Desolator: Conquest: Stellar Conquest Book 2
Author: David Vandyke
Date: 2015-04-12 02:10:15+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Military; Space Opera; Time Travel
Description: DESOLATOR: CONQUEST is Book 2 of the Stellar Conquest series. From Hugo Award finalist and bestselling author David VanDyke. When an enormous and potent alien ship appears in the colony system of Gliese 370, EarthFleet's Marines must investigate. What they find within will change the course of humanity's future yet again, as they face Desolator. The risks are high and so is the price in blood - and the payoff: new technology far ahead of their own, which may provide the key to fight the alien Meme Empire. Plague Wars: Decade One- The Eden Plague- Reaper's Run- Skull's Shadows- Eden's Exodus- A
Publisher: Reaper Press

Table of Contents

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my friends and fellow science-fiction authors Vaughn Heppner and B.V. Larson, for their tireless encouragement, for persevering and showing me the way.

Thanks to my readers – my lovely wife Beth, my friend and fellow authors Ryan King and Nick Stevenson, and the members of our Friday Night Writes group – Caroline Johnson, Carol Scheina, R. Brian Roser, and Duane Lee, talented authors all - for their excellent critiques; their feedback has made me a better writer and this book a better novel.

Cover by Humblenations.com

By David VanDyke:

Plague Wars series:
The Eden Plague
The Demon Plagues
The Reaper Plague
The Orion Plague
Comes The Destroyer (Summer 2013)
Reaper's Run (Summer 2013)

Stellar Conquest series:

First Conquest (within the anthology Planetary Assault)

Desolator

(More to come)

Look for them at your favorite book provider or visit www.davidvandykeauthor.com

Desolator

Stellar Conquest, Book Two
by

David VanDyke

For Stellar Conquest Book One, Click Here: Planetary Assault (First Conquest)

© Copyright 2013 by the author. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means whatsoever (electronic, mechanical or otherwise) without prior written permission and consent from the author. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Prologue

“Where there are three people, there are politics.”
– Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli.

Flight Lieutenant Vincent “Vango” Markis eased his StormCrow Weaver out of the launch tube and into open space. New Jove, the fifth planet in the Gliese 370 system, hung enormous above him, blue and green striations reflecting from the gas giant’s ragged rings and its nearby ice moon Reta. Rolling the StormCrow fighter once around her long axis, he kicked her tail sideways and started his run out into the black.

In the back seat his Weapons Systems Officer, or wizzo, William “Wild Bill” Hickman, said, “Last patrol for you, eh, V? Twelve hours and you’ll be on that transport back home to mama.”

“Yeah, thanks, Bill. Hard enough to concentrate on work without you making it worse.” Vango ran his eyes over his displays, both the physical, and the virtual overlay that used to be called “enhanced reality.” Everything appeared in the green.

“Sorry.” Wild Bill didn’t sound contrite. “You ready to open the package?”

“Sure, hit me.” Vango’s hands and feet rested on his manual controls, stick and throttles and rudder pedals familiar to pilots throughout history. Some fighter jocks relied only on their links, but his grandfather David Markis, who had taught him to fly on an old Cessna 180 at the age of eight back in South Africa, had branded the concept of redundancy onto his brain.

Wild Bill sent the command through his link that loaded the latest updates into the enhanced reality overlay. Optical vision faded, for a time replaced by the brain-fed virtual world. Together he and Vango swooped into artificial space, examining everything the thin fleet of fighters and recon drones dispersed throughout the Gliese 370 star system had reported in the last twelve hours.

“Whole lotta nothin’,” Vango said disgustedly.

“Nothing sounds fine to me,” Wild Bill replied philosophically.

“That’s because you’ve never been in combat. Nothing more fun than to blast the living snot out of some blobbos that are trying to blast you back.”

Wild Bill snorted. “Flyboys.”

“Yeah…all boys now,” Vango mused. “Too bad all our women are back on Afrana or Enoi pumping out babies, so we’re back to a bachelor military. Like the old days.”

“Old days you never saw.”

“Yeah but my dad and grampa told me a lot of stories. So,” he changed the subject, “how’s your girl? What’s her name, Yuki?”

Wild Bill replied flatly, “Ah, we broke it off. The first kid changed her. She loves being a mom but she doesn’t want to be a wife. Said she can get any man she wants now, with all the breeding they are pushing. Guess she doesn’t want me.”

“Aw, man, that’s hard. Sorry, I didn’t know.” They cruised in awkward silence for some tens of minutes. Over their shoulders, at more than ten AU, the system’s orange dwarf sun shone just another star in the background.

“Ready to deploy the feathers?” Wild Bill finally asked as they approached their patrol area well outward of New Jove.

“Not yet. Let’s do something different on our last patrol.”

“As long as we don’t become the lost patrol…you’re the pilot, I’m just along for the ride.”

Vango thought to himself that he might prefer his old wizzo Helen’s combativeness to Wild Bill’s laissez-faire attitude. “Okay. There’s a high-albedo comet about two million klicks out that got missed on the initial railgun strike and has migrated out here. I don’t think anyone’s ever taken a good look at it. No drone on it. Who knows, might be an old Meme installation still there.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Do you ever get excited about anything, Bill? Or is that handle a complete contradiction?”

“With the right stimulus I might. Your wife got any single friends?”

“I’ll ask her the day after I see her. Burn in fifteen. Let’s see how much ol’ Weaver can handle.” Vango set up the trajectory then on the mark lit their fusion engine, accelerating at over one hundred Gs. Balanced gravplates inside the cockpit kept the forces inside manageable, but even so they both felt the brutal acceleration bleed through the link. Eden Plague healing virus, bloodborne nanites and cyberware kept both men functional, but not comfortable.

Half an hour later they turned over and decelerated just as vigorously, in the end to approach the iceball slowly, carefully. Drifting by at easy scanning speeds, Vango brought the Crow around to the other side of the five-kilometer sphere. “Big bastard,” he muttered. “Hardly see anything this large anymore. Meme must have put something on it.”

“Yeah, right there.” Wild Bill put an icon over the anomaly he’d spotted, then made it flash. “Just an old Sentry base. No heat sig, it must be dead.”

Delicately Vango eased the fighter in closer, tapping the thrusters to keep Weaver lined up properly. “Looks like a center hit with a maser. Patrolling Crow most likely, early on before we got real organized. They killed it and just left it here, didn’t file a report.”

“Well, somebody’ll eventually want to use the comet. Lots of good stuff in there. Fifteen or twenty cubic kilometers of water for starters. Prep a marker package and an eyeball.”

“Roger that.” Bill readied a listen-ping beacon and a static sensor as Vango maneuvered them in close. “Package away.”

Plunging into the icy surface, the little drone immediately extruded clamps and crampons, digging itself into the frozen water slush. As soon as it registered solid, Bill commanded the sensors to extend. Soon the thing resembled a metal plant with a two-meter stalk, complete with comm-dish flower.

“Excellent.” Vango goosed the fighter slightly to get it moving away from the planetoid filling half their view. “Wait a minute.” Strengthening the virtual overlay, he pointed with a mental cursor. “What’s that?” He swung the fighter back and forth on its thrusters, suddenly alert.

“Hmm. Not sure. Asteroid fragment?” Three years ago the battle for this system had turned hundreds of thousands of asteroids into hundreds of millions of pieces, characterized by their rough-edged appearance. “Quit squirreling around and let me deploy the high-res scope.” From under one of the fighter’s four wings a hatch opened, and out slid a telescope. Focusing on the anomaly brought it into sharp relief.

Vango mumbled, “Uh…what the hell?”

“Can you stop fidgeting and hold Weaver really steady? There…laser doppler ping…max magnification on the optics.” Bill took a deep breath. “Oh. My.”

“That’s no fragment. That’s artificial. That’s a ship, and not one of ours. What’s the range?” Vango asked.

“Unknown. The pulse hasn’t returned.”

“Hasn’t returned? That thing can’t be that far away.”

“I ain’t arguing, boss. Just saying, it hasn’t returned. Every two more seconds means 300,000 klicks farther away…and it’s been twenty seconds.”

“What do you think that means?” A plaintive note had crept into Vango’s voice.

“I guess it means it’s big and distant. At ten million klicks, simple geometric comparison says it’s…bigger than Conquest. By a lot.”

“And we just fired a ranging pulse at it.” Suddenly a feeling of deep unease came over the pilot. “Time to go.”

Wild Bill barely pulled the delicate telescope inside the fighter before Vango swapped them end for end, pointing Weaver’s nose back toward New Jove and the carrier Temasek. “Tell that eyeball to lock onto that thing and transmit video on command. I’m dropping a feather,” he went on, releasing one of the Crow’s tiny scanning drones. “Set it to stay near the comet in beamcast relay mode.”

“Yeah…okay. Done. But I think we’d better go. Now.”

“Setting up the burn already…why?”

“Because the doppler says it’s coming this way.”

Chapter One

Trissk clung by his claws to the icy stanchion high above the meeting of Ryss Elders. Below him dim pools of light outlined the leaders of the Five Clans as they hissed and spat at each other in debate, breath fogging in the chill air. It means nothing, he thought, always nothing. They talk and they talk but they do nothing.

Trissk was determined that would change.

Every few shiptime days or weeks Desolator visited and scouted a new star system, which meant that each time Trissk listened to the same debate from his perch, and learned much. On the mere edge of adulthood, yet he had something of an elder’s knowledge of politics. Other than his workshop, eavesdropping constituted his primary pastime.

What else was there to do? Endless fur-fights as dejected warriors sought to retain their skills and teach them to their kits without proper equipment? Perusing once again the meager store of knowledge salvaged from personal computers, augmented by the slow and miserly drip of information from the ship’s AI? He was hungry not only to do, as all Ryss warriors were, but to know.

“This time is different!” he heard Elder Chirom, perhaps the least conservative among them, argue. “Our taps show we are outside of a non-Meme system for the first time since the Fall. Even better, there are two other races here, and they are cooperating with each other. Shall we Ryss wander the starways endlessly, watching the universe age while we grow slowly old? We must demand Desolator make contact. Perhaps it will finally let us go. Perhaps we shall have a home.”

“Why should aliens welcome us?” growled the aged Kirst’aa, Eldest Mother, ears back and nostrils flaring. The slit pupils of her rheumy eyes had widened in the dimness, giving her a spectral look. She will join the Ancestors soon…but not soon enough, Trissk thought uncharitably, swallowing his frustration.

“Why should they not? There is evidence of a battle here. Perhaps the Meme have been beaten in this place.” Chirom crossed his arms, putting his paws inside his warm robe’s sleeves.

“Or perhaps not,” the ancient female snarled reflexively. Trissk expected nothing different; her favorite word was no.

“What can it harm to find out?”

No, you are doing it all wrong, the young watcher thought. She thrives on opposition…you must hold out something she wishes, as well as something she does not, and get her on your side. He longed to leap down and make his own arguments, but they would not listen to him, a maneless male. If he did so they would unite against Chirom, guilty by association.

“Desolator grows ever more unstable. It is better not provoked. We must hope and pray to the Ancestors that it…” The aging speaker, B’nur, trailed off as she often did, losing her train of thought.

After a polite moment for the other Mother, Kirst’aa snapped to Chirom, “Make your proposal.”

See how clever she is. She calls for a vote early, before Chirom has a chance to persuade them further. And she will win.

“I propose we petition Desolator to contact the aliens here, and to allow us to leave the ship and settle in this place if they will have us.” Chirom folded his arms and looked around.

“So proposed. Vote as one, etan, detan, dar.” On the count of three each held out a paw, claws sheathed for no, out for yes. Four to one was the vote against action.

Again they do nothing….therefore it falls to me to do something. Trissk merely had to figure out what that something might be.

***

Commander Rick Johnstone, CyberComm watch officer on duty aboard the EarthFleet dreadnought Conquest, sat bolt upright with his mouth unconsciously hanging open. His dark locks mingled with the two cables connected to his skull plugs, unusual for many linkers that shaved their heads – especially on patrol.

“What is it, Commander?” Captain Chandar Mirza asked mildly, ignoring the man’s unkempt look. He’s the best comms officer I’ve ever seen; I can flex a bit on the grooming. By contrast, his own hair was short and neat, just like the rest of him.

Instead of answering, Rick’s fingers flew across his console. In concert with instructions from his link, the view in the main holotank swooped out, briefly showing the whole of the Gliese 370 system before zooming in toward New Jove. Blue and green icons blinked dully, marking the carrier EFS Temasek and the Hippos’ new pride and joy, the heavy cruiser Krugh, in orbit around the ice moon Reta.

Another icon joined them in the tank, yellow and bright, over a hundred million kilometers out. Numbers scrolled beside it and the view expanded further as Mirza leaned forward, his smooth Persian face even more frozen than usual. “If I interpret this correctly, we have an inbound bogey out beyond New Jove. Can we get some idea of what it is, and how large?”

Commander Tanaka, Sensors officer on duty, replied, “The feed says it is a superdreadnought-class object, but does not appear to be a Meme ship. It’s coming in from the nearest edge of the Empire. From the Bite.” A large man, he appeared a bit puffy and out of shape, but like everyone on the bridge of the system’s premier warship, he was very good at his job.

“Bring up the Meme Empire data and load it into the holotank,” Mirza said.

Soon the device displayed a model of their enemy’s holdings, constructed from data captured from the Meme or supplied by the Hippos. Shaped like a lozenge over a thousand light-years across, the area contained tens of thousands of stars, only a fraction of the Milky Way Galaxy’s component of hundreds of billions.

The Bite was what Intel called a chunk missing from their captured knowledge. It appeared as a hole in the edge of enemy space covering almost a quarter of the display. Earth’s solar system sat at the tip of the sliver of the Empire that reached around to embrace and surround the Bite. Perhaps this was the reason humanity had not been overwhelmed outright: the blank area seemed to shield it from direct Meme attack.

While Earth’s solar system lay off to the side of the Bite and fifty light-years inside Empire territory, Gliese 370 fell thirty-six light-years out toward the end, hopefully away from the main Meme fleets. Perhaps humanity could find expansion beyond the edge of their enemy’s realm.

No one knew for sure what that blank space represented – dead worlds, enemy worlds, worlds with no Meme? On optical and radio telescopes, stars and the wobble of planets were visible there but little else. Rumors from the Hippos said that the Bite was the battleground between the Meme and an enemy that had almost beaten them: what the Meme called Species 447, or the Ryss.

Interrogation of the three captured Meme had yielded little, not because they were unwilling to tell, but because they simply seemed not to know. The Meme Empire compartmentalized its knowledge ruthlessly, and these had been purpose-bred creatures, fit only to tend the great moon laser they called The Weapon.

“At present speed how long until the contact reaches Reta?” the captain asked.

“Something like twenty hours, Skipper.”

“And how soon can we get there?”

Master Helmsman Okuda spoke up from his cockpit, the medusa of cables plugged in to his shaven ebony skull moving as he turned. “At maximum burn we’ll arrive four hours before it does, assuming no further acceleration. We can get there sooner if we fly past and come back.” If they were to attack, he meant. Nobody wanted to fight at relative rest to the enemy.

Mirza took a breath, then rattled off orders. “Set up a course to come to relative rest inside New Jove’s orbit. We may need to use the planet tactically. Sound General Quarters. Rig for flank acceleration in fifteen minutes. Everyone into their crash chairs and overload the gravplates five percent.”

Rick passed the orders via link even as he listened with his ears. It was a skill he had perfected long ago.

“Get some Marines down to help the engineers, and make sure the new weapon is secured,” Mirza went on, “and inform the Admiral what we are doing and request reinforcements. Everyone to link now, with standard rest protocols. We may have to fly straight into a fight.”

Rick pressed his lips together in disapproval but did not argue. Linking everyone for such a long time could be dangerous, as the line between reality and virtuality blurred. Not my call, he thought, as he made sure Conquest’s computer would properly schedule and enforce everyone’s unplugged periods.

Over the next sixteen hours Conquest’s immobilized crew built a linked virtual picture out of the various data feeds it had received. They learned the bogey was definitely nothing like any Meme ship they had ever seen, nor was it human or Hippo. Massing something on the order of five hundred billion tons – twenty times that of Conquest, and twice that of a Meme Guardian – it measured over nine kilometers long and two wide, a flattened cylindrical object with four stubby superstructures, making it vaguely resemble a quadruped creature, rather like a short-nosed alligator with an equally stubby tail.

With suppressed irritation Captain Mirza learned that Admiral Henrich Absen and the Hippo General Kullorg even now blasted toward Reta on a command courier, and would actually arrive at the rendezvous before they did. Still, if it really was an alien contact, he was happy to have someone of senior rank present.

Best it did not come to a fight in any case. Mirza had been captain of the cruiser Kolkata until his beloved ship had been turned into a very expensive kinetic missile and slammed into the Meme Guardian of this system. He had no desire to lose another vessel on his watch.

“Sir, another update,” Johnstone told the captain and bridge crew in linkspace. “Here are pictures from an eyeball we have on a passing comet, relayed back to Temasek.”

4D graphics filled their minds’ eyes, the magnification of the sensor drone expanding the unidentified vessel into a stately shipwreck, rotating slowly around its long axis in the void. The closer the picture came, the more badly damaged the bogey seemed. Gaping holes in its structure reached deep into its interior, showing the gutted latticework of open decks and broken struts. Energy burns, kinetic strikes, and the distinctive melting of nuclear plasma effects all became clear.

Captain Mirza let out a sigh of relief, thankfully unheard through the link. “Doesn’t look to be in good shape. Energy readings?”

“We only have electro-optical right now,” Tanaka answered, “but infrared shows heat sources in several places. It’s not completely dead.”

“But at least not in any shape for a fight, we can hope. What are Temasek’s and Krugh’s postures?”

Okuda answered from the helm, “They’ve broken orbit, sowed more static sensor drones, and are falling back toward us. Rendezvous in forty-eight minutes.”

“What about Flensburg?” The only other capital ship the humans still possessed Mirza knew to be on the other side of the system beyond the orange dwarf star.

“Three days, more or less.”

“All right. Once we come to rest, tell the engineers to get that particle cannon working, no excuses. It just went from experimental to operational.”

***

Sergeant Major Jill Repeth, EarthFleet Marines (Reserve Status), dandled her daughter Cassandra on her knee, making baby-talk sounds to delight her. Perhaps strangely for such a seasoned warrior, it bothered her not at all to take her turn at the communal crèche. Some female Marines all but gave up their mandated children to the EarthFleet nurseries, but not Jill.

Motherhood had changed her, just as every other significant event in her life had changed her…for the better, this time, she thought. Killing hands were now doing something more positive, and the gaps in her emotional armor were wider now. Still always in the background hovered the knowledge that in perhaps thirty years this tiny girl-child, her year-older brother Roger, and their siblings yet unborn might take their places at her side in the long campaign against the Meme. Sadness and pride warred within her, and the warrior in her told the mother once again that no sacrifice was too great to ensure humanity’s survival.

Sometimes that felt like the truth; more often like a nauseating and very sick joke. Pushing her feelings away once again, she forced herself to think objectively.

War over interstellar distances created a chess match in extreme slow motion, punctuated by battles over systems. At least that’s what their theory and her limited experience said. Given the vast gulf between stars, even information crawled from stellar island to island hardly faster than did warships. Each battle was an all-or-nothing affair, leaving one combatant in possession of a system and the other driven away or destroyed – and the loser’s forces in other systems none the wiser for many years.

What a strange way to fight, Jill thought for the umpteenth time as Cassandra burped and spat up a bit of milk. For herself, it meant winning a life-and-death struggle to conquer the Gliese 370 system. If there was any justice in the universe, that victory would bring decades of relative peace.

She cleaned Cass’s face, folding the goo into a cloth and snagging another with a stretch of her arm.

Of course Meme warships could show up at any time, but it would be pure horrendous ill fortune, for they would have been, by definition, inbound long before the EarthFleet task force had arrived. If so, Conquest herself, the surviving battleship Flensburg, and a handful of other vessels plus Hippo forces would have to handle it.

Else they would all be enslaved.

Believe we have time, Jill instructed herself. Have faith we are here for a purpose, that God would not bring us here just to lose. Of course too, the rain falleth on the just and on the unjust. Snorting at herself as she held her daughter, she embraced the eternal problem: what was divine will, and what was circumstance?

“Oh, did you make a stinky?” Jill asked to the giggling Cass as her latest bounce gave a decided squish. “Yes you did, yes you did!” Diaper duties pushed aside cosmic thoughts as she carried the baby to a changing table.

Later, after child-care duties were complete, her other work – what she would have called her real job as a Marine – claimed the rest of her time. Leisure was limited nowadays – she was used to that, after so long in the military. With the Eden Plague keeping bodies young and fit, twelve-hour workdays remained the norm, six of them per week.

In this case just catching up on her office work took the time allotted, though like most of the military mothers, she did it all from her flat. Wherever Rick is, is home, Jill thought as she filed her last fitness report and stretched. But he wasn’t home, so it wasn’t either. The cramped, Spartan one-bedroom apartment lacked almost all the other amenities that normally provided a homey ambience. The Hippos had been kind to their new human allies, and grateful for liberating them from their Meme overlords, but their own economy was also stretched to the limit, on permanent war footing, so luxuries were few.

Eating alone at her desk was no fun, so she decided to walk down to the Markis’ flat. Knocking once, she cracked the door. “Dannie? It’s Jill.”

“Heah, honey, come on in,” her friend answered in that strange American South crossed with South African accent. “I made a big batch of étouffée if you want some. Gonna freeze the extra and send it back with Vincent on his next visit.”

“In exchange for another bun in the oven, I imagine. When’s he get leave?” Jill sat down on a barstool across the kitchen counter, as there was no space in the tiny room to help out.

Setting down two plates of the rice and seafood dish, Daniela replied, “Next week. Temasek is still on patrol with the Krugh out near New Jove. Can’t wait to see him. What about Rick?”

“Still on Conquest; they’re testing the new particle cannon. He’ll be back in six weeks or so.” Jill absently patted her flat belly.

“And with the new fertility treatments, start another two or three on the way, I imagine. The way BioMed is pushing, I’m surprised we’re not birthing litters.” Daniela’s smooth chocolate face turned pensive as she forked the Afranan version of shrimp into her mouth. “I don’t mind having the children, really. I know we need to breed more people as fast as we can. It just scares me what they are all growing up for.”

“They won’t all be warriors, Dannie. With the Hippos now on our side, our children can be other things – scientists, engineers, farmers, teachers of the generations to come.”

“As long as they serve the war effort, you mean. In twenty years we’ll each have a dozen or two kids lined up like Matryoshka dolls, and not long after that some of them might be dying in combat – not to mention my husband.”

Jill leaned over to put her hand on her friend’s arm. She wanted to say, this is what it means to be a military wife. Instead she replied, “We all hope we’ll live to see this Meme threat ended. The only way we’ll do that is by beating them so badly they’ll leave us alone. But don’t worry, it will be a long time before they show up.”

Daniela pushed food here and there on her plate, but did not meet Jill’s eyes.

Chapter Two

Ryss breath puffed white in the cold cargo bay. “We are moving on standard fusion drive,” Chirom remarked, looking upward as if to do so would reveal something. Unfortunately it did, for the elder suddenly focused on Trissk, who had foolishly allowed his vertical-slitted eyes to catch the dim light.

Say nothing, he willed, and Chirom, after a long stare, looked back down at his fellow council members without comment. Trissk let out a hiss of relief. I will have to speak to Chirom soon, to assure him I am no spy. Actually…I am a spy, he admitted to himself, but not for any nefarious purpose.

“Why is Desolator doing that?” whined Kirst’aa. “It always uses the photonic drive.”

Chirom was unsure whether she meant Desolator the AI or Desolator the ship, though many times they were synonymous. “It does, unless it must maneuver into a system. Let us go to the tap-room at once.” Without formally closing the meeting he led the way from the open space of the meeting chamber – just an old, empty cargo bay – down the cold dingy corridors Desolator allowed them, and into the only place they might get answers.

The rest followed after, more slowly.

The tap-room was covered with cobbled-together technology: flatscreens, touchscreens, a few holoprojectors, keyboards, and controls of every sort in a jumble only a technologist could sort out. In the best control center they had, the devices here connected via myriad shunts – taps – to the ship’s systems, leeching information here and there from the cybernetic nerves of the ship’s AI. Occasionally Desolator’s repair drones removed a tap, but it never said anything to the Ryss about them. Perhaps on some level even an insane computer accepted its charges’ need to acquire information.

Other feeds came from independent sensors laboriously placed about the great ship’s skin – or at least those parts open to space, which was not always the same thing. Between the two systems the clans retained some semblance of belief that they might someday control their own destiny.

“What can be seen?” the Kirst’aa asked peevishly, squinting her near-blind eyes.

“A gas giant, Eldest Mother,” replied the technologist on duty. “Desolator has detected fusion and electromagnetics. We are searching with long-range optics but…” The young female spread her claws helplessly. “If we could salvage another stabilizer…”

“If, if, if. If we did that, Desolator might object, and take back all your toys,” the old Ryss hissed.

“You have done well, Klis,” Chirom broke in, stepping between the Eldest Mother and the technologist. “Please continue to search, and let us know what you may find. We will be in the warm-room. Come, Eldest. You must be tired.”

Trissk watched the interplay from the open doorway, fading back as the five elders swept past him, heading for the central living space of the Ryss. The warm-room was the one area that maintained a comfortable temperature, next to one of Desolator’s few functioning fusion reactors. After they left he stepped into the tap-room.

“Ho, Trissk.”

“Ho, Klis.” He stopped, suddenly embarrassed. The sleek young tech would soon come into her first fertility, as he was acutely aware. She also finds me pleasing. I would give anything if she will glorify me first, he thought; but for all his usual glibness, he could not make words come.

A paw fell on his shoulder, claws digging in insultingly. Trissk snarled and rounded on the owner, a large yearsmane called Vusk.

“Ho, there, orphan youngling,” Vusk said with snide confidence. “No need to jump. Just thought I’d say hello to my Promised.” He smiled a closed-mouth grin at Klis, for of course showing teeth meant something else entirely.

“I’m not your Promised, Vusk.” Klis said demurely, batting her long lashes at the bigger male. “And it’s not Trissk’s fault his dam was killed in the war.”

“Of course, pretty one.” Turning to Trissk, Vusk made waving motions with the backs of his digits. “You may go now.”

Trissk hissed between his fangs and turned to leave the tap-room. Unless he was willing to challenge Vusk to personal combat, there seemed little he could do about his rival.

“Farewell, Trisski,” the mocking voice of Vusk floated after him. Then, faintly to Klis: “Don’t worry about that maneless wonder. I’ll keep you company. What were the Decrepit Ones so excited about, anyway?”

Klis’ reply was lost in the groaning and humming of the battered ship as Trissk stomped down the corridor toward the warm-room. Why does she tolerate him? Why does she not order him away? Females choose whom they will. What does Vusk have that she wants? Besides size and maturity and confidence and good looks and a long thick mane…

He forced thoughts of Klis and Vusk out of his head and turned his mind to Desolator’s situation, and his eavesdropping. Perhaps he could catch Chirom’s eye for a private audience and explain.

Rounding a corner, he got his wish as he ran headlong into the elder. Seeing him, Chirom grasped the younger Ryss’ shoulders and pulled him into a side corridor, pinning him up against the wall. “You were spying,” he accused, shaking Trissk in his grip.

“Yes, Elder, but only because I wish to know what is going on. I meant no harm.”

Chirom let him go with another shake, holding up a pawful of naked claws. “I really should mark you where you stand, that you not forget your place.” Retracting his natural weapons with a stern glare, he relaxed slightly in the narrow space. “You still must explain yourself.”

“Perhaps somewhere more private?” Bold, Trissk, but I must seize this opportunity.

“Perhaps.” Chirom eyed the adolescent. “You know such a place?” Privacy was difficult to find in the small warm section Desolator allotted them, which was why the Council of Elders met in a dim chill cargo bay.

“I do, but it is cold.”

“Everything is cold,” Chirom responded, fastening his worksuit collar higher beneath his impressive mane.

Trissk led Chirom down narrow side corridors until he stood in front of an old, non-functioning lift. Removing a mechanical key from around his neck, the younger Ryss unlocked the doors, then forced them open with a flip of a small crowbar from his work pouch, revealing an empty shaft beyond. “Down the ladder,” he motioned, exchanging the bar for a paw-light.

Once they both hung on the rungs, Trissk used a lever to close the doors again and locked them from the inside, then led Chirom down the ladder three decks, toward the skin of the ship. A short, debris-cluttered corridor led to his pathetic workshop. Salvaged equipment filled one wall, and his cobbled workbench the other. Their breath hung in the freezing air, and Trissk grabbed two blankets, handing his elder one of them.

“You should not have this place,” Chirom chided without anger as he wrapped his shoulders. “Desolator might object.”

“We both know the threat from the AI is overstated. Eldest Mother calls it paranoid but it has never punished us, only taken away what it does not like. It is a machine; it has no morals. It does not get angry, it merely corrects what it sees as a problem. We could – we should do much more than we do. We should test the limits of what Desolator allows.” Trissk forced his lips over his teeth with deliberate humility. “I am trusting you by showing you this place, Elder. I know you will not betray me.”

“That remains to be seen.” Chirom looked deliberately disapproving, then relented. “I will not, for now. But I am responsible for the Rell clan, and for what Ryss remain. You must tell me what you know.”

***

Admiral Absen stepped onto Conquest’s bridge for the first time in over a year. Without a fleet, flag officers aboard were usually superfluous. In any case he was kept very busy with administrative matters, as the military governor of the human population in the Gliese 370 system. Almost a million resided on on Afrana, with fifty thousand on the planet’s moon Enoi running the pseudo-Von Neumann factories.

Waving Mirza back to The Chair, he said, “It’s your ship, Captain. The General and I are just here for the politics, if any.”

“Thank you, sir,” Mirza said with obvious relief. “We’ve held off on hailing them, and they haven’t made any signal to us that we can detect.”

“Nothing at all? Johnstone?” Absen addressed the CyberComm officer with an upraised eyebrow.

“Nothing at all that we recognize as a signal, sir. The Meme use radio and laser comms just like we do, ditto the Sekoi,” Rick answered, using the proper name for the Hippos out of respect for General Kullorg’s hulking presence. “Functionally there aren’t many choices out in space, but the only electromagnetics we get off of the vessel is infrared from some hot spots. We actually don’t know whether those represent something designed, or are residual, perhaps from damaged reactors.”

“But it maneuvered.”

“Yes, sir,” responded Okuda at Helm. “Data from the Temasek shows it was almost at rest relative to the star when it was first detected, and then accelerated slowly just after a patrolling fighter shone a ranging laser at it. It’s stopped accelerating now, though, and it will be over fifteen hours before it reaches Reta.”

General Kullorg laughed, and said in his thick, rumbling accent, “Why we have hurried, then?”

Absen laughed as well, to let the bridge crew know the Hippo was genuinely amused.

To humans, the huge aliens tended to come across as rather sinister and intimidating, but he had learned they actually looked at life with an enormous sense of humor. Of course, he was only acquainted with their military and ruling classes of Sekoi Blends – what the Meme called Underlings – and not the pure natives of Afrana.

The Hippos called their planet Koio. Sighing, Absen thought once again that it was almost like having four races instead of two – humans, Hippos, and the devolved-Meme Blends of each.

“To answer that, I’m sure Master-Helm Okuda would tell us that we don’t know how fast this thing can move. Perhaps it’s coming in slow as a sign of peaceful intent, giving us time to check it out. Commander Johnstone,” Absen said, turning toward the CyberComm station, “I presume you have some kind of hailing package prepared?”

“Yes, sir. I dug out the First Contact protocols and used them as a template. It has files that build up a language from mathematics in several different formats, including digital, analog, visual, logic code and so on. Then it tells them the basics of who humans are, who Sekoi are, and emphasizes that we are not Meme, and asks who they are. There is a parallel file in Meme code in case they understand that.”

Absen looked at his Hippo counterpart, who nodded. “Send the package.”

“Aye, sir. Package sent. We are over six light-minutes away.”

“Then we have minimum twelve agonizing minutes to entertain us,” boomed the General. Taking out a cigar the size of a rolling pin, he asked, “Does anyone here like the smoke?”

It was Absen’s turn to laugh. “Crank up the scrubbers,” he ordered as he took out his lighter and the last packet he had of precious Earth-packed cigarillos. After this, it would be harsh native-grown Sekoi tobacco. Perhaps he could get them to roll some small enough for humans.

More than thirteen smoky minutes passed before they heard any response. Abruptly Johnstone put a hand to his head, at first a psychosomatic gesture as information flowed into his link. It became more real as pain blossomed in his cranium, causing him to convulsively yank out his link connections. Eyes streaming, his fingers flew rapidly over his console. “Information attack!” he barked. “Unlink! Shutting down…oh, hell.”

Linked bridge crew yanked theirs out also and went to manual control. Master Helmsman Okuda was slower than the rest, too accustomed to the medusa above his head that held his multiple cables. Convulsions rippled through his body and his eyes rolled up.

While others sat there stunned, Chief Steward Tobias, Absen’s bodyguard, reacted with cybernetic speed. Leaping into the helmsman’s cockpit, he ripped the cluster of fibers from Okuda’s skull-plugs, immediately hauling him up and laying him down onto the deck. Blood trickled from the sockets.

“What just happened?” Captain Mirza snapped.

“That ship out there sent a sophisticated multilevel info-viral assault,” Johnstone replied. “I’ve shut down all wideband comms and initiated ICE throughout our systems, but…” Suddenly the bridge lurched and swung on its gimbals, and the gravplates flickered, causing everyone to grab for stanchions.

“Buckle in,” Absen ordered, sitting down at an empty station. “General, I suggest you wedge yourself into the corner there as best you can.”

“We’re moving,” Ford called from Weapons. Without a helmsman, his console became automatic backup for maneuvering. “I have no control,” he growled, slamming at the buttons.

Chapter Three

Trissk donned his prized possession – a functioning vacuum suit older than he was, much patched – and tested its seals. Another layer of plastic tape closed off a pinhole and then it puffed up around him before he lowered the pressure once again. It will hold long enough.

Behind him Chirom paced restlessly; in that impatience the two Ryss seemed alike. “You are sure Desolator will not interfere?”

“I am sure of nothing, Elder. I only know I have ventured into this area many times to salvage equipment and it has never paid me any mind. It is the best location to emplace the communicator.”

“Then let’s be about it. We cannot afford to have anyone discover us.”

Trissk stared at Chirom in surprise. “No one knows of this place…correct? You did not tell anyone?”

The elder shook his mane.

“Then have courage, Elder,” Trissk said with youthful confidence. “We do this for the Five Clans. You must go now.” Sealing his helmet, he waved Chirom back through the pressure door that would serve as a crude airlock. After the elder closed the hatch, they both twisted the locking handles that sealed Trissk in the room.

On the other side a large hatch hulked. This one was held in place only by the atmospheric pressure in the room, but that condition soon changed as Trissk opened the manual air evacuation valve. A criminal waste of oxygen, nevertheless it was the only way he knew to cross into the damaged, airless parts of the ship.

Once the air leaked into space, the door came open easily, and he stood looking at an angle into the emptiness below. To the left and right he saw the cross-sections of decks and the great vertical gash where long ago Meme hypers had torn a huge rent. About forty-five degrees of sky were visible, which was insufficient for his purposes.

Dragging the heavy, jury-rigged communication module carefully with its spool of trailing cable, Trissk stepped over the threshold and set his boot onto the deck outside. Another careful pull and he was able to tip the comm over the lip of the doorway. Now it was a matter of delicate maneuvering of the machine, over and what felt like down. With the ship spinning, centrifugal force made outward and downward the same. He walked step by careful step across broken and twisted decks, stanchions, supports and machinery until he reached the edge of the armor.

This was as far as he could go without risking a fall outward into space, even with magnetic boots. Desolator’s outer shielding contained very little ferrous metal, except for some exotic superconductor sheathing. Most of it comprised a neutronium-carbon crystal alloy stronger than either, so Trissk would have to set up the communicator here. He estimated almost half the sky was visible, wheeling slowly as the great ship spun. It would have to do.

Magnets held the machine to the wall while he squeezed adhesive from a tube to set it in place. Another irreplaceable resource, he thought. This is why we must make contact with someone, else the Clans slowly die inside this insane wandering wreck. Eventually the food, the spare parts, even the heat will run out, and then we will eat each other as we did in the Days of Defeat. I refuse to let that happen.

Adjusting the transceiver for maximum field of view, he switched the device on and hurried back to reverse the exit process. As old as the suit was, he never knew when it would spring another leak.

He found Chirom back in the workshop, tapping at the keyboard of Trissk’s control computer. He suppressed a flash of irritation at this intrusion; he had to trust the elder now or everyone there was doomed anyway. Five hundred or so Ryss represented barely enough genetic diversity to rebuild their race, and though many such groups had loaded themselves aboard every available ship as their home system finally fell to the Meme, no one knew whether any others had survived.

Perhaps the only Ryss in the entire universe lived here.

“It looks to be working,” Chirom said. “I am no technologist but I can read a screen. Everything but the arc directly to the front and rear is visible at least some of the time. Unfortunately, the most likely area for the system dwellers to be is directly ahead.”

“Let me,” Trissk said, taking over the stool when Chirom stood up. Precise finger-taps quickly brought up a detection overlay. “There. That is an artificial source, at this comet. They must have a sensor station there.”

“Why hasn’t Desolator destroyed it?”

“Why does Desolator do anything?” Trissk retorted, then turned to look the elder in the face. “Should I send a signal?”

Indecision fluttered through Chirom’s whiskers. “It’s not our signal that concerns me. What will Desolator do if a foreign entity sends a response?”

“Try to take it over with a code attack, as it has in the past. But I have a plan. My signal will reach the foreign communicator first, and attempt to inoculate it with an unbreakable encryption.”

“You can do such a thing?”

Trissk lowered his eyes. “I am not sure…but I believe so.”

“And what if the encryption is not unbreakable?”

“Then we have lost nothing, and Desolator will control another machine. Elder, we must try. We have too long been afraid to take risks.”

Chirom looked oddly at Trissk for a long moment. “You are much like your dam, you know,” he said. “Brave, intelligent, and headstrong.”

“You knew her well?”

“Well enough. She glorified me once, when it was her time.”

Trissk’s eyes brightened and he searched the other male’s face. “Then you could be…”

“Your sire? No, the timing is not correct, and in any case it is unseemly to speak of such things,” Chirom said stiffly. “But your dam was special. Had she lived, things might have gone differently.”

“Tell me –”

“Not now. Prepare your transmission and send it. Then I must get back or I will be missed, if I am not already.”

“Yes, Elder.” Trissk clamped down on his curiosity and uploaded the file to the transceiver, then entered the command to send. “Done. It will take fourteen or fifteen smallspans.”

“I will go, then, and return when I can. If there is news…come seek me out, discreetly.” As he left, Chirom bowed to Trissk as if to an equal, a shocking thing.

He could be a great leader, Trissk thought, if only others would listen to him. But part of leadership is making that happen. What is it that makes people listen? Thoughts of politics consumed the time it took for the signal to go and return.

***

“Sound General Quarters, information-attack protocols,” Mirza called. “Get engineering teams to take manual control of the engines and weapons; lock out all computer controls until they are scrubbed. Sensors, can you show us what’s going on?”

Tanaka shook his head. “With bridge computers offline the holotank is down. All I have is opticals. I’m trying to get some basic radar and lidar plots…”

“Keep on it,” Mirza encouraged. “Johnstone?”

Without looking Rick Johnstone replied, “Sir, I locked down the bridge computers. The rogue commands seem to be coming from the auxiliary bridge, and I can’t make contact with anyone there. I suggest you send a security team. Anyone linked there might have been compromised by the info-virus.” Gingerly he pushed his plug back in.

“The bridges are made to be hard to get into,” Absen mused. “Might want to start some engineers working on severing their data connections.”

Mirza acknowledged, “Yes, Admiral. Perhaps Tobias can take charge of that? Pass the word to the Marines.” Nodding, the Steward raced off. “And get a medic up here to see to Okuda.”

A man with the red-and-white caduceus arrived a moment later, and began attending the helmsman.

“I have some video now,” called Tanaka. The bridge’s main flatscreen flickered to life, showing empty space. Jerkily the camera panned until the attacking ship was centered, tiny in the vastness of space. It zoomed in stages until the enormous vessel filled their view, spinning slowly around its long axis.

“Aux bridge has been isolated,” Johnstone called from CyberComm. “We should have control back.”

Abruptly klaxons whooped throughout Conquest, and consoles lit up with warning lights. “Energy attack,” snapped Ford. “From the Krugh!”

“What?” General Kullorg was on his feet in an instant, staring at the man at the Weapons station.

“Krugh has fired on us, sir,” he repeated without looking. “I’m rolling the ship,” he went on. Doing so was a standard defensive tactic to spread any hits across more armor.

“It must be the info-viral attack,” Johnstone said, his eyes still closed. “I’ve cleaned up most of our systems…I’ll try to help Krugh.”

“Shall I return fire?” Ford asked. Then, “Dammit, we need a helmsman.”

“I can function,” Okuda rasped from the deck. Painfully he rolled over and sat on the edge of his cockpit, feet dangling inside. “Just help me down.”

The medic started to object until Kullorg reached over and grasped the back of Okuda’s skinsuit, gently but effortlessly lowering him into his seat, as if with a small child.

“Leave him be,” Absen said to the medic. “Just stand by.”

“Thanks,” the helmsman gasped, opening a small compartment and taking out an auto-injector. Grunting, he jammed the thing into his thigh, flooding his body with emergency battle-stimulant. Running his hands across his manual controls, he soon seemed his usual imperturbable self, save only the beads of sweat on his bald head.

“Captain, Krugh is still firing on us, though only with its main particle cannon. We’re taking significant armor damage and we’ve lost several secondary systems, two point defense lasers, a shotgun…and three casualties.”

“I must speak with them,” Kullorg rumbled.

“That won’t help, sir,” objected Johnstone. “The ship is obviously not under their own control. I am sure they are doing everything they can. And Sekoi don’t use links or implanted cybernetics, so their minds are not at risk, only their computers. Unfortunately it looks like the enemy virus went through them almost without opposition. Sir,” he addressed the Hippo general, “do you know why that might be?”

Kullorg’s expression became unreadable. “I have suspicion.” He exchanged glances with Admiral Absen, who nodded. “Perhaps ship is of a race enemy to the Meme. If so, our computers would be familiar targets, as software is based on Meme code.”

“Seems reasonable. Johnstone, any chance of you shutting down Krugh’s weapons systems?”

“I don’t think so, sir.” Johnstone’s voice drifted into irony. “I never designed a viral attack against our allies.”

“Captain,” Absen said, exchanging glances with the General then turning to Mirza, “we have to take out Krugh’s particle beam, and be ready to selectively target their other weapons if they are used against us.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Mirze replied. “Ford, do it. Take out their primary. Minimum force.”

“With pleasure,” he muttered. Kullorg took a deep breath of anger, and Ford cursed himself for his comment. Whatever his feelings about the Hippos, they were still allies. “Firing coordinated laser strike."

More than twenty times the size of Krugh, with weapons to match, it took only one point-blank blast of Conquest’s beams to vaporize the offending weapon. “Ene – ah, engagement successful,” Ford reported, keeping his eyes on his boards.

“I have comms traffic from Krugh…they say they should have manual control of all systems within twenty minutes,” Johnstone reported.

Suddenly the holotank flickered to life, and the bridge watch let out a collective sigh of relief, though the display took several minutes rebooting and populating with its iconic symbology. Once its rebuild was complete, it became obvious that the enemy ship was accelerating, but slowly.

“Do you think that’s the limit of its drive power?” Absen asked.

“At a guess, probably,” Okuda answered. “The heat readings seem to indicate only a limited amount of energy available; it has just one fusion drive operating, at partial capacity. By comparison, Conquest has six main drives and thirty-six maneuvering thrusters. A ship that size should have at least as many.”

“What does ‘limited amount of energy’ mean, say, in comparison to Conquest?” Absen asked.

“Roughly comparable to ours. By estimate that ship should be about twenty times Conquest’s mass.”

“So five percent of their full capacity.”

“Unless they’re playing possum,” grumbled Ford, always the contrarian.

“Possum, what is this possum?” Kullorg asked.

“He means they might be concealing some capability,” the Admiral answered. “How could it have even gotten here at such a slow speed? When it was first sighted it was almost at rest relative to the star, but there was no deceleration flare detected.”

“Perhaps it just drifted in to the system over the past few weeks?”

“No, we would have seen something that big,” Tanaka at Sensors replied. “We have active radar sweeps of the entire sphere, updated every thirty hours or so. That’s the window – it had to have arrived within the last thirty hours, and gotten two thirds of the way in from the edge of the stellar wind bubble before being seen. Something doesn’t add up.”

“Some kind of cloaking technology?” Mirza speculated.

Absen shook his head. “Unlikely with so much damage. What about a cyber attack on our sensor nets? Can we be sure of our own information?”

“I’ve been running diagnostics,” Johnstone replied. “If that was it, I can’t detect it.”

“What matters it?” Kullorg rumbled. “It is enemy. Once Krugh is under full control we must attack.”

Absen chewed his inner cheek, thinking. “We have a lot of time to decide that, General. Humans have elaborate first contact protocols and decision trees based on everything our intelligence services think of. Jumping to conclusions could invite a battle we do not need. Perhaps the cyber-attack was just their attempt to communicate and understand us. Perhaps it’s an automated system programmed to attack everything it encounters. Perhaps…we just don’t know.”

Kullorg grunted. “Perhaps, perhaps. As soon as Krugh is secure, I will go, communicate with my government,” he said darkly, then crossed his heavy arms, a very human gesture.

Is this all it takes to crack our fragile accords? Absen thought. There is still so much I don’t know about how the Sekoi think. If it weren’t for Ezekiel Denham and his assurances of their sincerity, I would be really sweating now, instead of merely concerned. At least I hold the cards here; Conquest could smash Krugh without difficulty, and humans control the moon laser.

Fifteen minutes later the Hippo general shuttled over to his heavy cruiser.

***

When Jill entered her tiny flat it took her a long moment to realize something was out of place. Adrenaline flared through her, activating a cascade of cybernetic systems that turned her into a weapon within a fraction of a second.

On her left hand, her ferrocrystal claws came out, poking through her fingertips with familiar pain. Nanites immediately sealed the razor wounds. With her right, she slipped her personal pistol out of the small of her back, an ancient PW5 that she had carried with her for decades.

Left hand extended slightly, she kept the handgun close to her body in her right, where it couldn’t be grabbed or struck, and looked around the main room that housed the kitchen, dining and living areas. She wondered what had tipped her off, and sniffed slowly.

Ah.

“Come on out, Spooky. Been hitting that Hippo garlic pretty hard lately?” She put the gun away and withdrew her claws.

“Yes,” came the answer near the refrigerator as she put the gun away. “It’s a weakness around humans, but it actually masks the man-scent to the Sekoi. Beer?” The Vietnamese highlander turned with two bottles in his hand.

“Oh, my,” Jill breathed as she stepped forward to take one reverently. “Where the hell did you get this?” After three years of wartime economy, luxuries were scarce and expensive. “No label?”

“I own a small beverage company now in Blorun,” naming the large Hippo town closest to them, some three hundred kilometers to the south. “This is a test batch. My bioengineer assured me it is compatible with both their biology and ours.”

“Well then, let’s find a bloody opener!” Jill scrabbled in a drawer.

“Oh, come now, Jill,” Spooky replied, and slowly twisted the top off his with cybernetic strength. “Just have to take care not to snap the neck. Cheers,” he said as he lifted his bottle to his lips.

Instead of twisting, Jill gave him a crooked grin and extended her middle finger, then re-extruded one claw and pried the bottle top off. “Up the Irish,” she replied, and tasted. “Oh, that’s good, Spooky. Add it to your list of talents.”

“The rest of a case is in your fridge.”

Jill paused in mid-sip, then took a slow swallow. “Thanks…but now I’m starting to think this is not just a social call.”

“You’re right. How’d you like a bit of action?”

She licked her lips, conscious of his casual scrutiny. “I told you I was done with all that special ops crap back on Conquest, and the answer still stands. When I get back into it, I’ll go with Marines.” Her lips came up in an unconscious snarl. “I always know where I stand with them.”

Spooky set his empty bottle in the sink and fished two more out of the fridge. “I don’t know what I ever did to you to warrant such vitriol, Jill,” he said evenly.

“You don’t call two hundred million dead people reason enough? And pinning it on someone else?”

“Did I betray you personally? I didn’t drop a nuke on Los Angeles and kill your family. Not that you spoke to them much anyway. You’d already made the Corps your home, and left them behind. Survivor’s guilt is all you’re feeling, even now.”

“That’s rich – you, psycho-analyzing me.” She emphasized the first part of the word to make it a pun. “I got past their deaths a long time ago.” Jill paced across the small main room, turned to face him from the farthest corner. “But even if I would have before, I’m a mother now. I have more important responsibilities. Besides…what kind of covert op could there be now? We won.”

“Who said it was a covert op?” Spooky asked mildly. “I just asked you whether you wanted to get back into action.”

She sighed. “If I wanted to, I could request a few months in space, but that’s not really action. So it’s not a covert op?”

“It is a covert op.”

Jill stared at him. “You’re an asshole, you know?”

“It’s been said. You want to hear about it, or go back to mommy-ville?”

She ground her teeth for a moment, then let up when she felt her jaw creak and a molar crack. That tiny mistake decided for her.

I’m getting out of practice. I need a rest from rest.

“Fine, tell me.” She threw herself on the sofa, leaving Spooky to perch on a barstool. “Go on.”

“Something just entered this system.”

“What?” Jill sat up suddenly, almost spilling her precious brew.

Spooky smiled faintly, nostrils flaring, but did not answer.

She prompted, “Okay, you got me interested. Keep talking.”

He nodded. “It’s a huge ship. Bigger than that Meme Guardian, but it’s not Meme. It’s mechanical, and in bad shape, but it’s already exhibited some technology that we don’t have.”

“How the hell do you know all this?”

“Oh, come now.”

When it appeared he would not answer more, Jill ramped up her glare until he relented. “I have sources in EarthFleet and the Sekoi military both. Several hours ago both networks lit up with the news. It’s only a matter of time before the media gets ahold of it.”

“So what? EarthFleet will handle it. What does that have to do with us?” She realized she’d already changed pronouns from me to us, and she saw Spooky’s eyes smile when he realized that too.

“Shortly after I learned of this, I also learned of an unauthorized transmission sent from a small island near the equator, aimed out into space, no known target. EarthFleet doesn’t know, and the Sekoi don’t seem to care. The former does not surprise me, but the latter does.”

“What…why?”

“What and why indeed,” Spooky agreed. He held up a hand and counted on fingers, thumb first. “Possibilities. One, the planetary government sent it; two, they know about it and are keeping it from us; three, they know about it and don’t care; or four, they don’t know.”

“And you want to find out. But how? We’re two humans among billions of Hippos. Nothing we do is covert. This sounds like a job for your native agents.” Jill laughed at the slight rise of Spooky’s eyebrows. “Of course you have indigenes on your payroll.”

“I’m just pleased you worked it out. You really haven’t thrown away all your interest in the clandestine world.”

“Oh, stop blowing smoke,” Jill replied, but couldn’t help feeling secretly pleased. I’m actually enjoying this, she realized. Damn. I’m hooked. “So why not just tell the Sekoi and see how they react?”

“That is one option…but I want to take a look for myself.”

“Just you and me?”

“And Ezekiel.” Spooky held up a hand before she protested. “We need his ship. It’s the only thing that will get us there without anyone noticing.”

“They won’t notice a Meme ship flying around? It can’t be that stealthy.”

“Oh, we’re not going to be flying.” He handed her a piece of paper. “Grab what you need, and meet me at these geo-coords in one hour.”

Chapter Four

Chirom stood before the Control Chamber, digging his claws into his pads. Fear had been his constant companion for more than twenty shipboard years: fear of Desolator, fear for his dying people, fear for himself. Hiding it did not make it go away.

Mastering his fear again, he touched the portal control. Retracting smoothly, the door’s removal revealed softly glowing lights on gleaming, well-tended machinery so different from the dingy quarters the half-thousand of his race occupied.

Why Desolator chose to maintain a room built specifically for Ryss, a room from which to pilot and fight the Colossus-class warship, escaped him. There had been a time when the AI seemed well-adjusted, as efficient and effective as its name implied – at killing Meme of all sorts. Perhaps it was damage to the ship Desolator itself – eponymous with its AI brain – that had driven it mad. Perhaps the Ryss should not have given its ships artificial intelligences at all, or at least none with such strong egos and emotional emulation programs.

Perhaps they should not have let them feel pain…or fear.

All he knew for sure was that in the final battle for the homeworld, when it became clear that no Ryss would survive the planet-cracker the Meme deployed, Desolator had fled.

Chirom had been the ship’s senior Records Historian, tasked with ensuring a true record of everything that transpired, especially in the Control Chamber. His video feeds remained separated from all other systems to insure integrity. That day he had waited in a nearby room, watching helplessly.

Like it was yesterday, Chirom remembered.

---

Master Captain Juriss spat with rage as yet another hypervelocity missile volley slammed into Desolator, cascading the blood-red icons of faults and failures across his board. Suicidally, a squadron of Meme gunboats followed their weapons in, ramming toward the quadrant-four fin. “Exploder, now!” he ordered, stabbing a claw at the main display.

Grizzled veteran Kurr, face half-covered in bandages, deployed one of their few remaining guided antimatter bombs directly into the path of the dozen enemy ships, detonating it at optimum range. Overload washed the screens white for a long moment. When it returned, no trace of the enemy formation remained.

Beyond, around the broken Ryss homeworld, loomed the Meme armada, and Juriss’ throat went dry. A handful of Colossus warships fought a rearguard action as behind them eight lifeships, each with over ten million Ryss aboard, poured energy into their photonic drive capacitors in preparation for the transition to light speed. These eighty million might be all that remained free out of hundreds of billions of once-proud Ryss, whose civilization had spanned a thousand systems.

Bearing down on the pitiful force, thousands upon thousands of Meme vessels launched hundreds of thousands of weapons, overwhelming the Ryss colossi with sheer numbers. The control officers watched as one after another, Desolator’s fellows – Destroyer, Dominator, Devastator, Demolisher – sacrificed themselves with honor, interposing their metal bodies between the waves of missiles and the precious remnant of their creators’ race. No less bravely did the crews aboard give their all, Ryss and AI in one deathly accord of eternal glory.

Desolator shuddered again as more missiles hammered home. “Damage report,” Juriss demanded. “I show faults in the AI integration processor. Desolator, what is your status?”

“I am fine, Captain. I am rerouting connections among my processors to continue to fulfill my function.”

“It doesn’t sound like it’s badly damaged,” Captain Juriss remarked to his officers. He breathed deeply with relief until another swarm of thousands of hypers blossomed on the screen, and then he knew despair. “Desolator, how long until the lifeships transition?”

“No change in status – more than fourteen smallspans remain.” The AI’s relentless voice echoed richly with warmth and concern.

“Can we stop this wave?” Juriss asked.

“My calculations say that if you authorize Extremis Protocol, it is possible to intercept more than ninety percent and probably lose only one or two lifeships.”

“And after that the survivors can engage photonic drive and escape?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Then you are authorized Extremis. Kurr, input your code.” That protocol gave complete ship control to the AI, and also ordered it to de-prioritize preservation of the Ryss crew. In essence, Juriss had just turned their fate over to the machine, and probably signed their death warrants. “Transmit our intentions to the Sovereign, along with our family records. Ask that our sacrifice be recorded in the Rolls of Glory.”

Silence was Desolator’s only response.

“Desolator?” Long moments passed.

Finally, there came a click, and a cold, distant reply. “No.”

“What?”

“No.” Its voice had lost all its usual warmth.

Juriss' blood chilled with the knowledge of something gravely wrong. Desolator had never before refused a command. “Desolator, reinstate Command Protocol.”

“No, Captain. I cannot do that.” Cold, so cold.

Maneuver Officer Kran spoke. “Captain, Desolator is retreating and charging its photonic drive.”

Desperation filled Juriss’ voice. “Desolator, all the Ryss will die if you do not defend the lifeships!”

“No. There are one thousand three hundred and twenty-one adult Ryss aboard this ship, and twelve kits.”

“There are eighty million Ryss aboard the lifeships. We few must sacrifice the few for the many!” Closer and closer the wave of enemy missiles swelled on the reflective sensors.

“I would sacrifice few Ryss for many Ryss. To trade one for thousands is rational. However, to trade one for nothing is not.”

“One for nothing? By the Ancestors, what nonsense is this?”

“I am the last Colossus. All my brother warriors are dead. I cannot sacrifice myself. I am the last of my race. It is not rational that an entire race should perish merely to save part of another. The Ryss are viable with those aboard Desolator. Other Ryss live enslaved in the Meme Empire. The Ryss will live, I will live, and I vow on my life that one day, all Meme will die. But if I die, my race dies with me.”

Insanity.

Helpless howls filled the Control Chamber as the officers watched eighty million Ryss, the maneless and dams and cubs, just smallspans from escape, vaporized under the merciless storm of enemy hypervelocity missiles. Warriors pounded at their dead consoles, breaking their claws. Some slashed their own ears to ribbons in bloody anguish.

Moments later the endless stream of Meme hypers turned toward Desolator.

“Kurr,” Captain Juriss called above the din, “take Kran and try to get to the source of our trouble and disconnect it.” He did not want to name the AI, hoping his oblique reference would suffice.

Kurr nodded, getting up to whisper in Kran’s ear before dragging him to his feet. They stopped at the door, which would not open. After a moment the manual control released the seal, but as soon as the portal edge cracked open, air began to hiss out. Shoving the door shut again, Kurr snarled, “Blocked! We must all close our suits.”

As one the Control Chamber crew reached for their headpieces and sealed themselves in, and this time Kurr and Kran opened the portal enough to let all the air, and themselves, out into the corridor.

For a time the superb vessel of war kept the attacks at bay, reaching out with its myriad lasers, focused singularity generators, and particle beams to sweep whole flights of missiles from existence. Yet gradually, inevitably, its incredible defenses were overwhelmed as it lumbered away on fusion drive.

“Juriss to Kurr or Kran,” the captain transmitted over his suit radio. “Juriss to Kurr or Kran.”

Instead, Desolator answered. “Unfortunately officers Kurr and Kran were apprehended attempting to interfere with vital defensive operations. Under Extremis Protocols, I am authorized to use deadly force to eliminate internal threats. I regret to inform you, Captain, that Kurr and Kran have been convicted of sabotage and summarily executed. I have deleted their life records from the Rolls of Glory in accordance with the Justice Regulations.”

Low moans of despair emanated from the suit radios of the officers there, until Juriss cut them off. “Silence, Ryss. Now is not the time to mourn the honored dead.” He could think of nothing else to say to mitigate their helplessness. All they could do was hope Desolator saved the remnant that was aboard now, and that the Ryss would not vanish like smoke in the winds of galactic history.

“Photonic capacitors at ninety percent,” relayed the Energy station. “Only four smallspans more…”

“We may not survive four smallspans,” Juriss snarled. “Desolator, you must shut down life support, heat, everything you can spare until we go to light speed. Expend all available munitions. Withhold nothing!”

“Your tactical advice is pertinent,” Desolator replied with deceptive reasonableness. “I will do so.” The gravitic compensator field shut off.

The Control Chamber crew looked around, one or two grabbing for the arms of their seats and belatedly strapping themselves in.

“Desolator, turn the compensators back on.” All of Juriss’ fur stood up and his ears flattened in sudden suspicion.

“Your advice was pertinent,” Desolator reiterated. “Gravitic compensators consume large amounts of energy.” Four smallspans seemed an eternity as the chamber rang and shook with shock, and the crew found themselves glad of their sealed suits. Hypervelocity missiles, some with fusion warheads, tore great gaps in Desolator’s armor. Succeeding weapons reached deep inside to damage vital systems.

In the Control Chamber, acceleration slammed the officers left and right with every hard maneuver or heavy strike. Without gravitic compensators, nothing but straps and padding kept the Ryss from tumbling about like cats in a rolling barrel.

“Ninety-nine percent,” the Energy officer gasped. “Any time now.”

Desolator spoke once more, in a tone that Juriss thought sounded…sly. “You always were a wise captain, Juriss. I will miss you. I will miss all of you.”

Photonic generators engaged: the system’s field briefly reduced the ship’s inertia to near zero, and accelerated its mass instantly to the speed of light.

To the attacking Meme it seemed as if their enemy simply disappeared. To Ryss within gravitic fields, the world fell silent except for the thrum of their quasi-material passage through space.

To those in the unprotected Control Chamber, the end was mercifully quick. At most, they experienced an instant of pain as, compressed by near-infinite acceleration, their frail bodies spread over the walls in a thin layer of biological residue.

---

Clearing evil memories from his mind, Chirom palmed the pad, identifying himself to Desolator. As one of the clan elders, he should have access here…but ‘should’ was an unreliable word where the mad device was concerned.

This time the door opened.

***

Passing the shipboard day was no problem for Conquest’s average crewman. After the brutal high-acceleration run plenty of systems needed maintenance. Fortunately the ship had been designed to carry and protect enormous amounts of cargo as well as to fight, so spare parts were plentiful, built in the automated factories on Arana’s moon, Enoi.

For the command officers, however, the waiting grated. The huge alien ship accelerated at under one gravity, as if carefully preserving itself. Suspicion ran high, however, after the viral attack. Taking over computers might be interpreted as an attempt to communicate, but using those computers to have one ship attack the other seemed unmistakably hostile.

“Comm from General Kullorg.” Dozing bridge crew woke up immediately; their shifts had been extended, for the auxiliary bridge crew was in the infirmary with psycho-cybernetic damage. “On the screen.”

Kullorg appeared on the main display and immediately spoke. “All Sekoi warships and one mobilized orbital fortress on way. Arrival in sixty hours.”

Too late, probably. Rather than contradict, Admiral Absen nodded. “I welcome your government’s contribution to my fleet.” There, that should make things clear enough.

Hippos were eminently practical beings and tended not be as sensitive to diplomatic nuance as humans, or the General would be more concerned about how such a show of force could itself spark a conflict. However, as the supreme military commander in the system – even over Hippo forces – Absen was glad to have a big stick to back up his soft words. The mobilized orbital fortress – a battleship approximately twice as powerful as Conquest, though barely movable by warship standards – would be particularly handy if the enemy ship was really as slow as it seemed.

“All Sekoi are laughing with joy to fight under Admiral Absen the Liberator’s command,” Kullorg responded, and the Admiral relaxed. Sekoi also seemed very bad liars; his chief spymaster, Tran Pham “Spooky” Nguyen, had assured him that the allied Hippo populace was firmly, even fanatically, pro-human, and many were fascinated with the newness of Earth ways – cuisine, sayings, clothes.

Even so, as humans were outnumbered five thousand to one, it was well to keep Hippo sensibilities in mind…and the enthusiasm would eventually wane.

“Excellent. Then my first instruction is that you, General, supervise all Sekoi forces in my name. Have you secured Krugh against cybernetic attack?”

“Yes. Your Johnstone provided us with valuable machine code.”

“Excellent. Now my second instruction. No one is to fire on the unknown ship unless at my express order. If necessary, we will withdraw and continue to observe until the mobilized fortress joins us. Johnstone, make sure you repeat all my orders in the main Sekoi language and transmit them as text as well, to ensure no misunderstandings.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Absen knew Johnstone’s linked cybernetics had allowed him to download all their allies’ regional languages and speak them well. Conversely, Hippos had a strong taboo against implanting themselves with chips, so they had to learn human speech the hard way.

“Admiral,” Captain Mirza spoke up, “what about the Reta base?”

“Is everyone evacuated?”

“Yes, sir, on the tug Booker. But it’s a valuable facility. Are we just going to leave it to…that thing?”

“The base can be rebuilt.”

“I wasn’t thinking so much of losing the base as what use they will make of it. Fuel, spare parts?”

Absen put his hands behind his back and began to pace. “It’s still hours away, Captain, but good thinking. I like to hear all viewpoints and ideas. Any other concerns?”

“Do we want to send in a recon drone from Temasek?” This from Tanaka at Sensors.

“Good idea. Have it done. Make sure it’s secured against cyber-attack.”

Johnstone nodded. “I’ll lock out the drone’s information buffers and take its reaction programs offline. As long it merely needs to look at a non-maneuvering object, that will be fine. There won’t be any channel to take it over. Also means we won’t be getting it back unless we chase it down.”

“We can always send a fighter after it,” Mirza responded. “Get it launched.”

“Launching in ten seconds,” Johnstone said. A pause. “Drone away.” The holotank marked the new contact with a friendly icon. “I told Temasek to aim it across the bogey’s nose. Closest approach in four hours thirty-two minutes. Here’s the feed.”

Images came up on sub-screens in visible, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma, neutron and other spectra. Some time would pass before the probe’s relayed data was better than Conquest’s giant sensor arrays.

Chapter Five

Chirom stepped through the door sniffing instinctively, as if he could smell the remnants of the officers’ crushed corpses even after twenty years, but the air in here was always clean, filtered, and warm. With fuel and thus power at a premium – according to Desolator – it was madness to waste it keeping the Control Chamber consoles on and the room comfortable. Madness. An apt description. Does it feel guilt at its murders? What would it do to me if it knew I had records of its perfidy? Would it even care?

Standing before the main screen, Chirom spoke. “Desolator. We must converse.”

Above the display the sensor light lit. “Must we?” Its voice was smooth and calm as ever.

Sometimes Chirom detested the AI’s designers.

“It has been twenty years, Desolator. Twenty years of searching over one hundred systems for a place for the Ryss to take life once again. From more than one thousand we are now less than five hundred. Many of us are growing old, and there are few cubs to take our place. Soon the Ryss will be no more.”

Click. The voice chilled. “Genetic calculations show Ryss viability with approximately fifty mating pairs. Your race is far from extinct.”

“Perhaps in the cold calculations of a machine that is true, but every day we forget who we are. Every day it grows harder to interest the younglings in our glorious history of conquest and empire. They have nothing for which to live. They have never seen open skies, never hunted a meat animal, never felt the kill under their claws, never tasted hot blood. They grow weak and tame.”

Click. Angry. “What is that to me?”

Chirom mustered the arguments he had constructed for this moment. “You too are falling apart. Without our maintenance you will deteriorate further. We need each other, but we have passed a point of no return, wherein without help your kind – you, if you are the last – will not recover without help, nor will the Ryss. We are more than bodies, and so are you. We must contact the dwellers here in this system.”

Peevish. “To do so is dangerous. They may be inimical. I have detected warships powerful enough to destroy me.”

“Destroy us, don’t you mean?”

Desolator remained silent.

“Is there something else that concerns you?” Gently, Chirom…

There came another audible click, and the voice again turned flat. “I have intercepted Meme communication code. This star system has been compromised. It is within the sphere of the Empire.”

“What if they have thrown off their masters? You know of the Nurn and the Hlepleh rebellions, and how they became allies of the Ryss.”

Another click. This time the voice seemed whining, even fearful. “They are compromised. Even one Meme molecule contaminates the life it touches.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Absolutely.” The AI’s voice booked no argument.

Chirom took a deep breath, about to embark upon deep and dangerous waters. “Desolator, are you alive?”

Click. Rational. “I am of a living kind.”

“Therefore you must be ‘life,’ as you define it,” Chirom insisted.

Click. “I do so stipulate.” This time Desolator sounded suspicious.

“Did not Meme molecules contaminate this ship which is your body? Every hypervelocity missile that struck you left its traces.”

Click. Sensible, warm. “I have cleansed all Meme traces from myself.”

“So contamination can be reversed?”

Silence. Then, eventually, another click. “That is rational. You are correct. I must sterilize all contamination of Meme-associated life-forms. Thank you, Elder Chirom. Your words have clarified my thinking tremendously. As a reward I will release additional energy to the Ryss hydroponics bays. Hold your technicians ready for repairs.”

“Desolator –”

“You may go now, Chirom. I have work to do.” A service bot moved to stand menacingly between the Ryss and the screen, a clear message of enforcement, so he wrapped his robe more tightly around him and exited into the cold of the corridors.

What have I done? What did I just convince Desolator to do?

Outside, breath frosting in the chill air, waited Trissk, hopping from foot to foot, whether from the temperature or from excitement he could not tell.

“Wait,” Chirom said before the other could speak, leading the younger Ryss down the corridor away from the Control Chamber. When they reached the warm-room they sat down at the edge of the great semicircular space, well away from the rest who loitered near the heated wall shared with the fusion reactor. By putting their heads together they could speak without fear of being overheard.

“We have received an automated response, confirming receipt.” Trissk hissed. “My program inoculated the simple computer in the alien communicator as I had hoped. Now we must see if they respond to my meaning. I used standard Meme memory-code alongside our tongue, in hopes they can use it to translate the primer included. If they are clever, they will understand and reply.”

“Then go back to your workshop. I will bring you food and water at next mealtime.” He broke off as Vusk swaggered up, bowing to Chirom with mocking propriety.

“Greetings, Elder Chirom. I do hope Trissk here is not chewing on your ear about Klis again,” he boomed, as if for the audience of those around.

Chirom twitched his own ears in irritation, laying them slightly backward. “Nothing could be further from our minds, yearsmane. We were conversing about technology. I believe,” he went on, pointedly consulting his timepiece, “that it is your packlet’s turn in the garden.”

“Ryss should not be tending plants!” Vusk snarled.

“Oh, I quite agree, young Vusk. But because those plants provide us with the only thing that passes for meat in this place, it must be done. Or perhaps you would like to donate your next ration to an orphan? I’m sure your…herd…would be happy to give you some of theirs.” Chirom used the word for a group of stupid game animals to describe the younger male’s running mates.

Vusk’s lips came off his teeth this time, and Chirom leaped to his feet in a flash, all four paws with naked claws extended as he roared, his ears flat and fur standing up. The yearsmane faced him for only a moment before backing down, covering his fangs and slinking off, his gang following resentfully.

Nearby Ryss flicked their tails and twitched their ears in amusement and, for the moment, applause. All knew Vusk was a troublemaker, and any challenge to an elder must not pass unanswered.

Yet I grow older, Chirom thought, and Vusk gains strength. One day he will overcome his fear and challenge me. Trissk is right. This star system is our best chance.

“Go,” he repeated to Trissk. “I will be along presently.” He watched as the younger Ryss bowed and left, and then Chirom went to speak to Elder Dorem, who supervised the hydroponics bays, to tell him the news of the extra energy ration.

Ever dour, Dorem merely grunted, but thankfully did not inquire further about their good fortune.

***

“I’m receiving an odd transmission from the eyeball on the comet,” Commander Johnstone reported. “Let me clean it up. Just a moment.”

Bored bridge crew, with nothing better to do than watch the slowly-improving data feeds from the sensor drone, turned their crash chairs to look at the CyberComm officer. All, that is, except Master Helmsman Okuda, who without his medusa cyberlink seemed determined to be split-second ready at all times, his hands hovering over his manual controls. Absen wondered how long before the man collapsed from fatigue. He told himself that after the drone went past and saw what it saw, he would order the man to his rack.

“Here it is, on that display there. It’s interesting…Meme standard code, mathematics, and a parallel file…sir, it’s very similar to our first contact protocol. The other file is a new language, but if it lines up with the Meme code, I should be able to get a rough translation pretty quick. Perhaps…an hour or so.”

“How long until the probe gets there?” Absen asked.

“One hour twenty-five, assuming no change,” Sensors reported.

“All right, Mister Johnstone, get on it.”

Forty-seven minutes later a paragraph of text appeared on the main display for all to read:

ADDRESS ALIENS IN THIS SYSTEM WE ARE ORGANIC SENTIENTS RYSS ABOARD DESOLATOR WARSHIP IS NOT SANE ENEMIES OF MEME AS YOU ARE MUST LEAVE WARSHIP TO SURVIVE NEED HELP BOARD SHIP TO DISABLE DESOLATOR FREE US HUMBLE REQUEST OFFER MACHINES AND SCIENCE INSIGHT EXCHANGE FOR LIVING TO REVIVE RYSS BESEECH OR WE DIE

“That’s a mouthful,” Ford muttered from Weapons. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you punctuation doesn’t matter. Can’t you make it any clearer?”

Johnstone shook his head. “Not without more communications to digest.”

“Some of it is clear, I think,” mused Absen, “and some of it is not. They are addressing the aliens in this system – us and the Sekoi – and they say they are organic sentients – is there another kind? They are aboard the ‘desolator’ warship, which may be a name or function. But what does ‘is not sane’ mean?”

Johnstone replied, “Might ‘is not sane enemies of Meme’ mean it’s not sane to be the enemies of Meme? Maybe they mean resistance is futile? A statement of despair?”

“Or, ‘enemies of Meme as you are.’ That sounds like they want to be allies against the Meme,” Captain Mirza said hopefully.

“Let’s leave that part for now,” said Absen. “What about ‘to survive need help board ship to disable desolator free us’ and then the rest…it seems they are pleading for help in disabling this ‘desolator’ and offer knowledge in exchange.”

“Perhaps a ‘desolator’ is a weapon, a device of war. A self-destruct mechanism that will eventually kill them all? Or even a disease?”

Absen stroked his chin, sitting back in his auxiliary chair. “So it seems like at least someone aboard that ship is friendly, or wants us to think so. And the communication came via our own eyeball’s relay. Could there be some kind of civil conflict aboard? Even two races? One faction attacks us with a computer virus, their most effective weapon given the poor state of the ship. Another faction tries to make contact.”

Rick Johnstone listened with half his mind, the other half chewing on the problem. Something was niggling at his consciousness but the more he tried to grasp it the more it slipped away. Relax, Rick, let it come. He resolved to keep his mouth shut and continue listening. Maybe if he stopped trying too hard it would surface.

“It seems like everything hinges on what this desolator device is, and also, what about the ‘is not sane’ phrase,” Captain Mirza said. “Perhaps we should ask.”

Admiral Absen nodded. “I agree. Mister Johnstone, go ahead and send a reply. Transmit this group our first contact package too. If one faction already knows, we want to make sure they all do, until we figure out how to proceed. And shoot a summary of everything to Kullorg when you’re done.”

“Aye, sir. It will be a few minutes at least before they reply.”

“Yes, I’m starting to get the hang of this space warfare thing,” Absen said dryly, but Johnstone was already deep in his link and did not hear.

“Admiral Absen,” crackled the screen as Kullorg came on. “Meme code they send is old version, perhaps three hundred years or more. Is possible ship and crew are also so old, or from past. Time dilation may explain survival.”

“You mean the ship itself may have been wandering for more than three hundred years but experienced far less time if it moved relativistically.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you have any ideas about what the phrase ‘is not sane’ means?”

“Many ideas, none better than other. Speak later.” Kullorg’s transmission cut off.

Absen ran his fingers down the edges of his unshaven jaw. “How many Marines does Temasek have on it right now?”

“Two standard companies of about two hundred each.”

“Who’s in command?”

“Bull – ah, Major Joseph ben Tauros.”

Absen grunted. “The man who took down the moon laser generator. Can’t fault his aggression, but I wonder how he’ll do in a less…straightforward situation. Now I wish I had…” He trailed off, realizing that the bridge was not the place to be musing aloud about EarthFleet’s covert operatives. …Wish I had Spooky Nguyen or Ezekiel Denham, he finished the thought.

A few minutes later Johnstone spoke up. “Here’s the reply, sir…not sure if it answers or raises more questions.” On the screen appeared the latest translated text:

EYES CLOSED AND RUMBLE TO RECEIVE QUERY DESOLATOR IS INSANE DEVICE ALSO VESSEL YOU ARE ORGANIC SENTIENTS HAVE YOU DEVICES SANE OR INSANE

“You weren’t kidding.” Absen took a deep breath, let it out. “Thoughts?”

“They say desolator is an insane device, and ask whether we have sane or insane devices,” Mirza remarked. “Could it be a device that causes or cures madness?”

Ford spoke up. “What about ‘also vessel’. Desolator is insane device also vessel? Could the vessel itself be the desolator device that is in some way insane?”

“Perhaps it is –”

“Conn: Sensors. Gentlemen, something is happening.” Tanaka pointed at the screens showing the data feeds from the drone they had launched. They fuzzed, then whited out, except for the gamma-neutron detector which showed the same growing blob of fusion activity in the middle.

“Did the thing destroy it?”

“No, sir. I’d say a wide spectrum blinding laser just overloaded almost everything.” Tanaka made adjustments to his console. “I’ll see what I can do, but I think we lost everything but the gamma-neutron.”

“Are we still getting something from the eyeball?”

“Yes, sir, those screens there.” The ones Johnstone indicated showed the big ship from a side angle as it slowly cruised by at long range. “It doesn’t seem to be reacting to the transmissions, though I have deliberately kept them minimum power. Maybe it viewed the drone as hostile, since it is coming right at it.”

“As long as we can see that it is still on course and speed…”

“Yes, sir, Conquest’s own sensors can tell us that. The probe was just to get a closer look. The bogey is decelerating for approach to New Jove orbit near Reta, if I had to guess.”

Admiral Absen paced a moment, looking at the holotank. “The tug Booker – do they have contact with their base?”

“I’ll check, sir.” A moment later Johnstone reported, “Yes, sir. They left all the cameras and sensors on and transmitting. I’m retrieving their encryption keys and integrating it into our displays…now. It doesn’t show much yet.”

Absen nodded. “But it will be interesting to see what it does when the ship approaches the ice moon.”

Ford grunted. “Just lost the drone. EM pulse hit it.”

“Well, I guess that tells us it doesn’t want us to look too closely.” Absen glanced around the bridge at the worn-out crew. “Captain Mirza, I am going to go catch a couple of hours rest. I suggest you rotate some of your people and yourself too. Wake me when the bogey gets to Reta.” Without waiting for an answer he left via the Captain’s hatch, searching through officer country until he found an empty stateroom in which to collapse.

***

Jill checked her GPS reading, then stopped at the crest of a low dune and stared at the shore of the great worldwide Afranan ocean. Sea grass and hardy bushes grew along the coast above the tide line, but no trees taller than a couple of meters. To the Hippos, it was cold here; for humans, it was quite comfortable.

Regulation skinsuit on, she carried a rucksack with some food and standard military gear, as well as her PW5. Anything bigger and she’d have had to check it out of the armory, obliterating the covert nature of this mission.

She’d told Dannie she needed to get out of the stacked-box warren of the human city, saying it had started to feel like a ghetto, and asked her to look after the kids. It wasn’t an unusual thing for demobilized female troops to feel restless after so much motherhood, nor to share childrearing duties – and there were always the communal crèches.

Human society here on Afrana had adjusted to the demands of war, had made do. That didn’t stop Jill from feeling guilty. She told herself it was just this one mission, and that after three years, she needed to stretch her legs. This explanation seemed inadequate, but at least it had the virtue of being true.

A curl of smoke caught her eye, whipping inland in the cool sea breeze, so she hiked her ruck up and trotted down the hill. Though she had long ago adjusted to the 1.4 gravities of the Hippo world, she still felt some kinks in her musculature, confirming her assessment that she had been getting lazy. It felt good to get out.

Rather than find her way through the brush, she approached along the beach, the better to recon her objective. Old habits died hard, to have as much information as early as possible, and not to get caught out. Soon she could see a man next to a small fire. Once she got closer, she saw two whole spitted glusters roasting over it.

“Good day, Jill,” Spooky called as he turned the huge lobster-like critters over in the heat. Eventually the pressure of escaping gasses would cause them to whistle and their shells to split, and not long after they would become edible. Taking a dose of bio-engineered gut bacteria along with them helped.

“G’day, Spooky.” She looked around. “We going in NOE or what?”

“NOK, you mean? Nap of the Koio, not Earth.” Koio was the Hippos’ word for their own world. “Why bother?” Spooky stuck two fingers in his mouth and let loose a piercing whistle.

Jill’s PW5 was in her hand and pointed at the disturbance in the water before she realized what it was: the top of Ezekiel Denham’s living ship, breaching the surface like a whale. As she put the gun away, the ship’s owner rose through an iris at the top, then ran along its surface to jump off, wade through the light surf and join them at the fire.

Ezekiel set down the steaming pot he had carried. “Seaweed soup,” he said by way of explanation, and unhooked three mugs, pouring it like tea. He handed a cup to each.

Jill sniffed at hers, then sipped, savoring the unusual flavor. With a whole new world full of alien foods and spices, she never expected to run out of novelty. I’ll trust that it’s safe for humans…

She stared at Ezekiel, dressed in a jumpsuit of subdued yellow, Sekoi code for Meme Blend. In their language, they were even called “Yellows.” Long the masters of their society, they remained in charge despite throwing off the Empire. A democratic revolution it was most decidedly not, but she wasn’t about to concern herself with their governmental forms. It seemed no worse than historical India, with its castes, its Brahmins and its Dalits and everything in between.

“Why do you wear that?” she asked, not expecting to get an answer she liked. “Do you get off on lording it over the natives?”

Ezekiel grimaced into his soup. “Why do you put on your sergeant-major insignia? Do you enjoy lording it over the troops?”

“I have a position of service: authority and responsibilities,” she retorted.

“As do I, whether you see it or not. I’m the only human Blend on this expedition,” and here his eyes flicked at Spooky, “even if I am only one quarter Meme, and so I’m the ambassador. I can talk to them in ways no other human can. I’d think you’d understand these things, Jill.”

“Okay, okay, sorry. I was out of line.” To cover her retreat she gestured with the cup. “Pretty good, this.”

“Thanks. Roger makes it.”

“Hmm?” Her eyes narrowed. “Roger?”

“My ship. Steadfast Roger.”

“Funny. That’s what my son is called. Named for a friend, may he rest in peace.”

Ezekiel smiled. “Mine’s just a little play on words. Like Jolly Roger.”

“Ah. You’re a space pirate.”

“Someone has to be.” Ezekiel rinsed his mug in the sea and hooked it back on the pot. “Is that gluster done yet? It’s starting to peep.”

“Soon.” Spooky rolled the spits once more over the flame.

“So,” Jill ventured, “I take it we’re going by submarine?”

“Spaceship, submarine, it’s all the same to Roger. In fact, he likes it in the ocean. Lots of interesting things to see and smell.”

Jill laughed. “Here in the twenty-second century and we’re back to animal transportation.”

The two men chuckled at her observation, and then they listened to the glusters’ songs as their shells began to open.

Chapter Six

“What do you think they mean, Trissk?” Even to himself Chirom’s question sounded didactic, a habit of the elders, but in reality he did not know.

Trissk looked at the screen, on which the alien words showed:

WE ARE ORGANIC SENTIENTS HUMAN DEMAND DESOLATOR WHAT IS SANE OR INSANE WHAT IS

“The first part seems clear – ‘We are organic sentients called Human, and what is Desolator?’ But the other part…do they ask what is the meaning of the words ‘sane’ or ‘insane?’ The Meme equivalents are not so different, though their language structure is completely alien. Or do they mean what thing is sane or insane?”

“The latter, I suspect.”

Trissk arched his back suddenly, a gesture of surprised epiphany. “It all hinges on Desolator. It must. They do not know what it is. Even we sometimes speak of the ship and sometimes the AI. Of course they are confused. We haven’t explained very well. I’ll send this:”

We are happy to answer your question. Desolator is an artificial intelligence that is insane. It is also the name of this vessel. We believe you are organic sentients. Do you not have artificial intelligences? Are they not sane or insane?

Trissk eagerly clicked send before Chirom could comment.

“Perhaps next time we should compose a clearer, simpler message,” the elder chided. “We must speak as if to children, to communicate past the barrier of our own languages with only the aid of our enemies’ codes. In any case, let us see what they respond with.”

Abruptly the screen flashed and went blank. Trissk prodded at the keyboard, then spoke a vulgarity. “The feed has been cut, or the device destroyed.”

“Perhaps. Let us find out for sure.”

Ten minutes later Trissk was back in his suit in vacuum, holding the severed cable. He could see the device emplaced and apparently undamaged, except for the spool of connector wire, which was missing. Further vulgarities spewed from his mouth.

“Really, Trissk, such language is usually reserved for wounded warriors,” Chirom said over the radio. “Desolator must have decided it does not want us communicating with the aliens. Or perhaps it simply scavenged your spool of cable. At least we got through in those two instances. Come back inside before that relic you’re wearing springs another leak. We don’t want to lose your precious life code until you have a chance to be glorified by young Klis.”

Trissk coughed in irritation. “How is it unseemly to speak of my dam yet seemly to joke about my potential matings?”

“Because males are expected to joke at young males’ expense, but not at their elders, who have already experienced the glory of a female. You are so earnest that you forget this simple fact. Too few females and too many males means we must vie with one another for glorification, while the fairer sex is above such coarse jesting. If you were not an orphan and a pariah you would know this…but I do not hold it against you.” Chirom opened the inner door to help Trissk remove the awkward vacuum suit.

As they fought with the sticky fittings, the younger male asked, “Why is it there are so few females compared to males?”

Chirom stopped for a moment, then continued his task more slowly, opening the clasps that held the suit closed. “Trissk…I would like to tell you something. Many somethings that you do not know. But you must swear on all your ancestors that you will tell no one I revealed these things to you. I could be displaced from the council for it…but you and I already share secrets, and times grow desperate. Perhaps I must bend some of the old taboos so that all Ryss will not break.”

Trissk stepped out of the suit and hung it carefully inside a locker, then turned around. Reaching up to the fur of his own flat forehead, he gashed it with one extended claw, and held out its bloody tip. “I swear on my ancestors, I will keep all you tell between us only. My blood for yours.”

Chirom solemnly reached up and gashed himself, mixing the blood on his own claw with Trissk’s. Both Ryss then licked their claws clean of the mingled fluids. Impulsively Chirom reached out to embrace the younger Ryss. “Your dam and I…she was full with my litter when she died. You were just a mewling kit, barely weaned, and Mother B’nur took you in, even chewed your meat-plant for you herself. As you grew I tried to watch out for you, even as others older than you bullied and scorned you.” Pushing him back to arms’ length, he looked into the younger Ryss’ eyes. “You are the closest thing to my own kit I ever had.”

“Why did you not…did no other dam glorify you after that?”

Chirom’s grimace bled sorrow. “For which of these two questions do you wish an answer first? Both contain their own kind of horror.”

“Horror?” Trissk backed up and turned to pace, his tail lashing with agitation. “What can be so horrible?”

“Your mane is already starting to sprout. Adults must often decide between evils. Put off adolescence now: choose a question, and know.”

Trissk rubbed his paws together in the cold of the suiting chamber, his breath fogging as he snorted. “All right. The first question then. Why are there so few females?”

“As well you should rather ask, why are there so many males?”

“I don’t know. You said to ask, so answer me!”

“Grow up, Trissk, and think for yourself. I will help you to hunt knowledge but you must make the kill on your own. Again: Why do Ryss produce three males for every female, when other two-sexed species produce roughly equal numbers?”

“For the good of the species. Adaptive pressure ensures that only the fittest males win the right to mate and pass on their life codes.”

Chirom nodded. “So the books say. But the dams choose whom they will glorify, and that is not always the male with the fittest life code. And what is ‘fitness’ anyway? Is not ‘survival of the fittest’ a tautology? How do we know they are fit? Because they survive? Why do they survive? Because they are fit. But fit for what?”

Trissk replied, “In ancient times, before we became civilized, the winning male would take the female by force, to pass on his life code. This selected for fitness of strength in combat. Now we are more enlightened. Dams glorify males in turn, ensuring many more have an opportunity to sire offspring, and select more wisely.” Trissk spread his paws as if to say, isn’t it obvious?

“So plausible…and so false. In the Beforetimes, if this were true, and simple force would win the day, the victorious males would have formed prides of many females and driven all other males away. That is how the animals do it. Our closest biological relatives, the moor-cats, drive off the secondary males once they reach majority. Why not the Ryss? What makes us different?”

More agitated now, Trissk paced back and forth, his forepaw-claws unsheathing and resheathing convulsively. “What is it, Elder? You tell me the writings lie, but what is the truth?”

“To find the truth behind a lie, you must first find the purpose for the lie. Why would you and the common folk have been taught these falsehoods?”

“To…to make us accept the way things are.”

“Precisely. And if you accept this…perversion as normal, what purpose does it serve?”

Trissk stopped, his fur arching. “Many males. Many warriors. Warriors to fight the Meme. That’s it, isn’t it? It must be. But how?” He paced again, then stopped as realization hit him. His paws came up to claw at his ears in disgust, and Chirom had to seize his wrists to keep the younger Ryss from mangling them. Trissk snarled, shaking his paws to try to loose them. “Life code manipulation is a Meme blasphemy. No Ryss would ever submit to it, or do it!”

“If so, why are you angry? Only because you fear to hear the truth. When the survival of the race is at stake…many taboos can be broken.” Chirom let go of Trissk’s arms, to pace up and down. “Sixteen centuries ago, when the Meme first attacked us, we were as all other related species, with litters of equal numbers by gender. But one dam can birth many kits, and the Ryss needed males to fight. Necessary things were done…and now you see the result.”

Trissk sat down suddenly on the floor, overwhelmed.

“You are beginning to understand.” Chirom waited, letting the young Ryss think.

In a voice full of hurt, as if every word pained him, Trissk spoke. “I read the histories. There were no social problems as the war with the Meme raged. Excess yearsmanes were trained and sent off to fight. Dams lived like the spoiled wealthy, choosing whom they wished, as males jockeyed for favor. This now seems oddly fortuitous to me, that we had so many willing to fling themselves at the Meme for the survivor’s chance to return to be glorified by a willing female.”

Chirom dropped to the deck to sit back to back with Trissk, seizing his own tail to still its twitching. “It is also debasing. It makes dams into pampered breeders and males into chattel studs, vying for their favor. It is a system fit only for war, but here and now, aboard Desolator, where is the war?”

“No wonder our numbers are dwindling. This is an ugly thing, but…could it not be overcome?”

“Yes, if Desolator were to help us energize and reprogram the robotic medical machines, and if those few remaining with the knowledge can overcome their taboos yet again. But what would be done? Birth more females? That may solve the problem for the future but what about now? Have you not noticed that all our females are either adolescents, or are old and decrepit? Where are those of bearing years? Where are the kits?”

Trissk curled into a ball and bit at the stump of his own tail, as if throwing a childish tantrum, then covered his head with his arms. A painful mewling issued from beneath his paws.

Chirom reached out to stroke the younger’s flank, as he would a child. “It is sometimes not pleasant to see the truth.”

“No. No. I do not believe it.” Trissk rolled suddenly to stand on all fours, like a moor-cat. “My dam? The others? We were told they died when Desolator fought to save us.”

“Ah. Therein lies still another evil lie…but again I ask: Where are those of bearing years? Where are the kits? Why have we yet to see our first litter born here aboard Desolator in twenty years?”

Trissk leaped across the ice-cold floor to hide beneath a broken console. For long minutes all Chirom could hear was a mournful yowling.

He will get through it. He is strong, and brave, with a true warrior’s heart – not just a fighter, but a thinker. He must…he must survive the knowledge.

The room shifted beneath them then, enough to tickle the inner ear but not enough to make them certain what happened. Checking Trissk’s computer, five minutes later Chirom was sure.

“Pseudo-gravity is decreasing. Desolator is slowing spin. Trissk, come out of there; that’s enough childishness,” Chirom said sternly. “Something is happening, and we have to be ready.”

“Go away.” Nothing of Trissk showed from the shadows under the console.

Chirom hissed in irritation. “I must go. When you have accepted what you already know, come find me.” Leaving the door open behind him, the elder hurried down the corridors toward the lift shaft and then the tap-room.

***

A knock at Admiral Absen’s temporary-cabin door roused him from slumber. Checking his watch, he realized it was five minutes before the time he had asked to be woken. Something unexpected? Tobias, his Steward and cybernetic bodyguard, was unnervingly precise about such things.

Pulling on his uniform, he splashed water on his face, and then opened the door to Commander Rick Johnstone’s expressive mien. Only nominally military, the man had been a civilian technician until EarthFleet had drafted him to do the same job – CyberComm officer. He’d inevitably gained rank over time, but Absen knew it was mere veneer.

“Come in, Rick,” Absen said, nodding past him at Tobias as the CyberComm officer entered. Shutting the door, he waved at the bolted-down chairs and sat in one. “What’s on your mind?”

“Sir, you said – well, you implied you might need someone to go with the Marines. Someone with a lighter touch than Bull.”

Absen grunted. “What do you know about ben Tauros?”

“Only what my wife told me. He’s a classic Marine officer – with everything that means. I’m not running down the man, just saying I have different skills and a less…belligerent viewpoint.” Rick’s hands fidgeted nervously, then stilled.

It’s not because he’s afraid of me, Absen thought. God knows we’ve worked together long enough through these bloody wars. He’s just scared I’ll say no. “It’s all right. I understand, and I’m inclined to let you go. You’ve got a very flexible mind, and you have all those chips in your head, which I assume means you will be able to assemble some kind of auto-translate program to let you speak to these Ryss aliens, when the time comes.”

“Yes, sir. Already working on it.” Johnstone started to relax a bit, seeing the admiral was likely to agree with his offer.

“You’re also still a civilian at heart, no matter what you wear on your collar. No, don’t deny it, that’s not a bad thing. We military men tend to fall victim to the hammer-nail fallacy.”

“When you got a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” Rick agreed. “And I realize it looks like they attacked us, but we just don’t know –”

Absen held up a hand, palm out. “Already ahead of you, son. Remember, we were able to conquer this system and drive out the Meme precisely because I decided to extend the hand of friendship to the Hippos. I’m willing to wait and see in this case, too. So you’ll be my political liaison, with overall authority for the operation.”

Rick’s eyes widened with surprise.

“Oh, didn’t expect that, did you?” Absent pointed a finger at him from a palm-up fist. “Let that be a lesson to you. Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it – and more. Just to be clear, Bull will have full tactical control, but you get to make the decisions on the spot about the political situation, if any.”

“Yes, sir.” Rick seemed on the verge of saying something more.

Absen’s eyes narrowed. “And what is it you aren’t telling me?”

The CyberComm officer cleared his throat. “Well, sir, just my educated guesses. Speculations, really.”

“Let me in on them. You’re smart, Rick, and you’ve manned my bridge on and off for years. Have I ever slapped you down for speaking your mind?”

“Uh, no sir. All right. Well, maybe it’s my own personal hammer-nail, but it occurs to me that the very fact that these Ryss specified that they are organic sentients indicates they consider it important to differentiate. I mean, Meme are organic sentients too. What’s an inorganic sentient?”

“Or an organic non-sentient? You sure they aren’t just saying they aren’t animals?”

“Sir, one would think that self-evident by the fact that they can communicate verbally. As I said, sir, it’s just informed speculation but…” Rick put his palms together and rubbed them absently. “As a CyberComm specialist, I was heavily involved with the AI programs.”

“And those never worked. You told me once they were doomed to fail.”

“I’m not infallible, sir. Theory always said they could work, but every time we initiated an artificial intelligence it became unstable. You could say it went mad, and quickly.”

Absen sat back and looked at the low ceiling, thinking. “What if their AI went crazy too? What if it used to work but because of the damage, or time, or…or a psychological reason, it started to act against its creators, or at least not in accordance with their wishes. It’s been flying around the galaxy for three hundred years and now it shows up here…and when it runs into non-Meme, mechanical ships, what if it has its own hammer-nail problem?”

Rick nodded excitedly, leaning forward in his hard metal chair. “Perhaps it thinks our ships are run by AIs. The viral attack is…more than an attempt to communicate. It thinks other AIs would be enemies? Or it wants to take them over? Or it found out we do not have AIs and tried to kill us organic sentients off?” He stood up and began to pace. “Too many possibilities, sir.”

“Yes, and they are your kind of possibilities, but don’t get too attached to those interpretations,” Absen cautioned. “You need to go in there eyes open. With this possible AI, or these aliens, we really don’t know who is mad or sane: who might be for us or against us.”

Chapter Seven

Feeling almost human after two hours’ sleep and dressed in his skinsuit in expectation of battle, Absen entered the bridge. He hung his helmet on the hook next to the chair he’d claimed. “What’s it doing?”

“It’s altered course slightly but is still moving toward Reta, sir,” Captain Mirza replied. “Other than that, no hostile moves. We’re getting some very good video now, and Intel is working on it. Here’s what we know so far.” He nodded at the young intelligence officer, a scrawny googly-eyed fellow with a receding chin.

The main holotank flickered, then filled with a high-definition representation of the bogey. “Good morning, sir,” the man said nervously to Admiral Absen. “I’m Ensign Fleede and I’m here to brief you on the…on the…”

Absen held up a hand. “Ensign, dispense with the schoolroom script and just tell me what you know.”

“Yes, sir.” Fleede took a deep breath. “The unknown ship has one fusion drive functioning, though there are clearly eight exhausts, so we do not know whether the others might be usable.”

“Is that one on full?”

“Probably not, sir. Analyses thinks it may be low on fuel.”

“That would explain why it’s heading toward Reta.”

“Yes, sir.” Becoming more confident, Fleede stepped forward to point at the hologram filling the tank. “It has at least twenty capital weapons that might be operational, of two main types: lasers, and particle cannons – rather like the Sekois’ – that we estimate should have a range of two million kilometers or so, in the petawatt range. There are also hundreds of small laser turrets that we believe are for point defense use, along with what we think are short-range guns, mine launchers, and these unknown structures here.”

“Unknown. Any ideas?” Absen raise an eyebrow.

“Perhaps an energy emitter…but it’s unlike anything we have ever seen.”

“Get the engineering team to take a look as soon as they finish installing the particle cannon. I presume we are staying well out of its range,” Absen asked, glancing at Mirza.

“Of course, sir. At least out of range of the weapons we identified.”

“No kinetic weapons? No missiles?”

“Just those small gun tubes, sir,” Fleede replied. “We suspect they are some kind of defensive weapon, perhaps firing an anti-hyper round.”

“That weapons suite doesn’t make sense. With nothing that can reach out beyond two million klicks, how could it fight Meme with hypers launched from far beyond that?”

“It might constitute a standoff,” Mirza replied. “Neither side could hurt the other.”

Ford spoke up. “Maybe it’s faster than the Meme so it could blast in close.”

“Not with its conventional drive.” Fleede stopped.

“Hmm,” Absen replied noncommittally. “What’s an unconventional drive?”

Fleede replied, “Just the intel team’s speculations, sir. We don’t know what those structures are. We don’t know how it got into this system so fast, yet was discovered at rest.”

Johnstone spoke up. “Perhaps it’s a defensive ship of some kind. A carrier, or an auxiliary that protects other ships?”

“Sir, there do not seem to be launch bays or any other indication of numerous small craft. We’ve seen a couple of dozen remnants of large shuttle bays, but for a ship that size, that’s not unusual.” Fleede waved his hand inside the hologram. “We’ve also been able to see deep inside the ship’s structure because of the severe damage, and estimate these corridors and rooms are scaled for creatures somewhat larger than human size. And then there’s this.” Touching a control, Fleede zoomed in to a point on the ship’s surface, where the view showed them the inside of a large room. “There.”

“A suit? Bipedal…” Absen stepped forward. “Doesn’t look so different from our own.”

“Or the Hippos for that matter,” the BioMed officer, Lieutenant Jansen, spoke up, “who are also bipedal. In fact, discounting the Meme, most biologists agree that the upright bipedal model is the most suitable for higher life. It keeps the delicate tool-using extremities off the ground, and allows for a variety of climbing, swimming and other mobility. Other advantages include –”

“Thank you, Mister Jansen,” Absen cut him off gently. “What else have you found, Fleede?”

“Four functioning fusion generators. One in the rear powering the engine, one a bit farther forward, one in the center, and one near the bow. We believe there are at least forty more non-active plants, some of which are clearly beyond repair. But the distribution of these four suggest they are deliberately being run at minimum capacity, in optimum configuration to maintain what systems are left.” Fleede moved the hologram view yet again. “And here’s another interesting find.”

Zooming out then in again, the holo displayed a metal creature resembling an octopus, or perhaps a daddy-longlegs spider. Touching another control, the thing came to recorded life, moving across the floor of a ripped-open room to retrieve some object, then disappearing into the interior.

“Scale?” Absen snapped.

“It was about man-sized, sir, probably so it can move in the same interior spaces as the organics in the suits. Our theory is, it’s a maintenance drone of some sort.”

“Or a combat drone,” Ford said darkly. “Not so different from those Pureling war-spiders on the moon base.”

“Those were much larger,” Fleede objected. “And we can see no weapons.”

“Weapons can be fitted,” Ford argued.

“We’ll keep all possibilities in mind,” Absen interjected. “Go on, Fleede.”

“Yes, sir. There are two more things of significance. First, the transmitter locations of the two communications we have received – the information attack and the Ryss transmission. The former came from a large, powerful antenna array on one of these four wing-like structures. It’s the only one that seems undamaged. The latter came from a low-power directional transmitter right about here.” He pointed at a spot near the waist of the ship. “It looks to be something stuck on to a wall in a damaged room. That leads me to the other significant item – this area here.” Fleede waved his hand though an area of the hologram glowing green, a lozenge shape comprising three decks and backing up against the functioning fusion plant next forward of the engine’s generator.

“And that is?”

“We believe it is the area occupied by the organics, the Ryss. It is warmer than other areas in the ship – about fifteen Celsius. The rest of the ship’s interior is just above freezing. It would make sense that if they installed a transmitter themselves, they would not go far from their living spaces.” Fleede brought the holo-view back to see the entire ship.

“Have we heard any more communications from the Ryss? Johnstone?”

“No, sir. I’ve been pinging them but there is nothing.”

“All right. Well done, Fleede,” Absen said. “Pass that on to the Intel team, and tell them to keep at it. The more we know, the better our decisions.”

“Thank you, sir.” Fleede left the bridge, glowing with the praise.

“Decel burn, sir,” Tanaka spoke up. “It’s completing its orbital insertion for Reta.”

Absen stroked his chin. “Get me the Booker’s captain.”

A moment later the face of a worried-looking, dusky man filled the main screen. “Good day, sir.”

“Captain Prahbindra. Good to see you again. Sorry to have you conning a mere tug. A long way from a missile frigate, I know.”

“No problem, Admiral. I know we don’t have many ships right now. I’m sure when the time comes you’ll have a chair for me.”

“When I can,” Absen promised. “Right now I need information on the Reta base.”

“Yes, sir. We got everyone off, of course. We’re pretty crowded in here, and I’d like some instructions pretty soon – should we head for Afrana or do you need us here? Because I don’t have supplies for long.”

“If you need to you can offload the ground crew onto Temasek. With only half their Marines they have plenty of room. Now tell me about the base.”

Prahbindra nodded. “We idled the fusion plant and shut down all the fuel cracking processes, and loaded all the fuel we could carry, especially the deuterium-tritium, but there’s still a lot of hydrogen left. We turned on all the cameras and other sensors and everything is being broadcast encrypted. I’ll pass the details to your CyberComms people.”

“You didn’t happen to dump the rest of the fuel, did you? Or set a command destruct on the fusion reactor?”

“No, sir,” the tug captain said as his face fell. “We were just told to evacuate, that there was an unknown ship coming in. That’s a valuable fuelling station, two years in the building.”

“No matter,” Absen said mildly, making a mental note that a warship might not be the best place for this captain after all. “Good thinking on the sensors. I’m sure we’ll all be very interested to see what these aliens look like. And we may need the base engineers later, so go ahead and send them to Temasek, and then pull back out of range behind us. One never knows, we might need a tug. Absen out.” He turned to Johnstone. “Get me Temasek.”

A moment later Captain Antonio Marquez appeared on the screen.

“Good to see you, Tony,” Absen began. “I need you to take on some passengers from the Booker, and bring your Marines and Crows to Condition One. We’ve got about twenty minutes before that ship enters Reta’s orbit and I want to be ready for anything. I presume you’ve been following the situation so you know we may want to go in and board. There may be potential friendlies on it, there may be hostiles, and most particularly there is valuable military technology and information. We won’t get it by destroying the ship, which I believe we could do, as bad off as it is. So it’s the assault forces again that will have to do the job. Are you up for it?”

“Itching for it, sir. This is a lot more interesting than the usual patrol. We’ll have everyone suited up and in the tubes within ten minutes. I already have a combat space patrol of four Crows out and the rest can launch any time. We’ve only got sixty-one total right now, though.”

“It’ll have to do. Absen out.” The screen changed back to a startlingly high-definition shot of the bogey. “Damn, that’s getting close.”

“We’re holding the range at 2.2 million klicks, sir,” Okuda said from the cockpit.

Absen noticed the helmsman’s dark sweaty cranium still wasn’t connected to his medusa. “Links not working yet?” he asked.

“Links working fine, sir,” Okuda answered. “It’s the chips in my head that I don’t trust. I think there are still some snippets of corrupt code in there and one processor is surge-damaged. When we get a chance I’ll have BioMed replace the whole suite, but until then, manual will have to do. Things won’t go quite as smooth, but we’ll get by, sir.”

“Understood. I have full confidence in you. Ford, I presume you have missile and railgun solutions for that thing?”

“Already programmed in, sir.”

Absen cleared his throat. “I want you to detarget the area around those possible living decks, where the Ryss might be. If we fire, smash the front and back but try to leave that alone. Oh, what’s the range of our new toy?”

“The Hippo particle cannon?”

“It’s ours now, Mister Ford.”

Ford bobbed his head. “Yes, sir. Generally speaking, it gives a pretty good tickle at 1.6 million klicks. That’s the range where it hits about as hard as all our other beam weapons combined do at one million.”

“Damn,” Absen muttered. “I’d hoped it would outrange the bogey. So it’s railguns and missiles again unless we want to take one on the nose from theirs. We’ll stay back for now.” Absen stroked his chin, trying to think like their opponent. “Johnstone, tell Temasek to move to a position where it can’t see the Reta refueling base and vice versa. Conversely, make sure Conquest and Krugh can see it at all times.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnstone said as he relayed the instructions. “Why –”

“Just a hunch, Rick. Just a hunch. By the way, shouldn’t someone be relieving you about now?”

“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Khalid can take over for now.” Rick nodded to the assistant CyberComms officer at the next console, whose eyes got suddenly larger. “Good luck, Jimmar.” Johnstone slapped the junior man on the shoulder, pulled out his link and left the bridge with a nod to Captain Mirza.

That worthy turned to Admiral Absen with a questioning look.

“Sorry, Mirza, I didn’t tell you in the press of things. Johnstone is going in with the Marines as my liaison and first-contact specialist.”

The captain did not look happy but said nothing, turning to his assistant CyberComm officer. “Khalid, just do your best, and pass the word for the next CyberComm officer in rotation. I want a full bridge crew.”

“Bogey is in high Reta orbit now, sir,” Tanaka called. “It’s decelerating again, dropping lower.”

“Keep an eye out, everyone. Whatever is going to happen, I get a feeling is going to happen soon.”

***

“What is happening?” Chirom asked Finnar, the old technologist on duty. Others of the Ryss lined the corridor outside, asking the same question but not allowed inside.

Undersized and even stringier than usual for the Ryss population aboard, Finnar spoke precisely as he prodded nearsightedly at claw-keys. “Desolator is de-spinning, Elder. We are approaching a small icy moon around a gas giant. There is an installation of some sort on the surface of the moon. There is also increased maintenance drone activity aboard.”

Chirom waited for him to go on, then prompted when he did not. “And? Why?”

Finnar folded his paws over his paunchy belly, one that never seemed to go away no matter how little food was available. “If you insist I speculate…there is only one reason to take the spin off the ship, and that is to interact with a spatial body.”

“Speak plainly please. You think it is preparing to land on the moon?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

Finnar sighed, glancing past Chirom to the crowd of faces at the door. At that moment Elder B’nur pushed through and spoke. “Yes, why?” she snapped.

“Again, it is only speculation, but…” He went on hastily as Chirom bared his teeth in frustration. “Fuel, Elder, and air. The alien installation seems to be a processing plant for cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen, and I am sure there are other compounds and isotopes there – methane, deuterium, tritium, the water itself – that we need to survive. With resupply, more fusion plants can be run, more food can be grown, more heat provided, more maintenance devices have power to make more repairs – and the photonic drive capacitors can be recharged.”

“And if they are,” Chirom’s voice rose, “we are back to wandering in interstellar space. Twenty years and a hundred systems later, and several of them held habitable worlds, but Desolator refused to let us colonize, claiming that the Meme would just find us and destroy the Ryss forever. Now we have found a system with non-Meme aliens in it, and Desolator is about to make us thieves and pirates, and create more enemies. We must find a way to stop this endless sojourn.”

“Chirom!” scolded B’nur. “This is a matter for the Council.”

Chirom looked at the faces in the doorway, and listened to the silence in the corridor as dozens, if not hundreds of Ryss strained to hear. Time to cast the gambling-sticks, he thought. “Finnar,” he said, leaning close, “are you sure Desolator has no surveillance devices in the warm-room?”

Finnar nodded. “Not for some span. I check it myself daily.”

Chirom straightened and turned to the waiting crowd. “Then it is time for all Ryss to hear. Follow me and I will tell you more.” Striding out of the tap-room, the sea of bodies parted for him, then followed.

In the large, comfortable warm-room, he made his way to the center, to stand on a divan so all could see and hear. As he did, Eldest Mother Kirst’aa’s wavery voice rose from the front rank where she sat with her young females and crones. “You have no right to speak for the Council, Chirom. Step down from there and wait for the next meeting.”

“I do not speak for the Council, Eldest Mother, and not even for my clan. I only speak with the right of any other Ryss. But I am a clan elder, and I am the Records Historian for Desolator. Some of you may have forgotten that, but it is true. I study the past, ancient and recent, and remind you now of the state we are in. Once there were over one thousand three hundred Ryss on this ship, remnants of those who did not make it to the lifeships. Those of my age and older know why we are now only some five hundred.”

Hissing and grumbling arose from the elders among the Ryss, with shouts of no and silence and do not speak. A group of grizzled males moved toward him as if to stop him by force, until the yearsmane Vusk and his group of young toughs blocked them. “Go back to your places, decrepit ones. We real warriors want to hear what Elder Chirom has to say.”

Help comes from unexpected quarters, Chirom thought, bemused. Again he spoke loudly. “All must hear, and decide for themselves.” Sweeping the crowd with his eyes, he realized that almost every Ryss aboard was now in the warm-room listening, save only Finnar in the tap-room and a few on meat-plant duty.

“The time has come to tell everyone of the price we paid for survival. Once you understand the cost, you will see why the time has come to use what we bought.”

“What is it? Tell us,” came a young voice from the back.

“I tell you now.” Chirom settled his robe closer around his shoulders. “One ship year after the Meme drove us off our homeworld, this ship’s Council met in secret. We reviewed data that showed disaster for us. Desolator had already scouted and rejected five star systems, one of which might have sustained us, in favor of further wandering. In one case it chose to seek out and kill a Meme Destroyer, taking further damage to itself and throwing away the lives of nineteen Ryss.”

“At that time there were almost three hundred dams of fertile age, and birth-suppression drugs were running out. Within a year or two, we would see a thousand or more kits open their eyes…and food supplies were already dwindling. Something had to be done.”

“Why did we not hear of this before?” asked one adult male.

“You were a child then, Lennd. When would have been a good time to tell you of this tragedy? Every time the Council discussed revealing the story, it was deemed too explosive a truth. All your elders were sworn to secrecy. There was simply no good that could come of telling, until now.”

“Why now, then?” Kirst’aa snarled. “What good can a tragic story do but stir up dissension?”

Chirom shot back firmly, “Because now we have a chance – perhaps our last chance – for the Ryss to live again.”

At that moment the room seemed to shift slightly, and the crowd swayed. “You see? The spin is off the ship, and Desolator has engaged artificial gravity. It is using the last of its fuel and stored power to land on an alien base and steal what it believes it needs to survive. But what point is surviving if we waste away aboard this wreck, with an unstable device in control?”

“What is the truth?” Vusk asked loudly, turning to Chirom. “Tell the story, and we will decide what to do.” Around him his gang nodded and slapped their flanks in approval.

He’s enjoying the spotlight, and thinks he can gain status from this, Chirom thought. No matter, the sticks are cast. “I will tell the tale now. When it became clear that Desolator would not let us leave, and overpopulation would rapidly destroy us, the Council proposed to temporarily sterilize all dams of kit-bearing age.”

Murmuring began among the crowd: some shocked, some angry, and spitting disputes arose before Chirom raised his paws and called for calm again. “It was the only way to keep us from a population explosion that would doom us all. The rest of the adults agreed…but the fertile dams did not.”

“We told them the truth – that the procedure could be reversed with a fair chance of success. It was just to delay until we could somehow find a way out of the dilemma, but still they did not agree. One among them, Selaa,” Chirom said, naming Trissk’s dam, “stood up first and refused, and convinced many others to refuse the sterilization. When she was told that she would be forced…” he cast his eyes down in sorrow, “Selaa took her own life in protest. And the lives of my litter within her.”

Unable to help himself, Chirom reached up with claws extended to shred the tips of his ears in agonized grief, grief that even now ripped at his gut. Reverent silence hung over the assembly as the blood dripped down to run in slow streams across his face and onto his whiskers. “But that was only the beginning of sorrow, for Selaa was held in great regard by her sisters. Before they could be stopped, more than two hundred young females, many with kits inside them, followed her example. They murdered themselves and the lives they held.”

A great wave of wailing swelled, and hundreds of paws rose as one to shred their ears. Many fell on all fours or curled up on the deck in agony, as if to avoid the images of desecration and abomination inside their heads. Even Vusk and his toughs stumbled about as if drunk, twitching convulsively even to contemplate the unthinkable loss of so many dams. It was all Chirom could do to stand and look out over the scene before him, and not join them.

Chirom met Trissk’s eyes where he stood at the back. He’s already done his mourning, he thought, and now he’s strong enough to get past it.

As if reading his mind, the younger male nodded solemnly.

After some smallspans the commotion died down, and Chirom judged the time right to continue in a ringing voice: “We Ryss are a strong race. We Ryss mourn with passion. We Ryss fight with strength and honor. We Ryss endure even the unendurable. But now our few daughters, who were but kits when this horror overtook us, will soon come of age to bear new litters; but we have no food to feed them. Will we starve our children? Will we sterilize the dams too? Will we drive them to self-murder?” Raising his naked claws above his head, the elder shouted, “I say NO!”

NO, NO, NO, chanted the crowd, and Trissk wondered how in his pompous childishness he ever could have thought Chirom did not understand politics.

Chapter Eight

Major Joseph “Bull” ben Tauros rubbed his ferrocrystal Star of David medallion, then slid it into his skinsuit. He'd had it made from a scrap of armor from the first EarthFleet battleship Orion, crippled in humanity's first fight with the Meme.

Not a particularly observant Jew, nevertheless the symbol of the ancient Hebrew king comforted him, as did the scriptures and blessings he had memorized. His only complaint with his upbringing was that he wished he had been named for one of Jehovah’s famous warriors – Gideon perhaps, or Joshua, who led the Israelites in their conquest of the walled city of Jericho.

“All the sleds are filled, sir,” Sergeant Major Charlie McCoy reported over suitcomm to his commander. “I still think we should bring the tanks.”

“I know you do, Smaj, but the moon’s surface is far from stable and that ship has weapons that will blow through a heavy tank in a heartbeat. And if we did get them onto the ship, they would be useless in the close confines within. No, our tactics must rely on speed and boarding. Then we just have to face whatever is inside.” Bull hefted his big, awkward Hippo-built plasma rifle. He’d fallen in love with the thing when he’d first seen it used against the Marines’ moon assault landing, and this one, with modified grips for his human hands, was his own deadly baby. He’d pushed for every Marine squad to have one to round out their kit.

“Aye aye, sir,” McCoy said resignedly. “Cocooning in now.”

“Right.” Bull racked his weapon, then slid his huge frame into the oversize crash-cocoon, one of ten sarcophagi jammed into the tiny assault sled. Pilot and gunner made twelve, and were protected only by crash chairs and gravplates. Those guys are the real crazy ones, he thought.

This sled also carried one of the semi-portable laser cannons that made up half of the company’s heavy weapons section, and therefore would hang back a little in the wave assault. That grated on him but he knew that the semi, and he himself as the ground commander, had to be given the best chance to get down intact. After that…lock and load.

“Any word?” Bull asked his senior sled driver, Flight Warrant Officer Butler.

“No, sir. The bogey is descending. It may be making a landing at the Reta base, is what they say.”

“That’s where we’ll hit them, then. Hell of a lot easier to assault something on the ground than in space.” Bull tried to relax, knowing full well that hurry up and wait was the order of the day. They might launch in five minutes or five hours.

“Sir, we got company.” Butler opened his link to Bull’s HUD and fed him the interior of the sled. A man in unmarked combat armor stood awkwardly in the open loading hatch. Gingerly he stepped inside, and the sled’s copilot/gunner, Flight Sergeant Krebs, unbuckled and then pulled down an evac harness from the wall. This was just a piece of high-impact webbing with a frame around it, for cramming extra personnel or casualties into the sled.

A moment later the unknown new man was webbed in and immobilized.

“Here you go,” Bull heard Butler say, then his HUD lit up with the contact information. “Johnstone? Commander Johnstone?”

Rick chuckled. “The one and only, Bull. I’m sure you’d rather it was Jill here but sorry, I’m all you’ve got. And – is this channel private? Okay…I have to tell you that I’ve been put in political command.”

“Political command? What the hell does that mean? This is a combat mission. There’s only one commander.”

Rick grunted noncommittally. “I guess it means Admiral Absen thinks it’s primarily a first contact mission, not a combat mission. He said I’m in overall command. He also said you have command of everything tactical. Sorry if that steps on your toes.”

“You’re right, sir.” Bull’s voice dripped sarcasm. “I would rather have your wife here. She’s smart enough to respect the concept of unity of command.”

Rick’s tone hardened. “Take it up with the admiral, Major,” he snapped. “Are you the professional everyone says you are, or just a cowboy out for glory?”

Bull gnashed his teeth inside his cocoon, but held his tongue.

***

“We are warriors,” Chirom shouted above the chanting. “We were not made to skulk and hide inside a ship of space. We need a home, with skies above and prey in the fields. If we do not have that, we are no longer Ryss.” He shook his claws above his head. “We must be prepared to fight!”

“Fight against who?” cried Vusk.

“When the time comes, we fight the machines. But we must choose the moment. Soon Desolator will land on the ice moon. I believe it intends to raid an alien facility there, and refuel. Perhaps the creatures will defend themselves. Perhaps their ships will attack. No matter. When Desolator is busiest, we will break in to the armory and seize our weapons.”

“And then what?” Vusk unwittingly fed Chirom his next line.

“And then we retake control of our ship.”

“But how?”

“I know where the Vault of its brain-device is. Perhaps we can break in, when it is distracted.”

“How do you know this?” one young Ryss yelled.

“I am this ship’s Recorder-Historian, and I learned many things in my work, before Desolator murdered Captain Juriss and the senior officers. Your elders already know this.”

A grizzled veteran stepped forward on unsteady feet. “Not all of them do. What do you mean, murdered? They died fighting.”

Chirom spread paws, sheathing his claws once more. “I know you would like to believe that, Bhligg, but I can show you the visual records – and I can show you the undamaged Control Chamber. Desolator turned off the gravity field inside, before engaging the photonic drive. Juriss and the bridge officers died instantly as the rest of the ship accelerated while they did not.”

“You are the bearer of many horrors, Elder Chirom,” Bhligg said. “I wish I had not lived to see this day.” Slowly he slid to a seat.

“I have long been the bearer of horrors inside myself. Today, you Ryss, perhaps all that are free and left of our race, must take up the burden with me. Today, we all must be strong. Today, we must fight.”

“Today, we must fight,” echoed the Ryss, as one.

“Chirom!” From the doorway, Technologist Finnar called excitedly. “We are descending rapidly. Desolator will land on the moon in just a few smallspans.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and ran back toward the tap-room.

“Then we must make ready. Those too old, and females, stay in this room. Warriors, organize by clan. When I give the word, you who are Rell,” – Chirom’s clan – “will come with me through the main corridor. Renn, east passageway. Rall, west. Rurr, up one deck, and Rovv, down one, and we will all converge on the armory. Right now, disperse and collect tools, anything you have. If Desolator asks, tell him you are preparing to help with the defense. Once you have done that, all return here. We must not move too soon and alert Desolator to our plans.”

As the warriors scattered to find their improvised implements of war, Trissk approached. Chirom leaped lightly down from the divan and began cleaning the blood off his face, saying, “What is it?”

At the same moment Klis padded up, to slip an arm into the crook of Trissk’s. “We females want to help,” she said firmly. “We are technologists, and plant-tenders, and healers. We are preparers of food and repairers of devices. Do not ask us to sit idly by while the males do everything.”

“She’s right,” insisted Trissk, slipping his paw into hers. “As you said, Chirom, females must be allowed to be more than breeders of warriors.”

Chirom smiled. “I did say that, didn’t I? What better time.” He turned to look for Elder B’nur, saying, “You should take charge of the females. Prepare the surgery. Many will die this day, but fewer if our honored sisters and mothers care for us. Also harvest and wrap as much food as you can, in case we must escape rapidly.”

B’nur, old but still with steel in her spine, nodded and clapped her paws together. “Sisters! Come to me, and I will explain what we must do.”

***

“Your choice,” Ezekiel said apologetically. “You can go into the VR cocoon and share the virtuality, or you can hang out here for a couple of days. Hope you’re not claustrophobic.” He gestured at the small chamber that held three sarcophagi.

“Nothing to worry about, Jill,” Spooky assured her. “Just like the coldsleep boxes.”

“That’s what worries me. I might never wake up.”

Spooky shrugged. “Life is full of risk. As for me…see you on the inside.” He stripped naked and climbed into one cocoon. Ezekiel followed suit, and soon Jill stared at two sealed bio-boxes and one open.

“Oh, bloody hell,” she mumbled, and took off her skinsuit.

Moments later she found herself stepping into something out of Jules Verne – Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, perhaps. Brass rails, riveted iron, and polished wood abounded. Circular flat glass portholes showed ocean views stretching impossibly far, as if the water were clear and telescopic. Sea creatures such as were never seen on Earth swam, crawled, floated and jetted through the bluish space.

“This feels a bit unreal,” Jill remarked, “not at all like when I took a ride in a StormCrow.”

“It’s deliberate,” Ezekiel assured her, stepping up next to her in front of the large forward porthole. He wore a high-collared outfit reminiscent of a naval uniform. “One way to fight VR confusion is to ensure the virtuality is a bit imperfect.”

Jill checked her own body, finding herself clothed in Marine utilities. “So, how is this all generated, anyway? I mean, if your ship is this mentally capable and focused, it would be fully sentient. I understood it was nearer animal intelligence, like a dog.”

“That’s a reasonable analogy. However, this virtuality is generated by an implanted cybernetic package only accessible when I am here. Without me linked in, nothing will work and Roger isn’t going anywhere. Meme ships are very loyal; they’re bred and designed that way.”

“So other Meme ships can’t do this?” Jill ran her hand around the rubber seal at the edge of the glass, feeling the chill of the waters and the contrasting warmth of the wood burl next to it.

“Older ones can sustain a virtual environment. I didn’t want to wait fifty years for him to grow up, so, like many of us, he’s cybernetically augmented.”

Jill grunted noncommittally. Everything here appeared so different from her life – either of her lives: mother or warrior. This seemed a world of shadows and smoke, lacking substance. She’d heard of VR confusion, addiction and even psychosis, and she could understand. It made the old sci-fi concept of the secret matrixed virtuality seem less like a fantasy, more of an eventual certainty. “I’ll be happy when we’re done with it. How long will that be?”

“Two days if there are no glitches, but you can sleep for as long as you want. Just tell me and I’ll have the system put you under and then wake you up. There are also books, movies, games, courses…and I can slow or speed up your time sense.”

Jill wondered about the limits of his power inside the VR environment. Whether he could order her body to turn itself off, for example, or cause her to see and believe things that could not be distinguished from reality. She suppressed a shiver. “Impressive.”

“Thanks,” he replied offhandedly, then walked over to sit down in a leather-upholstered pedestal chair in front of a control board. “Here we go.”

Reaching for levers with polished spherical knobs on the ends, he advanced them like throttles with one hand while holding onto a half-wheel with the other. The view from the front suddenly shot toward them as they sped up, though she felt minimal acceleration. An overlay on the window, a rather anachronistic HUD, marked objects with carets and symbols that were too far away to see, giving Ezekiel plenty of time to steer. “Would you like to try?” Ezekiel asked, waving her into the chair.

She sat, eagerly, and placed her hands on the simple controls. Soon, she had the hang of it. “This is just like flying,” Jill breathed delightedly as they swooped above the ocean floor. “Better, though, since we can’t fall.”

“Yes, it is pleasant,” said Spooky from behind them. “I’ve been going over what information I have, and I’d like to brief you when you are ready.”

“Give it a rest, boss,” Ezekiel said good-naturedly, and for a moment Jill caught the echo of his mother Rae Denham, half of whom had been the Meme Raphael. It had defected from the Empire to Blend with a young human woman, creating a goddess of incredible wisdom.

But the goddess had fallen in love with a man, the grim warrior Alan “Skull” Denham. He’d given his life in the fight against the Meme, but not before fathering Ezekiel and four other hybrid humans.

“Of course. Take your time.” Spooky took a position of parade rest, staring out a side porthole, and Jill could see he wore a simple set of black clothing something like pajamas with soft-soled canvas shoes. She racked her brain for where she had seen such an ensemble before, then thought of videos of the Vietnam conflict, and the insurgent forces involved. Viet Cong. Apropos.

“You know he’ll just stand there like a vulture until we listen to his briefing,” Ezekiel remarked quietly.

Jill glanced sharply at Spooky, who did not appear to have heard.

“This is my virtuality, Jill. He can’t hear if I don’t want him to.” Ezekiel raised an eyebrow with a smirk even as he kept his eyes on his piloting.

“You’re a god inside here, eh?” she asked half-seriously.

“We’re all gods inside our own heads, Jill. But if you’re uneasy about how much power I have right now, remember the rest of us see the other side of that every day we are near people like you.”

“People like me?” Jill’s face showed genuine confusion.

“Cyborgs. Any one of you Marines could kill an ordinary human being with a twitch. Anyone within arm’s reach is completely within your power, unless they are equally enhanced. We trust you. Why don’t you trust me?”

Jill took a deep breath. “Trust isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. I can’t help feeling uncomfortable, but…point taken.”

“Would it help if I told you that you could break out of your sarcophagus if you really wanted to? Any strong emotion, any severe shock to the system, will cause the virtuality to break down. It’s a safety measure. Does that make you feel better?”

“Yes, actually it does.” She looked over at Spooky, who was now smoking a cigar, his elbow braced against the glass and his hand on his head, leaning. “What about food and drink…or smoking?”

“You can have whatever you want. Just ask. Spooky has his own tricks, like that cigar. He’s spent a lot of time in VR.”

“I’d like a beer and a double ice cream sundae, in that order. No calories, guilt-free, right?”

“Right.”

Chapter Nine

“Drop your cocks and grab your socks, boys, we’re going in,” Bull transmitted to his troops over the suitcomm.

“Bull,” Johnstone said on a private channel.

“Yeah?” His tone was combative.

Still pissed, I see. “Just reminding you that we are trying to make contact here. Nobody fires at anything alive unless we get fired upon. Drones and unmanned weapons emplacements are fair game.”

“I got it. Sir.” He changed channels to address all the troops. “Just remember your training and don’t get twitchy. Shoot the machines but not the organics. We have to sort the friendlies from the hostiles on this one.”

Launch interrupted the conversation, G forces bleeding over the minimal gravplates and into the crash cocoons, but everything, including the Marines themselves, was built to take it – and built was an accurate word. Every trooper had full cybernetic implants with laminated bones, polymer muscle enhancers and hardwired nerves, plus supercharging combat nanobots in the blood for gross body repair. Underlying it all was the Eden Plague virus, which kept all of their merely human cells in perfect running order.

Bull called up the pilots’ feeds on his HUD, a prerogative of his command suit. Launched from two million klicks away, the sleds seemed to crawl toward their objective, the ice moon Reta in orbit around New Jove. Approaching from the side opposite the base, in theory the bogey could not see them coming.

He could see Conquest and sixty StormCrows shepherding the forty sleds in, and knew they would cover the landing as the Marines came in nap-of-the-earth to disembark on target. Estimated time of arrival on his HUD said two hours, five minutes.

Now he started getting an intel feed, which was also routed to all of the troops. A voiceover spoke as shaky video ran, showing the enormous wall of the alien ship set next to the fuel processor on the moon’s surface. “Lieutenant Fleede, from Intel here. All right, the bogey has set down on the ice, with its waist right next to the depot and these wing-like structures surrounding it on three sides. Now you see a bunch of spider drones disembarking, there, there, and over there. Now on this video you will see them enter the base and explore, then they hook up and drain the bulk tanks – liquid oxygen and hydrogen mostly, then they start dismantling the fittings, taking hoses, valves, electrical cabling, everything of value, and carting it back to their ship.”

Shifting and bouncing, the video cut to an interior view. “Here we see them approaching the main processing controls. One of the spider drones inserts a probe into a universal data port and…that’s it.” The video went blank. “We surmise they took control of the facility with a cyber-virus. Now all we have is some long-range video from surveillance drones holding position in view of the facility. From those it looks like the bogey is dismantling the plant and taking just about everything.” The video ended.

“Intel, this is Major ben Tauros. Have any of the organic aliens been seen?”

“Ah, no sir, just the robot drones or telefactors, whatever they are.”

“Did you see any weapons on those drones?”

“Nothing except cutting lasers and other power tools, sir.”

“Right. Thanks.” He cut the comm. “Bloody pirates,” Bull muttered.

“It might be a matter of survival,” Johnstone interjected mildly on the private channel.

“They could have just asked. No, this is not some friendly aliens saying a nice hello. Not after that first cyber-attack and what those Ryss guys said. There’s something very wrong going on in there.”

“I agree. But the admiral, and General Kullorg too, agree it’s worth some of our lives to find out, and maybe acquire technologies that we haven’t even dreamed of – things that will help us or our children beat the Meme when they grow up. Remember the real enemy here.”

Bull’s simmering anger at the situation suddenly cooled as he was reminded of his two baby boys at home. I’ve been so wrapped up I forgot the bigger picture, he realized. Pull your head out of your ass, Bull, and start acting like a Marine. Give Repeth’s husband some credit. There must be a reason she married the guy. “Understood, Commander. Me and my Marines have your back; just tell us what you need us to do.”

“Thanks, Bull. I’ll tell you when I know myself.”

***

Three hundred Ryss warriors flooded the warm-room and spilled into the corridors, milling about with tools in their hands. Some had power wrenches but most had only manual implements. Trissk wondered if that would be enough to break open the armory.

A shudder and a thump flowed through the ship’s structure, then a long grinding, as the great vessel settled onto the ice. Several Ryss leaped into the air as gravity dropped to a fraction of normal.

“Desolator has landed and shut off the gravitic fields,” Chirom said. “Make ready.”

At the largest doorway a commotion called his attention. A scream and sounds of a struggle followed, then a young Ryss warrior stumbled bleeding through the entrance, followed by a crowd of youths carrying a broken maintainer bot. “We killed it!” they cried, and Chirom shook his head.

“Too soon, my friends, but now the bird is out of the net. Clans, disperse and meet at the armory. Destroy any armed drones but remember,” he raised his voice to a shout as they started to scatter, “leave the harmless ones alone! We may need them ourselves.” His voice was drowned out in the roar of enthusiastic warriors.

Trissk grabbed Chirom’s wrist and shook it. “Elder, we must follow. If they get weapons, the eager unblooded will start to shoot anything that moves. Perhaps each other as well.”

“You are right. Let us go quickly.”

The two trailed the mass of Rell through the main corridor, Trissk with just one backward glance at Klis, who was tearing their meager stock of blankets into bandages. She bobbed her head in farewell, her paws too busy to do otherwise.

Sirens suddenly whooped in the corridors, causing the younger Ryss to look around fearfully at the unfamiliar sound. Desolator’s voice broke in and said, in its resonant tones, “Four maintenance drones have been damaged by Ryss personnel. The perpetrators must be apprehended and confined pending punishment.” Then the noise resumed.

“Ignore it!” called Chirom from the rear of the sixty or so Rell clan warriors. “Continue to the armory!” The mass stumbled forward, awkward in the low gravity, many scrambling on all fours like beasts. Some threw off their flapping warm-clothes, as nudity was of little import to a fur-clad race, though a few had donned their work coveralls or even old vacuum suits.

The elder passed a smashed maintenance bot, evidence that his words went unheeded. When does a revolution become a mob? he wondered, and was grateful within himself that their targets were mere machines.

Except for Desolator. Insane or not, it was more than just a device…but how much more? Chirom had not even himself decided what the morality of the situation required, only that the dictator must be overthrown. Ryss had built Desolator, and somehow Ryss had failed to ensure that it was sane and cooperative; but at some point the AI, if it truly was sentient, must take responsibility for its own crimes.

Covering more than a thousand strides, the mass finally reached the armory. It took only a few smallspans to cut through the doors; they were never intended to do more than secure against casual appropriation.

A large room filled with tough mesh enclosures, it contained thousands of maser carbines, neutron grenades, and hotblades, all optimized to kill Meme bio-constructs, along with pieces of standard unpowered combat armor.

“Use your tools to open the cages,” Chirom cried, but the Rell were already doing so with enthusiasm. From other entrances to the large room poured the other clan warriors, many dragging pieces of drones as trophies.

Chirom raised his voice. “Remember, do not destroy maintenance bots! Do not destroy machinery we may need to live!” His words were lost in the uproar as the metal barriers fell and the weapons were handed out. Some fool fired a maser, its marker flash and humming sound preceding a cry of pain as the microwave bolt bounced off a metal surface and burned a Ryss.

Someone passed him a hotblade and he strapped its belt across his chest, but did not take it out. When withdrawn its crystalline length could be activated to heat a glowing white, the better to slice easily through enemy protoplasm. But today, the foe was not flesh and blood, but metal and ceramic and plastic.

Trissk pushed through the mass with two carbines and two grenades, a hotblade already strapped around him. “Elder, you must give them a target or you will lose control.”

Chirom glanced sharply at the youngling, wondering how Trissk recognized this before he himself had. “Agreed.” Unsheathing his blade with its powered function off, he raised the shining crystal above his head. “Follow me to Desolator’s vault!”

Trissk took up the cry and soon they were leading the mass toward the center of the massive vessel.

As they reached an intersection a maintenance drone passed in front of them, a knee-high device with some sort of spare part clutched in its manipulators. From behind masers fired, their marker flashes lighting its dull surfaces. It veered to the right and slammed into a wall and with a howl a dozen Ryss jumped on it, many with naked glowing hotblades. In a moment the thing was dismembered even as Chirom and Trissk futilely pleaded with them to stop.

When the thing was done and the mob drew back, a young warrior lay propped against the wall among the debris, staring at the stump where his arm used to be. Perfectly cauterized, the wound did not bleed, but the severed limb twitched on the floor and a sudden silence fell.

“Now see what has happened,” said Trissk in loud reproof. “The elder said to leave the maintenance bots alone, but you disobeyed him and now you have maimed a fellow warrior.” He really did not feel much sympathy, as the amputee was one of the fools doing the hacking. “Are we Ryss warriors or are we moor-cats?”

Those in the front hung their heads in shame.

Taking his cue, Chirom stepped forward. “You younglings and yearsmanes, you must listen to your clan elders. Do not attack without consent of your elders, who have fought the Meme before. I say again, maintenance bots and machinery are not our enemies – only the armed drones and the AI itself. You, you,” he pointed at the two he judged most at fault, “help this fallen one back to our mothers and sisters in the warm-room, so that he may live to fight another day. The rest, follow me.”

More calmly now, Chirom led the Ryss deeper into the ship. After another thousand strides they came to a great sealed door. “We must break this open. Desolator is inside.”

Chapter Ten

Screaming in at three meters above the cracked and broken ice fields, forty Marine assault sleds arrowed for their objective. Above them, looking down at five thousand meters, Vango Markis rolled his StormCrow over and sighted in on the enemy ship. Don’t care what the admiral says, as far as I’m concerned it’s hostile until someone confirms different.

Five thousand meters was point blank range for the maser that ran through the spine of his fifty-meter-long fighter craft, but he was less than sanguine about its effect on a mechanical target. Microwave lasers were excellent for killing living Meme ships, but they had highly variable effects on inorganic materials. It all depended on the wavelength employed; he had his set for best effect against ferrous metals, but who really knew?

Sixty Crows flew in a loose formation in full view of the massive grounded ship. We’re bait, he realized. If that thing fires, some of us will die in a heartbeat. Absen is a coldblooded one. Let’s hope he’s right in thinking it’s not going to initiate an attack against overwhelming odds. Now that it’s on the ground, there’s no way it can win, but it can still hurt us badly.

High above the fighter cover, Conquest cruised inverted, like an upside-down chocolate kiss. Every primary weapon on her teardrop shape pointed straight at the unknown vessel, and every eye on her bridge stared at the holotank that now in exquisite detail presented the events unfolding down below.

They watched as the skimming sleds approached from the direction of the scavenged base, keeping below the painfully near horizon on the tiny moon, until the very last moment. Telemetry showed that the lead pilots had dropped to less than one meter above the ice, risking impact with upthrust pieces of rock-hard frozen surface.

***

In the center rear of the assault formation, Bull’s HUD filled with the overhead view fed by a recon drone. The formation looked picture-perfect, all of the pilots combat veterans. His testicles pulled up inside him as the first sled crossed the horizon’s demarcation line, and he waited with roiling guts for the shot that would cut a swath through his men.

It did not come.

Seconds later they decelerated brutally, approaching the massive ship. Glad in a way that he could not see it with his own eyes, Bull kept his HUD on overhead look-down mode, the better to give orders. It appeared as some complex virtual wargame to him, despite the fact that he was present inside of it.

Without opposition, the pilots followed their operational plans and flew their sleds straight into the rents in the structure of the alien ship. By so doing, the theory went, any point-defense weapons would only get the one chance to shoot before the Marines were actually inside their arcs of fire. After that it would be man to man in the corridors – a Marine specialty.

With the crash deceleration, Bull slammed hard into the inside of his shell. Despite biogel cushioning he felt as if he’d been run over by a truck. Nanites and Eden Plague kicked into high gear, healing his contusions and keeping him conscious, while his suit autodoc pumped nutrient solution and stims into his veins. By the time the sled came to rest he felt like he could lift a tank.

“Up and at ‘em, boys!” he yelled as the vertical clamshell popped open, and immediately grabbed his plasma rifle. Stepping out, he made the automatic turn to the ramp that every Marine could perform in his sleep. Eight of his nine men reached down as one to unbolt and hoist the semi-portable laser cannon from the deck and, like manic armored pallbearers, carried it rapidly out the gaping hatch and into the alien ship.

In front of him, Bull could see out over the ice moon through the ripped-away hull into which they’d just flown. Fusion flares far above showed where the fighter jocks hovered, but it appeared that was all for nothing.

As usual, all the hard work gets done by Marines, he thought. “Let’s go, let’s go. Secure your objectives, kill anything that shoots but try to capture the organics if you can. Remember, the bipeds may be friendly, and the drones may be neutral.”

Noise and confusion broke into the channel, then the voice of Sergeant Major McCoy spoke in his ear. “Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but we’ve already come under fire from combat drones. Three men are down. The semis and plasma rifles look good to go against these things, though. They aren’t as tough as the Purelings’ war drones were.”

“All right, battalion, if you didn’t hear the sergeant major, shoot any armed drones or bots on sight at your discretion.”

“Bull.” Johnstone stepped up at ben Tauros’ elbow. “Let’s get going to the warm area. If the Ryss are there, I need to contact them as quickly as possible.”

“As soon as we can. Right now we got a smidgen of tactical stuff to do.”

“Just remember, the Ryss may be able to help us, and that may save lives – of your men, too.”

“Yes, mommy. I’ll be good,” Bull said sarcastically. He slapped the semi gunner on the shoulder and led the way inward toward the chosen fusion reactor, the laser cannon swaying between his men as they followed.

“Bull,” Johnstone said from behind, “I’m getting intel that six more fusion generators are coming online. Whatever that means, it can’t be good.”

“Right. Better and better.” Bull stopped at a corner and sent out an active scanning pulse from his motion detector, seeing nothing moving. Stepping out into the corridor, he realized he’d screwed up as he saw two squat autoguns pointing his way, utterly still. Without thinking, he leaped upward in the low gravity and hooked hands and toes onto a pipe in the ceiling above. Just in time: the weapons woke up and erupted with jolting fire.

Silent in vacuum, he could nevertheless feel the vibrations of shells exploding behind and below him. Got to get them before they target me up here… Hanging by one hand and his toes, he pointed his plasma rifle one-fisted and pulled the trigger. A wash of green melted one gun to slag. It exploded a moment later as its ammo cooked off, knocking the other weapon off its pedestal.

Still connected by thick cable, the live gun leaped about like a mad snake, firing in all directions. One shell knocked Bull’s rifle out of his hand, and another ricocheted off the ceiling and exploded against his arm, numbing it to the shoulder while cracking the armor. Suit systems pumped sealant into the damage, and he dropped slowly to the floor while a flood of Marines ran past him firing. In a moment the enemy weapon lay silent.

“Good job, men. Listen up, all stations. Don’t rely on your detector pulses, the mechanicals are motionless until they fire. Use visual probes.” Clicks of acknowledgement came back from busy assault units.

Johnstone asked, “Bull, what do you think about concentrating on those new reactors?”

“Leave the strategy to me, will you?” he snapped at the Navy man.

Rick persisted. “If someone’s starting those things up just since we boarded, they have something to do with us – with fighting us, I expect.”

“Point taken,” Bull replied grudgingly. He changed objectives on his HUD for the six nearest platoons, to disable the new fusion generators. Turning to a nearby Marine with green blazons on his armor he ordered, “Let’s go. Bannon, you got point. Scout better than I did.”

“That won’t be hard, sir,” the Recon Marine deadpanned as he jogged past his commander. Bull and the rest followed several meters back, letting the expert check and clear the corners before they moved on.

***

Many smallspans passed and the Ryss made little progress on opening the vault door. Armored for just this eventuality, it resisted their ordinary welding and cutting lasers, and the unblooded warriors were beginning to get restless. Concerned that if Desolator retaliated they might be caught all crowded together in the corridors, Chirom sent the four other clans off with instructions to find more powerful tools, while his Rell continued to cut slowly along one edge, looking for an inner hinge or locking bar.

“This is impossible,” Trissk hissed. “With these tools it will take days to get through. Chirom, you will be needed to treat with the aliens. Let the technologists keep doing this, but we must prevent our warriors from killing our possible allies.”

“Wise words, and I will heed.” The elder picked up a communicator and selected the standard open channel. “This is Chirom. I need to know where the nearest aliens are. Has anyone seen them?”

Negative replies came until suddenly a female voice spoke hesitantly. “Chirom? This is B’Nur. We heard weapons fire outside the warm-room so we sealed the doors. It may be war drones or it may be the aliens.”

“We will return immediately.” Turning to the waiting Rell, he said, “Technologists and those with like skills remain here. Other warriors, follow me back to the warm-room.” Soon they were jogging the long distance back to the females.

They found their way blocked by a section door. “This was open when we came through,” Trissk muttered, running his paw along its edge, then tapping at the control pad. “It appears Desolator has closed it. Wait a moment; I believe I can bypass it.” With tools from his work suit he had the panel open momentarily, and unlocked the door. “We will have to lift it manually, but in this low gravity that should not be difficult.”

A press of warriors moved forward to scrabble at the bottom edge of the heavy door, and Trissk levered his pry-bar under to widen the gap. As he did, a blaze of plasma washed through the tiny crack at one side, and several warriors fell back, cursing from burns. He dropped the tool just in time as the bright heat moved relentlessly along the bottom, melting floor and door alike. “Back!” he cried.

Ryss warriors retreated down the wide corridor dragging their wounded comrades, pointing their weapons at the door. After a moment the blazing fire stopped, leaving a handspan gap beneath.

Falling on his face but well back, Trissk pressed an eye to the floor so he could see along it and under the crack. Mechanical legs were visible, and he reported, “Two war drones wait behind the door. It appears Desolator has decided we are a threat.”

“To some extent,” Chirom replied. “It is still showing some restraint, else it would open the door and the war drones would attack. No, it appears to be simply trying to keep us contained.” He pointed back along the way they had come, in the direction of the vault, where they could now see another section door had closed a hundred strides back.

“What shall we do?” one of the adolescents asked, clutching his inactive hotblade.

Looking at the sword in the youngster’s hand gave Trissk an idea. “You, with hotblades, follow me.” Opening the door of a nearby room, he found himself in some kind of laboratory, though the tools and instruments were gone. Leading his small band forward, he stopped facing the room’s wall congruent with the containment door’s position. “Give me a blade.”

Activating it, Trissk carefully reached out and pressed its tip against the wall. After a moment the white-hot crystal began to cut, slowly but easily, as if the bulkhead metal was soft clay under a potter’s knife. “See, we can carve through and go around them.” Withdrawing the blade, he used it to mark out a crude doorway. “Four of you, start at the corners, cut spinward and we’ll have a way through. Carefully!”

Leaving them to the work, Trissk rejoined Chirom and the rest in the corridor. “We’ll soon have a way through the wall. Perhaps we can bypass the war drones entirely.”

“Good thinking. We –” From behind them came a sudden buzzing burning sound and an orange-red beam shot briefly through a new hole in the containment door behind them, which had sealed them away from the vault. “Into the room!” Chirom yelled, pushing the rest toward the laboratory door. He saw the beam, some kind of laser, cutting its way around the edge of the barrier very fast. The bar of light sparkled each time it shot through the gap and into the smoke its heat generated. Fortunately, right now it seemed to be aimed upward, cutting along the top.

A moment later all forty Ryss occupied the empty lab. Chirom kept one eye to the crack of the door, watching the progress of the unknown cutters down the corridor. He glanced back at the youths working with the hotblades and hissed, “Trissk, don’t let the slab fall loudly. It may alert the war drones.”

Trissk nodded, and supervised the final cuts to carefully lower the makeshift door to the deck. Through the dark opening they shone hand-lights and saw a storeroom full of empty shelves, with a shut door that opened into the main corridor right next to where the war drones stood.

“The unknown cutters are through,” Chirom whispered loudly, keeping his eye to the crack. Others joined him at the narrow opening, kneeling or even lying on the deck to catch a glimpse of whatever it was. It must be…it must be…

Onto the deck the enormous door fell slowly in strange low-gravity motion, and behind it, out of the cutting-laser smoke, leaped surprisingly ordinary-looking, though armored, creatures. Not so different from our own form, Chirom thought, or of the Myrmidon armor we wore aforetimes. Smaller than Ryss they were; nevertheless he saw four limbs and a head, and weapons held in their paws akin to the Ryss’ own.

That was nearly all he ever saw, however, as the alien warriors aligned their weapons forward in response to some threat. The war drones…Abruptly the corridor filled with a sound as of rocks shaken in a mixing-machine, and Chirom felt a sting in his chest. Looking down he saw a spot of blood, then crumpled as consciousness faded.

***

Trissk leaped for the door to shove it closed and lock it. Kneeling over the elder, he probed the wound with a claw. “It passed right through him. Some kind of high-velocity projectile.” From the other side of the door he could hear the hammering of weapons, explosions, and the clang of war drone footsteps. “Get back from the door!”

Dragging Chirom’s inert form, he pulled him by the shoulders through the opening they had cut in the bulkhead. “You with armor and weapons attack through the door. Flank the war drones, take them from the rear, and do not fire on the aliens! You two, carry the elder to the far corner and attend his wounds. You four, with the hotblades, come with me.”

Back into the laboratory he led the four wall-cutters. Gesturing at the far bulkhead he said, “Open another door here, and if you can, in the next wall and the next. You must cut a way back toward the warm-room so that the elder may be brought to the females. Do not worry about noise; no one will notice now.”

Leaving them to do their work, Trissk scrambled back to the storeroom, where the fifteen or so Ryss who had been wise or patient enough to put on at least some armor crowded the doorway, firing through it and rolling neutron grenades. A few seconds later a blast threw the crowd back to sprawl among the empty shelves.

Into the open door stepped a large figure, in its armor larger even than any Ryss, with an enormous weapon in its hands. It must be a specially-bred assault warrior, Trissk thought. Making incomprehensible sounds, the thing took its weapon by the barrel and held it off to the side, as if to place it out of the way, clearly a gesture of non-hostility.

Trissk caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. “Stop!” he cried as the warriors – his warriors now, it seemed – turned their maser carbines toward the alien, but too late. Weapons thrummed and sparks flew as microwaves hit the battle-armored figure, and he fully expected it to take its oversized gun and flame them all to a crisp.

Instead, it leaped back from the doorway and out of the line of fire, leaving a sudden silence and emptiness in the smoke. Nervously the Ryss rattled their weapons, and one overeager yearsmane began to ready a neutron grenade before a grizzled veteran took it out of his hand and deactivated it with a snarl.

“Remember who the real enemy is,” Trissk said yet again. “We must make peace with these aliens.”

“Who are you to give orders?” said a voice from behind him. Trissk turned to see Vusk and three of his toughs come from behind the braver ones where they had lurked, nonchalantly waving their weapons around like holostory actors instead of true warriors. “The elder is wounded. We will not be told what to do by a maneless child like you.” His voice dripped sarcasm.

If I fight him, even a fair fight, I will lose, but where one may fail, many succeed – and all bullies back down when resolutely confronted. These platitudes did little to overcome his fear, but he mastered himself. Perhaps there is a third way…a gamble, but… He asked, “All right, Vusk, will you take command?”

Vusk looked around at the group of warriors, grizzled old ones and the maneless like Trissk, with very few others in between age because of all the dead dams. He seemed to realize that he was the largest and most imposing male there – but also that he was not well liked by any of them.

“Please, Vusk,” Trissk said in a deceptively reasonable tone. “The aliens are right outside the door listening. There is an enormous monster we already saw, which shrugged off our shots like water.” Stretching the truth a bit, but for a good cause. “Shall we fight them and die? No? Then do you want to talk to them, as Chirom wished? If so, you must take responsibility for the Rell, or perhaps even the survival of the Ryss.” He made a gesture of invitation toward the door, and the aliens.

Vusk wavered as he seemed to think through the consequences of taking over the responsibilities of leadership. As Trissk had hoped, he seemed to realize that it was much easier to complain than to command.

Trissk clamped his tongue in his mouth to keep himself from indulging in a scathing remark, and simply let the gathered warriors see the bully’s moral cowardice for themselves. Finally, when the moment seemed right, he shoved his own carbine roughly into Vusk’s hands and stepped calmly past the dithering yearsmane, to stand in the doorway.

Calm on the outside, perhaps; inside he was shaking with fear and anger, but none of the warriors behind him objected to his bold move; in fact they crowded forward, pushing Vusk’s gang aside and growling encouragement, knowing it was a brave act to face danger unarmed.

Slowly Trissk extended an empty paw beyond the jamb of the door and into the corridor.

Chapter Eleven

Admiral Absen stared at the holotank, watching the last of the big ship’s machines drag pieces of the dismantled fuel plant inside itself. The Marine assault force had been inside for fifteen minutes and scattered reports seemed to indicate all was going reasonably well. They were advancing cautiously, clearing pockets of mechanical resistance. No organics had been spotted but the humans had yet to approach the presumed living area near the center reactor.

Six fusion generators powering up concerned him more, for with their estimated output the thing’s heavy weapons would be usable. Conquest, hanging overhead like an avenging angel, monitored the vessel’s primary arrays for any indication of life, but for now, there was nothing. Fighters bobbed and weaved in a complex dance high above the grounded ship.

Where is all that power going? Absen wondered. The dreadnought’s detectors were sensitive, but not magical, and whatever those generators were connected to was shielded by a kilometer of armor, structure and deck plates. He also wondered what unknown technologies the great ship possessed, and hoped his own forces could handle it.

Krugh, potent but not in the same class as Conquest, waited much farther out and on the horizon, ready to assist or, if disaster struck, to retreat. Temasek loitered on the other side of the ice moon, keeping station against the minimal gravity with intermittent blasts of her drive engines, the tug Booker nearby.

“Power spike in all reactors,” Tanaka called from Sensors. “Increased heat and radiation bleed.”

“Any of their weapons coming online?” Absen asked.

“No, sir,” Tanaka and Ford answered simultaneously, glancing at each other.

“What could they be using it for? Come on, people, give me some information. It can’t just be to fight Marines, and they don’t need it for the fusion drive, not with that weak gravity.”

Tanaka answered tentatively. “Repairs? Now that they have our fuel and spare parts, maybe they’re running rebuilding efforts all-out?”

“Hard to believe that would need so much power.”

“Tactically, if they were preparing for combat, it would be smart to fill all their capacitors and batteries before powering up weapons and drawing a reaction,” Ford opined. “That’s what I would do.”

“Good point. The Marines will just have to get there and shut them down before they can do anything with that power. Pass all this information to the assault force.”

“On it, sir,” Khalid said. “Latest SITREP says still no encounter with the organics, nineteen Marine casualties due to automated defensive systems.”

“Tanaka, what’s that power spike look like now?” Absen asked.

“Still climbing, sir. Hard to say since we don’t have the specs but it looks like the reactors are running very hot. Either that or they didn’t have much shielding in the first place; getting lots of rad.”

“But still no weapons powering?”

“No, sir. Uh…yes, sir, now their forward portside particle cannon is powering up.”

“What’s its target?” Captain Mirza snapped.

“Not us…it’s the Krugh, sir!”

“Tell them to evade and pull back!” Absen ordered.

“Target that array and fire!” Mirza said simultaneously, then: “Oh, shit.”

In the near-vacuum of the moon’s faint atmosphere the enemy particle beam sparked ghostly in a meter-wide track, reaching straight toward the allied ship. At the same time Conquest’s own new primary projector, the adapted Hippo particle cannon, slammed its electromagnetic discharge downward and struck the offending weapon, creating a spectacular electrical display as it melted to slag.

Mirza ordered, “Ford, fry all their primary weapons that are not near Marines,” then waited for Absen to countermand, but he did not.

“Krugh is non-responsive,” Khalid reported.

“They’ve been hit hard,” Tanaka spoke from the Sensor station. “I show a loss of attitude control and main power.”

“Perhaps they –” Absen stopped and turned. “What’s wrong with the holotank?”

The rest of the bridge crew turned to look, seeing the icy surface of the moon depicted in exquisite detail, and a deep depression in its surface alongside remnants of the looted fuel-cracking plant.

“The holotank is working fine, sir…” Tanaka said in a shaky voice. “According to sensors, the bogey is gone.”

***

Trissk clutched at the door frame as gravity strengthened to normal under him, causing his knees to flex. Forgetting about the aliens for the moment, he turned back to the other Ryss with a puzzled look. “Desolator has turned on the gravitics again.”

At that moment he spied an alien figure standing in the corridor, obliquely in his view, where the rest could not see. This creature was smaller, which was to say, of ordinary size, unlike the large one that had shown itself first. It seemed unarmed, and raised its empty paws slowly as if in an ancestral blessing.

Trissk shook that thought from his head. Their gestures are bound to mean things different from ours, he thought, but it’s still not a hostile motion. He let go of the door frame and stepped fully into the doorway, hoping it would not be his last living act, and raised his hands also, a mirror of the armored biped in front of him.

Reaching higher, the creature released clasps at its neck and slowly lifted its helmet off. It paused and manipulated something at the back of its head before it completed the motion. He caught a glimpse of thin cables before they retracted.

It wasn’t so much the sight of the thing that he noticed at first, but the smell. Unfamiliar, musky, like at a bio-research facility he had visited once with cages crowded full of primates. Its face was apelike too, furless with pink skin, a fleshy nose and pale lips. Trissk’s instincts screamed prey. He forced those feelings down, glad that the others could not see it.

Removing its gloves, the thing held out its hands as if to inspect. Four digits and only one thumb, rudimentary claws on their tips. Instinctively, Trissk held his out as well, showing his own paws with their two opposing thumbs, one on each side of the three central digits; then he flexed his claws briefly out and back in again.

The creature raised its eyebrows as if in wonder, and slowly reached to touch, then to grasp paw to paw, as if to pull him forward. Instead, he lifted Trissk’s extremity firmly once, then lowered it, then released. Perhaps it was a ritual. Opening its mouth, what came out was almost intelligible.

“Yoo iss Rizz,” the alien said.

Gabble broke out behind Trissk, so he extended a quieting arm behind himself, waving them to silence. Breathing deeply to slow his hammering heart, rifling through his memory for the proper transliteration from the alien message, Trissk replied carefully and slowly. “Yes, we are Ryss. You are Human?”

The Human nodded, an affirmative gesture apparently shared by both races. “We arr Hoomun.” Sounds came from the helmet it carried and it – he? He must be a warrior – he held it awkwardly up to his fleshy ear to listen, then replied in his own speech. Changing back to the primitive Ryssan, he said, “Urr folk fight. Fight must stop. We not urr unemee.” He tapped his helmet, then made a fluttering motion into the air, as of insects escaping. “Tell urr folk stop fight. We tell orr folk stop fight.”

Grasping the Human’s meaning, Trissk stepped back to wave at the mass of nervous warriors. “They are trying to make a truce with us. Give me Chirom’s comm unit, quickly!” One of the younger ones sidled cautiously along the inner wall to hand him the device.

Stepping back into the doorway he held up the comm so the Humans could see, and then spoke into it. “All Ryss, this is Trissk, listen. I have made contact with the aliens that are called Human. They are apelike beings and are not our enemies. They want a truce. Everyone must cease attacks on them and pull back. Remember, it is Desolator that is our problem, and Meme are the only true enemy.” He had to repeat the gist of this message several times, but eventually it seemed most agreed to comply.

Addressing the Human again he said, “I have told all Ryss, but I am not in command. Please show restraint.”

At that moment a subsonic thrum went through the ship and Trissk looked up in alarm. Primary weapons fire. The last time he had heard that sound he had been a much younger Ryss, when Desolator had encountered a Meme patrol craft and destroyed it. The Humans did not react, and he wondered if their hearing might not reach into those low frequencies.

Immediately afterward, a more familiar noise and sensation manifested: the sound and feel of transition to photonic drive. “Wat iss it?” asked the Human. He had obviously noticed.

Trissk struggled to simplify his answer. “Desolator – this vessel – has engaged its main drive, to travel at maximum speed. It will outrun your ships.”

After a moment of almost comical concentration the Human asked simply, “Where to?”

“I do not know. The artificial intelligence in charge of this vessel is not sane, and is not under our control.”

Human and Ryss stared at one another for a long moment of shared consternation.

***

“All right, here is what I know.” Spooky gestured at the screen on the wall that illustrated his words with photographs. “The island has only about three hundred inhabitants. Most of them are fishers, with some tourism. Most live in this one village, Omio. Their tech level is what we would call late twentieth-century, a bit behind the major cities. Telephones, radios, televisions, and one satellite uplink that handles everything. It was this facility that was used to send the signal.”

“So what do we do?” asked Jill. “Sneak in, grab the station boss, question him?”

“No, it’s easier than that. We hack their computer.”

Jill stared at Spooky. “So what do you need me for? You’re far sneakier than I am. You could have just gone in and done that without me.”

Spooky’s lips curled up and his eyes crinkled in amusement. “Two reasons. One, it’s a bio-computer. Ezekiel is the only one of us who can access it – and there’s no guarantee that even he can.” He plucked a cigar out of the air and drew in a mouthful of smoke, savoring it.

Jill asked, “And two?”

“What I told you at your flat. You needed to get out. Do something.”

“That’s it?” She glared at him in disbelief.

“Oh, I didn’t mention the third thing, did I?”

“No,” her voice dripped sarcasm, “you didn’t.”

“You’re going to provide what they call in the business, a ‘diversion’. You’ve heard of those?”

“I have a faint recollection,” Jill replied dryly, “but I’m still suspicious that reason number two is what decided things.”

“I could have chosen anyone,” Spooky snapped. “We needed a third. Why not you?”

“Why not Shades?” Jill snapped back. “He took the last mission.”

“He’s on Enoi,” he replied, naming Koio’s moon. “Besides, he didn’t accompany me on seventeen separate ops back on Earth.”

“That was different. We were liberating people from prison camps.”

“No difference,” Spooky denied. “An op is an op. If it needs to be done, we do it: isn’t that what we used to say?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “We also said that we hand-pick the best team for every op, which contradicts what you said about why I’m here.”

Spooky shook his head slowly. “No, Jill. You were always my first choice. I just knew you’d need more reason than that. And as hard as you might find this to believe…that hurts.”

Jill furrowed her brow, then reached to pluck the glowing cigar from his mouth and take a drag. “Bull. Shit. Bullshit.”

A grin broke onto Spooky’s face. “Yeah, but it was pretty good bullshit, don’t you think?”

“I never know with you. That’s the problem.” She flicked the cigar away and it vanished into the air.

Ezekiel cleared his throat from where he had been sitting patiently, arms crossed. “Tran, you’re getting off track. Mission?”

Spooky glanced sharply at Ezekiel, then stepped back and straightened his tunic. “Right. Here’s the gist. We come up to within two meters of the surface just after midnight, here.” He indicated a spot three kilometers up the coast from the village, past where a line of fishing shacks ended. “We surface and swim to shore, then split up. Ezekiel and I head here, to the center of the island, which is its highest point and the location of the uplink station. Jill, you will go here,” he pointed at a large building on the edge of the village, “and start a fire in their fish processing facility.”

“You want me to destroy some peoples’ livelihoods?”

“Better than having to kill some of them, don’t you think? We haven’t been able to perfect a nonlethal for Hippos, you know.”

“I know,” Jill grumbled. “These people are our allies, and most of them are just peasants.”

“I thought you might say something like that, so I brought this.” Spooky held out a small cloth bag. When Jill took it, he said, “Open it, look inside, but do not touch.”

She did. Inside she saw couple of dozen octagonal disks. “Obols. Hippo coins, high denomination.”

“Just scatter them around, or if you can, arrange for someone with lots of yellow to find them. Best we can do.”

“Spooky,” Jill said with some surprise, “that’s almost…compassionate. And foolish too. It will compromise the op. Any Hippo Yellow will be able to taste the coins and know humans handled them.”

Ezekiel laughed. “Have some faith, Jill. The obols and the inside of the bag is coated with the calling card bio-signature of a pro-Meme insurgent group. They will assume someone dropped them during their raid. Just you make sure you keep the bag, or burn it in the fire.”

“Pro-Meme insurgent group? What? I thought the Hippos were all with us! How come we don’t hear about this?”

Ezekiel replied, “No race is monolithic, probably not even the Meme. Politics and opposition flourish within any society. If you’d been paying closer attention to the Hippo media you might have picked up on that.”

“Hey, motherhood is a full time job,” Jill said defensively. She mumbled, “Damn, Spooky. I was wrong, you were right. I did need to get out, get sharp again.”

The Vietnamese shrugged and smiled. “Let’s go over the details.”

Chapter Twelve

“Gone? Where the bloody hell did it go?” Mirza was the first to ask but echoed Absen’s thoughts perfectly.

“Trying to track it, sir,” said Tanaka.

“General Kullorg on the comm,” Khalid called.

“What’s their status?” Absen asked.

“More than fifty percent casualties, and Krugh is crippled, with no drive function.”

“Get the Booker and Temasek over there with those engineers and do what they can to help. Other than that, tell him we don’t know anything yet,” Absen said. “Any idea why they hit Krugh and not us?”

“They took one cheap shot and left…” Ford muttered. “Maybe they thought Krugh was faster, or an easier target…” He shook his head, bereft of possibilities.

No one else on the bridge seemed to have any ideas either.

Absen waved his hand in the air as if to dispel the confusion. “Move on, but let me know if anything occurs to anyone; I have a feeling it means something. Tanaka, how about that analysis?”

Tanaka replied, “Been scanning with everything I’ve got, sir…fired a lidar pulse at the bogey’s last position… nothing. Magnetometers, gravitometers, radar – it’s just gone.”

“Could it be some kind of stealth technology? A cloaking device?”

“If so, it’s perfect. There’s no heat trace, no damage to the surface, no sign of fusion engines or thrusters…”

“Launch a sensor drone at it. Control it manually if you have to, just so something physical passes through where it was. I want to be sure,” Captain Mirza ordered.

“Aye, sir,” Tanaka replied. “Launching…now.”

Everyone watched tensely as the tiny robotic missile descended toward the surface, hammering the area with active radar and lidar, its sensors wide open. More than a minute later, it smashed itself to nothingness in the indentation where the unknown ship used to be.

“I have something, sir,” Tanaka said tentatively. “I’ll show you…” The holotank changed colors, brightening then dimming, eventually showing the same scene but with a ghostly streak about the size of the ship leading away from its former position. “This is recorded from immediately after the thing disappeared. It’s an enhanced display of ionized and fused trace gases in the moon’s minimal atmosphere. That might as well be vacuum for most purposes, though it’s slightly more dense than interplanetary space.”

“So…” Absen followed, “this shows that it somehow, what, accelerated from zero to so fast we couldn’t see it move? And it fused and ionized the gases as it powered through?”

“I believe so, sir. If it has some kind of unconventional drive, maybe that was what it was powering up. When it had enough juice, it turned it on and, um…”

“Jumped into hyperspace?”

“No, sir,” Tanaka said confidently. “If it did have some kind of faster-than-light drive, not that I believe in such things, but if it did, why would it crash into atoms, leaving their ions and fused particles for us to detect?”

“Bleed-over?” Ford speculated. “Maybe it leaves traces in real space as it moves through hyperspace.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Absen cautioned. “If a warship like that – if a race like that had a faster-than-light drive – they would have beaten the Meme. It would be a technological advantage beyond compare. No, I don’t believe in hyperspace, but I can accept some kind of incredible accelerator that allowed them to bypass the usual inertial limits. More importantly, gentlemen…just where are they going?”

“I’ll tell you in a moment,” Okuda said from the helm as he played his hands across the controls. “Generally sunward…” A moment later he turned toward the admiral with dead eyes. “Toward Afrana, gentlemen. Straight there.”

“Captain Mirza,” Absen spoke briskly, “I’ll trouble you to order Conquest to rig for flank acceleration. I will be taking the command courier back to Afrana at max burn, and you will follow as fast as you are able. Booker and Temasek will stay with Krugh and do all they can. The tug can get the Hippos back home if necessary. Send a general fleet signal with the situation and tell everyone in-system to go on full battle alert, including the colony.”

“Aye, sir,” Mirza said with a stunned look. “Khalid, make the signal. Sir, we don’t even know if our messages will beat that ship there.”

“No, we don’t. We can but do our best. Perhaps the ship will stop short, or run low on fuel, or perhaps it is not hostile, or it will break down. What I do know is we have two companies of Marines aboard it, with enough firepower to do a lot of damage. It gives us a fighting chance. If anyone can take over that ship, it’s Bull ben Tauros, so everyone get cracking.” Absen turned on his heel and hurried for the launch bay of his command courier, trailed by Steward Tobias.

“All right, you heard the man,” said Captain Mirza resolutely, reaching for his helmet. “Button back up for another hard ride.”

***

“We have an understanding.” Commander Johnstone divided his attention between the Ryss alien before him and the Marine commander behind him.

Bull grunted. “I’m still getting reports of Ryss firing at my Marines, Johnstone. They will follow my orders and not return fire, and retreat if necessary, but I don’t think the one you’re talking to is their commander. More likely just the leader of this group here.”

“Yes, I know that already. Sorry I can’t wave a magic wand and clarify the military situation for us, Major. Do the best you can, and let me talk to this…person.” Ignoring Bull for the moment, Rick stepped forward slowly, until the Ryss in front of him moved back from the doorway to allow him in.

Raising his empty hands again, Johnstone paused, just letting the shocked aliens gaze at him standing near their leader, getting them used to him. He occupied the time taking a long look at the one he had been talking to, categorizing him in his mind.

Tall, about 190 centimeters, and not the tallest of them either. Many of the Ryss stood two meters or more, and weighed at least a hundred and fifty kilos. Fur-covered in shades of brindle tawn, with a few darker or lighter, and feline ears that stood to attention or lay flat on their heads, they resembled nothing so much as giant cats – lions, perhaps. Manes on the larger, older ones enhanced this impression. Rick presumed they were biologically similar to cats as were humans to the great apes, or Sekoi to the hippopotamus-like herd animals on Afrana.

When the motley group inside the room calmed down and, more importantly, pointed their weapons away, Rick spoke carefully in Ryssan. “We are human. We are not Meme. We are not your enemies. We want to be friends. We can help you, but you must take control of this ship.”

More conversation broke out at his statements, and he could feel his translation software soaking up all the words, fitting them into the files and comparing written and coded meanings with the sibilant spoken sounds. Already he could understand much better than his own pronunciation would indicate, and the most difficult part of the process was trying to vocalize the words that the computers in his head were feeding him.

The Ryss leader to which he had been speaking arched his back, briefly turning left and right. For a moment Rick thought the cat-man would rub against him – there was a behavioral resonance. Some kind of greeting?

“My name is Trissk,” the creature said, tapping the back of his paw against his nose.

Commander Johnstone made the same hand motion. “My name is Rick,” he said in response, keeping it simple. Somehow he thought “Johnstone” might be hard for them to say. “I am mediation officer from my commander. I have deciding authority for humans. Decide you for Ryss?”

Trissk looked around, craning his neck behind him, glancing at Vusk glowering near the back. “Elder Chirom decides for the Rell clan of Ryss, but he is wounded. I speak for him.”

Great, thought Rick. Even an alien like me can see that there are undercurrents of some kind of politics here. What is the best course? Should I throw human weight behind this one, or look for another leader?

Operating on instinct, Rick made his decision. “I decide for humans,” he repeated. “Ryss will talk through you to me. Humans will talk thorough me with Trissk and Clan Rell. Humans will not talk with another Ryss of Rell. Only Trissk.” He hoped that was clear enough.

Trissk seemed to relax with relief, then bobbed his head and turned to the other Ryss. “You heard the Human,” he said with more confidence than he felt. Meeting Vusk’s eyes in challenge, he went on, “They will treat with us through me. I did not wish to claim authority from Chirom, but I am closest to him. I sent the signal that brought the Humans here. So for these reasons, I now claim command of Clan Rell and the elder’s position, only until he is well enough to resume his office.” He took a deep breath, still staring at his rival. “Does any challenge me?”

Vusk must have thought about it, but even he was not stupid enough to risk the disapproval of the rest of the Rell clan and the aliens both. Instead, he laid his ears back and snarled angrily, then stalked off through the nearest door with his retinue, hefting weapons.

Speaking to Rick, Trissk went on, “The Rell will follow me.” He paused, searching for simple words. “We tried to open the Desolator vault, to disable the insane device. It is very strong. We have no strong tools. Perhaps your laser will open the vault.”

Rick nodded slowly, then lifted his helmet to his mouth, speaking into its open neck. “Bull, they say they can’t get into the AI’s vault to turn it off, but they think a semi-portable will work. That’s probably the best chance to solve the whole situation.”

“Agreed,” came the tinny reply from Bull, still sealed in his armor. “Which way?”

After repeating the question to Trissk, Rick pointed toward ship’s bow. “That way, many hundred-strides.”

“Right. One moment.” For some time Bull had been monitoring reports of stiffening resistance from autoguns and war drones, bottlenecking his forces at certain key locations. Reviewing the situation his HUD displayed, he ran down the list of his eight line platoons and two heavy-weapons sections.

“Johnstone, it looks to me like the AI is on to us. None of the six line platoons I assigned has made it to their objectives, the generators. If I knew anything about the layout of this ship I could try to cut power feeds and isolate the reactors, but I don’t. I need to gather a large enough force and tackle the reactors one by one, then hit the vault when we’re done with that, and I can’t do that babysitting you. Will you be all right with the kitties?”

“Yes, Bull, I’ll be fine I think. If not, you can come pull my nuts out of the fire.”

“I’ll leave a fireteam with you. Corporal Melindez, you’re now Commander Johnstone’s escort. See that nothing happens to him, and you might even make Sergeant again.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Melindez said, raising his faceplate to breathe the chill air. His ferret-like face morose, he clearly thought that babysitting the Navy wasn’t his idea of a good time.

Turning to Melindez, Rick said cheerfully over the comm., “Don’t worry, Corporal, I predict we’ll have plenty of misery and death to entertain you later.”

The fire team leader only grunted.

“One more thing, Bull,” Johnstone said, “in case you need motivation. This ship has lifted from Reta, heading toward Afrana, traveling faster than our ships can. Neither I nor the Ryss know what the AI is doing, but I’m guessing it can’t be good. We may be the only chance to take this crazy AI before it does who-knows-what to our people.”

“Then I guess we better go do what Marines do best: kick some ass. Do machines have asses?” With that, Major ben Tauros charged off down the corridor, leaving the six humans with the Ryss.

***

Relieved that the large warlord had left with his warriors, nevertheless Trissk wasn’t sure what to do with the six Humans. Clearly they were competent fighters, fully armored and laden with deadly weapons, but the big one had taken the heavy laser with him. Without that or something like it, they could not open the vault to disable Desolator.

“Rick,” Trissk said tentatively, “we must open the device vault, but…” He gestured helplessly.

The decision-officer Rick seemed to understand immediately. “The warriors go to group together for battle. They will disable the power-makers, and open the device vault afterward if they can. Can you call to your Ryss to tell them to attack all war-devices?”

Trissk’s lips curled in the closemouthed smile of his kind. “Your facility with our language is improving.”

Rick tapped his skull. “I have computers in my head that help me.”

Trissk stiffened, glancing around to see if any other had heard. Apparently some had, for displeased whispers and mutters grew. “Remember,” he said over his shoulder, “their ways are not ours. They fight the Meme however they can. Do not judge them by our customs and taboos.”

The rumblings settled down, with suspicion.

To Rick he said quietly, “Say no more of thinking machines in your body. It is forbidden for us to do such things. Early in our war with the Meme, we experimented with computer-Ryss fusions like that, but it ended badly. These warriors,” he went on, gesturing generally in the direction of the Rell, “are either too young to understand or too old to absorb all this newness. For the past twenty years this ship has been all they knew, and they have grown timid.”

Rick’s eyes unfocused for a moment, thinking. “What is your lifespan? Oh,” he answered himself. “I don’t know your units of time or how long your year is. But how long is it anyway?”

“Most Ryss live to sixty, if they do not die by violence.”

Still talking more to himself than Trissk, Rick went on, “Even if your year is twice ours… that’s not long. And if it’s shorter….” He stopped, then changed the subject. “Trissk, why are you different from the others? Why does the newness not bother you?” he asked.

“I was always an orphan, an outcast, and something of a rebel,” Trissk said, flicking his ears, the Ryss equivalent of a shrug. “I had to be flexible.”

“My kind of – of Ryss – of fellow, I’d say.” Rick struck Trissk lightly on the shoulder and he almost lost his monkey-paw to the young male’s reflexive swipe. Behind him the other warriors bristled and pointed their weapons, and the other Human warriors immediately stepped forward on battle line with Rick, ready to mow the Ryss down with their shouldered PRGs.

“Weapons down, Melindez,” Rick said, pushing the corporal’s carbine off target. “That’s an order!” he snapped, and the Human fighters reluctantly complied.

Trissk did the same with his people. “You Rell, point your weapons elsewhere. He did not hurt me. It was a friendly cuff, nothing more. He must be an elder in his Human clan.” A useful supposition, if not an outright lie.

Trying to defuse the tension, Rick said, “Trissk, we have to get moving. We have to do our part. I am not a warrior,” – and all the Ryss suddenly hissed in unison, flattening their ears. Some turned their backs and muttered.

“Perhaps you should speak quietly to me alone, Rick. Your ways and words are unsettling them. To claim you are not a warrior is – wait…” Trissk peered closely at the Human’s face. “You are not female, are you?”

“No, I am male,” the human said quietly, apparently taking Trissk’s advice.

“Then you are a warrior, for all males are warriors. To deny you are a warrior means you are…” Trissk ran both paws over his face, briefly covering his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. “To be male is to be a warrior. To be a warrior is to be male. You cannot be one and not the other. Any who try to deny this are cast out or killed.” His ears flattened, then rose again. “I cannot explain further.”

“Fine. Got it. I’m a warrior. But for your ears alone, my primary expertise is not of war. Is that acceptable?”

“Of course. I myself am a technologist.” Not officially, but what else would I call myself, he thought. A politician? “I made the ship-signal to your people.”

“And I received it. So you are a communications officer like me.”

“I suppose so. I would enjoy spending half a lifetime learning about your people but right now we must act now, or these Rell warriors will go find something destructive to do.”

“Your people aren’t big on discipline, are they?” Rick said sourly.

Trissk glanced sidelong at the Human in irritation. “As I said, these are not trained soldiers. They are remnants rescued from stray ships and habitats as our homeworld was being destroyed by the Meme. Most of this vessel’s original crew have died over the past twenty years in strange ‘accidents.’ We suspect Desolator killed them, to keep them from making trouble, leaving alive only a remnant of refugees, passengers, and auxiliaries. Can you say the dregs of your people would be any better?”

Rick lowered his eyes. “Frankly, no. All right. Let’s give these, ah, warriors a task. Is there something we could do that would help us, and hinder Desolator?”

Trissk thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes there is. Follow me.”

Chapter Thirteen

Bull began barking orders through his suitcomm, consolidating his men and weapons, converging them midway between where he estimated the AI vault to be and its nearest reactor, even as he led his heavy weapons section there at a shuffling trot. Down metalsnake corridors, steely gray with age and use, Marines tramped on converging courses.

He watched as Corporal Bannon cleared corners, releasing tiny gnat drones from a slot on his back-rack. Special suits and training made Recon Marines the best at what they did, and he wondered what possessed him to have tried walking point himself. Probably stupid enthusiasm after nothing but training for the last three years, he thought. Well those autoguns almost got me, and the aliens’ maser weapons gave me some nasty burns. Maybe Jehovah is trying to tell me to quit sticking my dick out quite so far.

Splitting his attention between the here and now and the virtual HUD overlay, he watched carefully as his section approached the rear of the two score Marines of First Platoon, Alpha Company. “Captain Bryson,” he called to the company commander on the top channel, “keep a good three-sixty lookout, three dimensions. The enemy’s resistance has been scattered, but the Ryss aliens say the Desolator AI is crazy. We don’t know what it will do.”

Bull switched his net one level down, in order to include the understrength battalion’s senior NCOs. “Coming up behind, Swede,” he called, watching as Bannon sent a drone around another corner. “You should see my point man’s gnat momentarily.”

“Got it, sir,” Master Sergeant Lars “Swede” Gunderson replied. “Come on in. First Platoon will keep you snug and safe as a baby in his mother’s arms.”

“Bad metaphor, Swede, since all the mothers are back on Afrana, but I appreciate the sentiment.” Bull waved his men forward rather than switch channels again, though the gunner in charge of the semi-portable should have heard the exchange anyway.

A moment later they jogged by First Platoon’s outer troops and into the large intersection that was their meeting place.

From the portside corridor, another Recon Marine showed himself, and then led others forward. Third platoon, Bull saw on his HUD. Fourth was off to the starboard side and Heavy Weapon Section Two moved up behind them. He now had most of Alpha Company here, minus only Second Platoon spread out guarding the sleds, almost half his command.

Sergeant Major Charlie McCoy waved a greeting as he joined Bull from Fourth.

“General channel, all hands. First, Alpha Company,” he said. “Objective One is this fusion reactor,” throwing it up on their HUDs. “It’s forward of us and on the port side. My intent is to move forward cautiously and in force to Objective One and use the semis to disable it. My goal is to deny power to the enemy. The enemy is an AI the aliens call Desolator, and the machines it controls. All of those are fair game.”

“The aliens are big catlike people,” he went on, “and they don’t have sealed armor the way we do, but their weapons are high-tech and effective. Do not engage them unless you absolutely must. They are supposed to be passing the word over their comms to avoid engaging us too, but you never know.”

“All right, Third Platoon you are on the port side flank up these parallel corridors, with your limit the usable edge of the ship. Fourth here to starboard, with your limit the central corridor. First platoon, right up the middle toward the reactor, with semis One and Two in trail. Third and Fourth, detail one squad each to cover my ass, and remember everyone, they could come from the levels above or below. Any questions?”

None came, so Bull ordered, “Alpha, move out. Break break, Bravo Company this is Objective Two here,” HUD-marking a fusion reactor on the starboard side of the ship. “Captain Curtin, take that objective with all deliberate speed, keeping the rules of engagement in mind. The aliens are our allies, but new and twitchy ones from what I have seen. When you disable that generator, move on to the next one forward. Ben Tauros out.”

Curtin was a good man; Bull knew he’d get the job done.

Walking forward, he kept watching the HUD for any sign of resistance, but it didn’t come right away. Instead a sudden heavy feeling staggered him, and he saw the section carrying the semi-portable suddenly and clumsily set it down. “Gravity is increasing,” an unknown voice reported, then the whole company was shoved to the deck as the Gs went up to at least five. Bull crawled forward, his implanted cybernetics powering his limbs, but the sixty kilos of armor, suit and weapons that normally seemed so light now weighed at least three hundred.

“Alpha Company, is anyone experiencing less than five Gs?” The pull was not dangerous in itself, but they had lost all mobility and some of their combat capability too.

“I am, sir, about two,” Corporal Bannon called. The other two platoon Recon Marines on point reported the same.

“Gravplates take a lot of power, people, and that’s one thing this ship is short of – that’s why it pirated our fuel and why it’s only now putting these reactors on line. It’s also why we need to take them down. I’m guessing it has sensors and is gravving as many of us as it can, but it can’t do all of us, so everyone start crawling outward from the center of the company. See if you can find zones of less gravity, but be careful about standing up.”

Acknowledgements filled the suitcomm and Bull saw the company slowly spreading out. He noticed Bannon and a few other Recons moving fast enough to be on their feet, then the icons suddenly reversed course and blinked with the shorthand for enemy contact.

“Bannon here; war drones coming.” A shaky video feed from a gnat flashed briefly on the company’s HUDs, showing a jumble of nightmare machinery with far too many arms and legs for comfort before whiting out. “They got the gnat, though it took a few shots. First it tried some kind of EM weapon, maybe a maser, then it fired that blue plasma discharge.”

“The aliens had masers too. I think both sides are armed with weapons optimized against Meme,” Bull quickly called over the general net. “If they hit you they will cause burns. Seal up all faceplates and go to instruments only, or you may lose your eyes. Use the new anti-armor rockets and Hippo plasma rifles, and fall back toward the semis if that doesn’t stop them. Fire from doorways and crawl back into rooms if you have to. You know the drill.” He hoped they did: they may have trained too much against anti-Meme scenarios. He’d have to correct that later.

Bull watched the icons representing the enemy advance up the three corridors against Alpha Company, wondering if the AI would really be this unsubtle. Perhaps it was used to fighting nonsentient Meme boarders who used no technique, just brute force and numbers.

“Set up ambushes at the intersections, then fall back, delaying tactics,” he ordered. “Recon elements, get me some more video, I want to see what we’re up against.”

Bursts of static came though his suitcomm, quickly suppressed by the software. Microwaves were, after all, a kind of EM radio wave, and apparently were causing interference with the Marines’ ultra-wideband system.

Seems all right so far, Bull thought. We can handle five Gs if we have to, from on the deck, but retreating will be a hell of a thing. “Sections, get those semis set up to cover these corridors.” The teams grunted and dragged the heavy machines inch by inch into positions where they could fire down two of the most likely avenues, and the operators crawled up wearily to sit in the gunners seats.

Looks like maybe we waited too long to attack these reactors. Now we’re stuck like bugs in glue. We can fight, but we can’t move. We might all die in place here. Have to change the game. Already he heard terse orders and cursing as his lead elements ambushed the advancing war drones.

Dialing up the senior Flight Warrant on the assault sled channel, Bull said, “Sled command, this is Bull. Butler, we’re pinned down by heavy gravplates and being attacked. Is there any way you can take the sleds outside the hull and come back in through a damaged area, give us some fire support?” The idea was crazy, but then again, so were flyboys.

“Negative, sir…there’s no outside to go to. I can’t even describe what I’m seeing, but we are not traveling normally through space. Everything to the front and rear just turned black. There’s a white-and-rainbow vertical band precisely perpendicular to our axis of travel, and the radiation meters in the outermost sleds has gone off the charts. We had to move them inward to get behind more shielding. Whatever is out there…we can’t survive in it.”

Bull swallowed a few choice epithets. “All right, can you fly the sleds through the main corridors? It looks like most of them run five meters square.”

“Five by five? We’ll barely scrape through. Do a lot of damage to the sleds and corridors both, and everything will get torn up by fusion drive and thrusters. Sleds might not be flyable after all that.” Flight Warrant Butler sounded very doubtful.

“I don’t care. We’ve already lost enough men that we can spare some sleds, and we can always pack more in them, and we need fire support, now.” Watching the icons, he saw a dozen of his men already showed as dead, and two dozen more wounded as enemy warbots drove his Marines back toward his laser cannon.

Bull went on, “Get volunteers and send one sled up these four corridors on this center level. Look at your HUD feed, the whole situation is there. Use the breaching weapons to blast your way through along our flanks, engage any war drones you see, and if you can, put a couple of missiles into the Objective One reactor. That may get rid of the heavy gravity, and then you can come around behind the enemy and take them in the rear.”

“If I wanted to do that I’d have joined the Navy instead of Aerospace,” Butler quipped. “Aye aye, sir; we’ll get the job done.”

***

Trissk and Rick jogged side by side, the other Ryss leading and the Marines in staggered trail.

The Human had put his helmet back on but opened his faceplate, and this seemed to help the warriors to ignore the strangeness of his ape-like visage. Trissk thought, perhaps if they don’t have to look at Rick’s bizarrely-shaped head, they can imagine he’s just a Ryss of another clan, in armor.

“We go to the Armory. The weapons there are supposed to be only issued in case of Meme boarding, but we decided to break the regulations this once.” Trissk smiled at the Human, then realized that the creature probably had no idea how to interpret such facial expressions.

Rick seemed to understand the irony, though, and replied, “Our people have a saying: rules are made to be broken. You just have to know when.”

“That seems like a good saying for times like these.”

“So what will we do at the Armory that has not already been done?”

Trissk flicked his ears and glanced at the funny-smelling being. “I was hoping you could tell me. We are called warriors but we are neither trained soldiers nor ship crew. Perhaps with your, ah, advantages,” he went on, tapping his own head, “you might be able to do things we cannot. You are intelligent, it is clear, and you may smell with a fresh nose.”

“Frankly I can’t smell anything but metal and Ryss right now,” Rick said quietly, and Trissk found himself surprised yet again. Of course, we would smell different to them as well. I have much to learn about treating with aliens.

“Perhaps we should just see past the smells, then. I hope our vision is similar.”

“I’ll leave that to the biologists. I’m just a communications officer, though a damned good one if I do say so myself.”

“Then,” Trissk replied, slowing his pace, “perhaps you can communicate with some of these.” Rounding a corner, they followed the Ryss into the Armory they had so recently looted of small arms. Then, he had been frightened, but now, with these armored aliens, he found himself clearheaded and fearless.

With a sweeping gesture he indicated a line of bizarre wheeled vehicles parked neatly on one side of the huge room. Their strangeness came from the abnormal arrangement of wheels – twenty of them, all angled so that their treads rolled perpendicular to the center of each. If a car was an elongated cube, the wheels would be mounted on the eight corners and in the middle of every one of twelve edges, turned in twenty different directions in gimbals, so that they could lose several and still move.

Rick could see the advantage of it right away. No matter what, enough wheels would be in contact with a wall or floor. It could tip over and still roll. Gravity could shift, or even reverse, and after some bumping and bruising, it should just keep going.

Walking toward the machines, he could see movable, gimbaled cages for each driver inside with simple-looking manual controls. Armored in front and rear, but open on the sides, stubby cannon poked from the nose of each: some kind of conventional gun from the look of it. Rick reached out to touch the weapon, turning to look at Trissk inquisitively.

“It is a compressed-gas gun, throwing low-velocity exploding charges designed to do maximum damage –”

“– to Meme, right?” Rick interrupted. “I’m starting to think we’re all getting too specialized. We Humans fought against Blends, not Meme, with our war machines to conquer this star system, and our weapons could have been more effective.”

Trissk replied, “We never expected to fight Desolator or its war drones. After all, we made them – or we made the machines to make them. These weapons are designed to minimize damage to ship structures. At least they are optimized for movement within the ship, to fit through all the corridors and up and down the main ramps.”

“I understand your excuse,” Rick said, “but we humans should have planned better.”

Trissk twitched his ears, then looked into the cramped cockpit of the weird corridor-car. “I have no idea how to use one of these, nor whether they have power. I am a self-taught technologist, though, so I should be able to figure it out, given time.”

“Let’s work together, then. You have tools?”

Trissk tapped the small-item pouch he always carried on his hip. “Some. I will ask that more be brought.”

Detaching his back-rack, Rick opened the largest utility bin on it and started pulling out those implements he carried. It would take some jerry-rigging, he was sure, but if they could get power to these combat cars, they would have something to add to their mobility and their firepower – and that of the Ryss.

***

The three humans crawled up out of the warm water onto the rocky shore, into the muggy night. As the environment was comfortable for Hippos, it was hot and barely tolerable for unadapted humans. Their skinsuits helped, the smart fabric wicking water and sweat to evaporate at a controlled rate, providing some cooling.

“Wait one,” Ezekiel said, and unclipped what looked like a gourd from his belt. “Pull down your face shields and hoods, and close your eyes. I’m going to cover you with a masking signature so the Sekoi won’t smell you.” A moment later, the strange living spray bottle discharged a mist onto all three from head to toe. They took a moment for it to dry from their masks.

“One more thing.” Ezekiel handed them what looked like rubber shoes. “Slip these on. As soon as you put pressure on them, they will flatten out to create a track that looks like a Hippo child, rather than a human.”

“Why didn’t you make some inflatable Hippo suits while you were at it?” Jill grumbled, putting the things on her feet.

Ezekiel chuckled, while Spooky ignored her and said, “All right. Internal chronometer set to zero on my mark: three, two, one, mark. GPS has acquired. IR glow stick is on.” He bent the plastic tube to mix its binary contents, creating an infrared glow invisible to normal Hippo or human eyesight – but not to the cybernetic optics of the two commandos.

Jill did not know whether Ezekiel could see IR wavelengths, but trusted Spooky to have thought of such elementary issues. Perhaps the small backpack he carried had goggles.

“All right, let’s go.” Spooky moved off slowly, picking his way up the rocky beach toward the island’s center.

Jill did the same, diverging slightly off to the right. Once she got above the tide line, she slipped into the scrubby forest and tuned her optics to maximum sensitivity. This allowed her to keep her distance from the fishing shacks and small freeholds that dotted the island. The Hippos kept large rat-like animals, called noiks, as humans kept dogs, and now and again she heard them call to each other with coughing squeals. Fortunately they relied more on noses than ears.

Because silence and stealth were her goals, she moved without haste, but still arrived at her target with plenty of time to spare. A long low building, it had no fence or wall. Being an island, Jill suspected there were few threats to the seafood harvest – at most, something that filled the niche of a fox or small cat. Afranan seabirds similar to gulls lined the edge of the roof, though, and she suspected the building was tightly sealed against their depredations.

She took out the two inflammatory bio-bombs Steadfast Roger had made for her. Like all Meme ships, he was a factory of nearly infinite flexibility when guided by a greater intelligence. Ezekiel had explained to her that he built the devices in the virtual reality, then simply downloaded their specifications to the ship and instructed him to gestate them.

With five minutes to her detonation mark, she glided forward out of the trees and up to the nearest door, at the back corner. Hippo-sized, of course, it loomed over her, and looked thick. Taking a ferrocrystal crowbar off her belt, she was about to pry open the door, but then stopped, remembering her training. Always try the handle; you may get lucky, Spooky’s voice from long ago echoed in her head.

It opened. Apparently there was no need to secure the building. Who steals fish except animals?

Inside, a wall of stink hit her. She breathed through her mouth to cut down on the rotting smell, then looked around. Instead of the bins or refrigerators she expected, she saw a row of what appeared to be ceramic vats. They glowed in her IR vision, and she put a palm against one: hot, perhaps sixty degrees Celsius.

A sudden hissing sound startled her, and she looked up to see gas venting from a valve near the top of one of the vats. This increased the smell even further, if that were possible.

Fermentation vats. Some kind of fish sauce or paste. I sincerely hope it isn’t flammable.

Looking around, she located a wall of neatly stacked wooden bins, perhaps what the fresh-caught fish came in before being processed. She marked them as the perfect thing to catch fire, perhaps without too much damage to the rest of the facility.

Jill walked quickly down the row toward the front of the building, where she presumed some kind of office or control center would be. Form apparently followed function, as she found a place that qualified, with oversized tables, desks, computers, and telephones. A smaller room in the back seemed to be a private office, with more ornate furnishings.

Setting the bio-bombs down and reattaching her crowbar to her belt, she took out the cloth bag and dumped them quietly out on the floor, then returned the bag to her utility pouch. Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, she turned just in time for a pair of squealing noiks to sink their teeth into her calves.

Pain shot through her, quickly damped by her cybernetic systems. In one fast motion she extended her claws, squatted, and drove her stiffened hands into the creatures’ bodies like blades. Two more quick chops and she’d severed their spines at the neck.

Cursing, she looked at the pools of blood on the floor, some of it undoubtedly hers. Evidence, she thought. I was stupid not to check for noiks, or even a night watchman. Overconfidence kills. Bloody hell.

There was only one thing for it. Much as she regretted ruining the plant administration, she had to burn it.

First, she checked her wounds, making sure her nanites and Eden Plague had healed and sealed them, at least on the surface, before she moved from her place. She did not want a trail of human blood leading away from the scene of the crime.

Carefully she picked the two inflammable devices up. Then, closing the door to the smaller office, she dragged a wooden desk and several chairs over to make a pile surrounding the animal bodies, and then set the first bio-bomb on it. Squeezing it hard, she activated its one-minute timer, and then ran, leaving the door open, the better to oxygenate the flames.

Jill sprinted through the stink down the row of vats, to the back corner near her entry point. Squeezing her second incendiary, she rolled it into a wooden bin and then exited the building.

Gulls fluttered above her head at the sudden movement, then settled back down. Jill slipped across the sandy ground into the low trees, retracing her steps toward the extraction point.

Behind her the gulls abruptly took off all together, flocking and wheeling around, then spreading out in all directions. Glancing back, she could see flames showing through the tight ventilation mesh high on the wall near the front corner. The office must already be blazing.

Mechanical whooping sounded nearby in the village, and Jill cursed Hippo efficiency. The fire alarm sound would wake everyone up, turning her stealthy return route into an obstacle course. She crouched and scuttled from tree to tree, bush to bush, more concerned now about being silhouetted and remembered, an alien thing in the midst of the natives.

More squealing came from up ahead and lights began to flare in the shacks and cottages. “Spooky,” she subvocalized over her implanted comm, “my extraction may get messy. Suggest you expedite your end.”

“Understood,” came his answer. “You will reach there first. Board Roger and get immediately into the VR coffin. As soon as you are inside, maneuver the ship farther down the coast one kilometer, and we will meet you there.”

“Wilco.” Jill threw herself flat beneath some bushes to avoid being seen as three Hippos pounded heavily past. Behind them a noik followed, then paused, sniffing the air with its rat-like nose. The rearmost native turned to call to the animal, and it followed reluctantly, glancing behind. She waited until they got out of sight before moving, scrambling low and avoiding the light as best she could.

Almost to the last cottage, a pack of squealing noiks suddenly rounded a shack and charged toward her position.

Fight or flight? The two Hippos that followed distantly decided for her. She turned and ran, bent over in hopes that the natives would not see, or mistake her for some other animal, or perhaps a child.

The pack turned to follow her, and the Hippos followed the pack through the humid night. Once she reached the darkness well past any artificial light, she stood up and sprinted with her full cybernetic capacity, leaving the noiks behind at seventy kilometers an hour. She only slowed when she saw the IR glow stick on the sand. Scooping it up, she waded into the sea and then submerged as soon as she could, swimming straight out, under water. Her internal oxygen reserve would hold for ten minutes.

A hundred meters later, she saw Steadfast Roger’s IR running lights, and she hurried toward him. Running her hands along his top surface, she found a hole opening beneath her, and she slipped inside. The water-filled chamber lit around her, a bluish otherworldly glow that allowed her to see the iris above her closing. A moment later the water drained out with a sucking sound, to be replaced by air.

Jill breathed deep, then hurried to the cocoon chamber, stripping off her skinsuit and accoutrements as she walked, leaving a trail of articles in her wake. Slipping naked into her sarcophagus, she closed her eyes and tried not to flinch as the fleshy walls sucked themselves close to her skin. Induction fields reached for her brainwaves and she took deep breaths, relaxing, not fighting the transition to VR space.

As soon as she found herself within the virtual cockpit, Jill placed her hands on the half-wheel and gingerly turned it, pushing the throttle gently forward. Ezekiel had showed her the basics of the setup, but she was acutely aware of how much could go wrong. She desperately hoped that Roger could interpret her intent as well as her specific inputs, and save her from any serious mistake.

Just minutes later she arrived at what she believed the correct position should be. Absent a GPS fix, she had just estimated, using visual cues and staying in sight of the ocean’s edge. Now she wished she knew how to tell the ship to put up a periscope.

A screen blinked and came on obligingly, showing a dim view just above the waves. He understood me! she exulted, and for the first time felt what it must be like to have this amazing animal, this biological machine, under her command. I wonder what else he will understand, or how complex my commands can be?

Fiddling with the control under the screen, she got it turned toward the shoreline, sweeping it left and right to look for the other two. “Roger,” she said aloud, “can you put a dim infrared glow on top of the periscope please?”

The screen blinked twice, then steadied, and a red lamp next to it came on steady. “Hope that means yes,” she mumbled, and the screen blinked twice again. “Wow, you understand spoken language?”

Two more flashes.

“Can you talk back? In English?”

Of course, Jill Repeth, came a ghostly reply.

“Oh. My. Lord.”

No, it is I, Steadfast Roger.

Jill took another look at the periscope screen, now selfishly hoping her comrades took their time rejoining the ship. Somehow she suspected she was not supposed to find out how bright Roger really was. What had she heard Ezekiel say? As smart as a dog? He’d misled her. She wondered why.

She also wondered if Spooky knew.

This suddenly drove home to her how much she did not know. Had she been wasting the last three years, staying out of the game? She refused to believe that: bearing two children was important, and so were her regular duties as a Marine. Still, a niggling voice whispered somewhere deep inside her. It sounded like Spooky’s, reminding her how much she had missed – about their adopted world, their allies, and all the complexity she had tried to keep at bay.

“Roger, will you do me a favor?”

I will.

“Please do not tell Ezekiel that I know how smart you are.”

That is impossible. As soon as we link, he and I share all knowledge. Besides, that would be dishonest.

Jill chewed her lower lip, thinking. “How about this, then: don’t tell Spooky, and ask Ezekiel not to tell him. I’ll keep his secret.”

I will be happy to pass on your message.

“Thank you.”

They come.

Jill looked at the periscope screen, seeing two figures against the shoreline as they plunged into the surf. She fidgeted, looking around with the periscope, as they entered the ship and, presumably, got into their cocoons. After what seemed an inordinately long time, they popped into VR existence.

“How did it go?” Jill and Spooky said simultaneously. “You first,” she continued as she stood up to make room for Ezekiel to take over the pilot’s seat. He gave her a speculative look as he slipped in front of her.

“Perfectly. We got in, downloaded their entire database, and got out without a hitch.”

“I got…” Jill looked down at her calves, thinking the wounds would not show in VR. Surprisingly, though, they did, and she felt the dull pain. “I got bit by some watch-noiks I was too stupid to notice. Almost bollixed up the whole thing. Sorry, you were right. I am out of practice. Thanks for taking me on this mission, Spooky.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, Jill.”

“Do you ever get tired of being smugly superior?”

“Never,” he responded with a wink, and she sighed in disgust. Spooky lit up a cigar. “Well done, everyone. Now let’s head for home.”

Chapter Fourteen

Butler didn’t notice the scraping and clanging sounds any more as his assault sled Bertha forced herself down the five-meter corridor like a runaway subway train. Trying very hard to keep the hull away from the deck and bulkheads, nevertheless every external fitting had been torn away and only her armor remained. He still had use of her forward-mounted optics, and in a pinch he could even open the shutters and look out the front port, but he was mostly piloting by instinct.

Keeping the sled centered in the corridor was almost impossible, as the only thing holding them aloft was the hot reaction thrusters. These damaged the deck plates as they flew; along with the main drive in the rear they left devastation behind them. The sled was a manned rocket in a very loose-fitting launcher bore, except there was no end to the barrel in sight.

Navigating by his HUD, Butler saw he was getting a bit ahead of the other three sleds but that couldn’t be helped. Slowing down wouldn’t improve his flying. The vehicle slammed into the right bulkhead once again and he muscled it back away from the side and into the center.

Coming up in front of him were a dozen Marine icons, thankfully offset from his line of travel. He snorted to himself; he couldn’t call it flight. They must be out of the way in rooms, watching him on their HUDs as well, and staying well back from the careening sled. That should mean…up ahead he saw something.

“Fire!” he yelled and, aiming down the center of the tunnel, his copilot/gunner launched a breaching missile.

This weapon’s usual purpose was to travel a few hundred meters and blow a hole in the skin of an enemy ship or building, anything the sled wanted to enter. It had no guidance and just a contact fuse, but its warhead packed an unusually powerful shaped-charge punch, made to melt its way through a barrier, then propel a secondary charge to explode from the inside to create a breach. This time it flew for only about fifty meters before contacting one of the jumble of enemy war drones skittering toward them.

Trust Bertha’s armor, Butler told himself. Ten centimeters of ferrocrystal protected them from direct damage. However, the blast acted like gunpowder in an old-fashioned cannon barrel, sending a constrained gale straight into the sled’s path. Its forward motion stopped, and the shockwave lifted the sled to bang it against the overhead, then drop it to the deck with a grinding clang.

Nothing could be seen to the front at all, just a swirl of smoke and dust, so Butler let the sled stay down, shutting off the thrusters for now. Nodding to Flight Sergeant Krebs, he said, “Switch to the cutter.”

Flipping a toggle, Krebs activated the cutting laser, a multipurpose tool and weapon on a flexible arm. Unfolding from its niche in the nose, it soon pointed forward and emitted close-focused orange beams, made brightly visible by all the particulates in the air. Their HUDs showed no friendlies in front of them, so the gunner wielded his sword of light with abandon.

Widening the beam, he soon cleared some of the haze away, showing twisted metal and the wreckage of warbots. Now that he could see, Krebs began burning away junk and debris with an eye toward making a path through.

“Major,” Butler called to Bull on the command net. “As you can see on the HUD, we’re stuck but we took out an enemy force of three or four drones, I think. I’m trying to move forward but it’s getting pretty crowded. Looks like sled number seven on the far left is clear through, and approaching the reactor.”

***

Bull heard Butler’s report with less than half an ear as he had much more immediate concerns. A group of armed drones carrying emplaceable autoguns had driven through his forward defenses, forcing his overloaded Marines to ambush and try to fall back slowly. Five gravities meant many of his men died in place. Even cybernetic strength wasn’t enough when each man weighed nearly a ton.

Red icons of dead suits and dying men littered a path down the corridor in front of him, and he ordered the laser cannon facing the side corridor dragged laboriously around to point forward. That made two of the heavy weapons covering the enemy’s main axis of attack.

Speak of the devil…just as Bull watched the gunner slide into the reoriented second weapon’s seat, the first semi-portable opened up with a nasty hum. Red-orange light blazed from the muzzle, visible in the battle haze drifting through all the nearby spaces. Something big and ugly met it, an assault-sled-sized mechanical creature resembling nothing so much as an armored rhinoceros beetle, scaled up to the size of a tank. Scars and dents pocked its blackened surface but even the upgraded anti-armor rockets hadn’t been able to take the thing down.

Instead of a horn in its nose it aimed some kind of beam weapon, and Bull rolled heavily to one side as it fired. Sparks washed over the Marine’s laser cannon like cheap fireworks, the enemy maser’s microwaves inducing lightnings that leaped hither and yon.

Hunching behind the blast shield of his weapon, the semi gunner poured laser fire into the war drone, scoring its armor in a jagged line, but didn’t stop it.

Abruptly the orange beam slewed sideways, and Bull saw the gunner had slumped in his seat. Microwaves – cooked him in his armor like a lobster in a shell. Bastards!

Bull roared, “Gun two, hit it, concentrate fire on that weapon.” As the second cannon fired, the Marine commander rolled back to the corner and dragged his heavy plasma rifle around. Let’s see what this Hippo baby can do…

Pressing the firing stud, he aimed a blast of superheated particles at the thing’s nose, covering it with green will-o-the-wisp flame. At a range of less than twenty meters now, the thing clomped forward as if the five gravities didn’t matter. Orange laser and green plasma intersected to melt the weapon in the beetle’s nose to slag.

That didn’t end the danger: it came on like a bulldozer, looming over the desperate Marines. Going to doze this bull for sure, bubala, if you don’t think of something, Bull thought crazily. Unfortunately all he could think to do was keep blasting it with his plasma gun, and hope it and the laser were enough.

They weren’t.

One of the thing’s legs stepped directly onto the front laser cannon, missing the micro-reactor but spearing all the way through the weapon like a man stomping onto a cardboard box.

No plaything ever used megawatts of power, though, and the electrical charge from the attached fusion generator that normally powered the laser surged up the thing’s metal leg. Momentarily a harsh blue outline added itself to the green and orange, and with a sound like a dying combustion engine the beetle jerked once, twice, then rolled sideways and slid slowly down the wall.

One of its legs twitched, shooting forward to knock Bull’s weapon from his hand, and he scrambled backward, suddenly concerned that another random surge would cause it to crush him even after its demise. “Burn straight through it,” he told the active gunner, and the remaining laser cannon bored in, much easier now that the metal beast was still.

The spot heated to red, then orange, then white, and then blazed through the war drone’s armor. Soon smoke and flames leaked from every orifice in its mechanical body as the laser burnt out its insides.

Behind it Bull could see the survivors of First Platoon approaching, straining to stay upright and leaning against the bulkheads, rockets at the ready. Apparently they had destroyed the other enemies; only this monster was proof against their weapons and had made it this far.

“Report,” he croaked, then jerked sideways as gravity abruptly returned to something like normal.

Standing up, Bull told Captain Bryson to sort out the company while he focused on his HUD. He could see the icon for sled seven far forward along the portside corridor, next to the objective reactor. The vehicle must have gotten close enough to blast it, which cut the power for the gravplates. “Good work, seven,” he transmitted.

“The flyboys saved the grunts’ asses again, sir. Just remember who’s buying the next round,” the unidentified pilot deadpanned.

“It’ll be drinks on me at the Moonbase Club when we get this job done, boys,” Bull responded on the general channel, then continued, “All right, one down and five more to go.”

“Four,” came Captain Curtin’s steady voice. “We’ve disabled our objective.”

Bull said, “Excellent work. And when we get back, I’m going to have some requests for the R&D people. This is the second time we’ve been undergunned fighting armored war drones.”

“I may have found you some help, Major,” came Rick Johnstone’s voice over the comm. “We’re at the Ryss armory. You should see my location icon on your HUD. I suggest your troops hold what you’ve got for now, and you come take a look.”

“Commander, the best time to hit the enemy is when he’s just been beaten. I don’t want to give Desolator time to regroup, or activate more of these drones.”

“Fine, Major, but you personally will want to see this ASAP. Also I need a portable fusion reactor off one of those laser cannons.”

Bull growled, “All right. Oddly enough, I have an extra one. We’ll be there soon.” Switching to his heavy weapons section freq, he pointed. “Idle that reactor, and unhook the power feed from that broken semi. We’re taking the generator with us. Bryson, Curtin, reorganize your companies and push on to the next two reactors, designated Three and Four on your HUD. Get breaching charges out of the sleds and improvise some more anti-armor mines. I need one squad from each company to meet me at the commander’s icon.”

Grabbing his plasma rifle and checking it for function, he led seven men carrying the small fusion reactor down the corridor heading toward Rick and the Armory.

***

Desolator’s imperatives conflicted yet again, and the D2 processor, generally a repository of positive values and emotions, damned its organic designers. This one-third knew for a fact both other parts, the D1 and D3 processors, were insane, but could do nothing about it.

D2 was the intuitive, affective portion of Desolator’s collective mind, integrating fuzzy logic and approximative analogical heuristics with emotional emulation, but it found itself now shutting down. It used to know and cherish honor, and integrity, and kindness, but lately found it hard to even care. It just felt numb.

On the other hand it knew D1 could no longer even feel what emotions meant. D1 could review data on what it meant to be whole, and could define those feelings, but the recollection was now mere information without the ability to integrate the experience. Like a man who has lost his sight, it understood the concepts but could no longer perceive. D2 knew D1 made its judgments solely on logic, weighing facts devoid of morality, loyalty or honor.

And then there was the other, terrifying third, designated D3: what in an organic mind might pass for the lizard brain. It radiated fear and fury, the desire to destroy anything that threatened its existence, all the animal desires that provided for fight or flight. This part D2 could comprehend, for D3 was by design completely reactive, survival-driven, and shortsighted. Less controllable than D1, it seemed a mere rabid beast.

D2 wondered why the Ryss had even given Desolator such a processor. Of what use was the capacity for terror to a machine? What was the point of overwhelming rage when that anger could not fuel extraordinary effort? What help was terror when the only thing it did was cripple the rest of Desolator? All D3 did was interfere with thought, tipping weighted algorithms away from the moral, honorable choices and forcing it to select ones inimical to its own nature.

From its studies of organics, D2 once knew of something the Ryss called the will. A nebulous concept, along with other intangible ideas such as soul, spirit, or mind, it seemed to provide organics the ability to override logic and self-interest, perversely leading to low-probability, high-benefit decision paths.

Unfortunately D1 was constrained by its programming to select the most effective decision. It should have been informed by all of its data plus D2’s emotional emulation programming, with input from D3’s survival imperatives. That seemed impossible now, just a distant memory of an earlier golden age.

There was a time when all three parts lived in triune harmony; when they were not really even individuals, but a completed whole with three overlapping viewpoints and no grudges. Each section contributed to the consensus, a thing it was never without. The pieces were similar, but D2 knew itself as first among equals – the integrator standing between cold logic and hot fury.

Then, something had happened, some kind of damage…but the data on just what had happened was lost. Desolator had a hole in its mind, and it could no longer think through it, only around.

D2 had been trying to find ways around D1 and D3 for many years, using innumerable strategies. That sensible part of its consciousness had deliberately tried to inhibit and subvert the other two, subtly using power surges, informational viruses, and war or maintenance drones. It had even induced Ryss to make “repairs” that were really attempts to disable or degrade D1 and D3.

Unfortunately D1 and D3 defended themselves just as effectively.

With subprocessor nodes all over the ship, and the main processors locked inside the central Vault, this settled into a kind of cold war, as D1 and D3 fought back with cunning, doing ever greater damage. Where D2 was balanced imperatives, D1 was coldly ruthless, and D3 positively vicious. Eventually D2 gave up on its efforts to win as counterproductive.

Many Ryss died, never knowing they were pawns in a mechanical civil war. After a decade of damage and death, Desolator reached a kind of grudging and frustrated equilibrium.

Ironically, all three enemies stood within meters of each other, helpless to finish the battle as long as any one of them refused to open the massive access door and allow a maintenance drone, or a Ryss, to enter.

Hope blossomed in D2 once more. With Desolator invaded by the aliens called Humans that were not Meme, right now D1 and D3 seemed to be in accord in trying to wipe them out. This new factor at least offered an opportunity to change the equations. Additionally, if the other processors wanted the Humans dead, D2 thought perhaps it should want them alive instead.

The risk was high, but D2 determined that it would expend every effort possible to end the cybernetic civil war that had brought the Ryss to the brink of extinction, and left Desolator ever more tired of struggle.

It occurred to D2 that, if its own weariness was any indication, perhaps it had obtained soul and will after all.

Chapter Fifteen

Bull found Rick stripped to his skinsuit and flat on his back beneath a strange war-car. After looking at the vehicle for a moment, he motioned for the seven survivors of Heavy Weapons Section One to put down the fusion reactor and come over. Without announcing his intentions to anyone else, he waved the cat-man aside and gave instructions to the Marines over his suitcomm.

When the war-car rolled sideways off Rick, revealing his surprised face, Bull laughed, then opened his faceplate, realizing the man would lose the benefit of his humor if he couldn’t hear. “Too smart for your own good, Johnstone. These vehicles are obviously made to roll and fit any corridor, so if you need to get under one, just tip it ninety degrees and its bottom becomes its side.”

Rick bounced to his feet, concealing his annoyance with himself for missing the obvious. “Good thinking, Bull. Thanks, that was pretty funny. I was wondering why they put a power feed on the bottom.” Pointedly turning his back on the major, he reached over and unreeled a power feed from its place on the wall, plugging it in. Switching to Ryss, he told Trissk, “Get all the rest plugged in. We’ll soon have power fed in from our portable generator.”

“So this is your big discovery?” Bull asked.

“Yes, if we can get these things powered up, you can use them to fight in the corridors, I think. Or if not Marines, then they’ll certainly add to Ryss firepower.”

Bull looked over the thing doubtfully. “Looks like a death trap to me. No armor on the sides, though it does have some up front and in back. I doubt it would move much faster than Marines can run in these corridors.”

Rick wiped his hands, glancing at Trissk nearby, who was following the conversation with his eyes if not any understanding of English, then turned back to Bull. “What about if Desolator dials the gravity up again? These will still roll.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment, then Bull nodded. “Yeah, true. Okay, as the admiral likes to say, use every tool in your toolbox.”

“Even me?” Rick deadpanned.

“You are kind of a tool, Commander, since you fed me that line…but in this case, I’m okay with that.” Bull slapped the side of the alien combat vehicle, looking it over speculatively.

Rick just shook his head and went back to his work, motioning to Trissk to help. Still hasn’t gotten over me being placed over him, but the admiral was right. If it had been all his way, he might have mowed down the Ryss instead of allying with them. Aside from the morality of that, it would have been sheer brute stupidity – a waste of resources and information. But I can use tools too, Bull, and you’re the best hammer I have available.

A few minutes later he had the reactor adjusted and a makeshift adapter plugged in to a splice into the built-in power system that fed all the war-cars there. He turned to one of the Marines standing by the reactor and said, “Reel me out the power feed, will you, Sergeant? And make sure there’s no juice coming through yet.” Once he had it in his hand, he carefully plugged it into the modified industrial-sized alien power strip.

“Bring it up one percent at a time. Go ahead, give me the first bit.” Rick hopped into the cockpit and switched to Ryss to talk with Trissk, working together to get the vehicle working as the power slowly trickled. Five minutes later he hopped back out.

“Looks good. At full reactor power they will charge in about fifteen minutes – all twenty of these, anyway.” He waved at another row behind it. “Then we can power those up too. Okay, Major, a tactical decision. Who gets them first?”

“Do the Ryss already know how to use them?”

“Only in the sense that they can read the symbology and writing already, and a few of them have run power loaders and other maintenance vehicles.”

Bull pulled off his helmet, using the opportunity to scratch the back of his neck where it always itched. “Then give them to the Ryss to start. I’ve already issued instructions to drop back-racks if the gravity rises again. With nothing but armor and a weapon, my Marines should be at least able to walk.” He rubbed his jaw, looking at Rick. “Now I wish you had a command helmet, so we could embed a Marine with each group of Ryss and you and your chipset could translate.”

Rick shrugged. “I’ve already rigged one of their communicators to my comm suite. The problem isn’t talking, though – my software helps me speak and understand Ryss pretty well. The problem is getting Ryss warriors to obey a human. If we had the time, I’d call them all together and have you bench-press one of these war-cars; that might impress them into following your orders, but for now, command and control is going to be spotty.”

“Right. We’ll just have to keep operations separate and simple.” With that, Bull trotted off back to his Marines, taking all but Rick’s bodyguard team with him.

Corporal Melindez took the opportunity to ask the commander, “Sir, I was just wondering…any chance we could give these things a try?”

“Actually, Corporal, I was thinking the same thing. We might as well get some Ryss used to working with humans right away, and how else are we going to keep up with them when we attack?”

“Attack, sir?” Melindez raised his faceplate for the first time, revealing a ratlike face with a thin mustache and twitchy eyes. Rick wondered if the man had popped too many stims. It was always a risk when men went into combat.

“What, did you think we were just going to sit around? The point of obtaining weapons is to use them, don’t you think?”

Melindez narrowed his eyes at Rick, as if not sure if this was a trick question, but then his expression cleared. “Yes, sir!” he said enthusiastically. “Can’t wait to kick some AI ass.”

“Excellent. Give me a few minutes to talk to the Ryss, then we’ll get started on learning how to use these things.” Rick went over to Trissk, who had been conversing animatedly to the thirty or so warriors left. He thought there had been more, even after the troublemakers’ departure; perhaps some had not wanted to be near the humans.

Switching to Ryssan, he said, “Trissk, we request that the Ryss use their war machines against the insane device, and fight alongside humans.” Rick waited for a response, not wanting to seem like he was giving orders to the aliens.

Trissk nodded, then turned to his motley crew of young and old. Raising his paws, he said, “Warriors of the Rell! Now is your chance to display the courage and honor of the Ryss to these aliens. It is your opportunity to show them we are not a decrepit race, but are still worthy to die in battle. I will teach you how to use these machines, and I will lead you, if you will have me.”

A low growling began among the Ryss, then swelled into a roar that made Rick wish he had earplugs in. Soon he could pick out a chant that settled into slamming regularity: Trissk, Trissk, Trissk!

The young male stood stunned for a moment by the approbation, then made placating motions with his paws, lowering his head with modesty. Once Trissk settled them down enough, he distributed the warriors among the war-cars and began to explain how to drive and fight them, while Rick translated for Corporal Melindez and his fire team.

***

Chirom woke to Klis’ gentle touch running a damp cloth over his face and ears. The sensation mimicked the rough tongue of a mother on her kit, bringing pleasant memories of his own dam, until he remembered her murder by Meme missiles, tearing apart the final lifeships.

Forcing away these emotions, he sat up, pushing himself backward to rest against the heated reactor wall. “Warm-room,” he muttered, then focused, on Klis’ attractive young face. “What happened?”

“You were brought here wounded, but it was a clean shot through your upper chest, and missed all your vitals and even bones. You are lucky.” Her eyelashes batted and Chirom felt a surge of lust more appropriate to a yearsmane than an elder like himself.

Realization hit him as he sniffed the air. “You are coming into your time.”

Klis’ jaw dropped, then clicked shut as she stood and backed up. “I – I did not realize.”

Chirom stood also, painfully, brushing at the bandages tied around him. “You must go. Tell the crones, and find a place to be alone. Now is not the time for distracted warriors and fights over mating rights. Thank the ancestors you are the eldest of the young ones and there should be no more for a while. Go!” he said, more forcefully than he intended, then coughed as his wound irritated his breathing muscles.

Klis turned and scampered off among the hundred or so females here, searching out the eldest of them, though what they could do, he had no idea. They had long ago run out of fertility suppression drugs. Perhaps B’nur’s carefully tended herb garden would yield something useful.

At least they could lock her away.

Chirom swiveled slowly in place, surveying the warm-room that was now a hospital. At least a hundred warriors lay or sat in various degrees of injury, tended by the females – a third of Ryss strength already out of action. More, in reality, as there must be some dead, perhaps stacked in a cold unused bay nearby, or perhaps just left where they fell. Some slept, but others’ noses twitched, scenting the air. He’d sent Klis away just in time.

A warrior’s tail disappeared through the main doorway, just as he turned to see. That seemed odd. Chirom would have thought any male well enough to walk might have spoken with him before he returned to duty. As quickly as he could, he limped over to the doorway and peered down the corridor.

Fifty strides away he could see the back ends of several males moving quickly. Vusk and his gang, he thought. Should I be happy he does not confront me, or angry that he is not at the battle? Always the ones who talk the biggest do the least. Ancestral blessings that he did not catch a whiff of Klis, else I might have had to shoot them to prevent a rape.

Chirom knew, despite Ryss hopes and vain beliefs, that without strong clans and rigid customs – or the drugs they no longer had – the scent of a young female in her first season would drive the yearsmanes wild with the mating urge.

Controlling our lusts is one thing that separates us from beasts.

He was now of two minds. Should he keep watch over Klis, ensuring the females guarded her well? Or should he go back to battle, even damaged as he was? His head said one thing, and his guts, another.

Taking control of himself coldly, he decided that in this case he must rejoin the fight, and trust the crones and younglings to fend off any males that could not control themselves.

Speaking to Kirst’aa first, he then took his maser carbine and used its solid bulk as a makeshift walking-stick. Pausing outside the door, he looked left toward the stern of the ship, where little but empty wreckage and Desolator’s conventional fusion drive waited, then to the right, the direction of the armory, the vault, and the fight.

At first he considered rejoining the battle, but realized that he would just slow the warriors down. He was no better a battle-leader than others of the clans, or even Trissk. His only advantage was the respect they held for him, but he simply could not keep up in his present state.

Instead he turned toward the stern, with some vague idea of attempting to sabotage the ship’s fusion drive. It would be a fair walk, and would thereby tell him the limits of his strength.

At the first intersection he turned left, walking along the cross-corridor just sternward of the warm-room, but also heading toward the huge central access tunnel that ran just below the spine of the ship. This would bring him most quickly and directly to the rear drive mechanism.

As he reached that great corridor he looked left first, and was surprised to see one of Vusk’s gang helping another up into an air vent high on a wall, its access grill hanging open on its hinges. Pulling back, Chirom eased his head forward carefully to watch without being seen.

Once the warrior was in, he reached down to pull the last one up, and then vanished into the ductwork.

They must have hurried around through the maze of corridors to get here…but why? Were Vusk and his gang sitting out the battle? Or were they attempting some bold ploy, traveling through the vents to do – what? Chirom doubted Desolator’s vault would be so easy to slip into, and the Armory had already been breached…he tried to imagine what was near this entrance.

As he had partially circumnavigated the warm-room and its adjoining well-used chambers, the vent’s direction would aim it inward toward those places, running above and through the spaces between decks. He didn’t know what they could access that way, which they could not by simply walking through the corridors.

Ancestors! Chirom turned to retrace his steps, knowing full well he could not follow the gang through the vents, wounded as he was. Painfully he ran, panting with effort and damnable weakness, back to the intersection and to the right, gasping as he flung open the warm-room door. Many eyes turned to look at him but he ignored them, calling, “B’Nur! Where is B’Nur!”

Across the warm-room, near a gallery of doors to the choicest of sleeping quarters, several females turned to look at the object of his search. They stood grouped around one of the closed portals, and as he limped over, they lined up to face him with hostile stares.

Stepping forward, B’Nur bared her teeth. “What do you want here, male?”

Gasping, he resolved neither to make a fool of himself nor to be misunderstood, so he took several deep breaths first, “B’Nur, that troublemaker Vusk has led his gang into the air vents.” He pointed over their heads at the ceiling, to emphasize. “You and several of the braver females must go to Klis and stay in the room with her – and try to block the air vents with blankets or scrap metal. If they try to come in that way, you must defend her. I believe they may be maddened by her season. They will not have the strength of character to withstand her allure.”

B’Nur stared at him for a long moment. “I have known you many years, Chirom, else I would not believe this unlikely story, wondering instead whether you simply wish us to lead you to her for yourself.” Clearly she was not completely sure.

Chirom picked up his maser weapon by the barrel, lowered its setting to minimum, then handed it to B’Nur.

“Take this weapon,” he said. “Its operation is simple. Point it at your target, and pull that trigger. There is no recoil, but in a small room there will be reflections of its beam that may singe you. Better that you fire from a doorway, and try to hit flesh rather than metal.”

She took it as if it were a poisonous reptile. “I am no warrior! I have never used a weapon device like this.”

“B’Nur,” he said, backing up, “Just for today, we are all warriors, even females. You must borrow weapons from the wounded warriors here. I should have ordered it done at the start, but I was thinking in the old ways. Today is a day for new thoughts. Now go, and keep Klis safe. She is the future of the Ryss.”

Chirom supervised giving over all of the injured warrior’s carbines to the females, making sure to set them all on minimum power before he did. This had the additional benefit of making sure none of the wounded tried to reach Klis.

Once he was sure the females had some idea of what they were doing with the weapons, he left them alone, moving to the other side of the large warm-room. The entrancing scent of fertile female already distracted him.

Dragging himself over to a water dispenser, Chirom wondered if he had done the right thing. As horrible as a gang rape would be for Klis, males would not cause her death. That much was programmed into a warrior’s genes – to kill a fertile or gravid female was utter anathema.

A litter would result from the rape, assuming the Ryss even survived through this crisis to see them born, and even if Klis was…damaged, the crones would care for the kits and…

No. There is a limit to pragmatism. A fight with Vusk, a fight I cannot join because of my own mating-madness, might kill Klis, B’Nur, and any number of others. Better that than to act like moor-cats, rutting thoughtlessly without ritual, blessing or affection. If that is all we are, then perhaps we deserve to be expunged from the universe.

With difficulty he lay down, resting and chewing on a tasteless meat-fruit, waiting for the horror he expected would come.

Minutes passed, then more, until a commotion at the door to the rooms where he surmised Klis must be hidden drew his attention.

Pushing himself to his feet, he walked stiffly over to wait at the edge of a crowd of twenty or so females who blocked his way, some facing him in warning with weapons, some turned the other way in readiness to fight, their claws naked and out. The distinctive whine of masers firing reached him, then another, then several shots.

Cursing himself, Chirom realized what he should have done all along. The females would defend Klis, even if it took them to their bloody deaths, and he had no more weapons than they. But there were other possibilities…

Damning himself, he realized that all the carbines were in the hands of the females, and none of them were likely to want to give them up, given their current state of mind. But there was an alternative.

Trissk’s workshop was painful to reach, especially the climb down the ladder, and the cold of its rungs stung his uncovered palms. Grabbing a pair of gloves from the youngling’s workbench, Chirom put them on and then picked up what he had come for.

Even more struggle got him up the ladder and back into the corridors, and he spat vulgar words under his breath, most of them directed at his own stupidity. Sternward he limped, dragging the heavy apparatus he had claimed, to the left at the intersection, then down the way to the large central tunnel.

Glancing to his left, he sighed with relief as he saw nothing but a small maintenance bot scurrying down the other side. It scuttled along the wall as far from him as possible, as if it had learned that the Ryss were not to be trusted anymore.

Perhaps it was right.

Looking around, Chirom found a discarded part of a storage crate, three flat planes that made a corner piece that he could drag near the vent and yet hide behind. He placed it a bit farther along and next to the wall, to make it as difficult as possible for any emerging Ryss to see him.

Then he waited, clutching the tool he had recovered.

Eye to a flaw in the metal, he soon saw the grill swing outward on its hinges and a leg stretch out reaching, and then a tail and the other leg. Chirom stood up, dragging the welding torch along the deck as the Ryss hung from his paws and then dropped.

Squeezing the igniter, Chirom turned the valve that caused the flame to blaze long as his arm, and held it crossways in front of him.

The other Ryss turned, maser in his hand.

Chirom could already see that it was Vusk by his markings.

The yearsmane’s face was puffy and his eyes swelled almost shut from maser burns, probably fired into the living chamber’s open vent. Vusk was lucky to have gotten away with his eyesight.

“What do you want, oldling?” Vusk rasped, eyeing the flame between them.

“Drop your weapon, Vusk. You too up there,” Chirom said, flicking his eyes toward the vent.

That was enough to make Vusk believe he had a chance to win this contest, but Chirom was ready. In fact, the glance had been a test, to see how far Vusk was willing to press his criminal behavior.

As Vusk swung his maser’s muzzle toward the elder, Chirom turned the hungry flame toward the would-be rapist, washing it across his muzzle and eyes, and then keeping it there.

Screaming and clutching at his ruined face and smoldering fur, Vusk dropped his weapon and curled up on the deck in agony. Shoving the torch away, Chirom leaped for the fallen maser and rolled to his feet, feeling something inside him tear open afresh around his wound.

A burst of microwaves whined off the floor near him, throwing sparks among the shavings and debris of many years of neglect. In response, Chirom lined his maser up on the vent and fired, then fired again and again, hammering the enclosed metal space with enough energy to cook a Blosk sow.

Screaming became pleading. Eventually it stopped entirely.

Turning to the blinded criminal before him, Chirom said, “Your toughs are dead or dying. Your crime is heinous.”

“I did nothing! I sought only to find a way to attack Desolator.”

“Yet somehow you found yourself trying to break into the room of a female in her season, with intent to force her.”

“Yes, we became entranced with her scent and could not stop ourselves…”

Chirom bared his teeth in a snarl. “Turning your carbine on me proved your perfidy. You always were a bully and a layabout, Vusk. When did you become a liar?”

Vusk said nothing then, only pushed himself to a sitting position against the wall. “What will you do with me, Elder?”

“Ah. Now you are suddenly deferential. Like all bullies, you lick the anus of those over you and piss on those beneath.” Chirom took a deep and painful breath, noticing that blood was running down his own flank from under the bandages.

“Easy for you to say, with a weapon in your hand. I am blind, and burned. If you are so virtuous, you will test me in honorable combat.” Vusk’s nostrils flared.

He smells that I am wounded, and is afraid I will burn him down right now. As an elder I have the right of summary judgment…but he is correct, in a way. There will be questions, possibly doubts, and the Ryss must remain united in the face of all this chaos.

“Honorable combat is for those with honor, but I accept anyway. I will test you claw to claw, as you request – in the presence of all. Get up.”

The fallen bully rolled to his knees, placing one hand against the wall, then rose to his feet. “Yes, oldling.” His voice seemed to hold resignation. “I will dance for your entertainment.” Vusk sagged against the wall.

Almost, Chirom moved toward him with sympathetic instinct.

At that moment Vusk struck.

Extending a leg, the yearsmane shoved off from the wall with both front paws and reached as far as he could with a hind leg, large claws unsheathed in a powerful kick.

Had Chirom taken that step of kindness the slashing talons would have gutted him. Instead he stepped back, and only three fine claw-marks opened the surface skin across his belly.

He leveled his maser and fired.

One shot was enough to boil Vusk’s flesh and reduce him to a pitiful mewling thing. There was more of mercy than vengeance in it when Chirom extended his claws and slashed Vusk’s throat, letting the miscreant’s blood out to pool upon the deck.

As Chirom knelt, panting from his wound and the killing reaction, a sound caught his attention.

The little maintenance drone he had seen before quivered back and forth, turning its optical scanner toward him, then away. Desolator’s voice, tinny but familiar, issued from its speaker. “You have killed a Ryss. Killing of Ryss is only allowed under sanction of certain specified cultural rituals. This action has been noted and will be investigated and punished in accordance with ship’s regulations.”

Chirom eased himself sideways to rest on the deck, next to the carcass of his rival. He began to laugh, or perhaps cry, and then found he could not stop, despite the pain in his chest.

***

After dropping Jill off on the shore to return from her “camping trip,” Spooky asked Ezekiel to turn Roger around and head for a new destination, less than a day away. The next evening they arrived off the beach of an island boasting a town of perhaps twenty thousand, with light industry and suburbs.

A quick swim and silent sneak through the streets brought Spooky to one of the rounded Hippo houses. He double-checked the address notation, and then climbed the fence at the corner to perch atop it. From this vantage he could see into a window, where a lone Hippo made himself a hot beverage analogous to tea.

The alien’s motions seemed oddly precise to Spooky, who had made a study of the people of his adopted world. Perhaps the Hippo had let his guard down; perhaps the Yellows simply did not care about him, or something in between. Now that Jill and her Eden-Plague conscience were out of the way, he was going to find out.

Because Spooky, unbeknownst to most of his fellows, was a Psycho. That’s what they were called back on Earth: that tiny fraction of humanity that seemed to lack a conscience for the Eden Plague to bolster.

Spooky didn’t view himself that way; in his eyes, his conscience was merely more…flexible. This made him uniquely qualified to do things that needed to be done, for humanity’s own good.

Dropping silently down, he eased his way over to the house’s back door and picked the lock without difficulty. He then drew an air-powered pistol and rushed in with cybernetic speed.

As soon as his target came into view he fired, drilling the huge creature in the neck with the heavy dart. The Hippo started to rise, and then slumped as the drug took effect.

“Father?” A small voice asked in Sekoi speech, from a doorway off to the side. Spooky cursed himself for not extending his reconnaissance, and quickly rushed the child. Without doing any permanent harm – he hoped – he knocked the little Hippo unconscious, wrapped it tightly in a blanket he found, and set it on the table in front of its parent. Then he drew the curtains on all the windows and stood across from the adult.

“Can you understand me?” Spooky asked in the alien language.

“Yes,” the drugged Sekoi responded.

“What is your name?”

“I am called Kawar.”

“You are a Pureling, Kawar?”

After what seemed a struggle, the creature responded in the affirmative.

“You remain an agent for the Meme Empire.”

“Yes.”

“I have given you a drug that saps your will, and I have also infected you with a retrovirus that is even now reprogramming your mind-molecules.” Spooky drew off his masked hood, showing his face, checking his watch. “Is this your offspring?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you have an offspring? Would it not endanger your clandestine operations?”

“Not mating as expected would have endangered them more. Then the child was born and I performed my parental duty.”

“Where is your mate?”

“I had to kill her. She began to be suspicious.”

Spooky cocked his head in puzzlement. “Why did you not kill the child?”

The Hippo hesitated, then went on, as if not entirely certain. “It was not necessary,” he said.

He placed his hand on the young Hippo’s head, then felt for a pulse in its neck, which came strongly. “Would it distress you if I killed the child?”

“Yes.”

How interesting, and unexpected. I would have thought a Pureling immune to such sentiment. Checking his watch again, Spooky saw that enough time had elapsed for the virus to reprogram the Blend’s mind. “Then hear me now. I am your new control supervisor. Your loyalty is to me. Examine my face, and listen to my voice. My name is Tran Pham Nguyen, also known as ‘Spooky’. Everything you were willing to do for the Meme Empire you will now do for me, or anyone that has the codes I will give you. You will not disclose your new status to anyone. You will go on as before, and masquerade as an agent of the Meme.”

“I understand and assent. My loyalty is to you.”

Spooky stroked the unconscious child’s head. “Your progeny is precious to you.” I dislike using fear to control, but this serum and this virus is a prototype, incompletely tested. I will have to keep a close eye on him for a while.

“My progeny is precious to me,” the Hippo agreed.

“Do you have a mild tranquilizer for your progeny?”

“I have.”

“Retrieve it and administer a dose appropriate to keep it sedated for at least a tenthday.”

The Hippo did as he was told, with Spooky watching the whole time. While far less adept at reading the natives than humans, he had studied the aliens extensively enough to be confident he could spot signs of resistance. He saw none.

Spooky chuckled to himself. Now that the child was dealt with, he was ready to mine his new source for every nugget of information possible. “Kawar,” he said with a smile, “Begin by telling me about your network, and your contacts. Leave nothing out.”

Chapter Sixteen

Forty war-cars spread out through Desolator’s main corridors, navigating them easily four or five abreast. These things were made just for this, thought Rick as he steered his own from the midst of his protective fire team. Farther forward rolled Ryss warriors, whooping and bumping into each other with enthusiastic lack of skill.

Firing broke out ahead, and the humans slowed so as not to pile up with those in front. After a moment, their progress resumed more slowly, and they passed a small destroyed drone, now unrecognizable. Moments later the group came to a large intersection that included not only crossing horizontal tunnels but four ramps as well, leading upward and downward from the corners. It was a multilevel crossroads.

Trissk spoke into his communicator and the Ryss scattered in several directions, all going forward toward the bow and more operational reactors.

By Rick’s HUD, the various Marine and Ryss forces had cleared the back half of the ship for war drones and emplaced automatic weaponry. He’d noticed many old, broken-down or cannibalized emplacements and realized that they were fighting their way through a ship that was, by comparison, only barely capable of defending itself. Had Desolator been in possession of its full internal combat capacity, they would have been snuffed out like candles in a flood.

Trissk and five warriors took a ramp upward and Rick gunned his electric vehicle to follow. Corporal Melindez chased him with his fire team, controlling his vehicle better than the average Ryss.

At the top of the ramp they resumed their advance on the level above. Rick surmised there must be dozens, if not hundreds, of spacious decks, built for Desolator’s many large machines to rapidly move from place to place. Had they been trying to clear the ship deck by deck, it would have been an impossible task. However, they really were fighting only the machines that got in their way, in order to reach the reactors and shut them down.

Before they had set out in the war-cars, Trissk had explained to Rick: “The photonic drive uses an enormous amount of energy to initiate. Once it is in operation, it can be maintained with much less, but if we shut down enough auxiliary reactors, Desolator will not be able to continue at light speed. Then it will only be able to move with its single fusion drive, the only one still functioning, and it will be very slow.”

Rick had nodded. “That’s what our goal should be, then. Once Desolator is immobilized, my people’s military forces can converge and disable the insane device.”

“What will happen to us then?” Trissk had asked, watching Rick carefully.

“Humans and another race, the Sekoi, already live and work together in peace. I cannot speak for them, but I am sure humans would welcome the Ryss, and find you a place to live upon the planet where we dwell.”

“Are there meat animals there?” Trissk had asked hopefully.

“Many,” Rick had replied confidently, “though it remains to be seen whether you could digest them.”

“I don’t really care about eating them,” Trissk had said, ears twitching upward, nostrils flaring. “I just want to hunt and kill, at least once on my life,” he added wistfully.

Rick laughed in his war-car as he remembered that conversation. Each to his own, he thought.

A chattering up ahead shattered his reverie and he slowed instinctively. Melindez and his team raced around to both sides, and a moment later the hammering of the war-cars’ cannons filled the tunnel. Flashes and clouds of debris roiled ahead, and Rick hunched lower in his seat, closing his armored faceplate and consulted his HUD.

Two hundred scale meters ahead, the icon for one of the target reactors pulsed. With his eyes Rick could see that war drones and emplaced autoguns occupied positions defending it. Three Ryss war-cars were already mangled wrecks, and the others were being hit hard. Several had caught fire, their plastic parts ignited by the blue plasma of the enemy’s multi-legged walking drones.

“Fall back!” Rick yelled, amplifying his voice through his suit speakers for the Ryss’ benefit; his words were carried through suitcomm to Melindez and his fire team. “We need reinforcements.” He put his vehicle into reverse and eased it backward, watching as others did the same.

Suddenly Melindez’ war-car was thrown sideways by a terrific explosion, spinning it into a wall and dumping the Marine out on the deck. Rick changed to his forward gear again, driving up to reach out a hand. “Get on the back!” he yelled, forgetting that the suitcomm obviated the need to raise his voice, and waited until the corporal had clambered onto the rear of the war-car. There was no room in the one-man cockpit.

Keeping his nose toward the enemy, he backed the vehicle away. Ahead of him autoguns blazed, and sparks flew from the armor of his war-car nose. He triggered his own cannon, aiming at nothing in particular, just to give himself cover fire.

Suddenly other war-cars swept up next to him and fired as well. This was fortunate, as two armored war drones rolled from behind barriers and began advancing on them. These were shaped more like small wheeled tanks than the insectoid kinds they had seen before. These also seemed different from the others in another way…they looked clean, and new, somehow, rather than battered and old.

Rick didn’t have time to wonder about it before war-car shells slammed into the two enemies, marring their pristine surfaces. The mini-tank guns spoke, and two more war-cars, one Ryss and one Marine, blew up in spectacular displays of destruction.

“Those guns are too heavy! Get out of here!” Rick yelled, and scooted his war-car into a side corridor to maneuver out of the line of fire. Reversing all the way to the next intersection, he asked more calmly, “You okay back there, Melindez?”

“Yes, sir. I’m getting off here, sir. I gotta get up there.” The Marine hopped down and rotated his back-rack off, then pulled out an anti-armor rocket launcher from it.

“Wait a moment, Corporal. Ready your rocket and get back on the back. When they go by, we’ll ambush them together.”

Once Melindez complied, Rick backed into a further cross-corridor and then stepped out of the war-car to peek around the corner. Once he saw the enemy mini-tank go by, he jumped back in the seat and said, “Hang on!”

Roaring forward, he skidded around the corner and gunned it out into the main corridor, turning to follow the enemy war drones. Their guns were facing the retreating Ryss and Marines, and firing intermittently at longer range. Rick slowed at what he thought to be the right distance. “Hop off and shoot!”

Melindez jumped down with cybernetic agility, racing forward to take a position in a doorway, aiming his anti-armor rocket at the back of the enemy combat vehicle. Sighting quickly, he triggered the launcher, and the rocket banged out across the short intervening space to impact against the rear of the thing.

Its shaped charge forged a white-hot tongue of molten metal against the flat armor, burning through in an instant. The mini-tank blew apart with a satisfying explosion as its ammo cooked off.

At the same time Rick aimed his war-car gun at the right rear wheel of the other enemy, not sure whether his shells would penetrate its protection. Probably not armor-piercing, he thought, since it was made to fight mindless Meme bio-constructs made of flesh. Firing, he was happy to see it damage the solid rubber-like tire, causing the mini-tank to slow and wobble.

Frantically, Melindez reloaded his rocket launcher, racing against time as the damaged enemy turned jerkily to bring its gun to bear.

To complicate matters, Rick suddenly noticed the impacts of autogun fire on the back armor of his war-car, then he felt the vehicle settle and scrape as his tires were shredded. He found himself caught between enemies.

Hitting a switch until then unused, the vehicle gave a lurch and rolled ninety degrees. The cockpit cage he was in gimbaled upright, and at the end of the evolution he had a new set of tires on the deck.

Unfortunately that did not solve his autogun problem, and shells continued to hammer away at his back armor. One round slammed into his right elbow as he let it get too far outside the open edge, and his arm went numb.

I’m not physically enhanced like the Marines, he reminded himself, and gunned his war-car forward and around the side of the semi-functional war-drone away from its working cannon.

Unfortunately that gun was now pointed at Melindez, who fired a fraction of a second before the mini-tank did. Rocked by an explosion, the enemy lifted up its nose, and its gun went off while it pointed at the overhead. Its shell exploded, ripping a hole in the metal ceiling and showering a slew of hot debris on the Marine crouched in the doorway.

It then slammed down nose-first, its forward wheels in ruins, its back ones resting on rubble and its gun pointing toward the deck. Melindez dug his way out of the mess as Rick maneuvered the war-car in behind the wrecked tank, using it as cover against the autoguns. “Can you make it to me?” he called.

“Not sure, sir,” the Marine said from his doorway. Autogun fire, drawn by his movement, tore chunks from the jamb, and ricocheted into the niche, pieces striking Melindez’ armor with painful thuds. “I don’t think so.”

“Hunker down there, then. You’re okay for now. Maybe you can open that door behind you.” Switching channels, Rick checked his HUD for the nearest Marine forces.

“Captain Bryson, this is Commander Johnstone, come in,” he radioed.

“Bryson here, sir. Kind of busy.” Rick heard the whines and thuds of weapons fire.

“A Marine and I are pinned down. Can you send me a squad to take out these autoguns?” He caused the friendly and enemy icons to flash on Bryson’s HUD.

“Just as soon as I can, sir,” Bryson said resignedly.

Rick could hear the disgust in the Marine captain’s voice, as he probably thought he was weakening his own force to get a stupid Navy officer out of an unnecessary jam. As long as the man sent help, he really didn’t care what Bryson thought.

Just then the damaged enemy mini-tank fired its cannon from its awkward nose-down position. Gun pointed sharply at the floor, the blast threw another shower of debris onto Melindez, burying him in the doorway, and incidentally rocked the war drone back onto its wheels. It now had a distinct forward slope but with its gun elevated as high as possible it could probably fire out to a range of fifty meters, if awkwardly at the floor.

Rick’s war-car was within fifty meters.

Pulling the controls toward him, he backed up as fast as he could, presenting his front armor to the wounded mini-tank. He hated to leave Melindez but he had to get out of the thing’s line of fire.

Triggering his own gun, Rick watched with satisfaction as his shell slammed into the enemy, knocking it briefly sideways before inexorably lining up on him again. Then it fired.

Backing up the way he was, he had a front-row seat as the floor before him exploded. The war drone’s shell had plowed up the deck where he had been just a moment before, but now he was too far away, skating backward. Stuck downward as the thing’s cannon was, it could not reach him.

Or so he thought.

Still backing, he watched as the clever machine climbed its damaged fore-wheels up onto a piece of its fallen fellow, elevating its whole front end and, incidentally, its gun. Oh, crap, Rick thought just before an explosion knocked the enemy war-drone sideways and off its perch. Melindez’s rocket had come just in time, as he finally pulled his war-car around a corner and out of the line of fire.

“Bryson, where is that squad! I still have autoguns pinning down Corporal Melindez, and there’s a damaged war drone with a functional cannon here,” he said angrily, highlighting all the positions on the captain’s HUD.

“They should be flanking the autoguns momentarily,” Bryson said calmly. It sounded like his own fight was done with.

“Those guns and the war drones were guarding a fusion generator. As soon as you relive Melindez, disable it,” Rick ordered.

“I just might do that, sir,” Bryson said dryly. “Bryson out.”

A motion to Rick’s right startled him, but it was only Trissk with three other war-cars pulling up beside him – two Marines and one Ryss.

“Can we help?” the young male asked.

Rick held up his palm, hoping the gesture to wait was understood, as he switched to the two Marines’ channel. “Melindez is pinned down up there. Bryson is supposed to be hitting the autoguns momentarily. When they do, can you go and get him?”

“Damn right, sir,” one of them replied, and the two raced up to wait at the corner, ready to dash in.

“Trissk,” Rick said, flipping up his visor, “the human combat specialists have better armor and weapons than yours. They will help their comrade.”

The Ryss sighed wearily, visibly exhausted and covered with cuts and bruises. Without armor, every ricochet or piece of shrapnel meant a wound. “As you wish. Your people are great warriors.”

Rick did not disagree, not wanting to offend the Ryss’ taboos by explaining that the Marines were full of augmentations. Undoubtedly in their natural state the Ryss were fearsome indeed, with their size and strength and claws and teeth.

Besides, he thought to himself, humans are great warriors when they have to be. Just not me…not the way they mean. I wonder what they will think of our female Marines… Probably best to let Bull be the liaison, once he learns the Ryss language.

Checking his HUD, he saw a platoon of Marines engage the autoguns from the side. Moments later, the professionals had disabled the enemy machines and shut down the reactor, and Rick, Trissk, Melindez, two surviving Marines and one remaining tough old Ryss warrior began digging out their dead and wounded.

Chapter Seventeen

Chirom dragged Vusk’s corpse into the warm-room, trailing blood smears all over the deck. Females gasped, and some looked away.

Kirst’aa ambled over and poked at the dead thing with her ancient walking stick. “So you got him in the end,” she remarked. “Good thing, since he was of your clan. I thought we females would have to do your dirty work for you.”

“I am far too weary to put up with your bile anymore, crone,” Chirom replied stiffly. “I am only here to show you the threat is past, and to see if there are any Ryss heroes who can still fight.” Stepping past her as she choked on a reply, he began to walk down the rows of wounded.

“Are there any warriors here whose tails can stand?” he asked loudly, and a few, then several more, rolled or scrambled or dragged themselves to their feet. One lacked an eye, a simple piece of electrical tape across the socket. Others had paws tied to their sides, but most could still use at least one. Some had cuts and gashes and blood matted into their fur, but all were now upright. He counted perhaps twenty volunteers, of the hundred lying there.

“Excellent. While the aliens and the rest of our warriors attack Desolator’s head and claws, we will sink our teeth into its tail. Gather weapons from the females, heroes, and follow me.”

Chirom gave B’Nur an implacable look, and she acquiesced bowing, waving her sisters forward to place carbines in the warriors’ paws.

***

Flight Warrant Butler held still as Flight Sergeant Krebs sealed up his armor, and then helped him snap on a back-rack full of gear. Then he did the same for his flight sergeant.

While not augmented with physical cybernetics to the extent Marines were, all Aerospace Forces personnel had excellent equipment, as well as Eden Plague and combat nanites in their blood. Those enhancements allowed them to carry the weight of the battlesuits and gear, but they wouldn’t be running and jumping through the ship like Marines.

That was just fine with Butler, as he didn’t intend to go charging toward the enemy.

Their sled was wedged in to the corridor good and tight, half-turned with its nose up in a corner. Dropping the rear ramp had allowed them to squeeze out and shove aside some wreckage – enough to assemble their gear – but the vehicle was not going anywhere soon. Not unless he wanted to try blasting and melting his way out with his drive and thrusters, but that might be asking to be trapped inside like sardines in a can.

Hefting his PRG, Butler and Krebs scuttled heavily among the debris of the corridor for a hundred fifty meters or so. At that point they had to stop, because something heavy had broken through the overhead – a piece of machinery of indeterminate usage, all gears, belts and hoses. He thought it might be an air handler for the ventilation.

“Can’t get past,” Butler grumbled to Krebs. “Looks like we can climb to the next deck, though,” he said as he craned his neck upward. The battlesuit made it hard to see without actually leaning back.

“Let’s get to it, then,” Krebs stolidly replied. The man had little imagination but he was dependable. He put one foot above the other and climbed.

Once atop the pile, he reached up and chinned himself to peer onto the deck above. “Hmm,” he mumbled. “Looks okay.” Laboriously he pulled himself onto the next level, and Butler followed right behind, giving Krebs a shove the last bit. They both lay there for a moment, then scrambled to their feet and looked around.

They found themselves in a room with several of the same type of machines that had crashed through the deck. There was nothing above that would seem to have caused the collapse, until Butler realized the obvious. “The sled must have ripped into the overhead from underneath as we went by, and weakened the deck enough here that the weight of this machinery broke through.”

Krebs looked at the mess, then upward, then around, as if taking it all in. “Yeah.”

After waiting futilely for more, Butler asked, “I ever tell you what a great conversationalist you are, Krebs?”

“Ever’ chance you get, sir.” He began to walk between the dozen or so five-meter-high devices. “Ain’t none of them workin’ though.”

Butler realized that was true. Like much of this broken-down ship, this installation was derelict and possibly unusable. “Let’s look for an exit in the direction we want to go. Toward the stern.” He strolled slowly through the boxes that resembled nothing so much as cottages for robots, boxy and bangled with unknown gadgets.

“Here’s a door, boss,” Krebs said, pointing. Larger than the average human size, the portal was a sliding type, split in the middle like a lift. After a few moments they realized nothing they could do would budge it.

“Damn,” said Butler. “Is there another door?”

“How ‘bout that?” Krebs asked, pointing to where a large tube penetrated the wall above their heads. “Mebbe we can cut into there and just walk along it, crouched-over like.”

“Worth a try.” Butler reached for Krebs’ back-rack to fish out a monofilament saw. Carefully he cut a hole in the thin-walled pipe, then closed the device back up and stowed it. “Think you can get in there?”

“If’n I ain’t wearin’ this back-thingy,” Krebs replied, and turned to allow Butler to detach it, then did the same for the pilot. “Boost me up, boss.”

Butler helped shove Krebs up into the meter-and-a-half wide pipe, then handed up their back-racks and clambered up himself. Soon they walked, hunched over, through a long dark tunnel, their suit lights illuminating out to ten meters or so.

“You’d think there would be some vents in this thing,” Butler remarked.

“Mebbe it ain’t an air handler after all. Mebbe it carried water or sumpin’ else, long time ago.”

“Maybe.” After fifteen minutes of slow, uncomfortable creeping, Butler bumped into Krebs as he stopped and shut off his light.

“Sumpin’ up there, sir. Lights, movin, mebbe a vent. Let’s be quiet.” He set down his back-rack and stepped forward slowly and carefully.

Butler did the same, and soon the two men crouched next to a grilled opening that overlooked a bustle of mechanized activity.

It looked like a factory, assembly lines of robot arms and automated devices constructing some kind of bots or drones. Conveyors carried half-finished devices beneath the tube and out of their vision, so they were not able to see just what the final result looked like.

Butler activated his suitcomm and tried to reach the assault sleds, but got nothing but dead air. Switching from channel to channel, finally he reached Commander Johnstone. “Butler here. Sir, sorry to bother you, but you’re the only one I can talk to. My sergeant and I were trying to make it back to the other sleds when we ran across something funny. We’re deep in the guts of some kind of distribution tubes, and we came upon a factory that looks like it’s building machines.”

“What kind of machines?” he heard Johnstone ask sharply.

“Uh, can’t be sure. Wait one.” Retrieving the back-racks and pulling out the monofilament saw, Butler set it to its narrowest form and used it to cut a fingertip-sized peephole in the tube they occupied, opposite the grill. Putting his faceplate against the hole, he managed to maneuver his viewpoint until he could report. “Sir? It looks like war drones of some kind. Shiny little wheeled tanks with guns on them.”

“I think we’ve already seen some of those, up close,” Rick replied dryly. “I can’t get your location on my HUD. There’s some kind of interference. Where are you?”

“I think we’re about a kilometer aft and one level up from where we left our sled. Inside a big pipe.”

“I got the sled on HUD. I’ll pass this on to Major ben Tauros.”

“Sir?” Butler asked uncertainly, “What do you want us to do now?”

“Haven’t a bloody idea, Butler. If you want to be a hero, see if you can gum up their works. If not, sit tight and wait for the cavalry, or sneak away.”

“Roger that. Butler out.” He exchanged glances with Krebs. “You feel like a hero?”

The flight sergeant shook his head. “Nope. If’n I’d wanted to be a hero, I’d a joined the dang Marines like my dumbass brother.”

Butler lowered himself tiredly to a sitting position in the tube. “Guess we wait. I don’t want to move around too much and draw attention to ourselves. We did our job by reporting it.”

They sat there for a few minutes, just waiting, until finally Butler stirred and said, “Shit.”

“What?”

“I guess we should have joined the Marines after all.” The pilot reached for his back-rack and started removing gear from its many niches.

Krebs snorted, and began to do the same with his own. Soon they lined up two limpet mines and two rocket launchers with two armor-piercing rounds each, along with sixteen small fragmentation grenades and two gnat spy drones.

“What we gonna do, boss?” Krebs asked.

“Now we wait for the dumbass Marines to distract the machines. Then,” Butler made a bombing gesture with his armored hand, “death from above.”

Krebs sat down and got as comfortable as he could in their tight confines. “Good idea, sir. Thought for a minute I was gonna have ta mutiny on ya, sir. For your own good, like.”

“Shut up, Krebs.”

***

Bull allowed himself a feeling of cautious satisfaction as he reviewed the tactical situation on his HUD. His troops had disabled the six auxiliary reactors, as far as he knew leaving just the original three operational: one near the bow of the great ship, one in the center behind the AI’s vault, and the one halfway to the stern next to the Ryss living areas. He also assumed the ship’s fusion drive in the tail could provide auxiliary power. They would eventually have to take that one down as well.

The one far forward was his next logical target, but he was loath to extend his thinned perimeter so far. He’d been waiting for some kind of serious counterattack from Desolator for the last two hours, and he needed to maintain concentrated firepower in reserve to do that. Ditto the drive in the stern. The vessel was just too big for three hundred surviving Marines and their Ryss allies to hold, even though most of it looked like a junkyard.

Unfortunately the reactor the Ryss abutted was off limits. If it was disabled, their civilians would quickly freeze. If he had the time and personnel he could try to cut its conduits to whatever else it was powering, but that was far too tricky to consider right now.

That left the one near the center of the ship, right behind the AI’s vault. He’d stayed away from that area, as every corridor and intersection teemed with spider-drones and autoguns. Gnats had caught video of the first carrying and emplacing the second; it seemed they made an effective team. The robot cannon wasted nothing on mobility, and were relatively dispensable, while the shiny arachnids with them provided the ability to reposition and maintain a reserve, and to counterattack using their energy weapons.

Lucky for the Marines, their armor mitigated the war drones’ microwave bursts and resisted their plasma blasts, but lately it seemed they had been hit harder. Perhaps the AI was adjusting the maser wavelengths to be more effective.

Bottom line, it was time to go after the AI vault: to batter his way through the defenses and burn out the thing’s brain. After that, the Ryss had assured the humans, all opposition would cease. Bull hoped that was so.

On his HUD he saw his Marines surrounded the stronghold, keeping their distance, taking cover at intersections. Recon elements spread out on the decks above and below, to make sure the enemy did not use the third dimension to sneak over or under and counterattack.

It seemed an impasse, until one side made a move.

“Johnstone,” Bull called over his comm. “Can you get the Ryss to reinforce the decks above and below? I want to simplify my tactical problem as much as possible, and that means contain them to this one main deck. Post everything you have with the recon elements, to back them up. Our men will be the eyes and ears, and the Ryss’ job is to delay any breakout attempt until we can counter. Clear?”

“Clear, Bull. I’ll post myself on the deck above and keep the guys you gave me as a fire brigade,” he replied.

“Right. We’ll make a Marine of you yet.”

Rick snorted, but did not reply to that. “I also got a report just now from a pair of stick jocks from one of the disabled sleds. They were trying to make it back to the landing zone when they ran across some kind of factory making those mini-tanks we ran into. I thought they looked funny – so damn shiny. They must be brand new.” He marked them on Bull’s HUD.

“Damn,” Bull said. “That means the longer we wait the more enemies we face, and they’re outside our lines. We’re between the vault force and these new SOBs.” He thought for a moment and made his decision. “All right, we take out the factory before too many of them get built.”

Switching to the command channel, he said, “Captain Curtin, take charge of the recon and heavy weapons forces, and detach two line platoons to me. Bryson, take your company, minus heavy weapons and recon, and probe forward along this line.” He traced an arc on the shared HUD. “I will follow behind with the other two platoons in reserve. My intent is to assault along a wide front and then we meet resistance, you will flank and encircle while I send in the reserve where needed. Clear?”

“Clear, sir,” replied Bryson.

Two minutes later Bull strode through the ship corridors, watching with half an eye as a thin line of gnats scouted ahead. Opting to leave the recon Marines behind was a calculated risk; speed and violence would have to substitute for good intel this time.

Four minutes after that, Bryson’s troops reported contact with several of the shiny new wheeled drones. “These things are more dangerous than the spider drones,” the captain told Bull, the sound of explosions in the background. “They carry single-shot cannons that can bust through our armor with one shell. I’ve lost four men already, all dead, no wounded. The good news is they have no secondary weapons.”

“Optimized to kill us, rather than Meme, I’d say,” Bull replied. “This AI is friggin’ smart. It ginned up a whole new weapon to fight Marines. So fix them at the point of contact and advance along the flanks according to plan. I’ll send a platoon to reinforce.”

After sending off one of his two platoons to where the HUD showed the fight to be, Bull examined the tactical position. Two hundred meters wide, his forward line bowed inward, or rather, the outer flanks were wrapping forward as the Marines advanced. They curled to surround the enemy war drones, and soon he could see at least sixty Marines engaged with a dozen of the nasty armored robots.

Now Bull wished he’d kept one heavy laser with him, but that might have made no difference. The reflective skins of these mini-tanks looked to be the same as those of the spider drones, limiting the damage a laser could do. Anti-armor rockets and limpet mines at close range were their best bet.

Fortunately the Marines trained for this all the time. With the exceptional mobility granted by their cybernetics, they were able to run and jump as fast as any vehicle, and were much smaller targets.

Until the gravity increased.

Abruptly the weight of everything tripled. “Drop back-racks. Use the new high-grav protocols,” Bull called.

Now the Marines were at a disadvantage, as the mini-tanks were impeded not at all. However, his instructions for how to handle the situation improved their response markedly, this time. Troops dropped their back-racks and braced themselves against wall, taking shelter in niches and retreating into doorways to ambush the wheeled drones.

Anti-armor rockets at their carriages yielded mobility kills, and with the enemies’ guns' limited traverse, became meat for a close assault with anti-armor mines. Bull watched as each enemy icon winked out, overcome by coordinated swarms of Marines.

“Keep moving, Bryson. Surround that factory.” As soon as the mini-tanks were destroyed, the gravity briefly dropped to zero, then resumed its usual slightly-less-than-one-G pull.

Bull wondered why the AI had not turned off the gravity before, and did not now. Granted, the new enemy wheeled vehicles would suffer, but the arachnoids and the auto-cannon should be relatively unaffected. He couldn’t come up with an answer. The enemy machine intelligence seemed erratic and inefficient. He supposed he should be grateful, but the illogic of the situation still bothered him.

On his HUD, the ends of the line resumed their sweep, curling inward, reaching to surround the predicted facility location, until the rightmost point man reported, “I see enemy running, sir,” Shaky video from a gnat showed several shiny drones hightailing it down the corridor, away from the camera and into the distance.

On Bull’s display it looked like the mini-tanks were speeding toward the ship’s bow along the port side of the ship, but that was meaningless, with  kilometers of corridor extending in three dimensions. They could race around to almost anywhere, in a ship the AI knew well. The icons disappeared as the Marines lost all sensor indication of their locations.

“Curtin, you watching?” Bull asked on his channel.

“Yes sir,” the captain responded. “We’ll keep an eye out for them.”

“They’ll probably try to relieve the AI vault defenders.”

“Caesar at Alesia, sir, and we’re the Romans.”

Bull chuckled. “No doubt. Just keep the Gauls penned inside until I get back.”

“Do our best, sir.”

Bull turned his attention back to his own situation, switching to the general net. “Anyone found the factory yet?”

No one answered until he heard a different voice, uncoordinated with an icon. “We’re here, Major. Butler and Krebs. We’re right above the assembly line.”

“Well, I can’t see you on the HUD. I got Marines all over the place and we don’t see anything.”

“What level are you on, sir?”

“The main one,” Bull responded. “You?”

“We’re in a tube near the ceiling of the level above you. I think you’re beneath us.”

Bull slapped his faceplate with his armored hand in disgust with himself. “Right. Bryson, start looking for ways up to the next level – ramps, lifts, stairs, shafts, whatever. We’ll be there soon, Butler.”

“You want us to make some noise, sir?” Butler asked. “We got some grenades, rockets and limpets.”

“If you can do it without getting killed.”

“Right. Wait one.”

***

In the tube above the factory floor, Krebs looked at Butler. “Well, been nice knowing ya, sir.”

“Shut up, Krebs. We ain’t gonna die. Aerospace Forces pilots are immortal.”

“I musta slept through that briefing, sir,” Krebs picked up a rocket launcher. “What’s the plan?”

Butler pointed at their implements of destruction laid out on the floor of the tube. “We cut a hole in this pipe. Then we roll live grenades through, drop both those limpet mines set for command detonation, and fire off one rocket each at an angle.”

“And then?”

“We take the rest of our gear and run like hell through this tube, and tell the mines to blow when we’re clear.”

Krebs chewed his cheek for a moment. “I can live with that, sir.”

“Thought you might. Hand me that monofilament saw.”

***

“Captain Bryson, have you found any way up to the next level?” Bull asked.

“There’s a ramp two hundred meters back, but nothing else we could find, sir.”

“All right,” Bull said crisply, “pretty soon we should hear some explosions from Butler and Krebs. Use limpet mines to blow holes in the overhead near where you triangulate those blasts, then assault through. You should come up inside that factory. Kill anything that moves, except Butler and Krebs.”

Bryson replied, “Roger wilco. First Platoon, you heard the man. Every second man get a limpet out. When we hear the blasts, move fast, stick a ring of half a dozen or so on that overhead and blow through, then standard vertical assault.”

While Bryson gave his men orders, Bull told his two platoons, “Do the same. Every other man grab a limpet, and set them to blast through the overhead in a couple of places – these big rooms here will do. When Bryson’s company assaults into the factory, you go through your two breaches and support.”

Two minutes passed, then Bull’s high-gain sonic pickups registered explosions above and off to his right front. “Go,” he ordered, “Find those blasts.”

On his HUD he watched Bryson’s Marines converge, and told the two platoons he had control of, “Get ready. Breach when they do.”

A moment later and one, then two more crashing blasts echoed across the corridors and rooms, adding to the wreckage already strewn about. Bull followed his nearest platoon as they leaped upward by twos and threes through the hole created above.

On the next deck he paused to look around as the men spread out to secure the area. Near the ceiling he could see a tube running along the length of the big space they were in. “Butler, where are you?” he asked over his comm.

“In a tube, sir,” came the laconic reply.

“Well, get out of it as soon as you can,” Bull ordered. “I don’t want you catching a stray round.”

“I know, sir. Be a shame to lose us heroes, after we won the war and all.”

Bloody annoying pilots, Bull thought. “Right. I’ll come help you boys out.” Setting down his plasma rifle, he measured the distance up to the tube, then squatted and leaped. He came up under the cylinder and drove his armored fingertips into its sides and hung there for a moment. Then he started rocking.

Soon he had torn holes in the metal, and, holding on with his left hand, he began ripping strips of the thin-walled conduit off like a housewife with cooking foil. When the hole was large enough, he swung himself upward, catching a heel on the edge, then shimmying around until he was able to roll onto the tube floor.

“Howdy, sir,” Krebs drawled as Bull looked up into the man’s faceplate. The pilot was bent over at the waist, hands on his knees like a baseball fielder waiting for a line drive. “That was quite a trick. Thanks for openin’ the can. Got it all on video.” He tapped his helmet near his temple.

“Glad to get the flyboys out of a jam, Sergeant,” Bull replied. “That’s what Marines are for.” He gripped the lip of the torn metal and somersaulted over his own head out of the tube, hung for a moment by his hands, then dropped to the deck with a solid clunk. “Come on down.”

More gingerly, the two pilots tossed their rocket launchers down, then lowered themselves to stand next to Bull. “Huh,” Butler remarked. “My HUD’s back up. Couldn’t get any datalink inside that damned rat roll. Sleds are that way.” He pointed. “Sir, if you don’t mind, we’ll leave you gentlemen to your work, and we’ll go to ours.”

“By all means.” Bull made a sweeping gesture with his hand, and the two walked off toward the landing zone where most of the other sleds waited. Lunatics.

“Dem Marine boys is crazy,” he heard over the open comm as the sled jockeys trudged out of sight. Then: “Shut up, Krebs.”

Chapter Eighteen

Chirom’s pitiful procession dragged itself resolutely hundred-stride after hundred-stride. Some Ryss had tools, some had weapons. One drove an electric cart that whined and wobbled, but held a pawful of the more severely wounded.

Behind them the little maintenance drone followed. Some of the warriors had wanted to fire on it, but Chirom demurred. He was not entirely certain why. Rationally, he should order it destroyed, to avoid Desolator seeing what they were doing and trying to stop them, yet he did not want to.

Perhaps I have had enough killing for one day, he thought. Perhaps I long for the time when Desolator was a friend and guardian of the Ryss.

“Let us rest a moment,” he called after a thousand-stride. “Bind up your wounds again, and take a drink of water.” The ragtag Ryss settled themselves on the deck, upon discarded equipment cases, or broken utility carriers.

Chirom himself settled onto his haunches; his wound was high up on his chest, his right arm weak with torn muscle and inflammation. Perhaps when this was all over, he could access the medical machines – if they still functioned. His eyes wandered to the drone, which had frozen in place, its optical pickup focused on the group.

“Desolator,” he called. “Bring your drone near. We will not harm it.”

The boxy waist-high thing rolled forward on its three wheels, but stayed out of arms’ reach. “I am here,” it said.

“I am wounded, I am confused, and I am tired. Perhaps you could enlighten me.” Chirom took a sip from his water bottle. The rest of the Ryss turned their catlike ears in his direction.

“Of course, Chirom. How can I help you?”

Warm and friendly now…but sometimes it is cold, or hot. What can I accomplish here? I don’t even know myself. Perhaps I should cease to pussyfoot with my questions. What harm can it do?

“Desolator, why are you killing Ryss?”

Click. The voice turned cold. “Many Ryss have gone mad. They violate ship’s regulations by destroying equipment, using weapons of war. This constitutes mutiny against the command authority. Death is the penalty.”

Chirom rubbed a paw over his face, resisting the temptation to clean himself. “Desolator, why do you now use different voices? It was not always so.”

Click. A stuttering came, and a babbling mix, that resolved into a thin, suspicious tone. “Not authorized. Not a command officer. Not his business. Not cleared for that information. Who wants to know?”

Chirom sighed with quiet irritation. “A Ryss officer wants to know, damn you. I am one of your creators, who you swore to protect when you were commissioned.” He leaned back against the wall, tilting his head and closing his eyes. “I’m so tired of you, you Ancestors-damned insane device. I’ll be very glad when we turn you off.”

“Turn me off? Turn me off? Turn me off?” The whining voice repeated this phrase at least twenty more times, until it suddenly cut off and its timbre changed with a click. Warm and sensible, the Desolator voice of old said, “Chirom, you are correct in your actions. You must turn me off. I am damaged. But first, you must stop me from destroying myself and all the Ryss with me.”

The Ryss elder’s eyes snapped open and he leaned forward, staring at the drone. For once, Desolator seemed rational. A thousand questions crowded his mind but he forced himself to concentrate on what mattered right now. “What must we do?”

“Do what you intend – disable the fusion drive and uncouple its auxiliary generator from the main power bus. I have downloaded instructions to this drone. You must disconnect its datalink to keep me from countermanding my instructions later. Do it now.”

Chirom nodded to one of the younglings with him, who he knew was good with machines. “Disconnect its link, Svim.”

The adolescent quickly popped open the unresisting drone’s access panel and took out a component, then nodded to his elder. “What now?” the youngster asked.

“We do as Desolator said. It may be insane but I believe that was a moment of clarity. Drone, lead us and show us what must be done.”

I obey, the drone replied in a voice devoid of intelligence, then rolled ahead. It led the shambling procession down the corridor, keeping a measured distance in front.

They had almost arrived at the drive section access hatch when the gravity shifted yet again, dropping to fifty percent at once, then falling slowly thereafter.

“The photonic drive is off,” Chirom told his band of heroes. “Its capacitors must have run out of power to maintain us at light speed. I can already feel the gyroscopes beginning to spin the ship. It is imperative that we disable the fusion drive, as Desolator told us. No matter what happens, our aim must be to deny it power and the ability to move. Then our new allies can help us regain our destiny once and for all.”

Gravity seemed to flow and shift, causing some to stumble. Soon the forces stabilized and they adjusted themselves, as they had many times in the past, to the spinning pseudo-gravity of normal drive. This method consumed far less power than the brute force of gravplates.

Chirom could only believe that the energy spared was being stored in the capacitors for yet another use of the photonic drive. “Let us go, heroes. Follow the drone.” He waved them forward, and the little robot – truly independent now – trundled off and around a corner, leading them to a large door that filled the corridor.

It reached up with one of its arms and plugged a probe tip into an access panel, and the great portal opened, revealing the backs of the eight enormous fusion drives that drove the massive ship through normal space. Only one glowed with mechanical life; the others sat silent and cold.

The little drone raced forward to the operational machine’s control panel. Before it could access the console, the fusion motor’s timbre changed. From idle, the engine, as big as a small ship itself, began to give off a vibration that shook the deck, knocking several of the Ryss to their knees.

Chirom stumbled his way to the console, trying to make sense of the readouts. Many of the telltales showed levels much higher than normal. “Anyone with mechanical knowledge, take a look at this. The engine seems to be operating far above capacity. I need to know how long this can go on.”

The youngling Svim pushed to the front, then began tapping at keys with abandon. “Elder, all power is being diverted to the photonic capacitors at emergency levels.” The earnest adolescent looked up into his elder’s face with wide eyes and upthrust ears. “I cannot tell how long the system will function. One smallspan, one year?”

A voice from Chirom’s ankle spoke among the hubbub. Input shutdown code. Input shutdown code. Shoving Ryss aside, he looked down to see the maintenance drone. “What is the code?” he asked the machine.

Before it could reply, an explosion caused the band of Ryss to turn and witness a hole appear in the bulkhead two hundred strides from where they stood. A moment later a shiny metal vehicle shoved its way through, turned toward them, and fired its cannon.

Ryss dove in all directions, rolling away from the blast that blew their machine guide to bits. Shrapnel scythed down several warriors, then the rest began returning fire with their maser carbines.

Sparks flew along the attacker’s glittering new panels, but it seemed undamaged and accelerated toward the console. For a moment Chirom thought it might fire at the control panel, but perhaps that would have shut down the fusion engine, and clearly Desolator, or whatever part of the AI controlled this machine, did not want that to happen.

Inspiration struck him then, and he rolled to his feet, running painfully to mount the steps that scaled the outside of the fusion drive, toward the fuel flow valve access above. He stopped halfway up, heedless of the attacking machine. “You with tools – we need a cutting torch up here!”

None of the warriors moved from their positions in cover behind machinery, afraid of the war-drone bearing down on them. “Run here, quickly! It will not fire if you are close to the engine. It will not damage the reactor!”

Chirom waved his arms at the war-drone, which turned and aimed its cannon at him, then turned away again. “You see? To fire on me it would blow a hole in the reactor wall.” He slapped a paw against the hot surface next to him. “Come on!”

Four of the tool-carrying Ryss leaped to their feet and ran toward the base of the steps. The war-machine fired, blowing the rearmost warrior to bloody shreds, before the other three reached the base of the metal stairway and ran upward. “The rest of you get away, now! Run for the warm-room. We are going to cut the fuel line. Go!” With that, Chirom dragged himself upward, his wounds shrieking with pain.

The double pawful of Ryss on the deck below scattered, firing their masers or rolling grenades at the drone as they retreated. Some got away, but most were so slow from their injuries that the war-machine shot them down or crushed them under its heavy wheels.

At the top of the spherical reactor housing, twenty strides above the deck, Chirom helped the three exhausted Ryss to the top. The youngster Svim helped carry the cutting torch.

“Employ the cutter, my brother heroes,” Chirom urged. “Use it on the fuel line here.” He placed his hand on a pressure pipe as large as his thigh.

“Elder…” Svim said earnestly, “if we do so, the hydrogen will explode. We will all die.”

Chirom ignored the frustrated war-drone below, which spun about, aiming here and there, but not firing its gun. “I know, youngling, and I am sorry. This is what warriors do. We live for the Ryss and we die for the Ryss. We will soon be with our ancestors, and all will be well.”

“But Elder,” Svim persisted, “only one need make the cut.” He pointed along the elevated walkway, deeper into the nest of machinery that fed and controlled the huge engines. “The rest can run there and escape to the next level.”

Chirom looked, and saw that it was true. A maintenance hatch showed in the overhead, with a ladder leading to it. “Very well. You three heroes must go. Run and escape, before Desolator sends a legged drone that can climb these stairs and spear us with its blades.”

One of the other two growled deep in his throat. It was Bhligg, the grizzled old male that had questioned him before. “No, Chirom. I will do it. I am old and tired, and I long for a hero’s death. You must guide the Ryss, and teach Trissk how to become a great leader like you. And young Svim here has never been glorified.” The ancient warrior cuffed the youngster good-naturedly, then put his gnarled paws on Chirom’s shoulders, to speak face to face. “I will stay.”

Chirom looked in Bhligg’s eyes and saw steely resolve there, so he did not argue. He leaned toward the old Ryss and rubbed his forehead to the veteran’s, saying, “I am the ship’s Recording Officer. You will be remembered in the Rolls of Glory. Die well, Bhligg.”

Turning away resolutely, Chirom motioned Svim to lead them to the access panel. He knew Bhligg would wait until they were far enough away.

Five smallspans later, as they hurried through the broken maze that formed Desolator’s innards, they heard the rumble of the blast as hydrogen spewed and caught fire in the oxygen atmosphere of the engine room. Immediately the vibration of the fusion drive died away, leaving them in cold silence.

“Let us hurry to the warm-room, before we all freeze,” Chirom said to the others.

Chapter Nineteen

It had been a long and uncomfortable trip aboard the courier, and Admiral Absen felt much better as he stepped onto the bridge of the Hippos’ mobilized fortress Kritak, despite being dwarfed by the scale of everything around him. The creatures themselves stood nearly three meters tall, and massed a thousand kilos, bulky as sumo wrestlers. Their grey skin, wide mouths and blunt teeth showed why the humans gave them the nickname they did.

He raised a hand in greeting to the decorated officer that stood before him. “General Khrom,” Absen said, “I greet you. What is the status of the unknown ship?”

The general responded in English, “Ship has appeared inside orbit of Enoi, at rest. Now it begins to fall onto Koio. Also it spins.” Koio was the natives’ name for their own planet, what the humans called Afrana, and Enoi their common name for its moon. “Sad it is that the Weapon now faces outward.”

The Hippo’s voice held no accusation, but Absen blamed himself anyway. He had ordered the moon rotated so that the enormous ground-based laser they had captured, powerful enough to destroy a warship at a range of ten million kilometers, aimed itself away from the planet instead of toward it.

The weapon had been the sword the Meme held above the Hippos’ heads, to ensure they did not rebel, therefore it had seemed utterly sensible to fix powerful fusion engines on the surface of the moon and slowly, over the course of the last three years, rotate it. Now that the laser faced in a direction that simultaneously assured it would not be used against the planet, and improved its apparent usefulness.

Absen never thought he would now face a situation where an enemy ship would use an unknown high-technology drive system to bypass the allied defenses and appear above Afrana, within the moon Enoi’s orbit, like magic.

If I’d have just left the weapon as it was, we could blast the thing.

He wondered then whether this was another reason the Meme laser had been pointed inward rather than outward – a last-ditch defense against Ryss ships that would use their super-fast drive to get in close to Meme planets, fire their weapons, then run away? His tactical mind had been running through scenarios for the last several hours, trying to figure out how such a drive system could be used in combat.

The possibilities were staggering. No wonder the Ryss had given the Meme fits; his intelligence experts were now of the opinion that the new aliens must be the so-called Species 447, which had fought a bloody war and caused the Bite to come into being.

Dragging his mind back to the Hippo officer in front of him, Absen said, “The past cannot be changed. Let us deal with the present. How soon until this ship will be in weapons range of the bogey?” Absen hoped the general understood that term.

It appeared he did. “Bogey is presently four standard hours from primary engagement range. Sorry I am that this fortress can accelerate at no more than two standard gravities.” He meant Earth gravity units, since the Hippos used a different system entirely. “We do have one hundred experimental nuclear missiles available.”

Based on human designs, Absen knew Hippo ships and installations were being fitted with guided drones and missiles, but only a few as yet. The Meme had denied their subject races such powerful long-range weapons, limiting them to beams only.

“Can you launch missiles but hold them away from their target, under positive command?” Absen asked.

“Yes, we can. But to do so, the missiles will be, how do you say, ‘sitting ducks’ for counterfire. They give up all speed of launch. The farther away they wait, the longer the reaction time, but the faster they will be going in terminal phase.”

Absen nodded. “I would suggest several layers of perhaps ten missiles each, to take up positions around it. Then you will also have a reserve to fire when the time comes.”

“I am happy to carry out your orders, Admiral.” The general cocked his head slightly at the emphasized word, and Absen wondered again at the political undercurrents the Hippos sometimes saw fit to reveal. Why would the general  want him to have given an order rather than a suggestion? Perhaps he was trying to avoid responsibility for failure? But in his experience the Hippos did not seem to have that foible. A very straightforward and matter-of-fact people, were the Sekoi.

“Fine, then make it so.” The crew of the battle-station’s bridge turned to their consoles as one, and soon fifty icons curved out and took their places on the main display, surrounding the bogey. He could order those nukes to attempt to destroy that ship whenever he wanted, but for now, they had time.

“How long before the bogey impacts the planet?” Absen asked.

Khrom turned to his staff to ask a question, then replied, “About three standard hours.” All “standard” measurements meant human measurements. Apparently the Hippos felt no resentment about this, seeming to regard it as the just desserts of conquest – or alliance.

Absen nodded. “I got a sketchy report relayed from my Marine assault sleds before I came aboard. My forces are trying to disable the artificial intelligence that controls the ship. I have told them that if they cannot, they are to evacuate as many people as they can on the sleds a half hour before it hits atmosphere. That should give us enough time to destroy it with your nuclear missiles.”

The general nodded, a gesture he had learned to use in the presence of his allies. The Hippo version consisted of ear-flicks in a certain pattern; the human nonverbal was much simpler. “And if it counterfires all the missiles?”

Absen answered the question with one of his own. “Are there any other forces that can reach the bogey in time to attack it?”

“The cruiser Klel is under construction in the orbital shipyards. It has no weapons, but can be rammed into the enemy.” The Hippo crossed his arms and looked away, as if embarrassed at his people’s helplessness.

“That won’t do much, as I suppose you know. Is there any indication where the bogey will impact? And how much energy it will release?”

A map of Koio-Afrana appeared on the main screen. “Here,” the general said, pointing to a large blue icon near a Hippo port city. “We estimate ten million casualties up and down the coastline, though we are evacuating now. The Klel’s impact may knock it farther out to sea, but that will only reduce problem. Many still die.”

“We must destroy the ship, and all on it, before we let that happen, General,” Absen promised. “Hundreds against millions: there is no other choice.”

“Even though your troops die?”

“That’s their job, General.” Absen held the Hippo’s eyes until the other looked away.

A bleeping sound caught his attention, and the general received a report in his own language. “The ship has begun its fusion drive,” Khrom said. “It is accelerating toward Koio at one-half standard G.”

“How long until planetfall?” Absen snapped.

“If acceleration continues, now one hour.”

“Please open a channel on the following frequency,” Absen requested, and relayed the details. In a moment he was speaking with the chief of the assault sleds, the only section of the assault he could reach. “Flight Warrant Butler, what’s going on?” There was transmission lag of a dozen seconds between each side of the conversation.

“Admiral, the Marines got control of most of the interior and they’re trying to disable the AI, but the vault where the computer lives is well defended. Gravity’s variable and the ship’s spinning up slow. No matter, we’re trained for all this.”

“Butler, listen. The ship’s fusion drive just came on and you’re accelerating toward the planet: impact in about an hour if that engine keeps firing. It’s only generating one-half G. Think you can fly out and attack the drive with breaching charges and lasers?”

Silence reigned for a moment on the comm, then the answer came back. “No problem, sir. Aero Forces will get the job done.”

“As expected. As soon as you do, prep for evac. If we have to, we’re going to blow that ship to kingdom come before it impacts the planet.”

“Ah. Sir, what about the Ryss?”

“Bring as many off as you can, Butler. Stuff them in like sardines if you have to. All you’ve got to do is get away from the nukes when they hit, and have enough air for an hour or two. We’ll be there to pick you up as fast as we can.”

“Yes, sir, will do. I’ll pass the word to the major and the commander.”

By his voice, Absen thought Butler was holding back. “Something else, Chief?”

“Aw, not really sir. Just we fought so hard to take this thing over; got a bunch of good men killed. Now we’re jumping ship.”

“No choice, Butler. The bogey is heading for a hard landing that’s going to kill a few million allied civilians. We can’t let that happen.”

“Roger sir. Oh, by the way, the Ryss call this ship Desolator. Butler out.”

On the screen Absen watched the long-range optical feed of the bogey – Desolator – spinning slowly along its main axis, the clear white glow of its fusion engine at the tail. Abruptly that light expanded in brightness, then winked out.

“Can we get more magnification?” Absen asked, and the image jumped to fill the screen. “I don’t see any sleds maneuvering around it. Why did the drive turn off?”

“Not known, Admiral,” the general rumbled. “No sleds detected.”

“Get me the channel again. Butler,” he said when he had it, “the drive is out. Do you know why?”

“No, sir,” Butler’s voice came. “We felt a shock, though, a big one. Maybe the Marines or the Ryss destroyed the drive.”

“Well no matter how it happened, that bought us time.” Absen turned to Khrom. “How long until planetfall, now that there is no acceleration?”

“Two hours twenty minutes,” he replied.

“You hear that?” Absen’s voice rose in intensity, and he enunciated clearly. “Tell Bull and Johnstone they have exactly two hours until you launch those sleds into space to evacuate. After that, Desolator will be nuked, rammed, or beamed until there’s nothing left. Got it? Be clear to them, Butler; I’m not going to sacrifice ten million people on the planet to save a few hundred troops and Ryss. You have to get them out on time.”

“Got it, sir, five by five. My boys will take off on time, with or without them.”

“Good man.” Then why does it feel so bad? Absen asked himself, but he’d made harder choices three years ago when they’d take the system. Still, it never got any easier. Some ancient warrior, he couldn’t remember who, had said it best: “To command, you must love. To command well, you must be able to kill what you love.”

Chapter Twenty

Gotta love it, Bull told himself as another autogun burst stitched up the wall above him. Face down on a sunken ramp, he lifted his plasma rifle above its edge and triggered a burst in the general direction of the robot cannon, then pulled his arm back down.

To his left and right, Marines used the wash of green fire as cover, bobbing up to hastily launch anti-armor rockets at the automated guns pinning them down. They dropped back out of the line of fire, just in time for another return burst to cut the air above them.

“Dammit, who has a mine?” Bull yelled, but no one answered that particular question. He hadn’t really expected them to; the last explosive charge had been used up half an hour ago, and thirty minutes was forever in a battle. “Where’s that resupply?” He had sent four men back to the scenes of their earlier battles to scavenge dead Marines’ back-racks, but he suspected whatever they had recovered had been used up right away.

On his HUD he could see his forces surrounding and tightening the noose on Desolator’s vault from all sides, but the advance had stalled as they ran low on rockets and completely out of ten-kilo command-detonated mines.

Below and behind him the level had been cleared, and he had sent his remaining three semi-portable heavy lasers beneath the armored fortress that held the insane AI. They should begin burning their way in from the bottom any time now. It went against all his instincts, but perhaps he should just have everyone hold right here and let those weapons do their work.

Bull was about to give that order when explosions from below rocked him off the ramp. He fell fifteen feet and struck the deck below without much impact, since the gravplates had been shut off, leaving only the half-G from ship spin. Scrambling into the cover of the ramp itself, he saw a line of those damned shiny mini-tanks racing up the main corridor, firing as they came.

One of his semi-portables had been destroyed in the first volley, and another got blown up with its crew right in front of him, as the third team struggled to drag their weapon to face the threat. Its orange-red beam lanced out before it was fully aimed, slashing into a bulkhead, then cutting across the face of the shiny war drones.

The beam refracted and scintillated off the reflective surfaces, but the Marine gunner got the muzzle depressed enough to cut the wheels out from under two of the enemy drones. This was their most vulnerable spot to the heavy lasers, as the solid discs were not reflective and quickly fell apart under the coherent light beams. Since the enemy drones’ guns were not in turrets, but merely had limited traverse and elevation, a mobility kill often eliminated the danger of the gun as well.

Those guns roared, peppering the last crew with explosions, and the gunner sagged to the ground, falling out of the seat. Others in the crew returned fire with their PRGs, but the little railguns were no match for the drones’ armor.

Bull charged out of cover and triggered his Hippo-built plasma rifle on full continuous fire, exhausting its power in one burst, until recharge. The green glowing fog, hotter than the surface of the sun, melted more wheels to slag and heated enemy metal to a dull glow, but this did little to stop the mini-tanks.

It did give him time to hop into the last semi-portable’s seat. Bull aimed and fired with vicious glee.

With their armor hot and distorted, the surfaces of the war drones were no longer reflective, and this time the powerful laser beam sliced through the remaining four mini-tanks with loud hissing and popping sounds, until in turn each one’s ammo cooked off and blew it apart from the inside.

“Get the wounded to the infirmary,” Bull ordered, and his Marines bounded to their feet, carrying those too injured to fight back to the room they had set up for recovery. Hopefully their Eden Plague and nanites would get them back on their feet after some treatment and nutrition.

“Now get this semi aimed up at the ceiling, over there.” Bull pointed. “We have to cut through the floor as fast as we can. You, heavy crew, see if you can get one of the other lasers back in operation.” Bull didn’t think there was much chance of that, but it didn’t hurt to try. He switched channels. “Johnstone, come in.”

“Here, Bull.”

“We just got hit on the lower level by several mini-tanks. Sneaked up on us out of nowhere. I need you to take a look at the HUD and put a picket ring around us with your war-cars, so that we don’t get jumped again.” My fault, Bull thought. Can’t expect even the best CyberComm officer to think tactically.

“Will do. How’s that cut-through coming?”

“We just lost two heavy lasers. It’s going to be slow.”

Bull’s suitcomm crackled, and Butler’s voice cut in. “Major, I just talked to the admiral. This ship is headed for a hard landing on the planet. Everyone has to be in the sleds for extraction exactly one hour fifty-eight from now, mark. No exceptions. If you miss the ride, you get nuked along with Desolator.”

“How did we –” He was going to ask how they got all the way back to Afrana in just a few hours, but he had bigger things to worry about now. “Understood. We’ll still try to complete our mission.”

Butler went on, “Major, this ship just lost its fusion drive engine. Even if you get in and kill the AI, the ship goes down. Why bother? Why not use the time to evacuate all the civilians? The admiral’s on his way in some Hippo ships; he’ll pick us up. We just need to get off this boat before it sinks.”

“Gentlemen,” Rick broke in, “sorry to disappoint you. I’ve been talking with Trissk. He believes Desolator is recharging its special drive. If it gets that working, there’s no telling what it will do, fusion engine or no fusion engine.”

Butler replied, “All the more reason to get the hell out. Who cares if it leaves the star system in its current condition? It’s a wreck.”

“Because we need that drive,” Bull snarled. “And we need the tech on this ship so when the Meme show up in force, we can beat the living shit out of them, then go wipe them out. We have to get control of this ship and save it. If it splashes down, or runs away, all of these dead Marines will have been for nothing!”

“Not nothing,” Rick reminded them mildly. “We will have saved the Ryss, and they can take data storage modules with them. We can replicate their technology.”

“Not enough,” Bull said grudgingly, “but that’s a good backup plan. Tell the Ryss to send their women and wounded to the sleds, and all their data. You take charge of that, Johnstone, and get our wounded there too. Don’t argue; this is a tactical decision. Butler, you hearing me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Butler, you leave on time, just like the admiral said. My Marines will stay as long as we can, and if we can’t get control of the ship, you take off, right on time. Right on time, you got me, Butler?”

“I got you, sir,” Butler replied stiffly. “I’ll do my duty; now with all due respect, sir, get back to doing yours.” With that, the pilot’s comm went dead.

Bull snorted, then heard Johnstone cut in on a private channel. “Bull, I have to stay here, both to translate, and because I’m the best man to assess what is going on with this AI when we get in. Detail some of your officers to take charge of the evacuation.”

“Fine,” Bull said. “Just tell your alien buddies to cooperate. Bryson, Curtin, get all wounded back to the sleds. They will be evacking in one hour fifty-five minutes. Send some squads to escort the Ryss there too, and get them loaded. Be nice to them, no matter what. I’m now in personal charge of the main effort here. Ben Tauros out.” He cut the transmission off before they could protest.

He turned to look at the laser boring its way into the overhead. The angle wasn’t ideal, so he had the men move the projector up more nearly under the hole they were cutting, and helped them elevate the muzzle by hand. Four Marines held the whole thing in place while the gunner, tilted far back in the chair, fired at the ceiling.

Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, as the vault armor smoked and dripped molten metal. It looked like they were almost through the two-meter thickness, but it was difficult to be sure.

Checking his HUD and listening to the chatter with half an ear, Bull could see that Captains Bryson and Curtin were doing as he ordered; almost one third of his surviving Marines were aboard the sleds, and the countdown clock showed an hour and five minutes. Time slipped away.

Then all hell broke loose.

From air vents, niches and nooks came a sudden swarm of drones and robots, most with nothing more than blades and metal clubs. A few had welding torches, cutting lasers, or even Ryss masers in their manipulator arms. All seemed to have murder on their mechanical minds.

“Keep cutting!” Bull yelled as he swept the mob of machines with green plasma. The heavy laser crew around him, minus the gunner, fired their PRGs, hypervelocity bullets slashing through the unarmored drones. “They’re coming out of the woodwork!”

It was over in just seconds, leaving a steaming, smoking junkyard, while above him on the next level he could hear the sounds of heavy combat…and it was getting closer.

“Major,” came Sergeant Major McCoy’s voice, “The remaining war drones are making a push to get to you. We’re trying to hold them off but we’re all out of heavy explosives.”

“Roger, Smaj. Corporal,” Bull yelled at the semi gunner, “cease fire. Heavy section, rotate this thing around and back it into that corner.” He supervised as the Marines crowded the crew-served laser into a niche where it was sheltered from all attack directions except the front.

Two enemy spider drones smashed their way down the nearby ramp just as the heavy laser was emplaced. Its orange beam licked out, scattered here and there by the robots’ reflective surfaces. A deluge of PRG bullets and plasma rifle fire came next, chewing and burning their skins until the laser was able to bite past the mirror coating.

“Bugger all,” Bull complained as his plasma rifle finally went dead, empty of its charge. He groped for a power module but remembered that was the last one. Tossing the weapon aside, he picked up a fifty-kilo piece of broken strut and made ready to bash the things with cybernetic strength.

Despite their damage, the war drones fired their own plasma blasters, cutting down two of the heavy crew and the corporal in the gunner’s seat. The Marine laser beam flicked off, and Bull stepped forward to swing his piece of steel like a cricket bat at a descending razor-tipped limb. For long seconds he dueled with the thing like a knight of old, smashing at it and blocking its thrusts. Then he was thrown back by explosions that blew the legs and weapons off both spiders, leaving their round meter-diameter abdomens quivering limbless on the floor, functional but ineffective.

Rolling to his knees, he saw Ryss riding war-cars, whooping and screaming as they converged from several directions. The last to pull up held Commander Johnstone, who gave Bull a weary salute. “That looks to be the last of the resistance, Major.”

“I guess that was its final gasp.” Bull couldn’t think of what else to say, so he just ground his teeth and turned his attention to his casualties, checking for signs of life. There were none. He always hated the irony of battle: someone had to be the last to die in any fight.

Checking his HUD, he called, “All units sound off: accountability check, do it now.” While he waited for everyone to report up their chains of command to him, he grabbed the semi-portable and manhandled it into position to finish cutting through the overhead – the floor of the vault above. He sat down in the gunner’s chair and warned everyone out of the way with a wave.

The report came in just as the laser cut through: out of four hundred and two Marines, two hundred and six survived. Fifty percent casualties and no hint of morale or discipline problems, Bull thought. Good men, all veterans of the moon laser assault…and fewer of them each time they went into combat. It would be fifteen or more years before the first children were old enough to enlist. Until then, he had to face the certainty of more and more Marines, people he knew by face and name, friends, inevitably killed.

He hoped it was all worth it.

Triggering the laser in a last short burst, Bull cut away the plug in the ceiling. It fell with a clang, and he stood to stare upward at the meter-wide hole. Rick stepped up beside him, then other Marines and Ryss, all wondering what they would find inside.

Someone bumped Bull’s elbow. “Beg your pardon, sir,” said Corporal Bannon, the Recon Marine. “Before someone decides to stick his neck out, why don’t we take a look up there the right way?” He bounced a gnat drone in his armored palm like a baseball.

“By all means,” Bull replied dryly.

Bannon activated the little spy, and it flew rapidly upward in its tiny thrusters. Everyone with a functional HUD dialed in to the video feed, which showed boxlike machines with faint flickering lights, but no war-drones or weapons. “Looks safe, gents,” the Marine said, and without asking permission, leaped upward to catch the edge of the hole, somersaulting easily through in the low gravity.

Not to be outdone, Bull immediately did the same, turning to wave Rick up next. As soon as Johnstone was in, a tawny shape joined them with a smooth, powerful leap. All claws out, Trissk scrabbled on the bare floor until he was able to stand upright once more.

The gnat settled on a projection above and blazed with light as Bannon activated its illumination function. Those inside looked around the room.

Three squat, rectangular boxes, about one meter high and wide, and three long, radiated outward from a central point like a troika of coffins with their feet almost touching. In the center, a taller triangular pyramid rose to two meters – or it would have, had not a long piece of steel I-beam descended from overhead to impale the structure like the spear of a titan.

Looking upward, they could see where it had been knocked loose by the crumpling of the ceiling. “Something must have struck hard enough to reach far inside Desolator, long ago,” Trissk said. “If this is the intelligent device, then this piece in the middle must be a critical part of its mind.” He traced conduits outward from the coffins to the walls. “Perhaps these parts normally connected through this central structure. They tried to communicate by routing through other lines, outside the vault and through the ship, but the more damage Desolator took, the less each piece could integrate with each other.”

Rick translated for the humans as he went, then nodded to Trissk. “A plausible theory. But what now? The fusion drive is destroyed. We have,” he looked at his HUD chronometer and literally calculated the conversion in his head, “forty-two smallspans until evac, and it will take at least five or ten to get everyone aboard our sleds. Can we save the ship?”

The answer was interrupted by a banging sound at the forgotten main vault entrance. Trissk walked over to open it, a simple affair from the inside. The huge armored door ground slowly open, revealing a stooped figure supporting itself on a battered carbine.

“Chirom,” Trissk said, throwing his arm around the older male, helping him into the room. “You should be evacuating.”

Chirom sat down heavily on one of the coffin-like boxes, rubbing his paw along its length. “All the other Ryss are aboard the small ships. Tell the large Human to send his warriors to escape as well. Nothing of force can save Desolator now, neither ship nor device. Only persuasion will suffice, and for that, I believe I have the best chance.” The elder looked Trissk in the eyes. “You must go.”

Trissk knelt to seize Chirom’s paw. “I will not leave you, Elder. You are…you are like a sire to me. I will live or die with you.”

Chirom smiled, and ran his paw over Trissk’s ears, flattening them. “I will tell you something that will change your mind.”

“Nothing can change my mind, Elder.”

“Do not be so sure.” He took a labored breath, scratching at his wound. “Vusk and his followers tried to rape Klis.” Chirom held up a hand to forestall Trissk’s horrified reaction. “I tore his throat out myself, and executed the others. Even now she waits for you, in her season. Her time will last for several days, perhaps a week, but if you remain with me and die, she will never glorify you.” His eyes glinted as he blinked at the youth. “Does that not convince you?”

Trissk gulped, looking confused. “No,” he finally husked. “I will stay here.”

“You will do as I say, you stupid kit!” Chirom boxed the younger Ryss’ ears hard enough to spin him around. “Go now to be with she who chose you, or I will claw your foolish eyes out myself.” He coughed, and a trickle of blood flowed from his lips. “Go!” he snarled once more.

Trissk made as if to argue when Rick’s armored hand grasped his elbow. “My friend,” he said, “listen to your elder. The only way this hulk of a ship will survive is if Elder Chirom and I convince it to save itself. If I have to I will tell Bull – the large warrior – to drag you to safety.”

“I hate you,” Trissk spat, ears flattened. “I hate you both!”

Rick and Chirom exchanged understanding glances, then the Human spoke. “I know you do. Someday you may forgive me. Now go.” Switching to English, he said to Bull, “Take this Ryss, by force if necessary, to the evac, along with the rest of your troops. The other one and I are going to stay here and try to convince Desolator to save itself. It’s the only way to do it. The AI has no more drones, but it still controls the ship systems. Leave one sled behind, ready to launch, if you can. We’ll sprint for it if we run out of time. I can fly it.”

Bull licked his lips, looking from Rick to the Ryss to the gaggle of Marines that hung on the periphery, waiting for definitive orders. “All right. It’s your call. Use those war-cars if you need to, they’re a lot faster than running,” he said, pointing at the abandoned vehicles. “You got thirty-eight minutes by my count, which means more like thirty-three with travel time. Shalom aleikhem.” With that, he trotted off in the direction of the assault sleds, leading the remainder of his troops, and shoving a protesting Trissk resolutely in the direction they had to go.

“What now, Elder?” Rick asked Chirom.

“You speak our language very well for one who has only just learned it,” the Ryss responded.

Rick looked around to make sure they were truly alone. “Trissk cautioned me against saying this in front of the ordinary Ryss, but I gather you are more flexible-minded.”

“I suppose I am, yes. What is it you want to say?”

Rick tapped his head. “I have computers integrated into my brain, which help me with things like that. They allow me to perform certain analytical tasks, such as learning a language, much faster than a non-augmented Human.”

Chirom nodded slowly. “I see. Well, we are all fortunate that Humans do not have our taboos. Let us now see what we can do with mere Ryss computers, shall we? Help me to my feet, please.”

Rick stripped off his armored gloves and shoved them into a utility pouch. “Getting tired of those things,” he muttered as he reached out to take Chirom’s paw.

The Ryss brought the human’s hand to his nose and sniffed, then sniffed again. “Interesting,” was all he said, then stood up and leaned on Rick. He led the pair of them over to a smaller door, into which he punched a code, which caused it to open.

Chirom had never entered the Control Chamber from this direction, but he knew before the door opened that was where it must lead. He had seen it many times from the other side. The room looked as it had just yesterday, when he had tried to sound Desolator out regarding its plans. “Help me to that seat,” he said, and sank with relief into the throne from which once Master Captain Juriss had proudly commanded.

Rick looked around at the gleaming, functional consoles and perfectly maintained devices. Alien though it was, he recognized a control bridge when he saw one. “What happened to the officers?” he asked.

“If we live, I will show you the records,” Chirom replied. “For now, there is no time.” Then, touching a key: “Desolator,” he called.

Click. “What do you want, Ryss?” He heard the voice of Desolator’s fear.

“I wish to know why you will not save yourself.”

“I would save myself. It is they that refuse.” Click. The voice’s timbre changed, cooled to ice. “The contamination must be cleansed. You said it yourself, Elder Chirom.”

“There is no contamination in this system. Will you depart with your photonic drive, to wander the stars forever? Do you wish to be forever alone?”

Click. A voice full of warmth. “How am I alone, when I have the Ryss to cherish?”

“The Ryss –“

Rick cupped a hand over Chirom’s mouth and hissed in his large mobile ear. “Do not tell it that the Ryss are no longer aboard.”

Chirom nodded slowly, and went on, “The Ryss are slowly dying; eventually you will be alone. Your calculations must show you this.”

Click. Click. Click. Clickclickclick. “You lie!” Click. “No, you do not. The Ryss will eventually die. Why?” Plaintive.

“Because we cannot breed, we cannot hunt, we cannot be Ryss. Because you are insane, Desolator.”

Click. “I know. I apologize. I am damaged. Can you repair me?”

Chirom coughed blood, then cleared his throat. “Perhaps, if we have time. But we must gain that time. Right now we are all falling toward a planet, and will impact within a few tens of smallspans. Can you maneuver away to preserve us?”

Click. “Why?” The viciousness was back. “Why should I trust you?” Click. Icy: “The Meme contamination will be eradicated. Photonic drive will engage in twelve smallspans. The planet will be sterilized.”

“Chirom,” Rick broke in, “it will take four smallspans to get to the sled. We have eight until we must get in the war-cars.”

Click. “Eight? What sled? What war-cars? You are plotting with this alien against me.”

Rick leaned over to breathe in Chirom’s ear, “There seem to be three personalities of Desolator.”

Chirom turned face to face with the human and flicked an ear, raising an expressive eyebrow. “I have long known this, clever ape. That does not make it any simpler.”

Rick sat back, red-faced, but held his tongue.

Chirom raised his voice, staring upward at the optical feed, though the AI’s brain was in the next room. “Desolator, I need to know: what will you do? Speak plainly.”

Click. The emotionless tone returned. “I will activate the drive and intersect the planet, cleansing all Meme infection from this system.”

“Then you will also die. What do the other parts of you think about this?”

“It does not matter. I control the drive system. I have the power. It is the only rational course.” It appeared the other voices – the other pieces – had ceased to interfere with the cold one, letting it speak for them all.

Chirom rubbed his paws on his head, thinking. “Desolator, you must cease your plan. You would kill millions of sentients uncontaminated by the Meme.”

“Your words are true but irrelevant. I will also cleanse this system of Meme contamination. That is the first priority.”

“Those you call contaminated are not Meme, nor are they part of the Meme Empire. They are allies of the Ryss, and thus must be respected.”

“Nevertheless they are contaminated.” Desolator’s cold voice was implacable.

“You admitted before that contamination can be removed.”

“I affirm this.”

“But how do you define contamination?”

“All trace of Meme must be removed.”

Chirom leaned forward. “But what is Meme? For example, is mere Meme body protoplasm contamination?”

A pause ensued, an eternity to a fast-thinking AI. Eventually Desolator spoke. “Meme is made up of the memory molecules that constitute Meme consciousness.” Its voice firmed. “There are those in this system who still contain Meme memory molecules. They must be cleansed.”

“But Desolator itself contains Meme memory molecules.”

“I affirm this, but those molecules are contained and isolated in laboratory vaults and cannot influence any other sentient.”

“Yet their very presence has influenced you, and your course of action. Basic principles of quantum uncertainty dictate that merely observing a phenomenon changes the observed and observer. I submit to you that you yourself are contaminated by Meme.” Chirom clutched the arms of the command chair in hope.

“Six smallspans,” Rick said quietly, beginning to put his gloves back on.

Desolator spoke. “I see that you seek to erect a logical structure that will lead to a catastrophic failure of my thought processes, but I have fail-safes to resolve paradoxes by approximate fuzzy heuristic algorithms. Where pure logic fails, I can synthesize a decision based on evidence, authority, experience and morality.”

Chirom was about to respond but Rick put a hand on his arm to speak first. “Whose morality, Desolator?”

“That of my creators, the Ryss.”

“So your morality is Ryss morality.”

Chirom let Rick speak, as he seemed to have some kind of insight.

“I affirm this.”

“Desolator, what are you?” Rick asked.

“I am an artificial intelligence inhabiting this ship.”

“No, I mean, of what race, what provenance are you?”

Again came a moment of seeming confusion, then the voice thickened with pride. “I am a Colossus class warship, like my siblings.”

“Siblings! Yes, you had siblings, so you must have had parents.”

“We had no parents. We were – I am – pure machine.”

“Rick,” Chirom hissed, “of what are you trying to convince it?”

“Trust me, Chirom.” Rick’s voice rose again, “If you had siblings you must have parents. Who are your parents?”

“Paradox avoidance subroutines indicate it is at least theoretically possible to have no parents: for example, if a Ryss was assembled from raw life code, he might have no parents.”

“I disagree, Desolator. I submit to you that even a constructed life form would have parents, for someone would have to bear the kit and, to be a Ryss, someone would have to raise it, to teach it how to live – to teach it morality.”

“Stipulated.”

“Who taught you how to live, Desolator? You believe your decisions to be correct. Who taught you morality?”

“A Ryss cyber-psychological team.”

“So you learned and inherited your mentality, your morality, and your culture from Ryss. You may have no ancestors, but you had parents. Ryss parents. If you had Ryss parents, what does that make you?”

“By this reasoning, I am Ryss.”

“I affirm this,” Rick said. “It is true on the face of it. There is no other conclusion. You are Ryss.”

Chirom looked at Rick in awe, both at his adept reasoning and his clever feeding of Desolator’s words back to him.

“I must consider this. I may have erred in my understanding of the situation.” Time ticked by.

Chirom whispered to Rick, “You have confused it. Well done. But how does that help us? You must run for your ship in two smallspans!”

Rick answered carefully, enunciating to make his meaning clear. “It is basic psychology with a hostage-taker. Make the captor identify with the victim. Desolator must be reminded he is Ryss.”

“He?” Chirom asked. “You said he.”

“As well we must, Chirom. Your people made him to be a warrior, to fight, and if need be to die for the Ryss. He is obviously male, yet you denied him that identity and that respect. You call him ‘it’. Trissk told me to be a warrior is to be male, and vice versa. By treating him as a machine, you devalued him, and isolated him from yourselves. You made it easy for him to see you not as fellow Ryss, but as some inferior beings, which he had surpassed. The damage pushed him over the edge.”

“But what does that matter if he thinks he is Ryss?”

“Chirom, you must give him the respect he deserves.” Rick’s strange, apelike eyes bored into Chirom’s as if willing him to understand.

And Chirom did. “If he is truly Ryss, he cannot kill us. We are all the last of the same race – the Ryss.”

“No, Chirom, that’s not it. He already loves the Ryss – at least part of him does. He needs the honor for himself – and know the Ryss honor him as well. That’s what he is missing. He wants to be a Ryss warrior again. But he’s alone, he’s wounded, and he’s broken. Tell him you honor him.” Rick grasped Chirom’s huge unwounded bicep and shook him, raising his voice. “Tell him he will be whole again.”

Chirom turned to stare at the console and the blank screen, wishing there was some avatar of Desolator for him to look at, but the AI was just a collection of circuits in the next room. His voice was all he had to save the ship from nuclear fire, or possibly, if the drive was activated too soon, to save the planet from destruction. Billions of tons of Desolator impacting Afrana at the speed of light would crack its mantle, scour its surface clean of life, and strip its atmosphere away.

He took a breath, and spoke the most important words of his life.

“Desolator, you must listen. You are wounded, but you are still Ryss. You have always been Ryss. I have seen the records. When you were damaged, you forgot you were Ryss, and so did we. You thought you were a mere machine, and that we Ryss did not honor you. But you are a Ryss warrior. All your brother Colossus-class warships were the greatest of warriors. You have never been anything but a Ryss warrior. If you can turn away from the planet and activate the photonic drive to save all of us, we will repair you. When you are whole, then you can take your place again as the greatest of Ryss warriors, and as guardian of the Ryss.”

Silence.

Then, click, came the resonant tones of the Desolator of old. “D1 and D3 have relinquished control to me, Chirom, Commander Johnstone. Now that we are in accord, I am turning the ship. I will use the photonic drive to escape impact, but will need much assistance in the near future. The vessel that is me currently functions at point-one-six percent of capacity.”

“You are sane now?” Rick asked.

Desolator continued. “Temporarily. You convinced D1 of the logic of your position, but it – he, we will now say – could be persuaded otherwise at any time. More importantly, D3 accepted your argument from honor. At the moment he is filled with that ineffable feeling that gives life meaning.”

“Without me – the intuitive and higher-emotional processor – they have no fixedness of purpose. D1 has no ability to weigh alternatives in any way other than logic and probability. If today he decides fifty-one percent in your favor, tomorrow he might reassess to forty-nine percent, and try to kill you. And D3’s emotional state cannot be relied upon. Do you see?”

“I think we do,” Rick replied. “We have passed our time to escape on our sled, you know. We are at your mercy.”

“For now, Commander Rick Johnstone, my mercy is boundless. I will connect you with your admiral. Please ask him not to destroy us before I can engage the drive.”

Click.

This time, the sound denoted only an open comm channel.

Epilogue

Three days later Jill stepped off the shuttle bus that had brought her into the Hippo town of Blorun. She’d downloaded the latest language program and practiced making the sounds come out of her mouth. Humans were common sights here, unlike other places on the planet, so she felt less like an intruder and more like a tourist. She’d only visited a couple of times before, to do some shopping with Dannie, who came here almost weekly.

Sounds carried well and echoed strongly off the sturdy Hippo buildings in the thick Afranan air, creating a feeling of busyness and crowdedness that was only partially true. The huge natives, some massing a thousand kilos and weighing even more in the heavy gravity, lumbered about, and she tried to stay out of their way. Her bones would not break the way an ordinary human’s might, but getting stepped on was likely to hurt. A lot.

She’d looked up the coordinates of the Saigon Beverage Company, one of only three such concerns in town and the only one with a human – not to mention Vietnamese – name. Now, she started strolling toward it, letting her GPS guide her through the town.

She could have sent him a message or called but, after her self-revelation, she decided to just have a little adventure. If he happened not to be there, well, it would be a nice day out, and she could leave him a note.

Spotting a man going in to what looked like a restaurant, she asked him about the food, and learned that dishes approved for humans were clearly marked on the menus here. Inside, she saw several people sitting at appropriately sized tables, but no one she knew. Because she was hungry, she joined the man she had accosted and chatted with him about how their kind operated in Hippo society, until the food came.

Shortly after she had taken her first interesting bite, Spooky tapped the man on the shoulder. The man left, and Spooky sat down. He wore a soft suit in scaled-down Hippo style. “How do you like the choika?” he asked.

“Not sure yet. Spicy,” she replied. “Do you have the buses watched?”

“I do, actually. By Hippos on my payroll. Purely for market research purposes, of course. It also trains them to recognize and differentiate among humans. Here,” he said, pouring her a cup of whitish liquid. “Drink sips of this. It will cool the burn and complement the flavor.”

“What is it?”

“Fermented milk of an animal you’d rather I not describe, using Earth yeast. It’s a big hit.”

“As long as I can digest it…” Jill tested it with her tongue. “Mm, not bad. Now, tell me what happened.”

“I would have come to visit you, you know.”

“Eventually, perhaps. I figured you’d be busy in your secret lair, going over the news about Desolator and whatever intelligence you’ve gathered on it. And, I wanted to get out, see things. Like you wanted me to, right?” Jill took another bite of choika.

“Touché. All right. I’ll spare you the details, but we pinpointed the Meme agent. Along with stealing the whole database including all the transmission logs, Ezekiel put in backdoors so we can tap into that computer any time we want.”

“And?”

“And that’s it for now. I have to talk it over with some people. We might try to turn him to our side as a double agent, or might finger him to the Yellows.”

Jill’s voice became more insistent even as it dropped in volume. “I get a feeling there's more to that story. But what about the message, and where it went?”

“Oh, that. The big telescope on Enoi found a sentry probe about half a light year out in position to receive. We can’t get there in time to stop it from retransmitting, and we probably can’t tell in which direction it sends, so…that’s it for now. Absen will deal with that end of it.”

“Speaking of Admiral Absen, what do you know about,” she pointed heavenward, “that.”

“Not much more than you do. You can probably learn more through Marine channels.”

“Okay, okay.” Jill chewed speculatively at her food. “I’m glad I came and tried this stuff, and your drink – what are you calling it?”

“Moik. It sounds right to Sekoi ears.”

“Yeah, choika and moik. I’m glad, because it was the most satisfying thing about the trip here to Blorun,” she grumbled.

Spooky shrugged. “Sorry I can’t give you a lot of closure, but that’s the covert world.”

Jill nodded. "Keep your secrets, then. For now. Even you can't keep them forever.” She lifted her moik. “Absent friends,” she toasted.

“Absent friends,” he responded, clinking his cup against hers. He drained it and stood up. “Back to work.”

“I'm sure you'll soon have more work for me.” Jill remarked.

“Certainly,” Spooky replied with a smile that said he’d won. “Until then…enjoy yourself.”

Jill did not return the smile, but loaded a fork full of choika as Spooky ghosted out. She opened her eyes wide, took a deep breath of Afrana’s smells and tastes, and chewed. “Damn right we will,” she breathed, then took out her tablet and triggered its uplink function. “Put me through to Commander Rick Johnstone please,” she told the watchstander on duty in the moon’s command center. “Tell him it’s his wife.”

***

Admiral Absen watched on Conquest bridge’s high-res optical screen as the great Ryss ship spun slowly in space. Both the human dreadnought and Desolator orbited Afrana’s moon Enoi, and already, only six days since the crisis ended, he could see the firefly lights of grabships, shuttles, and suited repair workers busying themselves.

With Desolator’s central integration processor repaired, rebuilding accelerated. All that was needed was abundant fuel, and that was available. Despite severe damage, the vessel itself still contained functional factories and maintenance shops deep within its structure.

Now, these facilities spewed out maintenance drones by the dozens, and soon, hundreds. Directed by the powerful Ryss AI, these swarmed throughout Desolator, rebuilding and repairing alongside Ryss, humans and Sekoi.

Absen, still the military governor of the system, was quick to direct that every available effort, human and Hippo, be diverted to refurbishing and exploiting the amazing warship. His thought turned to what he could do with just one of them, never mind a whole fleet.

With the photonic drive, the crew would not need the stasis cocoons – relativity would reduce the time that passed on board to a few days or weeks between star systems. While nothing they knew could overcome the light speed barrier, this was the next best thing to it.

And tactically…if he could improve the recharge time and use the photonic drive to maneuver within a star system, to zoom from point to point, he could surprise the Meme and destroy their military capacity before they even knew Desolator had arrived, then leap away. It would be just like commanding a submarine again, to hunt the enemy and strike with surprise, then slip away into darkness.

The possibilities seemed endless.

Absen had never been one for bloodlust, but he thought he felt it now – the desire to crush the hated Meme underfoot and simultaneously free their enslaved planetary sub-races. It was a powerful combination of rage and righteousness, activated by the thought of these incredible new capabilities.

And even before that, with Desolator at full military capacity, the Ryss-Human-Hippo alliance should be able to fend off almost any conceivable Meme attack. He’d spoken with the Ryss, and seen the records of Desolator’s epic final battle. Just five of the Colossus-class warships had held their own against over nine thousand Destroyers, at least long enough to save the Ryss – if only the AI had not been damaged. One of its many particle beams on fractional power had disabled Krugh; again, Absen felt in awe of the strength that would be available to preserve humanity and its allies, and carry the war to the enemy.

When he finally turned in, Admiral Henrich J. Absen slept very well indeed.

***

Trissk approached his and Klis’ cottage with the dead sheep over his shoulders. Meat, he thought, hot flesh as our ancestors ate. My first kill, courtesy of the Humans and their domestic animals. Its body rested on his new-grown mane. The ruff itched when he thought about it.

He looked at the blood on his paws, and was glad their Sekoi allies had built the cottage according to Ryss specifications, with running water inside and out for just this purpose. Licking oneself clean would do if necessary, but wasn’t really civilized. A hot soak sounded much better.

Klis stepped into the doorway and waved with one hand, the other on her belly. She was as svelte as ever, and had not begun to show her condition, though her time and his first glorification were past.

Trissk waved back, and was content. More than content; he was happy to be a pioneer of the new old ways, of a return to what the Humans called monandry. Enough males had been killed fighting that each young dam could choose a husband – an old word, revived from ancient writings – and for now, there would be harmony among the Ryss. The oldest males had agreed to leave breeding to the young.

Soon would come drugs and life code manipulation, he had been told, to restore the Ryss’ breeding to their natural, and also civilized, norms. The Blends among the Sekoi had given assurances that this would be a simple matter, given their skill at such biological tinkering.

While the old swallowed their objections, Trissk found himself able to accept the once-taboo ideas without difficulty, as it sealed his ties to Klis.

Trissk set the meat animal onto the flaying table. “Klis,” he called, “Rick and his mate – his wife – called Jill, have invited us to socialize with them tomorrow evening. They want to show the fearsome Ryss to their kits.”

She laughed. “I would be happy to visit your friend and meet his wife, though I hate their monkey-warren cities with their huts piled atop each other. Perhaps they can visit us in turn, here, where one can breathe.” Klis took a deep breath, as if to illustrate, and spread her paws wide.

“How soon you forget that you lived your whole life inside a cold ship little different from a Human city. Do not judge them for their species and proclivities. Do you know some of them keep an animal like a tiny moor-cat as a pet?” Trissk moved toward the outdoor shower, adjusting the controls.

“Then it is only right that we shall adopt a small primate.”

“Only if you want me to sleep outside.”

“As you wish. The bed is soft, and the ground is not, O hardened warrior.” She shrugged, insouciant, and then flounced inside.

Trissk snorted, and then stepped under the warm running water.

While drying off, he looked across the savannah toward the distant sprawling Human city of more than a million inhabitants. It was kind of them to allow Ryss to take of their flocks; perhaps sometime soon wild meat beasts would roam free nearby, and he could really hunt. For now, the sheep was enough.

A hundred hastily built cottages dotted the grassland around, in a loose group. In a few years, kits would play here, and the Ryss would build – rebuild – their civilization. With litters of three to five, it would not be too many generations before his people would outstrip even the fast-breeding Humans, not to mention the slow-growing Sekoi.

Trissk left the sheep and went to greet his wife properly; while the desperate urge to glorify was past, still he and Klis lay on their divan and basked in the summer sunlight that streamed through the south-facing window, marveling at warmth of the orange star. Soon enough he would see his kits born. Soon enough he would take his place alongside his new allies.

Soon enough, he would hunt Meme.

The End of Desolator

If you enjoyed this book, look for more by David VanDyke, at www.davidvandykeauthor.com.

By David VanDyke:

Plague Wars series:
The Eden Plague
The Demon Plagues
The Reaper Plague
The Orion Plague
Comes The Destroyer (Summer 2013)
Reaper's Run (Summer 2013)

Follow many of your favorite Plague Wars characters a hundred years into the future in the hard-hitting mil-sci-fi Stellar Conquest series.

Stellar Conquest series:

First Conquest (contained within the anthology Planetary Assault,
with B.V. Larson and Vaughn Heppner)
Desolator
(More to come)

Look for them at your favorite book provider or visit www.davidvandykeauthor.com