Void drifter, p.12
Void Drifter, page 12
Fera snorted in agreement.
“Before your rather hasty blow up, Fera, I did say I jettisoned the armory. So while we lost all the weapons, we still have the room itself.”
She looked at Quin in bewilderment. “How does that help?”
“You can use it to better demonstrate the weapons to Will. He’ll need to see it work. A human’s ability to visualize is truly substandard.”
The planet was starting to fill the main bridge display, and less than two hours wasn’t a lot of time to get comfortable with the rail pistol strapped to my hip or figure out how exactly I would help take down an angry Vorvak.
“Ooh,” Quin said. “That couldn’t be right.”
Fera, who had been heading for the exit, stopped, threw out her arms, and turned back. “What is it now?”
Quin’s hologram paced to the front of the bridge with wide, delicate strides. The Foris body was a strange thing: tall and thin, I couldn’t help but think it appeared fragile. I tried and failed to imagine that body running around with weapons, chasing down criminals.
He placed his long-fingered hands on his hips and leaned toward the display with a scowl. “This is not what I expected to find.”
“Care to share with the rest of us?” Fera asked.
The display shifted under Quin’s finger, zooming in on the red triangle that represented Sert’s escape shuttle. The map around it was all gridlines over a solid brown background.
“Switching to long-range visual scope, topographical view.”
I guessed weapons training was going to have to wait. Fera and I moved closer to the display.
The display was like an ultra-high-definition rendering of Google Earth, except this wasn’t Earth, and it didn’t look like a place I’d want to visit if I had a choice. Massive deposits of stone boulders ranging from slate gray to dull brown sprawled out over the landscape, tucked between plateaus and mountain ranges. Sert’s homing beacon was situated on one of the plateaus near a large deposit of rock. The view told me two things: the climate was arid, and the location Sert had chosen to land was a remote one. The surface was pockmarked with craters. It looked like an odd mixture of the moon—Earth’s moon, Luna, I guessed—and Arizona’s painted desert.
A canyon carved its way through the western edge of the local area. The image on the screen was so detailed I could see a thin river running along the bottom of the canyon, bending to the south and winding its way eastward. A few trees broke through the discarded stone and rock that covered most of the area, but they weren’t like any trees I’d ever seen. Short and thick stumps with very little greenery on them.
I asked the obvious question. “Why did he land in the middle of nowhere? Why not near the infrastructure? The people? Is he just hiding from you guys? But then, he’d have to know about the beacon…”
Quin nodded, still fixated on the screen. “That was what drew my attention, but it appears—”
Fera interjected, “It doesn’t matter. If he’s down there—and he has to be because his ship is—we need to go get him. If he’s alone, so much the better for us.”
“Or…” Quin replied with snark, “it appears that this planet has suffered sustained orbital bombardment, and you may need to rethink your entire plan.”
It felt like the air rushed out of the bridge. I was familiar enough with the concept from science fiction movies, games, and books, but when I took a second look at the craters spread over Farakar’s surface, a chill crept up my spine. An alien starship was one thing; an alien starship that could turn the surface of a world into a wasteland… if that kind of power visited Earth, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
Fera examined the display with pursed lips.
“So you’re saying, Quin, that this guy’s planet was reduced to ruins and rubble? Like, nuked it from orbit?”
Fera made a pfft sound. “Who would do that?”
Quin shrugged. “I cannot say. The Vorvak have made enemies of nearly every species in the galaxy. Also, Will, I’m impressed that you understand nuclear physics well enough to use it as an example.”
Feeling a bit of species pride, I said, “Yeah, well, it’s like I said: humans have come a long way since you last observed us, Quin.”
“Truly? How, precisely, does a nuclear bomb work, and how is it different from say, nuclear fission? That’s to say nothing of using self-sustaining micro-reactors. You have heard of those, right, Will?”
There was no bluffing my way out of it, but I tried to make a good show of it anyway. “I mean… we could talk for hours on the subject. Let’s get back to Sert.”
I looked over to Fera, but she didn’t seem to even be listening, let alone to have been amused by me. She was thinking, and the thought came out in a question that I certainly couldn’t answer. “What changed in the last four thousand years that the Vorvak root world is a desolate wasteland now? The turtles are no pushovers. Whoever did this brought some serious firepower with them. This… even the Federation wouldn’t let this happen. Habitable worlds aren’t supposed to be destroyed like this. They would have stepped in.”
“That’s just it,” Quin said. “The ecosystem appears to be relatively undisturbed. Scans of the impact craters reveal no excess levels of radiation or glassing. This bombardment was purely kinetic in nature.”
Quin closed his large, dark eyes and shook his head. “It is perplexing, to say the least.”
Fera kept staring at the display. “That has all the marks of an attack by the Imperium, but they could never get a cruiser this far in Federation space.”
“Unless things have changed in the last four thousand years,” I pointed out.
Quin and Fera shared a look but said nothing.
“I don’t know about you guys,” I said, “but I don’t like this. I mean, if he’s down there alone, that’s one thing, but what if whoever blew all this stuff up is still nearby?”
Quin made a sort of amphibian clucking that I took for a tsk. “This happened some time ago, Will. Please do your best not to ask questions with such apparent answers.”
“Okay,” I said. “But what about any survivors? Sert’s people. They have ships, don’t they? Defenses? We’re not going to get blown out of the sky on approach or shot as soon as we get off the ship, right?”
Quin rubbed a hand between the nubby protrusions on the top of his head. It reminded me of a human scratching the back of their neck. “I daresay they won’t. I have scanned the entire surface of the planet. All scans return no significant power signatures. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Farakar in its current state is less developed than your own planet. I could not imagine a greater fall from grace.”
“So you’re saying they were all killed in the orbital bombardment?”
An inquisitive look spread over Fera’s face. “Why are you so concerned over what happened to the Vorvak, human?”
I threw out my hands. “Planetary genocide seems important to me!”
Quin shrugged. “It’s not like they were Foris or anything. They’re Vorvak! Who cares!”
“Maybe I do,” I said, feeling hot under my skin.
The galaxy seemed a pretty cruel place. Maybe it wasn’t so different from Earth after all.
“We’re going down there either way,” Fera decided. “But first, let’s get you outfitted for a fight.”
Fera led me to the maintenance bay, which she referred to as the shop.
She popped open several lockers and then sifted the contents until she came out holding up a suit liner that didn’t look all that different from the EVA suit I’d worn while we were in the Void. She tossed it onto a workbench and went through more drawers, pulling out pieces of what looked like sheet metal. She collected them into a stack and dropped them onto the workbench with a resounding clang.
“We don’t have time to make you a custom fit rig. Let me look at you.” She furrowed her brow, studying me and then the ensemble before finally shaking her head. “You might be able to fit in Lockett’s rig. You’re a bit taller and thinner than him, but I think it’ll work.”
Quin’s voice piped up from the Phaelon’s intercom. “His physiology is radically different, and in almost all respects inferior, but I believe you are right, Fera.”
She looked up at the ceiling. “Don’t tell me you kept the prisoner’s personal effects locked up with the weapons in the armory.”
“No, it’s in the storage locker in the crew rest station.”
Fera nodded. Leaving the suit liner and the metal panels on the workbench, she spun on her heel. “Follow me.”
We crossed the corridor to the rest station, and Quin sent his green symbols to highlight the correct storage locker. Well, the section of wall you had to press to expose the right storage locker. It was deep and wide and pushed outward in a smooth and silent glide, a kitchen junk drawer from the future. I got a glimpse of all kinds of clothing and devices beyond my recognition.
She dragged out a black suit liner. The outside was criss-crossed with strands of subdued metal. The inside looked like a diver’s wetsuit—tough rubbery material that was meant to be skin-tight. I was in decent shape from all the hiking, but this would not be flattering.
“Here.” She handed the suit to me.
It was heavy. At least forty pounds. Maybe fifty. I had to hold it with two hands to keep from dropping it. I rubbed the thick cords of the outer material between my fingers. The suit wasn’t made of fibers but rather three-millimeter-thick metal cable, finished black.
“Drayth combat webbing is actually pretty tough, so it’ll do you good,” Fera said. “Those panels I was going to set you up with back there are less effective, anyway.”
“It looks… uncomfortable.”
“Not as uncomfortable as getting shot.”
“You’ve been shot before?”
Her features darkened in a scowl. “Get suited up. We’re going to be landing soon.”
I went for the button on my pants and hesitated. We stood there, staring at each other for a moment. “Could I get a little privacy?”
Fera averted her eyes, took a step toward the door, then stopped suddenly. She turned her back to me and crossed her arms, muttering something under her breath. I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or annoyed.
I realized this was all the privacy I was going to get, so I kicked off my hiking boots and hurriedly removed my shirt and pants, balled them up, and stuffed them into the locker, and then worked myself into the Drayth armor suit.
It didn’t fit as snug as I thought it would, and it carried a slight odor of something like garlic, but I was okay with that. Except for a pinch in the nether region that I couldn’t quite loosen up, it was going to work.
“Okay,” I said, stretching my arms and legs to get a feel for it, “I think I can get used to this.”
I tried to work the groin of the suit to loosen the tightness in that area. Fera turned around as I was making the sensitive adjustment.
“Let me guess”—she switched to a cheap imitation of my voice—“the crotch is too small.”
“How did you know?”
She rolled her eyes. “Males are all the same.”
“Yeah, but I’m telling the truth! This isn’t my ego talking. The suit needs to be taken out a little.”
She stared, her expression flat and unamused. “I’ll call the ship’s tailor.”
“That would be nice,” I said, keeping the joke going. “I mean, my voice isn’t going up an octave or anything, but it’s still not very comfortable. And… I’d like to have kids someday.”
I didn’t know why I said that, but Fera took the opening by doing her best Quin impression. “For the betterment of the galaxy, you should think twice about reproducing.”
“I’m hurt that you’d say that. Me, the only human to have successfully Drifted out of the Void—”
“Stow it,” she said with more emotion than I would have expected. “Let’s get to the armory and run through how the rail pistol works.”
The intercom clicked, and Quin said, “No time, I’m afraid. Fera, I need you up here to complete the landing cycle. We are entering a critical stage of approach that requires a deft hand on the controls. Really, the two of you should be strapped in for this, anyway.”
Fera and I reported to the bridge and strapped into our respective stations.
I watched the display with intense interest. The visuals were so crisp and clean, it was almost like looking through a window. I could practically feel the heat and smell the sand and dirt as the Phaelon cruised over the desert wastes. Turbulence rattled the bulkheads while Fera adjusted our angle of descent and popped the atmospheric thrusters to slow us down.
The brown and gray smear resolved into slow-moving terrain. A pair of short, thick trees passed by beneath us, giving way to a steady rise of striated rock that ended in a level plateau. Resting at the far edge of the plateau was the escape shuttle. Clusters of rock spread over the land and reminded me of several ancient ruins sites I’d studied in college.
I said conversationally, “So when I studied ancient ruins on Earth, I was an archaeologist. If I study these ancient alien ruins, does that make me a xenoarchaeologist?”
Fera ignored me, maintaining her concentration on the display. She slowly walked the throttle back while manipulating the steering yoke. Her hand left the throttle to tap a few selections on her MFD, changing the data stream on the secondary display. The turbulence quieted immediately. When she brought her hand to the throttle, she pulled it full back.
My stomach lifted into my throat. It was the same feeling I had crashing back in Peru, but much less loud. We were descending. Coming in for landing. I confirmed the sensation with the rising horizon shown on the main bridge display. The sky was a gray mass of clouds thin enough for the light of the twin suns to break through at reduced intensity, and they spilled their warmth and light over the reds, browns, and purples of the desert floor.
My stomach settled as the ship bounced on its struts and finally stilled.
Fera unstrapped herself and asked tersely, “Do you have visuals on him?”
“I do not, but he’s close by,” Quin said.
“Weapons?”
“Undetermined. But why would a Vorvak be unarmed? You sound like Will, asking all these dumb human questions.”
“Great,” she said, hopping up from her seat and marching toward the rear of the bridge.
I wasn’t sure if she was annoyed at the situation, or being compared to me. I had other matters for concern. “Quin, I can breathe safely out there, right? Because I don’t have specialized lungs that can—”
“I’m well aware of your biologically inferior need for oxygen, Will. Yes, the atmosphere is composed of enough nitrogen and oxygen to sustain a biological life such as yourself and Fera. And honestly, if you couldn’t you don’t think I would have made sure you put on an EVA suit?”
“Wellll….”
“Time to go,” Fera said and then quickly left her chair in a power walk off the bridge.
I unstrapped myself and hurried to follow after her, calling out, “Any tips on how to use a rail pistol before I have to do a little on-the-job-training would be nice!”
She replied coolly over her shoulder, “Point and click. Just don’t point it at anything you don’t want to shoot—especially me—and you’ll be fine.”
I resisted the urge to tell her, “Duh.” I’m not sure how well that would have translated.
We passed quickly through the ship, pausing at the access ramp. The corridors and the compartments were logically and intentionally placed, and now that I knew what the Phaelon was, it made perfect sense to me. I was starting to get a mental map of the interior layout, and when I thought about it, I felt like I was pretty naive for stumbling through this thing and thinking it was something the Nazca had built. Or the government. What a ridiculous notion that had been.
Hindsight’s 20/20, I guess.
Fera drew her pistol and slapped a static octagon on the bulkhead I assumed was a switch. A line of bright light traced across the inner hull , shapes spinning and moving through their tessellated patterns to surround the ramp. Ambient light began to widen like a yawn as the ramp lowered. Heat and dust lazily drifted in through the opening, and I wondered if the soldiers sent to one of our desert wars back on Earth felt like this on their first deployments.
They were a lot braver than I was. I didn’t sign up for this. I’d never intended to fight anybody. My respect for them increased when I thought about that.
Fera said, “You okay?”
I realized I was fidgeting and stopped. “Yeah. Uh, yeah. I’m good.”
“Focus then. There’s no safety on holdout pistols, so if it’s loaded, one pull of the trigger fires one flechette. You’ve got sixty rounds in a magazine.”
“Sixty? That’s kind of a lot, isn’t it?”
“It goes faster than you think, trust me.”
Fera’s face was all grim determination. I didn’t sense an ounce of fear in her.
She’s definitely been shot before, I decided.
I couldn’t see myself ever getting comfortable with that. Maybe comfortable was the wrong word—used to it. What did it take for a person to look at a gunfight as just another day at the office?
It would have to start with basic training or boot camp or something, right? The closest I ever came to that was hiking and a couple of Tough Mudders. Not exactly the same.
The ramp locked into place with a clattering thud.
“Stay five paces behind me and a couple of paces to the side. I’ll lead, you follow.” She placed a hand on my shoulder and leaned in close. “Most importantly, don’t shoot until you’re shot at, or until I tell you to. If we can nab him without a gunfight, that makes our job easier.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat and nodded.
“Okay, yeah. Got it.”
“Good.” She gave my shoulder a rough pat. “Let’s go.”
15
After my jaunt through space and the Void, being back on solid ground felt odd, but it was more than welcome. My first glimpse of Farakar was a plateau of solid rock that overlooked the canyon and the river below. It was covered in a veneer of thick dust that skirted up with every step I took. It smelled vaguely chalky, like old pottery. I could move well enough, but it wasn’t as easy as on Earth or aboard the ship. Farakar probably had a higher degree of gravity. Maybe that’s what made the Vorvak so big and strong.
