Collateral effects drop.., p.16
Collateral Effects (Drop Trooper Book 14), page 16
I nodded.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. But we can’t go back. We made our choice, burned our boats on the shore.”
Her quiet sobs broke up into a laugh.
“You and your fucking military history books. You still can’t bring yourself to read fiction, can you?”
“I read it,” I protested defensively. “You and Top and Hachette made me read it. I just enjoy history more. Besides, look at our lives, Vick. What the hell could I read that was stranger than this?”
“Point,” she acceded. “But this all reminds me of The Odyssey. Years spent wandering, trying to find a way home while everyone around us dies.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think I’m as smart as Odysseus.” I ran a finger across her cheek, wiping away the track of a tear. “Besides, I don’t have to worry about you being courted by a bunch of minor Greek nobles. You’d kick the shit out of them and come find me yourself.”
Now she laughed and leaned in to kiss me, though I could still taste the salt of her tears when she covered her mouth with mine.
“You’re damn right, Alvarez. Now, make yourself useful and distract me from all this shit before some asshole AI or mind-reading psychopath or just Nance deciding he just has to talk to us immediately…”
I had to laugh too as I bore her down beneath me on the bed. That was another difference between me and Odysseus. My Penelope would never have stayed home during the war.
“What have we got this time?” I sighed, pulling myself into the chair for what seemed like the millionth time just since we left the Remainder world.
Lilandreth was holding the jumpgate open while Brandano took Intercept One through the wormhole to scout the other side. It was days and days of boredom punctuated by hours of nerve-wrenching tension, and beneath the surface roiled an undercurrent of constant worry. If it had been practical, I would have visited Lilandreth’s ship every day to check up on her—and to give her an anchor in reality—but that would have required us to slow down for the transfer, and I felt like getting to Homecoming was more important to solving her problem than indulging my paranoia.
“We’re getting a signal through the jumpgate now,” Chase replied.
“On screen,” Nance ordered, beating me to the punch.
I bit down on the complaint that tried to work its way out. It was possible that, given the secret we were keeping, we might have wanted to be a little more cautious about showing everything on the main screen. But I couldn’t say that aloud either without letting everyone know we were keeping something secret from them. Which was one of the things I hated about keeping secrets.
The main optical display had shown the shimmering nothingness of the gate, but now half of it switched to a cockpit view of Brandano. The man had a stern, recruiting-poster face with clear eyes and a strong jaw, but at the moment he lacked the confidence and certitude that usually went along with those looks. In fact, he looked very much like he was about to shit his pants.
“Um, sir… we have a situation here.”
The view changed from the Intercept cockpit camera to the external video and sensor readouts. Just the other side of the jumpgate, a cluster of a dozen Nova cruisers hung in the blackness, motionless relative to each other and the wormhole.
“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Wojtera said.
“They’re not attacking,” Brandano reported, wonder in the statement as if he hadn’t expected to be alive to give us the status. “They’re broadcasting a message in the open, in the Resscharr language. It’s for Lilandreth.”
I looked to Vicky, then to Nance. Both appeared just as lost and clueless as I felt. But if I told Chase to keep the transmission private, the whole crew would know I was keeping it from them.
“Feed the transmission to the Predecessor ship,” I told Chase, “and put it on here live.”
It felt like a mistake, but not one I could avoid making.
The transmission was video as well as audio, which was unfortunate, since I really hated looking at the octopus-faced bastards when they talked. This time, the shot showed the entire control center of one of the ships, revealing the nest-like pits in the deck where they squatted against the extreme boost they could endure.
Their commander stood higher than the rest on a podium rather than a pit, his tentacles wrapped around himself as if he were ashamed of his nakedness. That disgusting mouth moved and the gurgling, clucking sounds of their language were lost in the translation they’d sent, then the one Dwight had provided for us.
“Mistress, we would speak to you in peace.” He inclined that bald, grotesque head toward the camera. “And in person, if you are willing.”
“Why the hell would she do that?” Chase blurted, then reddened as if he’d just realized he said it aloud.
“Lilandreth,” I said, knowing she’d hear me whether or not Chase looped her into our conversation. “How do you want to handle this?”
That was also risky. I knew I couldn’t order her around—wouldn’t have been able to even if she wasn’t a telekinetic demigod. But deferring to her would undermine my authority with the crew.
“They’re telling the truth,” she said, her face appearing on the main display. Chase shook his head and gestured helplessly at his control board, dumbfounded. “I think I should meet with them in order to avoid danger to your ship and crew. Would you care to accompany me, Cameron?”
I carefully didn’t let my frustration and annoyance show on my face, though I figured Lilandreth probably knew what I was feeling anyway. There was no way I could tell her no without looking bad, and she knew it. The question was why she wanted me there in the first place.
“Of course,” I told her. “I’ll head over in a few minutes.”
The transmission ended whether I was done talking or not. I sighed between clenched teeth and unstrapped from my seat, motioning to the flight ops officer.
“Get me a lander prepped.”
“Flying it yourself again, Alvarez?” Nance called out after me as I floated toward the bridge hatchway. His tone wasn’t quite teasing, because there was nothing at all amusing about our current situation, but it was dryly humorous.
“That’s what I like about you, Captain Nance,” I told him. “You’re so damned perceptive.”
I’d barely made it to the central hub when Vicky swung out of the bridge level entrance, and the lack of gravity was the only reason she wasn’t standing with feet wide and hands on her hips.
“I’m going.”
“Why?” I asked, slipping past her, pulling myself into the transport hub. It was faster than the lift, since we weren’t under acceleration. “Because to be honest, I don’t want to go.”
She followed just behind me, keeping pace, speaking up to be heard from two meters back.
“Because I’m tired of hearing about this shit secondhand. I want to see what’s going on for myself.”
“I know better than to try to talk you out of it,” I reasoned, tightening my hand against the padded guide pole to slow to a halt at the hatchway for the hangar bay.
The lander was tucked into a niche near the center, beside Drop-Ship One. I waited for Vicky to emerge behind me, then waved at the ship.
“You drive.”
19
“Good afternoon, Captain Alvarez, Captain Sandoval,” Dr. Spinner said, scaring the shit out of me.
The little man had just appeared beside the lander’s airlock as I dropped from the last step of the stairs, my hand going to my sidearm before I saw who it was. The hand stayed there as I got a good look at him. The scientist from the Grey Collective had never been what anyone would consider fashion-conscious, particularly since the Grey had gone in big for plain, unadorned clothes for their civilians that weren’t too different from the uniforms their soldiers wore. But he’d taken it to a whole new level since he’d been left alone with Lilandreth here on her ship.
The fatigues we’d given him to replace his Grey Collective tunic and loose trousers were stained white with dried sweat, the front fastenings of the shirt undone to reveal that he wasn’t wearing a T-shirt beneath it, just as the pungent smell wafting off of him revealed that he hadn’t bathed recently. His dark, curly hair was uncut and unkempt, sticking out in random places where he’d slept on it and neglected to do anything about it.
The worst part was his eyes. Not that they were infinity pools like Lilandreth’s, but the whites were as red as any Marine I’d intercepted staggering back to base after a colossal drunk, the corners thick with rheum.
No, I take it back. The worst part was his smile, the feral baring of yellow teeth showing plainly that not only was he aware of how he presented himself, but he was happy about it.
“Dr. Spinner,” I said, taking a step back from him. “Are you all right?”
“Never been better!” he enthused, surging forward as if he wanted to take my hand. Another step back kept him from securing it and the scientist seemed to give up on the project, his palms raised instead toward the overhead like a Pentecostal preacher praising God. “There’s so much pure knowledge here! I could spend the next thousand years on this ship and never reach the end of what there is to learn!”
“Well, that’s great, Doc,” Vicky said, taking shelter just behind my shoulder against the possibility that the manic little man would try to hug her. “But maybe take a little time for a bath? A change of clothes?”
Spinner looked down at himself as if he’d just noticed his appearance, but the smile didn’t fade.
“Yes, yes… but things like that are trivial compared to the secrets of the universe! Compared to service to the Mistress.” He waved back behind him. “She sent me to tell you that she’s coming, that she’ll fly with you to the Nova ship once we’re through the jumpgate.” Spinner shuddered like he was in ecstasy, eyes rolling back in his head, and I worried he was about to pass out. “How I envy you, to witness her greatness in person! Would that I could accompany you, but my duties keep me here.” He shook his head frantically, glancing back as if afraid someone had overheard him. “Not that I would complain! No, they are barely duties so much as privileges! If I’d known of the wonders of the Predecessors when I was but a lowly researcher on my world, a shaman casting animal bones and reading signs in the heavens, how I would have prayed for this opportunity…”
The guy was beginning to worry me now.
“We need to get Hallonen over here,” Vicky whispered, making a circular motion with her finger beside her temple. Normally I would have worried that would offend Spinner, but the translator wouldn’t work for culturally specific gestures.
I nodded. The alternative would be getting Spinner off the Predecessor ship, but we might have to tranquilize him to manage that. I was about to call back to the Orion to give the order, but a familiar shudder went through my soul and I reached out by reflex to steady myself against the lander’s fuselage. We’d passed through the jumpgate.
The doctor’s house call would have to wait.
“Are you prepared?”
And Jesus Christ if I wasn’t getting sick and tired of the jump scares. I don’t know how the hell a two-meter-tall talking dinosaur could be so stealthy, but Lilandreth was just suddenly there, right behind Vicky. Vicky’s nails dug into my arm through my sleeve, though she kept her face neutral.
“As prepared as we’re going to be,” I said. “You sure you trust these fish-faced assholes enough to go out there in an unarmed lander?” I knocked on the thin armor of the fuselage demonstratively. It rang hollow.
“You know as well as I do that the armor of this aerospacecraft is not what protects us, Cameron.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, waving an invitation for her to board the shuttle, “I guess I do.”
I just hoped to hell she remembered that we were there too.
“Holy shit,” Vicky whispered close to my ear, her hand strategically placed over her nose. “And I thought Spinner smelled bad.”
I’d experienced the stench before, when we’d met with the Nova back in the Commonwealth and then again on the Remainder world, but I would never, ever get used to it. If someone had left dead fish out in the sun for three days and then drenched the entire mess in fermented cat urine, the stench of that still wouldn’t have approached how intensely horrible a ship full of Nova smelled. I breathed through a slitted mouth and debated internally whether tasting the stench was worse than smelling it.
We’d been escorted to the bridge by a squad of Nova soldiers, though none of them had attempted to disarm Vicky or me despite the fact we were openly carrying handguns. Neither had anyone pointed a weapon at us. In fact, they’d all averted their eyes from Lilandreth as if they thought looking straight at her was disrespectful.
The smell was almost distracting enough that I didn’t notice the layout of the ship, but the peculiar design caught my attention. I guess it was a function of the spherical shape of the cruisers, but the docking bay was at the north pole of the globe, the opposite end from the drives. We’d dropped into the ship through an open hatchway that had closed behind us, pumping atmosphere back into the hangar bay… a lot faster than I’d imagined it would be. Not an efficient method in my estimate, but they hadn’t had the need for efficiency.
A dozen of their cargo and troop landers were crowded around our shuttle like bullies on the playground trying to intimidate the new kid, but Lilandreth hadn’t looked impressed, much less intimidated. The ship was under gravity… somehow. They lacked the gravitic technology of the Predecessors, so I had to assume that either they’d spun the sphere for centripetal force or boosted it at one gravity just for our comfort. I guessed the latter, since the “down” of the ship was toward the deck of the hangar bay.
I suppose that should have worried me—after all, they could be taking us farther away from the Predecessor ship, maybe even to another gate to kidnap us from the system. But Lilandreth just strode purposefully down the spiraling ramp that led from the hangar bay around the perimeter of the interior hull until we reached the center and the control room there.
The view on the central holographic projection showed that my guess had been correct. The cruiser had left the Predecessor vessel behind and described a lazy arc away from her, heading nowhere in particular, surely not toward the habitable planet.
The officer who’d sent the original message was there on the bridge, though I could identify him only by the markings on his harness and a peculiar keloid scar on his neck. Lilandreth stopped in front of him, arms crossed, waiting expectantly. The Nova commander performed something halfway between a bow of obeisance and a Russian split, then stood straight again.
“Welcome, Mistress,” he said, spreading his arms, fingers waggling like they’d never stop moving, even after he was dead. “We thank you for your graciousness in agreeing to meet with us.”
“Don’t waste my time,” Lilandreth snapped. “If you have a point, get to it.”
“As you say, Mistress. We have wronged you, attempted to bend you to our will, and for this I would only seek to blame the one responsible, the Commander of the Splinter Worlds, the one you slew quite justly.”
“The one Jay killed, you mean,” I corrected him. I was certain the translator delivered the words in the Resscharr language, but the Nova commander didn’t even glance aside at me, much less acknowledge the point.
“His sins are his own and died with him,” the commander went on. “We would not have you judge us all by those transgressions. He sought to use you for our purposes. But we would instead have you use us for yours.”
Lilandreth regarded him with a tilt of her head that might have been interest or merely curiosity.
“Go on,” she urged.
“We came here as exiles.” The Nova officer motioned expansively, including the ship and all the crew in the control room. “Chased from our homes for daring to think we might be destined for more than waiting for the return of those who would never come back. We wanted nothing so much as revenge, the opportunity to go back and right the wrongs done to us so many years ago. Now that you have come though, many of us realize you are the fulfilled promise of the return. We would put aside our petty desires and be your servants. We will conquer in your name, put this entire sector under your control and make sure that every Resscharr worships you as a god. And then, if it pleases you, we could accompany you back to the Nova Empire to lay their worlds at your feet as well.”
It made sense, I had to admit. They knew what she could do, knew they couldn’t defeat her. Joining with her was the only chance to take advantage of the success of their gambit. But I was still stunned by the offer. It was ballsy, daring… and insane. They were tying the very existence of their society on the whims of an alien who they knew might go mad.
“Interesting,” Lilandreth said, tapping her fingertips together in front of her chin. “Your offer is within the parameters of possibility and thus was not entirely unforeseen, but I estimated the odds of you actually going through with it at no more than thirty percent. I must admit, the concept is not without its attraction. Let me ask you a question in return. You would put yourself at my command, put your existence in my hands… but how far would you go?” She tilted a scaly eyebrow. “Would you risk annihilation at my word?”
A prickle of alarm heated up the back of my neck and I eyed her sidelong. Was she teasing them, playing with the Nova for her own amusement, or was she seriously considering this? Or was she teasing me?
“We pledge to obey until the death,” the Nova officer vowed, his arms forming a pattern that might have been their equivalent of a salute. “We trust you not to waste us as a resource.”
“That’s kind of equivocating, isn’t it?” Vicky asked, smirking at the Nova. “If you really have faith in her, you’d just say ‘yes,’ and mean it.”
