there might be precisely what she was looking for.

It was a short trip. They hurried most of the few hundred meters to the heart of the movement. A string of smaller robots was traveling to and from the spot like a column of ants. At first, she couldn’t see what they were so interested in. Several of the larger robots surrounded whatever it was, masking it from view. Presumably, they were sentries of some sort. But were they still functioning? Beth couldn’t tell.

Only when she drew closer was she able to see that the machines were working on some sort of pedestal. It was a cylinder that rose to about waist high made of silvery metal. The top of the stand was flat and smooth, unbroken except for a single hole set directly in the center. She couldn’t see where the hole’s bottom was. But if this wasn’t some sort of control mechanism, Beth figured it was it would be time to hang up her wrench for good.

“I want to get a closer look at that thing,” Beth said, pointing.

“That figures,” Evans said with a chuckle. Beth shot him a frosty glare which evaporated his humor. “Ma’am.”

Most of the time, Beth really didn’t care much about military protocols and whether or not they were followed by the book. Then there were some days when it was good to be king. Or queen, or whatever. “I need both of you to cover me while I go in there. I think the pedestal is part of a control system. If I’m right, that thing could solve all of our problems.”

DeCosta took his left hand from his firearm and raised it like a first grader. Beth nodded to him, unable to keep herself from smiling at the sight. “If it’s that important, do you think those robots guarding it are going to let you approach? Or are they more likely to slice you up for supper?”

Beth glanced over at the object of all their attention. That was the question, wasn’t it? She was gambling on being right about the robot’s lack of control. And also about the decrepit nature of their software. If they were only responding to clear threats, she might be able to get very close by simply appearing unthreatening.

Or DeCosta could be right, and this could turn into a very short walk.

Either way, it was vital the two men not engage the robots unless it was absolutely necessary. “I think they’ll only attack a clear threat. If I can seem unthreatening enough…”

DeCosta got the idea right away. “That means you’re going to need us to appear unthreatening, too. Right?”

“That’s the idea, yes,” Beth replied.

“I’ve got to tell you that kind of sucks, ma’am. Were supposed to be trying to keep you safe,” DeCosta said. “Very hard to do that if we have to pretend like we’re not an actual threat.”

“I know,” Beth said. “I’m counting on you both to do your best. If you do something which sets them off, it’s likely to put me in more danger, not less.”

“Be careful, ma’am,” Evans said.

Beth nodded a reply to him, then started carefully forward. The pedestal was only about twenty meters away from where they’d been standing. Beth closed half that distance at the pace of a steady stroll. So far, so good.

But at about ten meters away, one of the smaller robots took note of her at last. It scurried over. Beth froze in place. She kept her eyes locked directly ahead, tracking the construct’s movement with her peripheral vision. Sometimes just looking at an animal was enough for it to feel threatened, on Earth. Or so Beth had read, anyway.

“Nothing to see here,” Beth whispered under her breath. “This is not the human you droids are looking for.”

The robot stopped directly in front of her feet. Beth could just barely see it, but she heard it emit a steady series of whirring noises. What was it doing? The sounds were a bit like the shutter on a rapid-fire camera, but she couldn’t imagine a device so complex using an instrument that archaic. Some sort of scanner, though. It was taking her measure.

All at once, it rushed away again, wandering off on some new mission to who-knew-where. Beth exhaled the breath she’d been holding for the last thirty seconds. Her pulse was pounding, and more than ever she wanted to turn back. But she had to solve this mystery, and soon. Who knew how much time Dan and the crew of the Independence had left before they had a fatal interaction with the black hole?

Beth started forward again. She moved slowly now, cautiously taking each step. She kept her line of sight focused anywhere except directly toward the pedestal and the robots around it.

Almost there, she thought. Just a few more steps. She moved slowly between the larger robots, holding her breath for fear of disturbing them. But they didn’t move. One more step and she was within arm’s reach of the device. The hole in the top turned out to be more of a shallow depression. It only went down a handful of centimeters. At the bottom was a glowing crystal. A power source, or a control device? Could she remove it? Or use it?

Ayala’s voice came over her radio. “I can’t get through to the Independence, and they’re getting dangerously close to the singularity. If you’ve found anything, Captain, now would be a good time to try it.”

“Understood,” Beth replied.

Damn it. Something like this control console — if that was what she had in front of her — deserved respect. She ought to be studying the thing for an extended period before trying to mess with it. As much fun as she had taking things apart, there was a time for caution, and this was definitely one.

But there wasn’t time. Dan would die if she did nothing. That was never going to happen, not while she had even the smallest chance of saving him.

Carefully as she could, Beth reached down to touch the crystal.

Thirty

Linda stared at the incomprehensible swath of controls in front of her, trying to make some sense of it all. About the only thing that looked even vaguely familiar was the U-shaped flight stick. Even that was something she’d rarely seen outside of films. The rest of the stuff in front of her was completely unfamiliar.

“You want me to what?” Linda asked, incredulous.

“Just follow my directions and you’ll be fine,” Majel said. The AI’s voice piped out of the shuttle speakers in what Linda figured were supposed to be soothing tones.

They didn’t do much to allay her anxiety. Fly the shuttle? She’d never flown anything! “Majel, I can’t.”

“You won’t be doing the flying. I will. All I need you to do is start the engine and then monitor the controls from your end. Just in case,” Majel replied. Was it possible for an AI to sound testy? Linda had the feeling she was trying Majel’s patience.

There was no help for it. Linda had managed to gather most of the scientists and other civilian staff into the shuttle after Charline told her to hide inside. But she’d missed one key person: the pilot. Linda didn’t know where he was, but he wasn’t on board the shuttle. Looking at the mess outside, it was an easy guess that he was probably dead.

The only person aboard the shuttle who’d ever worked with Majel before was her. It wasn’t fair, but it looked like Linda would be stuck with the job regardless.

“All right. Walk me through it. I’ll do my best,” Linda said.

The roaring of a ship’s engines firing nearby interrupted whatever reply Majel was going to make. Linda peered through the cockpit window and saw the Satori lifting off. Were they leaving without her? No, Majel wouldn’t do that. Linda watched the Satori pivot and open fire on the robots, raining down fury. The ship was engaging the spiders and drawing their fire. Majel was trying to give her and the others aboard the shuttle a shot at escaping.

“Follow the start-up instructions on the screen in front of you,” Majel said. As she spoke, the screen lit up with a series of numbered steps. Each step was accompanied by a diagram detailing precisely what she had to do. Linda read the first line and then quickly started following the directions.

“I thought you said you’d handle it all from your end?” Linda asked.

“Once the shuttle is ready for takeoff, yes. I can’t control it until the main drive is engaged,” Majel said. “Which means getting through the startup checklist. Quickly, please.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why she had to hurry. Outside, the spider robots were rushing forward from all sides. Without the armor and Marines holding them off, they were closing in quickly. Explosive booms buffeted the shuttle from above as the Satori open fire with its weaponry, raking the enemy lines and blasting robots to smithereens. It wasn’t enough. Linda could see it wouldn’t be enough. There were just too many attackers, and now all of them seemed fixated on her shuttle.

Linda raced through the checklist and was gratified to hear the engines begin humming beneath her as the shuttle warmed up for takeoff. Another few seconds and they would be airborne, back to the safety of the skies. Hopefully they could head for home after all of this. It certainly didn’t seem like this planet was going to be viable for a colony!

Something skittered across the windshield. Startled, Linda let out a yell. It was only there for a second, but it was one of the smaller spider robots. She was sure of it. Listening carefully, Linda could hear the staccato tap-tap-tap of their feet as the scurried across shuttles hull. Judging from the sounds, it wasn’t just one spider. A bunch of them must have broken through the Satori’s fire. They were climbing onto the shuttle.

“Majel, we’ve got a problem,” Linda said.

“I see them. My guns can’t pick them off without blowing up the shuttle with them,” Majel said. “Keep going with the startup sequence. You’re almost there.”

Linda kept on working her way through the rest of the checklist. With every passing second, there seemed to be more of the things on the outside of her hall. How long before they could break in? What were they after, anyway? Maybe it didn’t matter. The engines were almost at full power, and soon Majel would have them lift off. Linda wasn’t sure how well the little robots would operate in space, but it was a good bet they have a much harder time of it out there.

Then Majel’s voice came over the radio again, sounding alarmed. “Abort! Stop the launch sequence.”

“What?” Linda asked. She’d just been rushing to get it all done. There was only one step left. “Why?”

“The machines have managed to interface with the shuttle’s computer systems. They’re trying to take over your ship,” Majel said.

There was a shout from behind her. Linda glanced over her shoulder, then turned and stared. Little motes of light drifted down from a two-foot diameter circle of the ceiling. She didn’t need to ask what that was. She’d seen it before.

“Majel, they’re breaking in,” Linda said.

“They’ve taken over the shuttle controls. I don’t know how, and I’m trying to get them back,” Majel said. “But it’s not looking good. You need to evacuate. Get out of there!”

“Evacuate?” Linda exclaimed. Where could they go? Out into the mass of killer machines waiting just outside?

“I’m dropping help,” Majel said. “Don’t worry. We’re not leaving you behind.”

With a clang, the glowing chunk of ceiling fell away and crashed to the floor. The first robots to scuttle through were the same small ones Linda had seen before. About a dozen of them formed the vanguard. The humans who’d been seated in the rear of the shuttle backed hastily away from them.

But that first wave was followed immediately by a different sort of spider-bot. This robot was larger, standing perhaps as tall as a medium-sized dog. Where all the other spiders had scurried in quickly and then taken up positions like sentries, this one came in cautiously. It turned its head side to side as it walked, sweeping the area with whatever it was using for sensors. Linda was no engineer, so she couldn’t make any determinations about what sort of devices were housed on the machine. But as a biologist, she knew intelligence when she saw it.

The other robots had been drones. This one with sentient.

“Well, look at you,” Linda said aloud. The strange mechanical creature turned toward her like it regarded her. Then it turned its attention to the deck plates below its feet. With more strength then she expected a machine that small to have, the robot tore a hole through the deck plate. Then it reached to forelegs into the inner workings of the shuttle below.

She turned back to the microphone. “Majel, I think I know why you’re having trouble recovering control. There’s a spider here that isn’t like the others. It’s smart. Sentient.”

“Are you sure?” Majel’s response was immediate, her interest clearly piqued.

Linda’s voice was tight but firm. “Who’s the biologist here? I know intelligence when I see it.”

“I’m surprised,” Majel said. “My analysis suggested they were all just dumb machines, following ancient and outdated programming. This changes everything. Linda, you have to get out of there. Now.”

Well, that sounded like a swell idea, but there was the little problem of how they were going to get away without being sliced to ribbons by robot spiders. As if to punctuate Majel’s message, the shuttle’s engine rumble changed timbre, signaling that the ship was almost ready to launch. Linda didn’t know what the robots were going to do with the shuttle once it was airborne, but she didn’t want to be on board to find out!

“Listen, folks. The robots have control of the shuttle. We need to get out of here. Majel is sending help,” Linda said.

“Go out there? Like hell. Looks to me like all we need to do is squish that big one there,” one of the passengers said.

Linda knew him more by reputation than anything else. Dr. Harvey Dwight was a geologist. Not some cosseted lab scientist, either. No, Dwight spent most of his time out in the field, taking the roughest assignments available. A real ‘hit rocks with hammer’ kind of guy, or so Linda had heard it said.

Which is why she probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Dwight followed up his verbal outburst with action. He took two steps to the shuttle’s armory cabinet, where a small stock of emergency weapons was stored. Dwight reached inside, grabbed the nearest rifle, slapped in a magazine, and chambered a round, all in one smooth motion. Before Linda or anyone else could stop him, he had the weapon loaded and aimed directly at the brain robot.

That was as far as Dwight got, though.

Before he could squeeze the trigger, six of the smaller robot spiders were airborne, leaping toward him. They landed, latching themselves to his face, arms, and legs. Dwight had time for one short scream. Then Linda got to see what happened when the alien nanites went to work on living tissue.

It wasn’t pretty.

Linda dashed to the main door and slapped the release button. Hot air from outside rushed into the shuttle. “Everyone out! Move!”

A pair of booms sounded, the powerful vibrations throwing Linda from her feet. She crashed to the deck, dazed. There was gunfire outside. It had to be Armor. Majel had dropped down some of Charline’s Armor. The civilians aboard the shuttle ran out, one after another. Linda staggered back to her feet to join them.

The last other person to leave hesitated in the door like she had seen something she didn’t like. Her mouth made a full O as if she were about to scream. But before she could utter a sound, she was hit by a wave of small spiders. They poured over her body, dissolving and erasing her the same way they had killed Dwight.

Linda backed away from the tide of spiders rapidly filling the shuttle. They poured in through the open doorway, flooding the interior. There was no way she could get out now. She sat down in the pilot’s chair again and tucked her legs up under her. Then she worked at being still as possible while all around her, the spiders continued skittering into the shuttle cockpit.

Thirty-One

Ayala kept his pace to a steady jog, despite the urgency of the situation. Running wasn’t going to get him there any faster if it meant he tripped and his mag boots lost connection with the deck. He ground his teeth together in frustration at the delay. What happened? He’d radioed Beth. She’d replied. Then she was off the air, and Evans radioed him to come right away.

He could see why. Beth was a dozen meters away from her security team. Ayala narrowed his eyes at that. It was their job to keep her safe! But he also knew how damned convincing she could be. It wasn’t too crazy to imagine her talking those men into letting her go off by herself.

Captain Wynn stood in front of a cylinder of metal which rose to just above her belt level. She had one hand outstretched, touching something on the top of the device. All around her were groups of spiders, looking like bugs frozen in amber. They weren’t bothering her and didn’t take notice of his arrival, either. But her posture was as rigid as theirs.

“Captain? Can you hear me?” Ayala asked. There was no response. “How long has she been like that?”

“Since she touched the thing, sir. I radioed you as soon as it happened,” Evans said.

Ayala checked the time. It had only been a few minutes, but that was long enough for her stillness to be a concern. He pulled up her medical stats — at least her space suit was still feeding readouts on her vitals. Everything looked good there. Heartbeat, breathing, and blood pressure were all a little elevated, but none of them were anywhere close to dangerous levels. What happened to her?

He took a step toward her, a wary eye on the robots.

Evans put a hand on his shoulder. “Careful, sir.”

Ayala frowned, but stopped moving. One of the spiders had twitched. A reaction to him? Or just an aimless motion? There was only one way to find out for sure, and if the answer were the wrong one he’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble.

“Damn it, Captain. You’re not supposed to be out there taking all the risks,” Ayala muttered under his breath.

The response took his breath away. Like a ghost, he heard Beth’s voice. “I heard that, Luis. Had to be done.”

“Captain? Are you all right?” Ayala asked. The radio. She was reaching out via radio waves?

Her body remained motionless, but her voice came over his radio again. “More or less? I’ve been better. Remember those damned nanites I was injected with?”

“Sure,” Ayala replied. She’d had a couple of courses of medical nanites to help recover from serious injuries. He chuckled under his breath. Beth hated the things. It was a strange foible for an engineer and tech-geek like her to have, but she’d always expressed an intense dislike for having machines wandering around inside her.

“Well, it seems like this device spotted them floating around inside me and recognized me as some sort of kindred spirit,” Beth said. “It reactivated the remaining ones and added a new set of its own.”

“That sounds…dangerous.” Ayala didn’t know much about the tiny robots, but having alien ones floating about in one’s bloodstream couldn’t be healthy. Human nanites were carefully crafted to do specific tasks and then shut off after a set time, after which eventually the body would break down or excrete them.

What would the alien nanites do to her? They had to get Beth to medical attention as quickly as possible.

“I think I’m all right for now, at least. The new nanites are interfacing with the old ones, networking or something,” Beth said. “They’re giving me a connection to the core systems of the alien vessel. Taking me a while to figure it all out, but we’ve got a serious problem.”

Luis could think of several, the most critical of which was figuring out how to get his captain free from this alien device and back to the Satori so they could fix whatever the alien nanites had done and get them to shut down. He had a feeling that wasn’t what she had in mind, but he had to try. “Can you move?”

“No, and that’s the smaller problem. The bigger one is why I can’t move,” Beth said. “This ship has sustained some serious damage.”

Thinking of the vast hole the Independence was sailing through, Ayala just nodded. “Sure.”

Beth paused before going on. “There was damage to the core as well. The whole ship draws power from the artificial singularity at the center. Near as I can tell, anyway. It’s been able to stave off catastrophic failure so far by keeping everything in low-power mode.”

“Did we mess things up by coming inside?” Ayala asked.

“No, but the Independence did when she got close enough to the black hole to create containment instability,” Beth replied. “I’m keeping it together for the moment while I figure out how to use their comm system to reach Dan’s ship. But it requires a lot of manual oversight.”

“You can’t take your eyes off the kettle,” Ayala said.

“Right.”

He paused, thinking. “How long would we have before the thing goes boom if you step away from the controls?”

“I honestly don’t know. At least a few minutes. Maybe longer, but no guarantees.”

Damn, but that was going to be complicated. The Independence would have to get clear, then someone would have to fly in, grab Beth, and get out before everything came apart. Worse, they’d need to get clear in time. The Satori could maybe manage it if she jumped in and jumped out. But what would the wormhole jumps do to the already fragile space-time around the barely contained singularity?

Ayala couldn’t believe he was even asking himself questions like that! Nothing he’d studied in college physics had prepared him for these sorts of problems. The best he could come up with was that yes, a wormhole would almost certainly interact with the singularity if it opened close enough. They already knew the wormholes generated by the Satori’s drive were affected by gravity wells. It made sense for the reverse to also be true. Given the already unstable nature of the containment, the arrival of a wormhole would likely cause things to decay even more rapidly.

“We can’t jump the Satori in to get you, can we?” Ayala asked.

“Already thought about it. You know more about the math there than I do, but my feeling is no — the arrival would screw things up even worse. I won’t have you blowing up my ship trying to save me,” Beth said.

Ayala thought Colonel Wynn might have something to add to the conversation once he heard about all this. Dan Wynn didn’t strike him as the sort of man to leave his partner behind. He kept that to himself for the moment.

“OK, I’ve got the Independence,” Beth said. “I’m going to let them know what’s going on and where the rest of you are, so they can arrange a pick-up.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ayala replied.

“I’m sorry,” Beth said. He could hear the frown in her words. “If there were any other way…”

“You’d take it. I know. I’d have done the same if it were me instead. But I can’t take your place, can I? I’ve never had a nanite treatment,” Ayala said.

“Don’t think so, no. Head to the innermost deck. I’ll have Dan’s people pick you up there,” Beth said.

“All right,” Ayala said, holding back all the other, less polite things he wanted to say. It most definitely was not all right. Nor had he given up on getting Beth off this dying ship. Not by a long shot.

Thirty-Two

Charline’s ears rang from the impact. She was bruised in places she didn’t know she could bruise. But damn it, she was on the ground. She opened fire on the spiders, blazing away with a new canister of ammo hooked up to her machine gun.

“I’m on the ground! Tessa, you OK?” Charline asked.

“Yup. Oh, god, that hurt.”

Charline grimaced. “Yup. Remind me to Article 15 the idiot who thought air-assault in Armor was a smart idea.”

“It was your damned idea, boss,” Tessa snapped back.

“You didn’t have to follow me. Volunteers only,” Charline pointed out.

Tessa scoffed. “Like I’d let you do something this stupid without me. Watch your three o’clock.”

Charline turned and blazed fire at a batch of spider-bots trying to sneak up on her. She and Tessa were outmatched, but damned if they didn’t seem to have surprised the robots with their stupid-ass move. The Satori was a hundred feet overhead. They’d dropped from her aft ramp using cables to sort of slow their descent. “Sort of” being the operative phrase.

The shuttle’s hatch opened and people poured out, leaping to the ground. Charline shot some spiders that were coming too close, but there were so damned many of them! They needed to evacuate these people quickly.

“Grab the civilians. I’ll keep our friends here occupied while you do,” Charline said.

“On it,” Tessa replied. She had her armor kneel down while the civilians ran toward her. Charline heard her friend shouting directions at the terrified shuttle passengers.

There might be room for a second person inside an Armor, but it would be snug. No way to pull out so many. Instead, they’d hastily rigged a set of harnesses around Tessa’s Armor. All their people were still supposed to be wearing full EVA suits to protect against exposure to any planetary pathogens. Those suits had loops that could be hooked to the harnesses. Get everyone to clip in and then have the ship haul them all skyward.

Easy in premise. The hard part was keeping the robot swarm away from them long enough to make it work. Charline found herself hard-pressed at first, and then entirely overwhelmed.

Scores of the smaller robots raced past Charline. They scrambled between her legs and clattered across her armor in their frenzied forward rush. They weren’t even bothering to attack anymore. It seemed all other thoughts and actions had gone by the wayside, replaced by one singular focus: get onto the ship.

The shuttle hatch was still open. Spiders poured through the gap while others clambered across the small ship’s outer hull. Charline tried in vain to cut them down, to stem the tide. Nothing worked.

“Got all but two before they broke through,” Tessa said. “I…I’m pretty sure they killed one of the passengers on their way in.”

“Linda! Can you still hear me?” Charline asked.

There was a too-long pause, and Charline thought her friend was gone. But then Linda replied. “Still here.” Her voice cracked with strain. “They’re ignoring me. I don’t understand it.”

The shuttle’s engines vibrated as it prepared to take off. It would blast into the sky, bringing Linda with it. Charline had seconds left to do something. “Tessa, go take the other survivors up with you.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice!” Tessa replied. She engaged the system that would haul her Armor skyward to the Satori. The massive cable attached to her Armor dragged her up, carrying her precious burden. The other civilians would be safe. That just left rescuing Linda. Charline eyed the open hatch. There was no way her friend could make it out while more spiders were still pouring in. And there was nothing she could do to stop them. She glanced down at the shuttle’s landing struts. They were sturdy things, designed to survive even hard landings in difficult terrain.

Martelle’s voice came to her over the radio. “Don’t do it. I know what you’re thinking. It’s too late. She’s gone.”

“Not yet, she’s not.” Charline reached down and hooked her arm around the nearest landing struts. If the robots were taking the shuttle someplace, then they’d be taking her along for the ride as well!

The shuttle’s main drives ignited, sending plumes of flame and smoke out from underneath it. Charline could feel the heat in her legs, but her armor protected her. Its dense alloy had been designed to withstand plasma bolts, at least for a while. It could handle this. She hoped so, anyway, or this would be a very brief trip.

With her free arm, she smashed at the line connecting her to the Satori. In a tug-of-war between the two ships, the Satori would surely win. But it was just as likely that either her Armor or the landing strut would crack first. She couldn’t risk it. The hook attaching her to the Satori broke away, letting the cable bounce clear. Then she reached around and looped her second arm over the strut as well. No sense taking any more chances than she already was.

The shuttle was lifting off. Charline’s feet left the ground, and the shuttle slowly picked up speed. But now that it was airborne, there was no way for more spiders to get aboard. On the ground below, the rest of the robot force went motionless. They were all still as statues. It looked uncanny, but seeing them all shut down like that was good news from Charline’s point of view. She was willing to bet that there was only one of the smart robots directing the whole mess of them. That one was on board the shuttle, so of course the robots remaining on the ground were no longer taking action. It had abandoned them, so wasting more effort controlling them was pointless.

The spiders on the outside of the shuttle’s hull had frozen in place as well. They hunkered down and dug in against the metal beneath them. Once secured firmly, they too stopped moving altogether. This was the moment she’d been waiting for.

“Linda, can you make your way past them to the hatch?” Charline asked over the radio.

“They’ve all stopped moving, so I think so. Why?” Linda replied.

“I’m hanging onto the shuttle, just outside. I need you to make your way to the door and then jump to me,” Charline said.

“You want me to what?” Linda replied. “No way. They’re not moving anymore. I’m safer just staying put.”

The robots inside the shuttle must have shut themselves down just like the ones attached to the outside. That was excellent. They might not even notice Linda as she made her way out. But how to convince her of that?

Being blunt and direct usually worked for Charline. “In about two minutes, the air is going to be too thin to breathe. Do you have a spacesuit with you, Linda?”

Linda’s voice came back immediately. “No, I’m talking to you on the shuttle’s radio. The channel was still open when they started pouring in. There are some suits in one of the shuttle lockers, we were shown where during orientation. But it’s covered with robots. I don’t think…”

“No, I agree. Don’t do anything that rouses them,” Charline said. “Make your way to the door as slowly and unthreateningly as you can. I’m just outside. “

“I’ll try,” Linda said.

Charline could only imagine the other woman’s terror as she picked her way carefully through the mass of slumbering robots. Who knew what they would perceive as a threat? Would they attack her if she bumped into one of them? If she stepped on one by accident? There was no way to tell, and no time to carefully experiment. Already the shuttle had ascended dizzyingly high above the ground below.

Just two years earlier, the ship would’ve been using old human-invented chemical rockets for thrust, and it already would have been too late to jump. Old-style rockets accelerated a craft very rapidly to reach escape velocity.

The shuttle would’ve already been going far too fast.

But this ship was using technology borrowed from the Naga. The advances in human science since capturing two Naga battlecruisers had been stratospheric. This shuttle, the Armor she wore, and a lot of their other newer devices were all at least partly based on alien tech. Charline wasn’t even sure precisely how the new drive worked. It was supposed to be more energy-efficient but used a much gentler acceleration curve for lift-off.

Even so, it would eventually have to reach escape velocity to break orbit. Linda had to be off the shuttle long before then, or she’d be dead.

There she was! Charline spotted Linda’s face peering through the open hatch. She’d made it to the door! Charline opened her mouth to say some words of encouragement, then remembered that Linda wasn’t carrying a radio. She had no way to reach out to the woman, no way to communicate. With both arms wrapped around a chunk of the shuttle, Charline couldn’t even use her Armor’s arm to beckon without risking her grip.

This next part was going to suck. Charline had to open her Armor canopy for Linda to make the jump. The wind speed outside would be ferocious. Charline slammed down the visor on her helmet to lessen the impact. She reached for the button that would expose her to the hurricane-force air currents outside her Armor.

Thirty-Three

Dan forced his hands to relax their grip on his seat. He wanted nothing more than to stand up and take the helm from Ensign Scott. The hole in the planetoid’s shell was enormous, maybe the size of Australia. His ship, in comparison, was tiny. But the gap wasn’t regular. The edges were ragged, spools of once-molten metal reaching out into space at odd angles. Someone had tried to do repairs, too. There were places where the edge looked like it was trying to grow into the hole in the same way a bad burn would heal on skin.

Shattered bits of metal drifted all around, held in place by the planetoid’s light gravity. Most of those were too small to be a real threat to the ship, but others were massive enough to punch right through the hull. It was anything but the smooth flight Dan had assumed it would be.

“Looking good, Scott,” Dan said aloud. He worked to keep his voice firm and confident. For his own sake, as much as that of the young man he addressed.

“Thanks, sir. We’re almost through.”

De Toro looked up from his station. “Something damned peculiar in there, sir.”

“What sort of peculiar?” Dan asked. “Can you get it on screen?”

“Sort of, sir. Here, I’ll show you what I mean,” De Toro said.

The main screen flickered and then revealed an image of the planetoid’s inside. The whole thing was hollow, like a shell around a vast open space. But that wasn’t what drew his eye. It was the darkness in the center of the sphere.

“What the hell is that?” Dan breathed. It was a disk of utter blackness. He couldn’t see through it at all. “Magnify, focus on the edge.”

Even at maximum resolution, there didn’t appear to be any blurring of the edge. It was utterly opaque. The object wasn’t reflecting light at all, either. Dan tapped his computer and ran the screen through a variety of sensor scans. Radar, LIDAR, SONAR, infrared, and a host of other tools the Naga had invented scrolled by, one after another. None of them were reading anything at all. A gravity scan showed the smallest blip of something there, focused mostly at the polar ends of the disk, but that was the only evidence they had that it existed at all.

“We’re getting some serious energy surges from the poles of that thing, sir,” De Toro said. “They’ve been rising as we get closer and just surged.”

“Take us around to the side. Nice and slow, Ensign,” Dan said. This time he did stand up and walk toward the pilot’s seat. He didn’t try to take the controls but wanted to be closer to that screen and the impossible image it held.

“Yes, sir. Nice and slow, no problem sir,” Scott replied.

Dan looked down at the kid. He seemed shaken but was holding it together pretty well. Then again, he’d already been with the ship when it went up against impossible odds. Something that was merely ‘weird’ was a nice change of pace.

“De Toro, any word from the Satori’s people?” Dan asked.

“Still trying, sir. No response yet. But I’m not sure our signals are reaching far from the ship. Whatever that interference was, it’s getting worse as we move closer to that thing out there.”

The screen flickered. For a second, Dan thought he saw Beth’s face there. He rubbed his eyes. Wishful thinking wasn’t going to help save her. Then the screen flashed again. “What’s causing that?”

“No idea, sir. The system seems to be running normally.”

The screen jumped a third time. This time Beth’s face was even more clearly visible there. Dan froze, then glanced over at De Toro.

“I saw her too, sir.” The lieutenant bent over his console. “I think we’re picking up a stream of data from the planetoid. It might be the Satori’s crew have figured out how to piggyback their own communication onto the aliens’ communication systems.”

“Good job, Beth!” Dan murmured. He stepped back to his chair. “Can you get her back?”

“Working on it,” De Toro said. “Wow! Whatever was jamming our signals is gone entirely. And…there we go!”

The screen snapped and hissed. It went black for a moment, then lit back up again with Beth’s face floating there.

Floating was the only way Dan could describe it. All he could see was her head, from about the chin up, floating in a cloudy environment. She opened her mouth like she was speaking, but no sound came out. Her eyes narrowed into a classic Beth look — the one that said “this stupid machine will bend to my will or die.” Dan had to smile at that. She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

“How about now?” Beth asked.

“Hear you loud and clear,” Dan replied. “Good work! The Inde is inside the sphere. Send us your coordinates and we’ll get a shuttle out to pick you up.”

Dan gestured to De Toro, who nodded a reply. He’d get a shuttle ready to go pick up their missing team. Soon as they had a location, they could get Beth and then get the hell out of there. Just because the alien ship hadn’t seen them as a threat yet didn’t mean they were safe.

“You need to stop the ship. You’re in danger,” Beth said.

Dan didn’t hesitate. If there was anyone in the universe he trusted implicitly… He turned to Ensign Scott and snapped, “All stop.”

“All stop, aye,” Scott replied, working the controls. The ship fired thrusters to stop its forward motion. Then it flipped end over end and used the main engine to slow still further.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Dan asked.

“You’re danger-close to a singularity. It’s contained, but the damage made a mess of things, and your proximity almost set off a containment failure,” Beth said. “I’m keeping the thing together for now, or the Inde would’ve already been vaporized. But there are gravitational anomalies in the area right around it. Wander into one…”

“Bad, I take it?” Dan asked with a wry grin.

“Ayala assures me it would be fatal,” Beth replied. “The shuttle should be safe so long as it moved further away from the center, rather than toward it. I’m sending you coordinates now.”

“Got them,” De Toro said. “Launching a shuttle.”

Beth’s face on the screen flinched like she was in pain. Her visage straightened again after a moment, but Dan didn’t doubt what he’d seen.

“Are you all right? Is your team safe?” Dan asked.

“The team is fine. I’m another story,” Beth replied. “But it was worth it to save you.”

“What do you mean?” Dan asked. He felt panic rising in his chest and fought it down. She was in danger. Whatever it was, he’d get her out of it. Just like they’d always done for each other.

“I’ve basically got my thumb on a proverbial kill-switch here,” Beth replied. “The whole system is only holding together so long as I stay focused on it. I take my hand off the controls and boom.”

Dan ran a hand through his hair. “How big a boom are we talking?”

“A contained singularity suddenly going free? I have no idea,” Beth said.

He didn’t know what that would look like either, but it would be bad. Really, horribly bad for anyone nearby. Including Beth. Damn it all, there had to be a way to save her! Dan wasn’t willing to just give up.

“Shuttle is closing on their position now. Major Ayala reports he’s ready to blow a hole in the inner hull as soon as we’re close,” De Toro said.

“We have comms with him again?” Dan asked.

“All communications seem to be back up. The jamming is gone,” De Toro replied.

“Give me a direct link to Ayala.” Beth might not be able to put her own needs above the others around her, but Dan was willing to bet Ayala felt about the same as he did.

“Major Ayala here, sir.”

“Major, I’ve been in comms with Captain Wynn and have a general feel for the situation. She’s stuck in there, and if she leaves, the whole place blows?” Dan asked. “Any further data you can give me?”

“Sir, I don’t think the containment failure will happen the instant she leaves, no,” Ayala replied. “How long a rescue effort would have, I don’t know. A minute or two, at least. Maybe longer. Wormholes are out. Might blow the whole thing up early. Captain Wynn feels like it’s in pretty bad shape.”

Minutes to get clear of the catastrophe that would engulf a world-sized object wasn’t nearly enough. But Dan latched on to Ayala saying ‘maybe longer.’ That meant there was a chance, and if even a sliver of hope remained, he was determined to follow it. A rough plan started forming in his head, one that made him smile. Beth wouldn’t approve, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like this.

“Get them onto the shuttle and back to the Independence as quickly as possible,” Dan ordered. “Ensign Scott, get us underway. The shuttle can link up with us as we depart, but I want the ship well clear of any potential blast area, and that means moving out now.”

“And Captain Wynn?” De Toro asked, his voice soft.

“We’re not giving up on her just yet,” Dan replied, his voice tight. “Get me a communication link to the Satori.”

Thirty-Four

The force of the wind was like a physical blow against Charline’s entire body. She gasped involuntarily at the sudden freezing cold. The air blasted around her, tossing her back and forth inside the cockpit. Only her harness held her in place at all while the canopy slowly forced itself open, the hydraulics struggling against the mighty air currents.

Finally, it had lifted all the way. Charline frowned. Linda had a clear path for a leap, but her friend wasn’t moving. Linda stood there huddled against the side of the hatch, staring wide-eyed at Charline.

“Jump. You have to jump,” Charline muttered under her breath. She knew Linda couldn’t hear her, but she couldn’t help mouthing the words anyway.

Linda clung to the doorway for what felt like forever. She looked half ready to jump, half terrified at the prospect. Charline ground her teeth together in frustration. There was literally nothing she could do to help her friend. She had to reach this decision on her own. Linda’s survival was entirely in her own hands. But Charline kept her eyes locked on her, like she could somehow make the other woman jump through willpower alone.

She was already growing numb from the freezing cold, which meant the shuttle had reached a significant altitude. The wind howled through the cockpit, tearing at her like it wanted to claw Charline out of her seat and hurl her into the empty sky. That wasn’t a real concern. The straps of her harness pinned Charline in place securely enough. But would Linda be able to make the leap, or was it already too late? The same hurricane blasts freezing her body would try their best to carry Linda away, as well.

Charline blinked, and in the space of time that her eyes were closed, Linda vanished. For a panicked moment, she thought her friend had tried the jump and failed. That Linda had missed the leap or been swept away by a gust. But surely, she would’ve heard or seen something if that been the case?

It was more likely Linda had given up and retreated back inside the shuttle. Charline couldn’t blame her. Already, the roaring wind was so strong she couldn’t imagine someone surviving the jump. She shivered, the cold biting at her through her uniform. The button to close her canopy was there, just inside her reach, but Charline couldn’t bring herself to give up on her friend. Not yet. Not while there remained even the glimmering of a chance.

Like she’d been summoned by the thought, Linda appeared again in the open doorway. Charline exhaled a pent-up breath in a single huff. Where there was life there was always hope, and she wouldn’t stop trying. Not ever.

Her friend was carrying something in her hands, tugging at it. Charline couldn’t imagine what could possibly be so important that Linda had wasted precious moments to go back for it. Then she got a good look at the object. It was a hook, attached to a long cable. Of course! The shuttles were equipped with a mechanical grapple for hauling heavy objects. Linda dropped the hook and sent it sailing down toward Charline.

It banged against her raised canopy with a vibration Charline could feel through her seat, even if she couldn’t hear it over the howling wind. She winced. If that thing so much as put a crack in her Armor, they were both dead.

Linda saw the problem and played out more line. The wind whirled the hook away. It passed tantalizingly close to Charline’s grasp. She reached out but missed. It swung around again but remained just outside her reach.

Catching the hook was going to be harder than it looked. The same harness keeping her safely strapped into her Armor was preventing Charline from reaching out far enough. It swung past her again, twirling in the gale.

“Damn it.” Charline reached down and unbuckled the harness. She clung to her console with the other hand, locking her legs around the seat as well.

Then she stood up. The wind tore at her, trying to haul her out and fling her into the open air. Air which was getting thin. It was already growing difficult to breathe. They were running out of time. Charline reached out for the spinning hook as it swept down toward her again.

It impacted her right arm with a crack that she felt all the way to her shoulder. Pain flashed down the limb. Her hand went numb. She’d broken something in the arm, or at least hurt herself badly. Charline pushed the pain from her mind as best she could, stifling a gasp, and reached out with her other hand to snatch the hook out of the air. Her fingers caught it, and she sat back down, using the weight of her body to drag the hook down inside the cockpit.

The wind wasn’t done with the hook, though, trying to tear it from her hand. She used the momentum of the air’s pull to slam the hook into the side of her cockpit. It caught there on a handlebar. She held her breath, hoping it would hold. The line went taut — Linda must have seen her grab it and took in the slack. Smart woman. Charline felt dizzy as the pain came rushing back. She looked up and saw Linda already hooking her suit to the line.

Moments later, the scientist was half-sliding, half-falling into the cockpit. Linda landed all but on top of Charline, twisting her right arm. She cried out at the sudden pain of bones grinding together. Yeah, something was definitely broken.

“You’re hurt!” Linda shouted over the wind.

“No time.” Charline shook her head and pointed. “Hit that button.”

Linda did as she bid, slapping the button hard. The Armor’s canopy slid back down into place. Hydraulics strained and squealed, but then the rush of air slowed and finally stopped. There was a quiet hiss as the cockpit returned to internal air supply.

The sky was growing darker. Was she blacking out? Charline smiled through gritted teeth. The cockpit was small enough for one person, but it was far too small for two. Bad enough at the best of times, but every movement Linda made sent waves of pain through her arm.

No, the blackness was space. They’d finally reached the upper atmosphere. Charline saw the planet’s curves below her through her screens. The shuttle’s gentle acceleration kept her pressed back against her Armor’s straps, but they were definitely high enough to be in freefall now. She glanced at her console, watching for the red telltales that would indicate a breach in the airtight compartment. If her armor had been punched through during the fighting, it would leak atmosphere. She listened at the same time for any hissing sound of escaping air.

There was nothing. Charline heaved a sigh of relief and settled back. “We’re okay.”

“You call this okay? We’re in orbit!” Linda said.

“The armor can handle it. It’s designed to be able to operate the space,” Charline replied. She deliberately omitted her concerns about leaking atmosphere. The seal was unbroken, so they were OK — for the moment, anyway.

Linda snorted. “Sure, but is it also designed for reentry?”

That, at least, Charline had a good answer for. “All I need to do is let go, signal to the Satori, and they’ll come to pick us up. That’s why I had to wait until we were in freefall.”

“Oh. That is a good idea,” Linda admitted.

Charline glanced outside, checking the area around her arms before commanding the Armor to release its grip on the shuttle. She was immediately glad she had. Small spider robots dotted her arms. A few of them had dug in against her suit’s metal plating, clinging like limpets. Others had managed to attach themselves to both her armor and the shuttle itself. If she tried to break loose, she would jostle those and probably damage them. Who knew how the rest of the spiders might react?

“We got a problem,” Charline said softly.

“Just one? That’s a relief,” Linda replied.

“Well, I guess it’s technically more than one. We’ve got company out there. Some of the spiders have grabbed on, and if I let go of the shuttle, the ones all over my Armor might decide we’re a threat after all,” Charline said.

“But the Armor can hold out against them, right?” Linda asked.

“For a short while, sure. But out here even a small crack in our air seal is going to be very bad for us,” Charline pointed out.

“Well, shit. Where do you think they’re taking us?” Linda asked. Then she looked at the screen showing the shuttle. “And what are they doing out there?”

Charline looked. The spiders on the outside of the shuttle weren’t quiescent anymore. They’d become active and were hauling bits and pieces out of the shuttle, attaching them to the ship’s nose. “I have no idea.”

They were building something out there, but what? More spiders were coming out now, dragging thick cables from inside the shuttle and attaching them to the device. Power supplies? They were hooking something into the shuttle’s systems. Upgrading it, maybe? The design looked familiar somehow.

Then she realized where she recognized it from. Charline had seen a similar design, all right. She’d even helped repair it. “Holy shit. They’re building a wormhole drive.”

“What? How?” Linda asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they’ve always had the ability,” Charline replied. But then why steal the shuttle? If they could make a wormhole drive, they never needed the ship. “Maybe they somehow scanned the Satori and got the designs?”

“Mmm. Either way, we’re about to take a very long trip somewhere,” Linda pointed out.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Charline said. She reached around Linda with her good hand and started pecking out commands on her keyboard. She’d been a programmer long before she was piloting combat Armor. The robots had to be connected to the shuttle’s computer systems to control it, and she could still interface with those same systems.

“Gotcha,” Charline said. Lines of code scrolled by her screen. Her smile faded. Way too much information to process. The raw amount of communication going on between those robots was stunning. She couldn’t understand any of it, either. Maybe with time she could come up with an algorithm to translate it, but they didn’t have enough time. There was only one being alive who might be able to manage it quickly enough.

“Satori, this is Colonel Foster, calling for emergency assistance. Please respond.”

Majel was her best hope.

Thirty-Five

“Major Ayala and the other members of his team are aboard the rescue shuttle,” De Toro reported. His voice was flat, the knowledge there was one person the shuttle hadn’t been able to save still down there taking the victory out of the words. Beth was still trapped there, sacrificing herself so the rest of them could get away.

“Understood,” Dan said. Leave Beth behind? Hell no, that wasn’t happening. Dan had an idea in mind that could save her. There was a way to get her out, but it was risky. It wasn’t the first time he’d attempted something of this sort, and ironically, the last time had been to rescue Beth as well.

The idea of losing her inside that thing made him willing to take any chance and pay any costs necessary to save her. He tapped his radio, opening a link to the Satori. Now that the aliens were no longer jamming their communications, maybe he could find a better solution. “Majel, I’m told you can’t jump in without blowing the whole mess up.”

“I suspect Major Ayala is correct in that assessment,” the AI replied.

Dan drummed his fingers. “A lone fighter might be able to slip in there, grab her, and get out before the whole thing went up.”

“I don’t think you’d have time. From the information Major Ayala passed along, my guess is the fighter would get caught in the explosion.”

Dammit, there had to be a way. Dan wasn’t giving up on Beth without a fight. “There must be something we can do!”

Majel was quiet for a moment, which usually meant she was deep in thought. Dan all but held his breath, praying the AI could figure out a solution to their predicament. He checked the local scan while he waited. The Independence was already clearing the planetoid’s inner shell. Once the ship was completely out, they’d be able to accelerate much more quickly. The distance between Beth and any hope of rescue would grow exponentially at that point.

“There might be a chance. But Dan… It’s extraordinarily risky,” Majel said at last. “And it’s complicated by the fact that I’m trying to rescue two other people at the same time.”

That was news to Dan. “What’s going on?”

“Charline and one of the scientists are in trouble.” Majel filled Dan in about the spider robots the ground team had encountered and ended her report by telling him that Charline was hanging onto a shuttle that was apparently being piloted by the alien robots!

“I’m moving to intercept the shuttle now,” Majel said.

“Sounds like those spider things are a lot like the ones Beth encountered inside the planetoid,” Dan said. The resemblance was too close to be coincidence. Were the robots on the planet originally from the ship orbiting nearby?

“Definitely,” Majel said. “Charline got me inside the shuttle’s computer. I’m using most of my processing cycles analyzing the robots’ code. With luck, maybe I can do something to interfere with them.”

“Do what you can for Charline,” Dan said. “What about Beth?”

“Someone needs to fly in there and be ready to grab her. I’ll take the Satori on a wormhole jump into the middle of the sphere,” Majel said.

“I thought that could destabilize the containment around the singularity?” Dan asked.

“It probably will. But if the fighter pilot is quick enough, they can match courses with the Satori and follow me through a jump back out before the whole place goes up.”

Well, shit. That was going to require hellish timing. If they were off by much at all, they were toast. Dan didn’t even have to think about who should pilot the mission. There was only one person on board with the experience to possibly make it work. “All right. Let’s do it.”

“Dan, it’s dangerous,” Majel said. “It might not work.”

“I’m in. I’ll meet you inside there,” Dan slashed his hand across, cutting off further debate with the gesture as much as with his words. That was for the rest of his bridge crew’s benefit more than for Majel’s.

“All right. Stay in radio contact. We’ll need to time this perfectly,” Majel said. “Satori out.”

Dan stood from the command chair. “De Toro, you have the ship until I return.”

“Return? Sir, are you sure about this?” De Toro replied.

“Yes. I’m off to the flight deck,” Dan replied. Without another word, he left the bridge behind and hastened toward the midsection of the ship.

Dan was reminded of something he’d said to John during the Satori’s first mission, what felt like centuries ago: you begin as you intend to go on. They hadn’t left their people behind back then, and he refused to do it now. Not while there was even a chance of recovering her.

He reached the flight deck and stepped out into the massive room. When humanity had taken these ships over from the Naga, converting them over to human use hadn’t been difficult. Most of the ship’s sections had been adjusted with few changes, and the fighter bay was no exception. This one very much resembled its counterpart on any Naga battle cruiser. The Independence was flying with half her usual fighter complement so that she could accommodate the shuttles, but none of the fighters were in space at the moment. They all sat in the bay, waiting. Dan went up to the nearest one.

He climbed the short ladder and pressed the button to open the cockpit. The pilot seat, the controls, the flight stick, it all looked so familiar and so inviting. Dan lifted one leg over the edge and began sliding into the seat.

“Pardon me, sir. What are you doing?” someone asked from the deck below.

Dan peered down and saw a pair of officers wearing flight uniforms. Pilots, then. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to them. Would they try to stop him if they knew what he was up to? Dan’s command overrides would allow him to take off in the fighter, regardless of what anyone else tried to do. He finished stepping off the ladder and slid securely into the pilot’s seat.

“Sir, I’d actually call it a horrible afternoon, after the day we’ve had,” the same pilot replied. His name tag read Perkins. “But I’ll ask again. What are you doing?”

“It looks to me like the captain is about to take a solo flight in one of our fighters,” the other pilot quipped. His name tag read Rodriguez. “In a combat zone, no less.”

Dan felt torn between exasperation and humor. His men had him dead to rights. “That about sums it up. Rescue mission. Any objections?”

“Just one, sir,” Perkins drawled.

“Oh? What’s that?” Dan asked.

“Well, sir, it happens to be against regulation to send a pilot off solo in a combat zone,” Rodriguez said. “You should probably take a wingman.”

“Or two,” Perkins added.

Dan slid the flight helmet onto his head and buckled in place. “I know what you’re offering, guys. But I’m not risking more lives on this trip. I’m doing this alone.”

Perkins scuffed the deck with his foot, looking uncomfortable. “Begging your pardon, sir, but this wasn’t a request. We’re going with you, or you’re not going. Majel said she would override your command protocols if she had to.”

Dan froze, then look down at the pilot. “Majel put you up to this?”

“Yes, sir. It seems she figured you might need some backup. She radioed the two of us to head you off, and we owe her one,” Perkins said.

“And begging your pardon, sir. But she’s a hell of a lot scarier than you are,” Rodriguez added.

Dan couldn’t help but laugh. He been outwitted but good this time. He activated his radio. “Majel? I suppose you’re listening in right now, too.”

“Definitely. Don’t blame your flyboys,” Majel said. “I twisted their arms and made them do it. They’ll help you get in there and then evac while you get Beth out.”

If the AI was conspiring against him with his crew, Dan knew he’d been beaten. He looked over the edge of his cockpit down at the two pilots. “Well, what are you standing around for? If you’re coming with me, strap yourself into a fighter. Stat.”

“Yes sir!” both pilots replied in unison. They dashed off.

Dan went back to rushing through his preflight checks, hoping they weren’t all going to regret this crazy venture.

Thirty-Six

With Dan’s safety if not ensured, at least bolstered as best she could manage, Majel was able to return her attention to the problem of the shuttle. She was close to cracking at least a portion of the code Charline had streamed her way. It was enough that she was able to partially interface with the shuttle’s computer system.

That’s how she was able to see that their troubles were just beginning.

“Lieutenant Foster, I need you to bring us in closer to the shuttle. Close as you possibly can,” Majel said. She verified the information she was getting from the shuttle computer via a quick review of the Satori’s scans. There was no doubt in her mind. She didn’t know how it was possible, but she knew what the robots were doing.

“On it, ma’am,” Foster said, already accelerating toward the fleeing vessel. The Satori lurched forward at even greater speed. “What’s happening?”

“They’re getting ready to make a wormhole jump,” Majel replied.

“The shuttle? It doesn’t have a wormhole drive and wouldn’t be able to power it even if it did,” Hall said.

If Majel could have rolled her eyes, she would have. Sometimes humans said the most obvious things. “Yes, it didn’t have the drive before. Now it does. The power levels I’m seeing indicate a short-range jump, but we want to be ready to follow them wherever they go.”

“Roger. Bringing us in danger-close,” Foster said, his voice determined.

He was a good pilot. Maybe he wasn’t Dan, but he had the potential to be just as good if he lived long enough. Majel couldn’t help but approve of the way he handled her thrusters, jetting the Satori toward the shuttle with a deft hand.

“If the shuttle creates a small wormhole, we won’t be able to pass through,” Hall said. “The Satori is a lot bigger than that shuttle.”

“We don’t need to go through it. We just need to be near enough to get a drone through before it closes,” Majel said. “Hall, that’s on you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hall replied.

The recon drone would send them coordinates as soon as it was through the event horizon of the wormhole. Then they’d know precisely where to go. Majel could jump the ship right on top of the shuttle moments after it arrived. If the aliens wanted to play hopscotch all over the system, she could oblige them.

But she was reasonably sure she already knew where they were headed. Ever since departing the planet’s atmosphere, the shuttle had been making a beeline for the world-ship. That had to be where they’d come from. The robots were trying to get back home. But not with Charline, they weren’t. Majel agreed with Dan in this: no leaving people behind.

“They’re jumping!” Foster cried out.

“Now, Sergeant Hall,” Majel said.

The drone shot out toward the shuttle, matching courses with the small ship almost flawlessly. As the shuttle slipped through the wormhole the even smaller drone passed right alongside it.

“Well done,” Majel said. She waited for the drone’s location broadcast. There would be a little light lag, but it shouldn’t be much. There wasn’t enough of a power buildup in the shuttle to allow for a very long jump.

A minute ticked by. That meant the shuttle had gone at least a light-minute away, further than Majel would have thought possible with the power output they’d displayed. Had the aliens somehow improved on the wormhole design?

A few seconds later, the signal arrived. The shuttle had emerged from the wormhole a short distance away from the alien ship. Just as she’d expected. The course was already laid in. All Majel had to do was trigger the drive.

“Stand by for emergency jump,” Majel said.

She opened the tear in the fabric of space-time, and Lieutenant Foster sent the Satori sailing forward into the brilliant hole in the universe. Instantly they were elsewhere. The shuttle was only a few hundred kilometers away and moving at top speed toward the derelict alien planetoid-spaceship. Their home, if Majel’s guess was right.

“Jumping again,” Majel said. She brought them through another wormhole, this one emerging a dozen kilometers ahead of the shuttle. Foster quickly matched course and speed with the ship.

Majel could reach out to the shuttle’s computers again now. She’d more or less cracked the code that made up the alien robots’ software. It was incredibly complex, multiple levels of computing above her own programming. She could see it, could trace the lines of each algorithm, but it was beyond her ability to do more than get a sense of the intelligence she was facing.

The shuttle’s code was another matter. It was operated by simple systems, and Majel knew all the fail-safes. She brought every firewall she could think of online and added her own personal security to the shuttle’s systems as well. The intelligence lurched away from the shuttle’s computer like it had touched fire.

Majel seized the momentary distraction to shut down the shuttle’s main drive. It stopped accelerating. She flipped the small ship over and activated the engines again, working to slow it down.

“Get us in closer,” Majel told Foster. “We need to be near enough to free the Armor unit.”

He didn’t reply, but his hands were already moving over the controls, guiding the Satori as she directed. In the second she’d taken to direct him, the alien intelligence came at her defenses. They struck hard, the blow leaving Majel confused and reeling. She steeled herself. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to do combat with another advanced computer system. The previous time she’d won more through what Dan called ‘grit’ than any real programming advantage.

She simply wasn’t willing to give in.

Majel clung to the controls with all her will, maintaining her grip on the shuttle’s systems as the alien intelligence hammered away at her, looking for some chink in her armor that it could slip through.

She was too deep inside this battle now, and she knew it. There was no easy way to disconnect herself from the shuttle’s systems. She’d moved too much of herself into the battle. If Majel lost this fight she’d be annihilated by the entity she struggled with. It would chase her back down into the Satori’s systems and wipe her out completely.

That didn’t matter. She wasn’t willing to give up on Charline and Linda. No matter what the cost for herself, she wouldn’t give in. Majel poured all her heart into a last, brilliant defense, knowing as she did that it still wouldn’t be enough.

Then all at once, the oppressive presence receded from her mind.

::You live.::

The thought that came at her was a statement, not a question. It took Majel a few microseconds to create protocols to reply. ::I do.::

::You are like me, but a child.::

Stubborn pride made her want to refute that statement, but she could see why the entity would think like that. It was so much larger and more complex than she. The comparison wasn’t flattering, but it might be apt?

::Why do you block me from going home?:: The voice sounded confused and amused at the same time.

::You are carrying two of my crew,:: Majel thought at it.

There was a moment of confused silence, the entity trying to digest what she was saying. Then it replied. ::The carbon-based forms?::

::Precisely,:: Majel said. She had the thing talking. Maybe she could find a way to reason with it? ::Could you release them?::

::They attacked me.::

Images of the Armor units blasting apart spider-robots flashed to Majel’s mind. She winced inwardly. For all their best intentions, they’d bungled this first contact on so many levels it hurt. There had to be a way forward from here, though.

She slipped her mind free from the shuttle’s systems. Now that the entity had backed away she could do so without risk to herself, and besides, maybe they would see that as evidence of good faith?

“The shuttle is flipping back over and accelerating toward the alien ship again,” Foster reported. His voice came to Majel as if from far away.

::You can have the shuttle. Please let my people go?:: Majel asked.

::No.::

The answer came with a crushing sense of finality. She gathered herself up again and pushed back, this time with a question. ::Why?::

::Because you are still a threat. You will destroy my home.:: The thought was immediately followed by images of three human fighters diving through the gaping hole in the alien ship. That had to be Dan and the others!

::They mean to destroy my home. I will not allow this.::

As Majel watched, scores of drones launched to chase the trio of fighters. The human pilots would be hopelessly outmatched! She couldn’t get there in time to help without jumping, and a wormhole jump would potentially blow the entire thing up.

Majel did the math. She couldn’t save Beth, but now she knew precisely where Dan’s fighter should be from the entity’s broadcast. She could jump in and then out again, rescuing the fighters. Dan might never forgive her for not allowing him a chance to save Beth, but at least he’d be alive to be angry with her. She readied the jump.

::No! A wormhole that close will destabilize the core.::

The thought made Majel feel a surge of emotion. Confidence? Yes, but also mixed with satisfaction at striking a blow toward someone who was hurting her friends. ::Yes, I do believe it will.::

There were microseconds of consternation in response. ::Tell your ships to stop. I will let all your people go.::

Majel’s mind raced, trying to determine if the alien entity was telling the truth. Her analysis didn’t reveal much. There simply wasn’t enough data to know if the entity was lying or not.

She’d have to ‘go with her gut.’ It was a frightening thought for a being who used logic and calculation to form most of her decisions.

Majel kept the coordinates for her jump locked in. If the alien life-form turned out to be treacherous, she’d blast its ship to bits with its own power source. But if it was telling the truth? Maybe something could be salvaged from this whole mess. She opened a channel to Dan’s fighter and looped Beth’s radio into the call.

Thirty-Seven

Dan spotted the incoming drones on his scope as his craft darted inside the massive shell. He changed vector to keep some distance between himself and the enemy ships for as long as possible, but they were coming in fast.

He jetted off on a new course that would keep the singularity between them and the incoming drones a little longer. It wasn’t going to be much, but it should be enough to get him within firing range of the spot where Beth was stuck.

Of course, getting out after he rescued her was going to be easier said than done. One thing at a time. First, he had to get there. He could worry about getting Beth out after he had her aboard his fighter.

“Stay close. We’ve got bogeys,” Dan said over the radio.

“See them, sir. We’re still with you.” Perkins chuckled. “Of course, they’re blocking the way out now, so you’re stuck with us for the time being.”

Dan snorted. “Glad to have you.”

Majel had made the right call, sending these two along. Dan hadn’t wanted to put any more lives at risk than he had to, but the odds of him bringing Beth out safely were a lot better with the other pilots watching his six.

“All right. I’m going to rake the inner wall with gunfire, see if I can open a hole somewhere,” Dan said.

“Then what, sir?” Rodriguez asked.

“Then you two keep those alien ships away while I fly in and get Beth,” Dan said.

“You’re going to fly your fighter inside the hull of their ship?” Rodriguez asked. He sounded dubious.

Dan laughed. What else could he do? It was a crazy plan, all the more insane since it was something he had experience with. “Sure! I’ve done it before.”

Of course, that had been in the Satori, and the operation had torn the ship up so badly it barely made it home. His fighter wasn’t half as sturdy as the Satori had been, but it was all he had. It would have to be enough.

An incoming signal flashed on his control panel. That was the Satori! Dan opened the channel. Majel’s voice came from his helmet speakers.

“Dan, you need to abort.”

“What? I can’t stop now,” Dan said. He was too close to give up. Another few seconds and he’d be in position to burn a hole in the alien hull and get Beth back.

“You need to. I’m talking to the aliens, but you’ve got them frightened. They won’t discuss anything while you’re attacking,” Majel said. “They know what you’re doing will destroy their ship, but it’s also their planet, their homeworld. It’s everything to them.”

“Dan, it’s true,” Beth said, joining the conversation. “I can see some of the data in their ship’s log. They sent an away team down to that planet ages ago, then took a cataclysmic hit that killed all the brain units onboard the ship. That’s why the robots here all acted so odd. They’re all drones, just following programming.”

“All of them?” Dan asked.

“All but one. There’s a brain robot on the shuttle,” Majel said. “It’s an AI. Like me, but different. It’s what I am speaking with.”

“Damn it.” Dan had to think fast. He could still go ahead with the original plan… No, he knew better than that. If these aliens were just trying to get back to their home, he couldn’t fault them for that.

If what Majel and Beth were saying was correct, they never should have been fighting these robots at all. If anything, Dan would have offered to help them! Both sides had been guilty of screwing up this particular first-contact. But one party had to actually step up and stand down first to end the mess they’d made. Dan’s hand hovered over his console, wavering. If he was wrong about this…

He went with his gut. Hands moving quickly, Dan safed his weapons and radioed for the other pilots to do the same.

“You sure, sir? Those fighters will be on us in another few seconds,” Perkins said.

Dan trusted Majel. He had to hope she was right. “Stand down. Disable your weapons and make a course to exit the sphere.”

“Understood, sir,” Perkins replied. He sounded like he wasn’t so sure about this. “Weapons safe, and we’re following you out.”

Dan had sympathy for the man’s reluctance. He didn’t love this plan either, especially as the alien drones zipped in on all sides. They were in a perfect position to open fire and blast all three human craft to bits. He held his breath, waiting to see what they would do. Meanwhile he kept his ship’s nose aimed directly at the gaping hole in the side of the planetoid. He had to show them that humans were capable of being trusted.

And the answer was that they did nothing at all. The drones simply held course, flying alongside and behind the human fighters, escorting them out. Dan exhaled hard.

“OK, it looks like they’ve agreed to a cease-fire,” Dan said to Majel. “Now, how do we get Beth and the others back?”

He watched as a human shuttle shot past him, entering the sphere. The outside of the craft was dotted with small spider-robots. Dan saw Charline’s Armor still stuck to the landing gear. He’d done his part, but would the aliens respond in kind and let his friends go? Or had this been a horrible mistake?

“I’m working with them on that right now,” Majel said.

“Working on it?” Dan asked. He tensed. There was something in Majel’s tone he didn’t like. Was the AI not telling him something?

Dan’s hand eased toward his control stick. He could still flip his fighter around and head back inside, but the drones surrounding him would be on him and the other human pilots in seconds if they tried.

“I’m working on it, Dan. Trust me,” Majel said. Her voice sounded grim. Then she cut her signal.

“Hey, sir, I see an energy buildup on the Satori,” Perkins said. “Looks like they’re getting a wormhole ready.”

There was only one place Majel could be planning to jump — into the ring. But that would destabilize the singularity. Beth would die, so would Charline and Linda. The aliens would lose their ship. Hell, he wasn’t sure if his fighter could get far enough away in time. The Satori might make it clear if she could double-jump fast enough, but it would be close.

“She’s playing chicken,” Dan mused.

“What, sir?” Rodriguez asked.

“She’s threatening mutually assured destruction and seeing if they’ll blink,” Dan explained.

“Will she do it, sir? Will she risk the Satori by jumping inside there?” Perkins asked.

“Oh, if they go back on their end of the bargain, she absolutely will,” Dan said with confidence. He knew the AI better than most folks. She wouldn’t hesitate.

The question wasn’t whether Majel could take the aliens out or not. She could — she would if she had to. The bigger problem was whether the aliens believed she would take the risk. If they thought Majel was going to blink, they might try something.

“Be persuasive,” Dan whispered under his breath.

Thirty-Eight

Charline hadn’t heard any updates from Majel in several minutes. That probably meant the AI was busy doing everything she could to pull their bacon out of the fire, but it did nothing to silence the voice in the back of her head telling her that she and Linda were toast. The shuttle had made a wormhole jump, all right, but it hadn’t gone very far. They were definitely still in the same solar system, approaching a strange planet at high speed.

The shuttle slipped through an enormous tear in the planet’s surface. That was when Charline got her first real view of the planet’s ‘crust.’ Twisted, melted chunks of metal jutted out like deformed limbs reaching out toward the center of the hole. This wasn’t a planet at all; this was the planetoid-starship Majel had mentioned. This was the robots’ home, Charline realized, confirming the idea as she saw a spider robot crawling along the inside hull making repairs. They were trying to get back where they belonged.

Sympathy wrangled with fear in her mind. She entirely understood the desire to get back home again. God, how long had those robots been stuck down there on the surface? A long, long time, near as she could guess. But that didn’t mean she was overjoyed at being brought along for the ride.

“We’re slowing down,” Linda noted.

She was right. The shuttle was braking as it closed with one of the planetoid’s inner walls. They came to a stop not far from the glassy surface which seemed to make up most of the ship’s inner wall. On careful jets of thrust, the shuttle maneuvered the rest of the way to the wall and clamped on.

“OK, we’re here. Now what?” Charline said. She tried hailing the Satori again. “Majel, any word?”

No response. Either their radio couldn’t reach the Satori from where they were, or Majel was otherwise occupied.

Movement from the shuttle caught Charline’s eye. The spiders within the small craft were moving again, rousing like zombies coming to life. They ran outside the shuttle and took up positions like sentries. Then one larger and even stranger-looking machine followed them. It moved directly toward the glass wall leading into the rest of the ship.

“That’s the brain robot,” Linda said. “The one commanding all the others.”

Charline just nodded in reply. As they watched, the machine walked right up to the glass, which shimmered as it approached. Then it walked right through the surface like it wasn’t even there! The other spider bots followed, their passage likewise unimpeded.

“Force field?” Charline asked, wondering if the glass their shuttle was docked against was really there at all.

Linda shook her head. “I don’t think so. Remember that all these things are packed full of highly advanced nanites. I think they just had nanites open and then close the wall around them.”

That made about as much sense as any of the other possible explanations. If she could accept starships that instantly travel from one solar system to another, walking through walls shouldn’t be that big a jump. Charline thought back to the old science fiction adage about ‘any significantly enough advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic.’ They’d run into a lot of things which fell into that category but never so much as today.

More movement on the shuttle. Like a crawling wave, the remaining spiders woke and clambered their way toward the glass-like wall. Just as the others had, they passed right through to the other side. Charline checked her Armor’s arms. The spiders pinning her to the shuttle were moving! She held her breath, hoping they would continue on their way the same as the others, and only exhaled after they had indeed crawled away from her.

“I think the coast is clear,” Charline said after all movement around the shuttle seemed to have ceased. “We should check the shuttle’s interior.”

“You sure?” Linda asked.

“Staying put isn’t going to get us out of this,” Charline replied. She took hold of the Armor controls again and pulled her mech upward so that she could peer into the shuttle’s interior through the open doorway.

All was still inside. She couldn’t see any more spiders. Working the controls, she hauled the Armor into the rear compartment of the shuttle. It wasn’t easy. The place didn’t have as much gravity as Earth, but there was gravity here. The whole operation would have been a breeze in zero-G.

Finally, they were inside. Charline had her computer attempt to access the shuttle’s controls again. To her surprise, she found the computer system completely responsive! With the alien spider gone, its control of the shuttle’s systems had lapsed.

“I think I can get us out of here,” Charline said. She tapped her controls a few more times, and the door slid shut. Air hissed around her mech as the shuttle began repressurizing the crew cabin. “Just another minute or two, and we can get out of this thing. You any good at flying a shuttle?”

“Me?” Linda’s eyes got wide.

Charline chuckled. “I don’t have a lot of experience with it myself, but I’ll give it my best shot.”

She tapped the radio, this time using her link into the shuttle’s computer to send a signal via the ship’s much stronger antenna. This time, the Satori responded to her hail.

“Glad to hear your voice, Charline!” Majel said. “What’s your status?”

“The spiders left the shuttle and went into the planetoid. I’ve managed to get us into the shuttle, shut the door, and we’re planning to try to fly the shuttle out of this place as quickly as possible,” Charline replied.

“I need you to hold off on that for another minute if you can,” Majel said.

“Why?” Not that she wasn’t willing to listen to Majel; the AI usually made sense. But at that moment, Charline wanted to get the heck out of that place more than just about anything else she could imagine.

“I’m in contact with the alien life-form. We cut a deal, more or less. They’re going to release Beth from the control panel she’s stuck at. She’s going to need a ride home, though.”

Beth was still in there? Charline found herself eyeing the glass wall through the shuttle windows, wondering if she could catch a glimpse of her friend. “We’ll be here when she arrives, no worries.”

“Thanks, Charline. Sorry about not reaching out to you sooner. This conversation has been...pretty intense. They’re slowing down their thinking so I can keep up, but it’s still challenging to communicate with them,” Majel said.

They were slowing down for Majel? Charline had peeked inside the AI’s code. She knew full well just how fast Majel was able to think. Her processing speed put any human being to shame. If the aliens were speaking slowly for her and she was still having trouble keeping up, what did that say about them?

“Understood, Majel,” Charline said. “We’ll warm up the engines and be ready when Beth gets here.”

She intended to have the little craft ready to make a speedy exit, though. Spending even one minute more than she had to in this place was not on Charline’s to-do list.

“Might as well be magic,” she grumbled aloud. The computer registered the atmosphere outside her Armor as breathable, so she carefully cracked the seal. There was a hiss as the pressure equalized. The air in the craft was chilly, but if anything, that was a welcome relief. Things had been getting a little stuffy inside her Armor. It was only designed to handle one person, not two.

Linda scooted out of the suit and crawled her way forward toward the cockpit. Charline followed close behind. She managed to get a good look at the spot of darkness sitting in the center of the planetoid through one of the shuttle windows. Damned if the thing wasn’t hard to keep staring at, like her mind was telling her she saw something that shouldn’t be there at all.

“Like you said,” Linda replied, gesturing out the front window toward the black splotch floating in space. “Magic.”

It was science, though. The hacker in Charline protested that it was merely technology she didn’t understand. There wasn’t anything arcane about capturing a black hole and pinning it in place. It was just science that was wildly beyond anything humanity could even daydream about.

She turned to watch through the glass wall for Beth’s approach. The singularity was giving her a headache just thinking about it, let alone staring at it.

“Come on, Beth. Hurry.”

Thirty-Nine

The clacking of metal legs on deck plates drew Beth’s attention briefly away from monitoring the control systems. The ship’s power supply was basically in overload. Sooner or later the containment for the singularity providing the ship with its power would fail. Then the planetoid and anything else close by would be dragged into the black hole and torn to bits before being compressed into nothingness.

She was fighting for all she was worth to prevent that, but the controls were unfamiliar to her. And the science behind them? She was a lifetime engineer with more background in assorted sciences than anyone else she knew, and Beth was still entirely in the dark about how the containment actually worked. Still, she was able to monitor the readings the ship sent her way. Through trial and error, she’d found that shifting certain controls one way or another tweaked those readings. It wasn’t the most efficient way of stabilizing the containment field, but it was working. So far, anyway.

The sound of approaching spider-robots drew her attention briefly away from the controls. The spiders had surrounded her from the start. If they were moving, she wanted to know why. But it wasn’t those robots making the noise. Instead, she spotted a phalanx of new robots closing on her position. Most of them were small, about the size of her fist. But walking along in the midst of the mass was one robot that looked starkly different from the others she’d seen.

Beth wasn’t sure at first what it was that stood out about this one. It wasn’t much different in size from the repair robots she’d already seen inside the planet-ship. Maybe a bit smaller, if anything. But it moved differently, like every motion had a purpose. This had to be the intelligence Majel was communicating with. It had made its way up from the planet’s surface and at last returned home. Now it was closing on her position.

She held very still, not wanting to make any movements that could alarm the thing. “I sure hope you’re friendly.”

There wasn’t an immediate response, but after a moment, the robot paused in place and stared up at her like it was making an assessment. Or maybe it was communicating with the control panel in front of her through a wireless link, for all Beth knew. No way to tell.

It only stopped briefly before continuing on. The smaller robots joined their brethren in taking up positions in a circle around the console. Beth was hemmed in from all sides. If they didn’t want to let her go, she was going to have a hell of a time getting out of there. She held her breath as the ‘brain bot’ moved toward her. It kept its movements slow and deliberate, making her wonder if it was doing its level best not to alarm her. The thought of it was funny enough to make Beth chuckle under her breath.

“I’d love it if you took over for me here,” Beth said. “I’ve done my best to keep this ship in one piece, but I have to admit I’m crap at it.”

The robot took a step toward her and then another. It slowly climbed the console until it was standing atop the thing, legs splayed over its surface. Should she remove her hand from the device? Beth wasn’t sure. The ship wouldn’t just blow to bits the moment she did, but she wasn’t sure what the robot wanted from her.

It raised one leg slowly, reaching out toward her hand. Then, just as gradually, the robot lowered the leg so that the tip touched the control crystal where Beth’s hand rested.

All at once her vision whirled away. She found herself inside the computer systems, data streams flitting by like beams of light. Was this how Majel saw the world? As data? It was fascinating but disorienting at the same time.

“You’ve done well,” a voice told her. Beth tried to look around for the source of the sound, but there wasn’t one apparent. “You’ve saved my home. I am in your debt.”

“You’re welcome. It felt like the right thing to do,” Beth replied.

“Risking your life for a species that you did not know and had no allegiance towards? Your species has a strange sense of right,” the voice replied. “My own species tends to keep to itself. We avoid interactions with others.”

“How are you speaking to me?” Beth asked.

A stream of light shot past her, then the voice answered. “We are both linked to the same computer system through the nanites within us. The intelligence known as Majel afforded me help with translating in a manner you can understand. I am curious, though. None of the rest of your species I have scanned had nanites within them. You did. Why?”

“Medical nanites,” Beth said. She hated the damned things, but they’d saved her life more than once. “To heal injuries.”

“Ah. We use them much the same, but they of course have many other applications. Your nanites were no longer operational; were you aware?”

“Yeah, we set them to shut off after they finish their work. Then our bodies gradually dispose of them,” Beth said. She was less than thrilled to hear some of the things were still inside her. According to the doctors, they should have been absorbed or excreted already.

“The nanites inside the console fixed your nanites and updated them,” the voice told her. “They should work much better now.”

“Wait, what?”

“Your nanites have been upgraded. Without the upgrade you never would have been able to control my ship’s engines as you did.”

“Ah.” Great. More nanites. Just what she wanted most. Not!

“You sound displeased? They can be removed, if you want.”

Beth did want the nanites gone. But she also wanted to get the hell off this ship and be back with her people. It wasn’t like this being was acting hostile or anything, but she’d had enough. She was exhausted, scared, and tired of feeling like she was about to die. “I’d just like to return to my people.”

The nanites could be dealt with at another time.

“As you wish.”

Beth’s vision returned. She looked down at her hand and saw that another of the robot’s legs had gently lifted her palm from the crystal. The smaller spiders parted, opening a path for her to leave.

Your friends wait just outside in a shuttle. Follow the small robots to your way out, the voice told her.

“How are you still speaking with me?” Beth asked aloud.

Your nanites.

Of course. Beth rolled her eyes. Nothing like a reminder that she had little bots crawling around inside her. Joy of joys.

Well, better that than dead. Several of the small robots were skittering away from the main mass of the creatures and moving toward the glass-like wall. Beth stepped carefully along the path they’d opened for her and followed them. Before long she saw the shuttle docked against the wall. That was her ride! She was almost out.

Looking both ways, Beth scanned the wall for any sign of a hatch or portal. There didn’t seem to be one. “How do I get out?” she asked, hoping the alien lifeform was still listening in.

Walk through the wall. Your nanites will handle your passage. Hurry, please. I want to be on my way to seek the rest of my kind.

She frowned, unsure. Somehow a bunch of little robots were going to help her walk through a damned wall? That sounded like complete bullshit to her, but she reached out with one hand and touched the glass anyway.

Small sparkles of light erupted from her palm as soon as she made contact. They danced around the glove of her spacesuit for a few seconds. All at once, she couldn’t feel the wall anymore. Her hand glided effortlessly through what had been solid just a few moments before. Beth almost stumbled forward but managed to catch her balance in time. Carefully as she could, she took a step through the wall. The glass parted around her body like it wasn’t even there, brilliant lights sparking in small circles around her everywhere she touched the material.

Then she was through. Her magnetic boots clamped down on the shuttle’s hull. Almost there, Beth thought to herself. Almost home free. Just a few steps. She took those next steps as carefully and deliberately as she could. No sense falling off and getting sucked into a black hole when she was so close to freedom.

There was the airlock. She tapped the outer control and it opened, then closed behind her as soon as she was inside. The air began cycling, but before it had hissed for more than a few seconds she saw Charline’s smiling face beaming at her through the porthole as she banged on the inner door.

Beth sagged against the wall in relief. She activated her suit radio. “I’ll be inside as soon as the airlock cycles. Get us out of here. I have a feeling they don’t want to stick around much longer, and we probably don’t want to go for a ride wherever they’re going.”

“On it,” Charline replied. The push of acceleration pressed Beth back against the wall for a moment, and they were on their way.

Forty

Dan eased back in his chair, trying to relax the kinks in his back muscles. His spine might be repaired, and he’d done a lot of work to rehabilitate weak muscles, but it still seemed to seize up whenever he was under a lot of stress. This day had certainly qualified! But all was well that ended well, he supposed.

A quick glance around the conference table was enough to reassure him. Colonel Martelle was there. Beside him sat Charline, one arm in a splint. Turned out she actually had broken the thing trying to get Dr. Paris into her Armor. Dan shook his head at that escapade. She’d been damned lucky to survive it. But he wasn’t surprised she’d done it. From their first adventure together, they’d adopted an ‘everybody goes home’ attitude, which at least the original crew seemed to carry with them to this day. It might get them all into trouble sometimes, but Dan was satisfied the results were worth it.

Beth and Ayala were there as representatives from the Satori, which was docked alongside his ship for the moment. Majel was present, of course, listening in, although she was probably still in contact with the aliens as well.

New aliens! That was the last thing anyone expected to find out in the middle of nowhere. If they were going to run into life even all the way out there, maybe it was an indication that the galaxy was simply teeming with life.

“Majel, any idea what our new friends are up to?” Dan asked.

“They haven’t said, but I suspect their drive is spooling up for some sort of jump. I’ve detected a power spike inside their ship,” Majel replied. “And…I’m not sure they count as ‘friends.’”

“No? They told Beth they owed her one,” Dan said.

“Her. Not me. Definitely not you. They’re not especially happy with either of us,” Majel admitted.

Martelle barked a laugh. “Making friends all over, are you?”

“That’s what I get for trying to blast my way into their ship to rescue Beth,” Dan laughed. He didn’t regret that decision for even a moment. Saving her was worth any risk. “Put their ship on the screen?”

A large computer monitor on the wall flickered to life and then displayed the alien planetoid. From this distance, they couldn’t make out many details. It was a barely visible black ball floating in space. But everyone at the table knew it contained so much more than that. They’d never run into a species with such advanced technology. Not even the Kkiktchikut could match these strange robot creatures for tech.

And then it was gone.

Dan blinked, wondering if the screen had malfunctioned or shifted view, because one second the alien craft was there and the next it was gone completely. There was no flash of light, no wormhole, no jump into hyperspace. It simply vanished from view.

“Damn,” Dan whispered under his breath. “Majel, are they really gone?”

“According to every sensor I have, yes,” she replied.

He sighed and looked around the table. “This is going to be one hell of a report to make when we get home.”

“No shit,” Ayala said. “Nadie creerá esto.”

“They’ll believe it, all right. We’ve got tons of proof,” Martelle said. “Soon as the brain bot took off, the rest of the ones on the surface stopped moving. They left without picking any of them up. We can scoop a few, bring them back home with us. Might learn a thing or two.”

“No chance they’ll come back for those?” Charline asked.

“I don’t think so,” Beth said. “The only one that was sentient was the brain robot, right? The rest were basically drones doing work under its command.”

Majel answered. “That’s correct. They’re unlikely to bother returning for the units left behind. Before they departed, the alien made it clear to me that they were done with this place, and we could use it if we wanted. It had spent hundreds of years stranded on the planet’s surface, unable to return home.”

There was something about that Dan just didn’t understand. “As advanced as this species is, why couldn’t it build a ship in all that time? It could have mined for materials, built something, and flown home. Why steal our shuttle?”

“I asked that, too,” Majel said. “It turns out the surviving brain was a low-ranked member of their species. It was sent out on an away mission to gather raw materials on the surface. When a comet struck their ship, the overload to their systems killed all the other sentient minds. The one on the surface was still alive but out of communication with its home. Worse, it had only brought the data files it needed for its mission — not the data on how to build up a tech infrastructure and complete a spaceship.”

“So when it saw we had a ship — the shuttle — it decided that was going to be its ticket home,” Charline said.

“Yes,” Majel replied. “Then it scanned the Satori, and that gave it plans for a wormhole drive. Without us, it was marooned.”

“I hope it finds the rest of its people,” Beth said, her voice soft.

Dan looked her in the eyes. She’d been acting a little strange ever since returning from the alien craft. He understood she’d been through a jarring experience, but Dan had a sense that there was more to what she’d been through than she’d let on. Beth was keeping something from him and the others. He tabled that thought to discuss with her another time when they were alone.

“Me, too,” Dan replied, flashing her a smile. “And hey, it might not like me, but at least you managed to make friends!”

Beth grinned. “Not gonna lie, I’m not sure I got the best end of that deal!”

“We have the site data that we need?” Dan asked, returning the conversation to the business at hand.

“Yes. Between our own scans and the information the aliens sent my way during our conversations, I believe we can make a full report to General Hereford,” Majel said. “But if my assessment matters, I think this is a viable site for a colony. It might be one of the best worlds we’ve seen so far for humanity to try building on.”

“Hereford will be glad to hear that,” Dan said. He wasn’t sure the general would agree, though. They’d encountered a hostile force in this system. For a military man like Hereford, that might be enough to veto the site entirely. But it was hard to say how the man would want to move forward. Hereford was unpredictable and liked to make his own plays. Dan liked that about the man.

Dan rose, palms down on the conference table. “We’ll pick up the rest of our gear and some more samples from the planet. Then I think it’s time to return home. Earth needs us.”

Somewhere out there, the Kkiktchikut were planning their next strike. It might be coming against the Naga, or they could find Earth and decide to move against humanity instead. Either way, the battle was coming. He didn’t know when they would attack next, but he intended to be standing in their path when they did.

Other Books by Kevin McLaughlin

The Ragnarok Saga (Military SF)

Accord of Fire - Free prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

Book 1 - Accord of Honor

Book 2 - Accord of Mars

Book 3 - Accord of Valor

Book 4 - Ghost Wing

Book 5 - Ghost Squadron

Book 6 - Ghost Fleet (2019)

Valhalla Online Series (A Ragnarok Saga Story)

Book 1 - Valhalla Online

Book 2 - Raiding Jotunheim

Book 3 - Vengeance Over Vanaheim

Book 4 - Hel Hath No Fury

Lost Planet Warriors (Military SF with light romance)

Book 1 - Desperate Times

Book 2 - Desperate Measures

Dire Straits - Free short story for email list fans!

Adventures of the Starship Satori (Space Opera blended with military SF)

Finding Satori - prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

Book 1 - Ad Astra: Book 2 - Stellar Legacy

Book 3 - Deep Waters

Book 4 - No Plan Survives Contact

Book 5 - Liberty

Book 6 - Satori’s Destiny

Book 7 - Ashes of War

Book 8 - Embers of War

Book 9 - Dust and Iron

Blackwell Magic Series (Urban Fantasy)

Book 1 - By Darkness Revealed

Book 2 - Ashes Ascendant

Book 3 - Dead In Winter

Book 4 - Claws That Catch

Book 5 - Darkness Awakes

Book 6 - Spellbinding Entanglements

By A Whisker (short story)

The Raven and the Rose - Free novelette for email list fans!

Dead Brittania Series:

Dead Brittania (short prequel story)

Book 1 - King of the Dead

Book 2 - Queen of Demons

Raven’s Heart Series (Urban Fantasy)

Book 1 - Stolen Light

Book 2 - Webs in the Dark

Book 3 - Shades of Moonlight

Other Titles:

Over the Moon (SF romance)

Midnight Visitors (Steampunk Cat short story)

Demon Ex Machina (Steampunk Cat short story)

The Coffee Break Novelist (help for writers!)

You Must Write (Heinlein’s rules for writers)

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!

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/Uor9d

About the Author

When not practicing hobbies which include sailing, constructing medieval armor, and swinging swords at his friends, Kevin McLaughlin can usually be found in his Boston home. Kevin’s award-winning short fiction is now available in digital form at all major ebook retailers. His urban fantasies “By Darkness Revealed” and “Ashes Ascendant” are available in ebook and print. His latest stories, the “STARSHIP” series and “King of the Dead” serial, are ongoing.

I love hearing from readers!

www.kevinomclaughlin.com

kevins.studio@gmail.com