Metal
“Humans are purpose-driven creatures. When the purpose is existential, we grow sharp edges.”
(Part 21 of “The Misfits” series)
A few hours after the Yankee-Chaos had touched down on Theta-Nikorla, Bulldog Hernan pinged the ship, wondering where Carolina and the crew were. It was late afternoon local time, and he’d gathered his family at his homestead to welcome them for Saturday dinner.
This was not a small gesture for an Etteran to make, especially in light of the circumstances—the Letters Offensive was threatening most of the inner Lettered Systems, Akop Hernan had just returned to his family, and Carolina and crew had only recently been his captors, having abducted him from Alpha-Petros right before the fighting broke out. Transom was trying to explain how significant a gesture it was for Bulldog to invite them to his family’s table.
“It’s a big deal for Etterans, Carolina,” Sebastian said, “at least those of us with families. We can’t ever rely on having set holidays being safe to celebrate. So we honor the people fighting if we can each week. People on Etterus take it pretty seriously.”
“Should we bring a gift?” Carolina asked.
“I’d ask Fieldstone. I don’t exactly get invited to a lot of dinners,” he said, grinning. “I’m more the one out in the field making sure it’s safe to break bread, not the one you break bread with.”
“You cleaned up okay enough on Athos,” she replied.
“Well, we just don’t want to be late. That’s kind of an insult.”
The ship was parked out in the flats a good two kilometers from the outer edge of the city of Nikorla, where Akop Hernan’s home was. Carolina didn’t like the idea of the whole crew vacating the vessel, especially with a walk of that length. In Theta-Nikorla’s non-breathable atmosphere, it meant a belt and a nanosheet for everyone, and with the offensive being in full swing, having the whole crew so far from the ship, exposed on the flat while they dined at Hernan’s house, Carolina insisted on the crew taking precautions. She ordered Sōsh, Transom, and Fieldstone to go combat ready, and for Ren to pack her go-bag. Additionally, she switched on Harold to lug a generator and modular life support unit, as two kilometers was a long walk without a suit and helmet.
“Hernan can juice us at his house,” Fieldstone argued. “You don’t bring bots and combat gear to Saturday dinner. This is more of an insult than being late, Captain. Putting the weapons down and eating together with people is kind of the point—a show of faith.”
“All the same,” she insisted. “We’re at war, and we’re exposed out here.”
“Yeah, Captain, Bulldog understands that, too. That’s the insult. Showing up in heavy gear sort of undercuts his decision that it’s safe enough to have the dinner in the first place.”
“I didn’t realize how sensitive you Etterans were. If there’s an issue, you can blame it on your Athosian captain, Fieldstone. These are my orders.”
So they left the ship empty, out on the flats, save for the Maícon clone watching its systems, sensors, and local networks he was monitoring for activity.
They marched across the flat single file, seven strong, equipped for combat, and to the untrained eyes there on Theta-Nikorla, they’d have looked like a serious unit: Transom on point, followed by Sōsh, Carolina, Draya and Fieldstone, Ren, and Harold taking up the rear, laden with heavy gear.
“You look like a combat unit,” Bulldog remarked, when they arrived at the outer archway to his estate’s nanosheet.
“My orders,” Carolina insisted, “in light of the offensive.”
There was a long pause before Bulldog replied, “Very well, Captain Dreeson. Two at a time through the lock, please. It’s a residential shield.
They let down their nanosheets as they walked up toward Hernan’s front entrance. There was an expansive porch with a sun-shield that wrapped around the home, which was composed from several modular air-lock grade units welded together in case the outer nanosheet failed. There was a phalanx of young trees inside the lock seemingly guarding the perimeter of the property. These were significantly larger than the engineered saplings outside the shield breathing the local atmosphere.
Theta-Nikorla looked a harsh place to Carolina’s eyes, its obscurity seemingly its most desirable quality. The drawback to that quality, though, she could feel in her bones out there, exposed like that, was that the planet’s obscurity was their only protection. A colony so small was in no position to mount a defense against even the smallest Trasp aggression.
Bulldog himself met them on the porch.
“Leave your weapons outside, please,” he instructed. “I invited you to Saturday dinner.”
“Sorry, boss,” Transom stated. “We don’t get invited to a lot of these.”
“No doubt,” Hernan stated. “You can leave your Harold outside as well.”
Hernan greeted everyone at the door as they entered, with Carolina stepping in last.
“My orders,” she stated. “I meant no offense.”
“Of course not,” Bulldog answered. “Better to be prepared than polite. I welcome a wise young commander to my home.”
The modular appearance to the outside of the home belied the spaciousness and comfort of the interior. Inside, in addition to the crew of six from the Yankee-Chaos, Maícon Prime was already at home among seventeen Etterans, mostly children, who all came into the front room to greet the guests.
Bulldog handled formal introductions to his family, starting with his oldest daughter Karval, followed by Liuma, and Medua the wife of Akop Hernan’s youngest son. The oldest child in the group was fourteen, while Liuma and Medua had babies, a boy and girl, born three weeks apart, who were weeks from taking their first steps.
“You have a lovely family and a lovely home here,” Carolina said, after she’d introduced the crew. “We’re grateful you invited us to share it with you today.”
“We’re grateful to you for bringing our father back to us,” Karval replied. “It’s so rare we get a chance to all be together.”
“Yes,” Bulldog said. “Please, everyone, do make yourselves at home until we sit for the meal.”
In addition to the many human hands working to make the guests feel welcome, Bulldog had several housebots serving drinks and preparing Saturday dinner. Carolina couldn’t remember when the crew had been off the Yankee-Chaos together like this, relaxing—months certainly.
While the crew got to know the family, most of the kids went outside and began playing games in the yard enclosed by the nanosheet. Bulldog confessed that this had been his lifelong dream, to get his family safe to a place they could grow together outside the direct shadow of the war, even if its existence still loomed over their future. He explained that the fathers and several siblings were on deployment somewhere in the war effort, as most of the children understood was their fate as soon as they came of age. There would be no shirking of that duty, even if their family was hiding out in the Letters.
After a couple hours of drinks and conversation, Bulldog called the gathering to the main room for the meal. Modest by Athosian standards, an Etteran Saturday dinner usually offered the week’s best to the visiting guests, when there were some. There was always an invocation bringing to mind the absent warriors fighting for the security of those gathering and a moment of praise and gratitude to the fallen. Bulldog added a valediction to the guests for bringing the family together.
“Reminds me of my youth,” Fieldstone remarked after they began eating, “on the rare occasions my father was home.”
“On Etterus?” Bulldog’s younger daughter Liuma asked.
Fieldstone confirmed as much with a nod, as his mouth was full.
“We visited Etterus with father several times,” Liuma replied, a tone of nostalgia evident to Carolina.
“Were you not raised there as well?”
The question seemed to surprise the Etterans at the table.
“Father is Teieman, of course,” Liuma replied. “Where are you from, Captain? Father didn’t say.”
“He didn’t say for good reason,” Bulldog interrupted. “Our visiting captain is from the inner Battery, love. She’s unfamiliar with our ways.”
“I guess we think of all Etterans as being from Etterus,” Carolina replied. “It’s easy for us outsiders to forget the rest of the Guild.”
“Teiemos is rather forgettable,” Medua, the daughter-in-law joked. “It’s a forgivable oversight.”
That gibe at the Hernan’s homeworld set off a round of friendly joking about the virtues and drawbacks of Teiemos versus the cylinders. Medua, having grown up in the Pann cylinder group, had heard all their jokes about the neighbor’s floor being her sky.
“Where did you grow up, Sebastian?” Karval, the eldest daughter, asked Transom.
“Draxxis,” he replied.
The answer brought the table nearly to silence, almost as though he’d uttered some unmentionable taboo topic.
After a second or two of awkward silence, Sōsh looked over at Transom and said, “Must be a real cheerful place,” drawing an audible gasp from Akop Hernan’s two daughters.
Eyes got wide around the table.
Transom let out a deep, long, loud laugh. “Ah, Metalface, yeah. There’s an honest debate amongst us survivors about whether or not the Trasp improved the place when they nuked it. I’m still on the fence.”
Hernan’s family didn’t quite know how to react until Bulldog himself began to laugh. “A little dark humor, girls. A necessary evil in Sebastian’s line of work, I’m afraid.”
“Can’t take him anywhere,” Fieldstone stated, shaking his head.
“He’s useful to have around when you need him, though,” Carolina said to the Hernan girls.
“Speaking of which,” Maícon Prime interrupted, approaching the table. “I need to borrow Sebastian for a few moments.”
“Something I should know?” Carolina asked.
Maícon didn’t verbalize his response, nodding his head toward the table, as though to leave the question open.
“I’ll join you,” she stated. “Please excuse us, everyone.”
The three of them stepped outside onto Hernan’s front porch.
“You’re even a hit among your own people,” Carolina said to Transom.
“Just one of my many talents.”
“Yes,” Maícon said, “regarding those talents, my counterpart and I would like your expertise on this.”
He projected a small floatscreen from a band in his right wrist.
“From the ship’s passive sweep?” Transom asked, examining the screen closely. He stared at the readout, shaking his head. “Multiple disturbances. Maybe some symmetry there.”
“What is it?” Carolina asked.
“I need a look at this,” Transom said. “Possible contacts.”
The readings showed potential imbalances in the upper atmosphere, though it was difficult to tell with Yankee-Chaos parked out on the plain at ground level. Transom had the ship fire off a high altitude fly-drone that would take a couple minutes to deploy and spit back readings.
“Guests?” Carolina asked.
“Let’s hope not,” Transom said. “I was just starting to have a good time in there.”
They donned eyewear to view the readouts and put up their nanosheets. Transom took them up a slight incline just outside Hernan’s property. He wanted a clear line of sight to the ship. By the time they’d climbed the small rounded crest of the hill, the fly-drone was up and spitting back readings—telemetry, Maícon’s interpretation insets, and visuals.
“Well, shit,” Transom stated.
Though Carolina was looking at the same screen, she missed the significance of it. “What?”
“Metal,” was all he said, as though the meaning of it should be obvious to Carolina.
“In plain language, please, Sebastian.”
“Petros wasn’t an accident, I don’t think. The Trasp must have been on Hernan, maybe his family. They’re here anyway. And we are properly pinned down.”
“The Trasp are here? Now?”
“In three or four minutes, sure,” he answered.
“You don’t seem overly bothered by that fact, Sebastian.”
“Pants-shitting never once improved a situation, boss. Plus, I got a sense the old dog’s got some contingencies here we don’t know about,” Transom said, gesturing for Carolina to follow him back down the hill. “Let’s get inside before they get line of sight on the city.”
“The ship?” Carolina said.
“Nah, boss. They’d hit it with LRMs if the Y-C so much as warmed its engines right now. Best leave it grounded.”
“And fight them?”
Transom was jogging down the hill effortlessly at a clip that challenged Carolina.
“No one fights metal unless they have a death wish, boss. Let’s go see about that contingency first.”
A warfighter like Akop Hernan never retires completely. The instincts don’t ever fully recede, and Bulldog hadn’t been retired this time for a full day yet. As much as he seemed at ease there on Theta-Nikorla among his family, he knew what Transom and Carolina’s departure meant. Bulldog could read the looks on their faces when they returned well enough that he hardly needed to hear the words.
“Shaman Echo,” he declared to his family and housbots.
The table was abandoned calmly, the mothers each attending to their group at the end of the table, which was well ordered, as the children knew what the words meant and fell in by age, disappearing from the room in a matter of seconds, the eldest ushering the youngest and the middle children taking account of each other.
“Too far out to get back to your ship?” Bulldog asked Transom.
“We’re pinned.”
“Meat or metal?”
“Metal,” Transom answered.
“Let this be a lesson in command, Ms. Dreeson,” Bulldog Hernan said. “Fortunately a positive reinforcement. You’ll never regret being prepared today. You’re welcome to grab your gear and follow us. Unless you’d like to stay and find out what sort of orders the drones and strikebots have.”
“Fetch Harold and the gear and fall in, everyone,” Carolina stated. “Sorry, Bulldog. This seemed like a nice place your family had here.”
“We didn’t choose it for the ambiance, Carolina.”
“Walk with me.”
Bulldog eyed Fieldstone, who was standing at the front door, eyes on the old Etteran war chief, who snapped his fingers and summoned a floater—a small glowing ball-drone—for the guests to follow to the lower level when they were ready. Then he left with Carolina and Transom walking directly behind him.
“Time?” Bulldog asked.
“Two minutes maybe now,” Transom answered.
“Well enough,” Bulldog said. “Hope you’ve got good shoes on, Ms. Dreeson.”
He ushered them down a back hallway to a set of stairs leading to a basement level, and there in the corner, one of the Hernans’ housebots stood at a yawning square hole in the floor with a steep metal staircase.
The room at the bottom of that metal staircase was a square box carved out of the bedrock with another open hatch at the bottom of it. There was a second ladder down the hatch that descended to a tunnel. Carolina and Transom waited as Bulldog slowly made his way down. He didn’t seem to rush.
“These old legs have had their share of exercise today,” he said as he waited for them at the bottom of the second ladder.”
Down the hallway, Carolina could hear footsteps and hushed voices.
“All down?” Bulldog barked down the corridor.
“Four,” Karval replied.
“Six,” Liuma followed.
“Three,” Medua stated, at which point, Bulldog nodded.
“All yours then, daughter,” he said, giving the command to Karval to lead the family down to the lower lock. “Sealed?” he asked her.
“Not yet, father,” Karval answered.
“Very good. I have it.”
Carolina waited quietly beside Bulldog, who only began to follow his daughters and the children when he saw the glow of the ball drone at the top of the ladder in the upper room. Carolina could hear the weight of Sōsh’s metal leg descending.
Down the dark narrow corridor, there was another ladder in a tube-like tunnel that led down to another square room. “Hold here,” Bulldog stated when they reached the bottom of the ladder.
“Scanning for trackers?” Carolina asked.
“I doubt they followed your ship,” Bulldog stated. “Otherwise, they’d have visited us sometime between Alpha-Petros and our arrival here, Ms. Dreeson. So either the Trasp tracked someone in my family or they had some human intelligence placing me here. Theta-Nikorla is too far out to be of any strategic value in this offensive. That’s one of the reasons I chose it.”
“One of the reasons?” Carolina asked.
“The lava tubes under the city,” Hernan answered. “If you think my family sets roots anywhere without a safe way out … well, you’d think wrong.”
“Like I said, boss,” Transom said. “Contingencies.”
A light popped up on Bulldog’s eyepiece in the darkness.
“Clear to proceed, Captain Dreeson,” Hernan stated gesturing toward the lower ladder. “Raise your nanosheets and follow Karval’s instructions when you get down. I’ll clear your group and shut the doors behind us.”
As she descended the ladder into near total darkness, Carolina had expected to be met by the lights of other citizens of Theta-Nikorla taking refuge in the lava tubes. It seemed an excellent place to hide, providing the Trasp force didn’t discover the tunnels leading down to them. Instead though, they were met only by the hushed quiet of Bulldog Hernan’s well-trained family and the dull colored lights of their eyewear—at head height for the adults, with the children’s lights closer to the floor. In descending order down the tunnel, closest to them—Red—was Karval and her children, next, Liuma, a dull blue, and further down Medua and her children, piercing the wall of darkness with four pinpoints of dim green.
It occurred then to Carolina that no one else on Theta-Nikorla would have prepared for such a strike. A Trasp attack out here, until the start of the offensive, would have been the remotest possibility. Only Bulldog himself and his family could have anticipated the motive for such a distant incursion.
“We have a ship at the exit point,” Karval explained to Carolina and Transom. “It will be a challenging walk, though. We should strive to be as quiet and light on our feet as possible, sound travels quite well through these tunnels.”
“Very good,” Carolina whispered back.
When the rest of the Yankee-Chaos crew descended, Karval arranged them in single file, with the exception of Harold, whom she placed between Liuma and Medua’s families to space out the power and life support charging stations, two of which were already on hand with the Hernan housebots who’d descended first.
Bulldog Hernan came down last with Fieldstone and Draya. He was sporting a sleek exoskeleton, which he’d had stashed in the lower level beneath the scanner, along with a gear pack. The floating ball drone hovered down with them as well.
“This is cozy,” Ren said at a volume she thought was quiet enough to be audible only to Sōsh and Carolina beside her, but as she heard her voice echoing down the lava tube, she followed the comment with a whispered, “Sorry.”
“Very good, Doctor,” Bulldog stated. “Comforting to know you’re with us. Wit, wisdom, and a surgeon’s skilled hands are never a liability.”
He was, as he mentioned before, in the process of closing the doors behind them. In this case, that meant flooding the square annex rooms beneath the basement of each house with a composite liquid that hardened in seconds to a polymer as rigid as the volcanic stone around it. He did the same with the room directly above where they’d all just scanned clear for any tracking mechanisms.
“You’ve been through here before?” Fieldstone asked Bulldog.
“Are you crazy, Major? Of course not. We sent floaters through to scan the route.”
“How far’s the exit point?”
“Forty clicks down that way,” Hernan answered, gesturing into the darkness. “It will be a tough walk. Hope you all can keep up with my girls, but we couldn’t very well leave you for the Trasp to interrogate, now, could we?”
“We’re grateful for that,” Carolina said.
“We’ll find out if that’s true in twenty kilometers of spelunking, I’d wager,” Hernan stated. “We’d better get moving. Karval’s, on point. Quietly and carefully now.”
As the group moved through the network of lava tubes, it became immediately apparent to Carolina that the character of her people was entirely different to these Etterans. She did her best to contrast it against what she perceived to be an ordinary Athosian childhood, which was significantly different from her own and didn’t remotely resemble the life of these Hernan children. Even in exile, as they’d been raised, the Hernans were disciplined and task-focused, the elder children shepherding the attention and bodies of the younger down each tunnel toward the next turning point.
At difficult squeezes, steps, climbs, or turns, Karval stationed a bot or the right human helper, who took the task with grace, leadership, and certainty.
Already her feet hurt, and Carolina recognized that she did, as it happened, have pretty good shoes on. She marveled at the transformation in Akop Hernan, who morphed from a frail old man to a deft-footed dancer along those jagged, volcanic corridors in his exoskeleton. Even though it only lifted him a few centimeters, he seemed ten centimeters taller at least, not directing the progression of his family and guests himself, but watching his daughters and grandchildren bring order to that progression. Carolina wasn’t a Hernan, and she was proud of them, marveling at them really.
“Best part of our culture,” Transom stated after Carolina remarked to him on the Hernan children. “It’s necessity. When the war ends, if we make it, we’ll be as soft as you Athosians in two generations again. Humans are purpose-driven creatures. When the purpose is existential, we grow sharp edges. When it’s not, we get soft.”
“I can’t imagine a soft Etteran.”
“That’s because you’ve never met one.”
“Have you?”
“Negative,” Transom answered. “Not relative to an Athosian anyway. Think of it this way, though, boss. Imagine if your father needed to put his mind toward the preservation of the entire Athosian people through war, the state, the infrastructure, the economy—everything—if he put his entire focus into that, Athos would change. And if the circumstances warranted the changes in the minds of the people, Athos would get hard fast. It’s human nature.”
Still, it was a marvel to Carolina, even in the dark, or perhaps even more so. When they broke for water, Carolina whispered a conversation with one of Liuma’s girls, who, to Carolina’s eyes, couldn’t have been older than six.
“What do you think of this place?” Carolina asked the girl, whose name was Piestlee.
“I don’t like the dark,” Piestlee whispered back. “It’s very scary.”
“You’re doing a good job. How are you being so brave?”
“I follow Jess’s light. He always goes the right way because mama is following Aunt Karval.”
“He’s doing a good job too.”
“Uh-hmm,” Piestlee replied. “Sometimes he holds my hand.”
While they were seated, Maícon Prime called Bulldog, Carolina, Transom, and Fieldstone together. Bulldog sent for Karval to join them.
“An update from the surface,” Maícon stated. “We’d have heard, no doubt if the Trasp had nuked the settlement. They don’t seem intent on large-scale aggression either, which is good news for the ordinary settlers on Theta-Nikorla. Not great news for us. My counterpart is relaying progress as the bots make their way through the city methodically. They are zeroing in on your compound, Chief Hernan. Doubtless, they’ll have it identified shortly, and eventually, they’ll connect it to our ship. Similarly, I have little doubt they’ll surmise that we must have fled somewhere on the planet, as the Yankee-Chaos is still parked up there. Given the porous nature of the planet’s outer crust, they will certainly begin to search for us underground.”
“Best of luck to them,” Akop Hernan said. “We mapped these tunnels. Odds are not in their favor.”
“Assuming that is correct,” Maícon replied, “then the question is how long they dare to remain on the planet, this far from any support from other Trasp forces. This offensive cannot last long at its current intensity. But if they’re still there when we get to the other side of this trek, how long can we hold out?”
“We hold out as long as we need to,” Fieldstone said. “Or as long as we do.”
“Very well,” Maícon said. “My counterpart is updating me. From his observations, there does appear to be a human leadership contingent, if that means anything specific.”
“It means the same as you said,” Transom stated, “that they’re looking for something specific, a specific bulldog to be specific, instead of nuking the place outright.”
Bulldog sighed.
“Something troubling you, old man,” Fieldstone asked.
“A disappointment,” he said. “Carolina and I spoke about this, how the Etteran High Command might finally let me escape the war. I guess the Trasp don’t feel the same. And I suppose if I were them, I’d see me as a high-value target as well.”
“We all understand, father,” Karval said, placing her hand on Bulldog’s arm.
“We got half a dinner, darling. Didn’t we?”
“Far more,” Karval replied. “And far more yet to come. We’re all prepared.”
“Then let’s carry on,” Bulldog stated. “When you’re ready, daughter.”
The group made good progress into the lava tubes, which were labyrinthine and tight near the Hernan estate. But as they moved deeper into the network, each turn seemed to move them into a larger tunnel with deeper echoes and longer stretches of walkable floors. Even so, the going was not easy.
Much of the journey was more a scramble than a walk, with each stumble representing a threat to serious bodily injury. The walls and floor were composed of sharp, jagged volcanic rock and sometimes even glass that could cut open the toughest of clothing, which meant it would certainly break the skin beneath.
In the first several hours, mostly there were scrapes and abrasions, again mostly on the hands of the travelers as they reached for the walls to break a stumble before it became a fall. At times, in tight quarters or on climbs, the sharp rocks cut through gloves to hands and Ren was called to open her bag and attend to a minor wound.
The group walked for nearly six hours, making almost ten of the forty kilometers before their progress was flagged by repeated stops for water, a power recharge on the bots, or by a refresh to the atmospherics within the human walkers’ nanosheets. It was nearing the end of the day.
“You didn’t come prepared to camp,” Akop Hernan stated more than asked Carolina.
“No,” she said. “You did?”
“We have hammocks for the children, yes. It is about time to deploy them.”
“We’ll make do,” Carolina declared. “Let us know if we can help.”
The Hernans ran a line along the rocks, fixing one end of their hammock barracks to the cavern wall while running a second end-line down the middle of the tunnel supported by their two housebots, who balanced that endline on supports, pulling it taught against their bodies in perfect counterweight. Then the children settled in.
“We’ll have an early start,” Bulldog declared. “Get your rest, everyone.”
Carolina curled up in a large natural bowl along the side of the tunnel wall with her overshirt for a pillow. None of the adults got much rest.
After the party rose in the morning, Maícon called the leaders together to relay that during the night, contact to his clone in the ship was suddenly cut off.
“What does that mean?” Carolina asked.
“Nothing definitive,” Maícon replied. “One of several scenarios is possible. He could have sequestered himself elsewhere to avoid being detected if the Trasp boarded the vessel; the Trasp may have destroyed the ship outright, and therefore my clone with it; or he may have chosen to self-terminate rather than be subjected to a programmatic interrogation. The Trasp do know my model well.”
“What do you think is most likely?”
“Any of the above, Captain. The one certainty is that we will no longer have input on the situation on Theta-Nikorla’s surface.”
“Not until we power up my ship on the other side,” Bulldog declared. “The vessel is well hidden in a lava tube, but we can sneak a bird up to get a look to see when it’s safe for us to fly.”
“So we press on,” Carolina said. “Behind you, Karval.”
The group made excellent progress on that second day, closing fourteen clicks by mid-afternoon and another seven that evening.
Then, the leaders gathered to debate stopping for another night of rest. Ultimately, Ren interrupted, giving the final word.
“People fall when they’re tired, and we are all tired, especially the little ones.”
“Sound thinking,” Karval echoed, “the survey has the route growing more difficult again as we near the surface once more, doctor. We should be prepared for the final stretch.”
During the night, sleepless as they were, Carolina and Bulldog sat together, their backs perched on packs against the rock wall as they sat on the flattest part of the floor they could find.
“I’m not a military tactician by any interpretation,” Carolina said, “but if the Trasp were after me, I know I wouldn’t want my family beside me, Bulldog.”
The old man sighed.
“What are you going to do?”
“We have contingencies,” he stated, “of course. I suppose the answer to that question depends on what awaits us when we pop up again. If the Trasp have left the colony we may be able to strategize a little differently. It may be that the Letters is the wrong place for us—certainly the girls and the children anyway. We’d have to go a long way to find a city that would take me back your way, Carolina.”
“Unfortunately, I wouldn’t recommend Athos or Hellenia.”
“I wouldn’t take the recommendation if you gave it,” Bulldog said. “I have thoughts. So we shall see. If the war is not done with me yet, so be it. I’ve known no other life. Perhaps I’d be unsuited for a peaceful retirement anyway. What about you, though? I know you won’t share your newfound understanding, my dear—who’s responsible for this mess—but you have a course of action at least?”
Carolina herself sighed.
“I doubt the war is bound to let any of us go, Bulldog. Maybe the children. Maybe we can achieve that in our lifetimes.”
“Your lifetime.”
“I do hope.”
“I said the same once to your grandmother, Ms. Dreeson. Circumstances notwithstanding of course, it does bring me some measure of joy to see you here meeting my grandchildren—a generational friendship between our families, renewed in the most peculiar of ways.”
“All the plans you and grandmother made—how many of them came to pass?”
“Once, Carolina, we both slipped our security details and met for lunch in Port Cullen. I do believe that was the only time we were ever free to speak in anything but allusions and inferences. That plan came to pass. I remember thinking how remarkably similar our perspectives were despite the astounding cultural differences. And here we are all over again.”
Carolina and the crew of the Yankee-Chaos were far enough behind Hosmin when he fell that the cry seemed like an echo of a howl rather than the scream in the darkness that it was. He was Medua’s second son, the five-year-old. He was just out of reach of one of the housebots when he tripped and tumbled down four meters to a pinch point in between two narrowing rock walls—a hole so small the adults missed it, and were it not for the quick action of the two housebots, who immediately crawled in after him head first—as well as Maícon Prime pulling the mass out, anchored by Sōsh to the wall above—the boy may have suffocated in that narrow pit before the humans could reach him.
As it stood when he came out, the boy was in poor shape. Yet to Carolina’s eyes, there was no panic, as Karval and Liuma escorted the other children quietly away from the scene, while the Y-C crew awaited orders from Ren as she assessed the boy’s injuries, calling for light and support. She would need a rock at chest height to set her table, as she couldn’t operate on her knees, not on volcanic rock.
Hosmin’s arm had snapped in half cleanly at the upper head of the humerus when the limb got pinned back behind him in the fall.
“Keep the bots with you to move the boy,” Transom stated to Ren. “Fields and I will scout the tunnel.”
The two Etteran commandos took off in opposite directions, looking for a rock surface they could use as a support to set the doctor’s table.
Fields returned first, having inspected a bowl-like projection that he’d noted earlier as they passed. It was the right height, and the rim was level enough to work with.
Meanwhile, Ren had cleared Hosmin’s spine, but her initial scan left her concerned about subdural bleeding around the temporal lobe of the boy’s brain.
“How far’s the walk?” she asked Fields.
“Five minutes,” he answered.
“You and Sōsh set up the room, and we’ll be up behind you shortly.”
Ren had the two housebots carry Hosmin on the fabric litter while Maícon brought a generator and the two atmosphere purifiers.
The litter was a battery-powered sheet Ren carried folded-up in her go-bag that stiffened to a flat board when charged, making for an excellent stretcher she could double out to table width when she was ready to operate.
As they were moving him, the boy began to regain consciousness, howling in the silence, sending a shudder along the party that had stretched out to several hundred meters along that narrow tunnel.
Carolina joined Hernan’s daughters and the children further down the tunnel, leaving Ren and Maícon Prime, as there were more than enough hands in her makeshift operating theatre. Hosmin’s older brother was not taking the situation with typical Etteran stoicism, which Carolina found totally understandable for a seven year old.
“Hosmin was my responsibility,” he cried. “I should have seen.”
“All of us missed it too,” his aunt Liuma reassured him.
“I should have seen. Hosmin is always falling. He’s always unlucky.”
“Not today he’s not,” Sebastian stated.
He was standing just outside the dull glow of the group’s light, but he was always close enough that seen or unseen he was within reach of Carolina, who was seated beside the children.
The kids looked up into the darkness, toward Sebastian’s deep voice.
“You kids want to know something?” Transom asked, stepping toward them.
“What?” Karval’s eldest boy asked.
“I got blown up once real bad—busted bones, blood everywhere, metal pieces sticking in me all over. Out in the desert too. So I was all dust and blood and mud and dirt when they found me. But you look at me now, you’d never know it would you?”
“No,” a few of the kids said simultaneously.
“That’s because Doctor Ren—the lady back there taking care of your brother—she patched me back together good as new. Better even. So the way I see it, Hosmin’s the luckiest kid I ever met. Not too many people lucky enough to take a fall like that right in front of the best surgeon in the Battery. Does that sound unlucky to you?”
“She’s really a good doctor?” one of Karval’s girl’s asked.
“I wouldn’t be here talking to you if she wasn’t,” Transom said.
“Before you came to dinner, Grandfather said that you and Major Fieldstone were real war fighters. The toughest fighters we have,” one of the boys stated.
“That’s right,” Transom said.
“So you must know.”
“Yeah, we’ve both got blown up and shot up a few times. We know what it’s like to get banged up bad, and it’d take a lot more than that little fall back there to challenge Dr. Ren. That’s certain.”
“That’s good,” Hosmin’s brother stated. “I’m glad you’re all with us, Major.”
Hosmin’s fall brought a halt to the party’s progress for the day. Ren was quickly able to screw the boy’s shoulder back together with Maícon’s assistance. She was far more concerned with the head injury, though. To Transom’s point, she carried a heavier go-bag than most military surgeons. Even most good practitioners of field medicine probably wouldn’t have been prepared to do better than a few micropores to relieve the pressure in the skull. Ren had dealt with enough head trauma to understand how critical it was to keep pressure from forming if it could be avoided, so she always carried several syringes of ossite—a nanotech fluid that burrowed tens of thousands of pores through the skull allowing any excess fluid to seep away before pressure could build up and cause damage to the brain.
She was also monitoring the boy’s cervical spine for some very minor signs of bruising she saw on the scans. The impact had been a serious one, but several hours after she’d begun treating Hosmin, Ren told Medua she expected her son to make a full recovery in a matter of a few weeks. That prognosis was affirmed a few hours later when Hosmin regained consciousness and showed no signs of permanent impairment. More than anything, he was antsy to get moving again.
Bulldog sent Fieldstone ahead with one of the housebots to prep the ship. He wanted what passive readings they could gather on the Trasp force if they were still up on the planet. Then they agreed to settle where they were for the night and catch up with Fieldstone the following day.
The party arrived at the base of the exit shaft shortly before noon the next morning. The Hernans’ bugout ship was a civilian cruiser about half the size of the Yankee-Chaos. It was tucked neatly behind a camouflage tarp nearly a hundred meters deep in the lava tube. Short of a drone making a run down the shaft, the Trasp weren’t going to get readings on it unless the group properly powered up the ship for takeoff.
As it stood, Fieldstone had been taking readings on passive comms signals as best he could from that position. The news was not good. Their hope had been that after nearly three full days of searching with no sign of their target, the Trasp would have abandoned Nikorla. The opposite seemed to be the case. There were so many enemy signals, Fieldstone didn’t even think it was worth the risk to send up a bird or a fly to get a better look. That would only run the risk of their drone helping the Trasp to pinpoint its origin. Their best hope was to rely on the porousness of the planet’s surface—the thousands of similar volcanic shafts surrounding the city of Nikorla and the hope that frustration would set in.
“Can we fly away now,” one of the older children asked Bulldog.
“Not yet,” he replied. “The enemy has ships in orbit, drones, missiles, many weapons.”
“How are we going to get away then, Grandpa?”
“We’ve come this far and have eluded them still,” he answered. “We’ll find our way. Patience.”
Hosmin and the younger children spent the afternoon in the ship, contained enough within to play games and breathe freely outside the constriction of their atmospheric belts once more.
The leaders, meanwhile, met to discuss the reality of the situation. Based on their passive readings of the Trasp comms, the enemy were doing exactly as the fugitives would were their roles reversed—methodically searching the area around the city in an orderly fashion. And based on the progress, Maícon estimated they would circle around to their location in approximately eighteen hours.
“The question is how deep beneath the surface they are surveying with their drones,” Maícon declared. “Based on the numbers we observed as they approached, I strongly suspect the ship will be discovered.”
“Should we retreat to the tunnels?” Carolina asked.
“That’s one option, certainly,” Bulldog stated. “A limited timeline on that, though. Rations, power, atmosphere? We’d be able to hold out a week maybe, and that’s presuming they don’t send a strike force down into the shafts after us once they find the ship at our exit point.”
“And if we made a run for it?” Carolina asked.
“They’d pick up the engine signature and be waiting at the top of the shaft before we even got airborne,” Fieldstone said.
“You didn’t plan for this, old man?” Transom asked Bulldog.
“For a five-day siege? As it happens, no. Who’d have figured they’d be so bold or want me so badly. Frankly, it’s puzzling.”
“And nothing from your clone?” Transom asked Maícon.
“I’d have notified you immediately. Sorry, no.”
“Still pinned, then,” Carolina stated.
“Soon, the contingencies change,” Bulldog stated. “If they want me this badly, they may get me. I’ll be damned if they get my family. Captain Dreeson—”
“We’ll do everything we can if it comes to it, Bulldog.”
“I wouldn’t say we’re there yet,” Fieldstone stated.
“Maybe not,” Bulldog Hernan replied. “But we’re certainly at the point we should start planning for my surrender.”
As the hours ticked by, Maícon’s analysis of the Trasp forces became increasingly pessimistic. The signals hovering over, inside and around Nikorla, painted a picture of a sizeable fleet of drones, bots, and ships. This far out, even if the Letters sent a battle group of their own to intervene, the Trasp were well positioned to dig in, especially in light of the composition of the force.
“This much metal hanging over our heads, too,” Transom declared. “They’re not letting us out of here without getting what they came for.”
Bulldog began speaking with Carolina and the two Etteran majors about how he might surrender himself in such a way that his family and the crew of the Yankee-Chaos could sneak off Theta-Nikorla unscathed. The main problem in his mind was proximity. Wherever he appeared on the landscape, the Trasp were certain to canvass with increased scrutiny.
Maícon quietly pulled Carolina aside to relay another possibility. “I wanted to discuss this with you, Carolina, before telling Akop Hernan or the rest of the crew. But there may be a way for everyone to escape. If the Trasp want Bulldog Hernan, we give them Bulldog Hernan.”
“What do you mean, Maícon?”
The Prime AI paused, exhibiting a look of concern, as though distracted.
“One moment, Captain. I am tracking an anomalous signal heading out from Nikorla. It seems to be coming our way.”
“One of the Trasp drones?”
He shook his head. “Not a drone. Not even Trasp.”
“Then what?”
“It’s the Yankee-Chaos herself.”
“How? If you’re not flying it, who is?”
“I would bet on the Trasp, Captain Dreeson. Somehow, they must have tied some communications trail to us here—a tag in one of the bags, a piece of Sōsh’s hardware perhaps, my body maybe. Perhaps they’ve cracked my clone’s encryption. I’m not sure.”
Transom gave a hand signal to Bulldog and Fieldstone, and they began ushering the members of their party unsuited to combat to the ship—the children, the doctor, and Bulldog’s daughters. Sōsh took up a position halfway to the tube’s exit, while Draya took up a position with Bulldog behind the forward fighters. They had a plan in place, of course, these warriors, for a last-ditch defense of the tunnel.
“It’s flying funny,” Maícon stated to Carolina. “As though hobbled.”
“The Y-C?”
“Yes. Listing. Now taking an obscure flight path directly toward this position.”
“What do you make of it, Maícon?”
“I don’t know what to make of it. The only reasons the ship would be flying thus is if it took damage in the incursion or if the pilot wanted to give the perception that the ship were damaged.”
The familiar sound of the Yankee-Chaos’s engines began to quietly creep down the lava tube, growing slowly louder as the seconds passed.
“Whoever is in our ship, they know we’re here,” Maícon stated. “They’ve touched down now at the lava tube’s entrance.”
Transom and Fieldstone looked over at Maícon and Carolina from their positions, gesturing as though to inquire what might be coming down the tunnel. Maícon Prime shook his head and ushered Carolina back toward the Hernans’ ship, making clear they didn’t know.
For nearly a minute, a tension hung in that dim cavern as the faint humming wheeze of their own engine echoed down the jagged rock corridor.
Then, suddenly, a voice.
“Would you believe it? Some damn idiot abandoned a perfectly good spaceship out on the lava flats back there? I can’t imagine who would do such a thing.”
Ren came bursting out the lowered back gate of the Hernan’s ship.
“Burch!” she shouted, rushing up toward the tube’s exit.
To Carolina’s ears, the familiar voice did sound like him, but, under the circumstances, she wasn’t nearly as certain as the doctor. She thought her ears might have deceived her, until she could finally see Burch’s familiar profile against the dark backdrop of the tunnel ahead.
“Doctor,” Transom shouted, trying to catch her attention, exhorting her to take caution.
But she didn’t listen or slow down. Ren knew it wasn’t a trick. That or she didn’t care if it was somehow a Trasp trap. She wouldn’t be deterred from walking into it.
Burch, too, came further into the tunnel, walking casually, approaching as though meeting friends, as though he knew exactly what to expect at the bottom of that tunnel.
“It is his voice,” Maícon stated. “A perfect acoustic match.”
Carolina let down her guard and began to walk toward their old captain. Instead of combat, she found a gathering of old friends up that tunnel, Sōsh embracing Burch the moment Ren let him go. Even Transom had a grin on his face as they shook hands.
“Heard stories,” Fieldstone stated. “You look about right.”
“Speaking of stories,” Burch said. “Wish we had time for them, because we sure have our share of them on our end. The situation’s a little prickly, though, and I imagine you’ll want to get Bulldog and his family out.”
“How do you—” Carolina began to ask.
“Hello, Captain,” Burch said, stepping forward and embracing her. “That’d be part of the story.”
“And how did you get past the Trasp?”
“The answer to all questions is: Either we’re extraordinarily lucky, we’re Trasp ourselves, we know the future, or maybe all of the above.”
“Burch, you said we?” Carolina asked. “Who’s flying the ship?”
“Who else? Only the best pilot in the galaxy. Now, we’ve got a plan, but it’s going to require everyone to act fast, be cool, and trust me. I figure you all can handle that much?”
“That’s what we do,” Sōsh said. “Just give the orders, boss.”
The Crew of the Yankee-Chaos quickly said their goodbyes to the Hernans, with the longest goodbye including a list of instructions from Ren to Medua on Hosmin’s continued care, followed by a long bear hug. When the young mother released Ren, Burch led the way back to the Yankee-Chaos.
Once aboard, Burch and Carolina stood at the head of the table while the others got settled in the Atrium. Burch was clear. Everyone needed to be cool. Whatever happened, they couldn’t make the first move no matter what. He made Sōsh and Transom promise.
“This guy I don’t know,” Burch said, eyeing Fieldstone. “Etteran too, by the sound of you? Can you be cool?”
“Cooler than those two,” Fields said, gesturing toward Sōsh and Transom.
“That’s not a high bar when it comes to the Trasp,” Burch said, “but I’ll take it. What about you, Draya, was it?”
“That’s right, Burch. We’ve heard some fun stories about you.”
“I’m sure you have. Is the next story they tell about this crew going to involve you being calm in the next fifteen minutes, Draya?”
“You know I’m the coolest one here.”
“Damn, it’s good to see you all,” Burch said, smiling. “Okay, strap in, everybody. Ship?”
“Is she on the flight deck?” Ren asked. “Or is she back in the ship?”
“I’m right here,” Rishi stated, stepping into the Atrium. “Hi, everybody. I can’t wait to catch up with you all. I just wanted to warn you to hold tight. I need to make this a bit of a rough ride. It’s all for show, though. Don’t worry.”
Rishi and Burch retreated to the flight deck as Carolina sat at the head of the table and strapped in, winking to Bulldog, who was seated at the other end of the table, quietly taking in the scene.
“What do you think, old man?” Transom asked, grinning.
“I’m still skeptical,” the old Etteran war chief answered. “But we lack better options to be sure.”
The ship lifted off in a jump, sputtering upward and lurching. Then it listed to the right as it climbed. Suddenly, the ship dropped, righted itself, and then began to climb again.
“Yankee-Chaos, you’re listing dangerously,” a voice came over the atrium coms channel, patched through by Rishi.
“Is that a fact?” Burch responded. “Could be that’s just how we fly out here, Captain. You know, a little wonky and unconventional.”
“Please set down and await assistance. I’ll send out our technical unit.”
“You know, Captain, I’d much prefer if you came yourself. I’m pretty sure the scans your units ran are responsible for the bug in our telemetry in the first place. It’s causing hell.”
“We’re responsible, Captain Burch? Who knows what state that ship was in when it was abandoned there?”
“It didn’t drop out of the sky, son,” Burch replied. “OSTP, do you have something better to do right now? I’m asking as a friend.”
Transom, Sōsh, and Fieldstone all looked at each other. That call sign was unmistakably Trasp, and here was Burch, asking as a friend.
“Very well, Yankee-Chaos, I’ll be right out. Set her down softly, Helicon, power down your engines and I’ll escort the tech units personally.”
“Many thanks, Captain. We’ll await your approach.”
“Helicon?” Transom said, looking over at Carolina.
She shook her head, shrugging. “Anybody?”
Everyone looked perplexed.
Rishi’s voice came over the comms channel from the flight deck. “We had to fake a malfunction as a pretext to set down over the lava shaft and pick you guys up.”
“I’m confused,” Ren said.
Carolina looked over, sharing an equally confused look with the doctor. “Trust Burch and Rishi, I guess?”
“Brace everyone,” Rishi warned. “We’re landing.”
The ship, which had been bouncing, listing, and righting itself, now slowed to a near-hover and suddenly bounced off the ground and thudded to a stop—a hard touch-down.
Burch and Rishi emerged from the flight deck after a moment.
“Okay,” Burch said. “Just so nobody freaks out when it happens, we’re going to have to abduct this Trasp Captain so Rishi can take his place and turn in Bulldog.”
“Touching down, Helicon,” the voice of the Trasp captain echoed through the atrium. “On your three o’clock now. I have two service bots on the way.”
“Waive them off, Omar,” Burch said. “They won’t be needed. I found the source of the problem.”
“Do you still need my assistance?”
“Please. Affirmative.”
“All right. I’ll be right over,” the Trasp Captain replied.
“You’re on a first name basis with the Trasp OC here, Burch?” Transom asked.
“You didn’t tell them?” Rishi asked.
“Didn’t I?” Burch said.
“It wouldn’t seem so, love.”
“Oh, well you tell them. I’ll go let Omar in.”
Burch left the atrium, headed for the rear airlock.
“The Trasp Captain is Omar Jemeis,” Rishi said. “He’s Leda’s younger brother.”
“Leda’s brother?” Ren said, wide-eyed.
“What are the odds of that?” Sōsh said.
Rishi shook her head. “Yeah, not good. Impossibly small actually. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but we figured Nilius must’ve had something to do with that.”
“Nilius?” Carolina said. “Rishi, what the hell is going on?”
“Do you two have any idea of the forces you’re meddling with?” the voice of the old Etteran war chief bellowed.
“Far better than you, I’d wager. Now shut it and be a good Bulldog, and you can take it up with him yourself in a couple days.”
Burch’s voice could be heard echoing into the atrium from the back of the ship.
“Shh,” Rishi insisted staring over at Transom and Sōsh. “Just, nobody touches Omar or they deal with me.”
“I don’t even know who to start killing,” Transom said under his breath.
Carolina shot Transom an angry look just as Burch stepped back into the atrium. Beside him was Omar Jemeis.
Omar’s face immediately went blank when he saw the collection of people there staring back at him. He looked over at Burch.
“You picked up a few passengers I see, Captain Burch.”
Omar began to step around the table, examining each face. He was clearly surprised if not outright shocked by the large company assembled in the Yankee-Chaos’s atrium.
“You have our target,” Omar said, staring at the old Etteran war chief at the end of the table.
Burch flashed Omar a reassuring look. “Yeah, I’m not sure how much Aida has told you—”
“Oh, quite a bit,” Omar said, taking a deep breath as he examined the room, looking up at the atrium window and then back down at the table. “I’ve heard some tales of this crew that were difficult to believe.”
“All true,” Burch said. “I think. They were good, right?”
Omar smiled. “What’s the angle here, Burch? I have enough metal hovering over this planet to turn this situation very nasty very fast.”
“You don’t want that, though. Not for yourself. Not for Aida’s friends.”
“Were you harboring my target, Helicon?”
“No. Just trying to exfiltrate him. And to keep the Protectorate from killing all my friends here.”
“Are you planning on holding me hostage, Captain Burch?”
“Call it an invitation, Omar. I put my life in your hands once before and you rewarded my trust. Allow me to repay you in kind.”
“I do have a duty here, though. The Protectorate intends to interrogate that man.” Omar fixed his gaze on Bulldog Hernan.
“You aren’t exactly in a good position to press the issue.”
“Point stipulated,” Omar stated, his eyes settling on Transom’s as he circled the table. “How to untangle this knot you’ve tied us in, though, Helicon?”
“You come with us of your own free will, our guest, and Rishi turns over Bulldog to your division.”
“And why would they not shoot her to a thousand pieces on sight?”
“Did Aida tell you that story?” Rishi asked, stepping toward Omar. “I can take your shape.”
“She mentioned that …” Omar stepped back as Rishi got within arm’s reach. “Oh? You can take my shape?”
Rishi nodded. “Is it okay?”
Omar didn’t protest, neither stepping forward nor avoiding Rishi’s hand as she reached up to touch his face. She slowly began to grow taller, her hair and skin gradually growing darker as her features broadened and began to resemble Omar Jemeis.
“Whoa,” Ren stated. “That is freaky.”
Omar stared back at himself in disbelief. “That’s me?”
“No, it’s me,” Rishi said back in his own voice.
“I’m with you, doctor,” Omar said. “Whoa.”
“Rishi’s going to take him in,” Burch stated. “I think it might be best if you called it in first, though. Then, we’d sure appreciate it if you got all that metal off our heads, Omar.”
“And then what, Burch?”
“Then you come with us for a bit.”
“How long is she going to impersonate me?”
“Not long,” Burch said. “Probably not that long at all.”
Omar looked at Rishi again, then down at everyone seated at the atrium table.
“Well, Aida wasn’t lying,” Omar said, shaking his head. “You people really are crazy.”
“Come on, Bulldog,” Rishi said turning toward the end of the table.
“Woof woof,” the old man stated as he stood.
“Welcome to the family, Omar,” Burch stated.
“See you soon, love,” Rishi said, drawing funny looks as everyone processed the dissonance of Rishi’s voice escaping that second Omar’s mouth.
“I’ll bet this was not how you saw your day going?” Carolina asked him.
Omar turned, seeming to notice her for the first time.
“Us too, if it’s any consolation.”
“You’re Carolina Dreeson. And yes. I mean no.” He put his hand to his chest. “Omar Jemeis, pleasure to meet you.”
He seemed to stand there in shock and disbelief for a moment before suddenly, Sōsh burst into laughter at the befuddled sight of him.
“Welcome to the Yankee-Chaos, Omar,” Burch said. “I’d tell you it’ll get easier to make sense of things around here, but I’m still waiting for that to kick in myself.”
“So what the hell have you been up to, Burch?” Transom asked.
“Cage fighting. Wizard wrangling. Pissing off a race of super-intelligent AIs two million years in the future. I heard you went to Athos.”
As Rishi and Bulldog made their way to Omar’s ship, the crew listened in as Omar relayed his capture of Akop Hernan back to his division. It was a very small contingent of human officers—two lieutenants with four fleet operators and tactical ground directors apiece working under them. They were all young and inexperienced.
Omar gave the command to recall the drones and strikers, to make an ordered tactical extraction of all Trasp assets, and to bring Akop Hernan back to Protectorate space. Then Rishi pulled his comms line.
“I suppose, at the very least, I won’t be accounted a traitor,” Omar said once he’d signed off, “and my doppelganger will get credit for capturing our target.”
The comment was met by a long silence. Omar, who had taken Bulldog’s seat at the end of the atrium table, looked around as the crew exchanged looks. “What?”
“Yeah, sorry, Omar,” Ren said. “That was never happening. You’re going to let that old man and his family go.”
“I don’t understand. That was not Akop Hernan with Rishi just now?”
“That was Maícon Prime,” Carolina stated. “We’d ask your patience, Captain Jemeis. I’m sure if you’ve heard your sister’s stories, you’re aware you’ve just taken your first steps down a deep a rabbit hole.”
Burch stepped back into the Atrium. He’d been poking around in the back at Rishi’s direction, getting the ship ready for takeoff again.
“I’ve never once seen a rabbit down this hole yet,” Burch said. “Hang on everyone. We’ll be taking off in a minute.”
“Who’s flying this bucket?” Transom asked. “You’re no pilot, Burch.”
“Rishi programmed the autopilot. Plus we figured you and your Etteran friend could step up in a pinch if need be.”
“I’m a pilot too,” Draya added.
“Great. Three pilots.”
“Where are we headed, Burch?” Carolina asked.
“Tau-Nira.”
“What’s out there?” Ren asked.
“Maybe about a million more questions. How about you all just sit tight or we’ll never get there.”
Carolina smiled, turning her head back toward the group gathered at the table. Burch headed toward the flight deck.
“How’s Leda?” Ren asked Omar before catching herself. “Your sister.”
The ship hummed and slowly began to rise and then accelerate.
“It was quite an adjustment for her at first,” he replied once the hum of the engines steadied. “Helicon could tell you all about that.”
“Helicon?” Carolina asked.
“That is Captain Burch’s name, isn’t it?”
Transom and Sōsh started laughing.
“It’s Hale, actually,” Ren stated.
“Ah,” Omar said. “A cover ID for the Protectorate. Good to know.”
“What kind of a name is Helicon?” Ren asked.
“A Trasp name,” Transom barked, his eyes heavy on Omar’s uniform.
“Your sister,” Ren said, trying to break the tension. “How’s she doing? We miss her.”
“She misses you. Truth be told, my sister never came home, doctor. Your Leda did. That was very hard for me. She was the person you know, only she wasn’t ours anymore if that makes sense. When she returned to us, she had changed.”
“How so?”
“Aida was a fighter, a tremendous fighter with an unconquerable spirit. When we were children, I adored that about her. And when she joined the military, that natural spirit in her was charged, singularly focused toward that aim, to the Protectorate, to victory. It wasn’t obligatory or part of the duty of her vows, as it is with so many of us, so many of yours I imagine, too,” Omar looked down the other end of the table toward Fieldstone and Transom. “Aida Jemeis meant it.”
“And when she came back?”
“She hated the Protectorate. She was angry and cynical. What she told me of her injuries was difficult to hear, doctor.”
“I met her after her recovery, but I had her records forwarded from Tressia and the Semmistratum.” Ren shook her head. “She should have died many times over.”
“That’s Aida,” Omar said, taking a deep breath. “Burnt to her bones, her identity erased, her face entirely reconstructed, but at her core, the fighter was still there. And I thought, ‘Oh, she just has it all wrong. Aida hates the Protectorate today because for years she’d believed we were the ones who’d hit Kendry, who’d done that to her.’ In my mind, I believed that if I convinced Aida of the reality that it was the Etterans who’d destroyed Kendry, had burned her flesh and taken her memory, then I’d get my sister back. Maybe she wouldn’t remember everything again, but at least she would be able to identify with us, be on the right side again.
“So I showed my sister the mission reports, the intelligence briefings, even the public-facing news reports of what had happened—all of it proving beyond any doubt that Etterus was responsible for her injuries.
“She said, ‘Omar, you just don’t get it. I hope someday you will. The war will never be over for me until the very idea of using a nuke on the heads of human beings becomes impossible to fathom to all of humanity—Trasp, Etteran, or anybody else.’
“So you see, the Aida Jemeis I knew from our childhood never came home. But I do believe my sister did, after all, that last piece of her, that fight. It’s still in her. That’s how Leda is doing, doctor. And I am so very grateful to all of you for the role you played in helping her recover.”
Carolina smiled. “I think she’d be proud of what you’ve done today, Omar.”
“No, I don’t think so, Ms. Dreeson, respectfully. Not yet.”
Omar glared over at Transom.
“Do you know what we call him, that man sitting beside you, Ms. Dreeson? Major Sebastian Pollack is his real name, if memory serves me correctly?”
“It does,” Transom stated.
“What do the Trasp call him?” Carolina asked. “I don’t know.”
“We just usually shout, hey asshole,” Sōsh joked, trying to ease the tension a little.
“We call him the Etteran Reaper,” Omar said. “I bet he doesn’t even know how many people in this very uniform he’s killed, wearing these colors.”
Omar pointed to his chest.
“A lot,” Transom said without a hint of regret in his tone or his face. “Far too many to count.”
“When my sister told me she met you, I had a hard time believing that my Aida had met this man from all the stories and had lived to tell about it. You think, maybe these war stories all get blown out of proportion, exaggerated, filled with hyperbole, so I suggested as much to her, and she says, ‘No, Omar, the stories about him—the Reaper—they’re real.’”
“They are,” Transom agreed. “Probably most of them are.”
“Then she told me her story about you, Sebastian, that you stood toe-to-toe with the most notorious terrorist in the Battery, and while taking bolts, you kicked her clean out of the line of fire, probably saving her life.”
“There’s no probably about it,” Transom answered. “The doctor sitting beside you, Burch, Rishi, Sōsh, your sister—they’ve all saved me one way or another. It’s what you do for someone in your unit.”
“It’s no small thing,” Omar said, shaking his head. “Not for me. When the flight settles and the belts come off, it would be my honor to shake your hand, Major, for the part you played in bringing my sister back home.”
Transom glared back at Omar, and for a good five seconds of silence he appeared to be deeply considering the proposition, a handshake with a Trasp captain.
“All right,” he said. “We can do that much for Leda. I just have one condition, Jemeis. The second you take off that Trasp red, I too would be honored to shake your hand.”