Of Fire and Night (38 page)

95

CONRAD BRINDLE

T
he large scout ship approached Qronha 3. It was similar to the military craft he flew many decades ago as an EDF pilot, able to accommodate a pilot and up to seven passengers. The passenger compartment was empty now, but Conrad Brindle hoped he could fill it, if he found any survivors from the rammers.

He had served in the Earth Defense Forces for most of his life, as had his wife Natalie. As had Robb. They had been so proud of their son when he joined the EDF, when he qualified as a Remora pilot, when he was promoted to wing commander.

And then the drogues had killed him.

Robb was always eager to jump before considering the consequences. Sometimes that was a good tactic; other times, it only made one into cannon fodder. Robb had perished along with many of his comrades at the battle of Osquivel. Conrad wished he could have bidden his son farewell before he climbed aboard the encounter vessel and dropped into the thick clouds in a last attempt to communicate with the drogues. The glorious gamble had failed.

Times had changed dramatically since then. Because of the emergency troop recall, Conrad wore a lieutenant’s uniform again. Years ago, he and Natalie had retired, but once the hydrogue war started, their commissions were reactivated. For a while, the couple oversaw training exercises at a boot camp in Antarctica, but after the recent compy revolt, desperation forced the EDF to put reactivated troops on frontline duty. Natalie now served aboard a Manta patrolling the Earth system.

Despite his age, Conrad was still perfectly able to perform missions such as this one. His reactions were as good as always, unless he found himself in an active dogfight. And, dammit, he wanted to do something. Since he could fly a scout ship—and, off the record, he was too rusty to keep up with the younger troops in furious combat—Conrad had been ordered to recon Qronha 3. Were the missing rammers hiding here, or had they flown off to another part of the Spiral Arm? Admiral Stromo’s Manta had been lost during the compy uprising, and the unresolved mystery pained the EDF like an open wound. Even a negative answer was an answer.

Commander Tasia Tamblyn, Robb’s friend—perhaps even his lover?—had disappeared along with the sixty rammers. As Conrad flew alone, surrounded by the emptiness of space, he recalled Tasia with mixed feelings; he and Natalie had met her only once, when the Roamer girl came to the Antarctic training base. Conrad remembered receiving their visitor that day in a domed shelter that overlooked the white wasteland. Tasia had stood ramrod straight, face pale, bearing a heavy burden that did not get any lighter by sharing it. Stiff and formal in her best dress uniform, she had personally delivered the news about Robb’s death. It had been the worst day in Conrad Brindle’s life.

Later, he and Natalie had joined former Chairman Maureen Fitzpatrick on an expedition to establish an Osquivel memorial, where they had unexpectedly found a Roamer base and rescued thirty EDF survivors. Unfortunately, Robb had not been among them, not that Conrad had expected him to be. Hope was an important part of a soldier’s personality, but pragmatism counted for more.

As he flew close to the gas giant now, Conrad saw nothing beyond the dizzying vertigo of clouds, swirling storms, plumes and bands. He knew it was all a smokescreen for the murderous drogues and their warglobes. He hoped this scout was not large enough to warrant their notice.

He tuned his transceivers to the special frequency the Hansa had provided, activated boosters, pumped up the gain, and listened. Apparently, a spy camera was hidden somewhere among the rammers. If the big ships had been hijacked instead of destroyed, the surveillance imager might still be able to transmit, and he could switch it from passive to active. Admiral Stromo had picked up something; maybe Conrad could do the same.

Static filled his tiny cockpit comm screens as he began to receive fragments of a signal. Alert for warglobes, Conrad descended into a tighter orbit, searching for a stronger transmission. The viewscreen finally resolved into clear images . . . unbelievable images.

Humans! And they were down there—hidden, imprisoned?—deep within Qronha 3. What was the enemy doing to them? As the resolution increased, Conrad used image-clarification algorithms to sharpen the picture. Astonished, he recognized one of the haggard-looking figures inside the planet as none other than Tasia Tamblyn. But she had been aboard the rammers—how could she be down there in the clouds? Had the hydrogues taken her prisoner?

The view shifted, and Conrad gasped. A father would never forget the face of his son, though years of captivity had made him haggard and gaunt. Robb was alive!

He could barely contain his excitement. He wanted to shout to Robb and let him know that they would find some way to rescue him.

Two warglobes emerged from the clouds, accelerating toward him. He had been spotted! As the diamond spheres shot upward, Conrad scrambled with the scout’s controls. His heart pounded. He had to get out of here, report to Earth, convince the EDF to send a rescue mission. His small vessel was unarmed. He had no option but to run. Reversing trajectory, he streaked away.

As Conrad retreated, he was surprised to see a Manta cruiser moving toward him from interplanetary space. For a moment he thought reinforcements had come to help him—maybe they could rescue Robb!—but an ominous message broadcast on a standard EDF frequency: “Scout ship, stand down. You are our prisoner.”

Conrad spotted the insignia, scanned the ID numbers, and realized that this was Admiral Stromo’s Manta—the one hijacked by Soldier compies. He veered away in a hard one-eighty that nearly made him lose consciousness, or at least lose his lunch. Then he goosed the scout’s engines and shot out of Qronha 3’s gravity well.

The warglobes ascended in pursuit, gaining on him. Blue lightning crackled from the pyramidal protrusions. Remembering exercises from when he was a young soldier, Conrad dipped and circled, dove back toward the planetary clouds in a porpoising maneuver.

The huge warglobes could not adjust their courses so easily. Conrad reached the far side of the planet as Stromo’s stolen Manta closed in. Jazer blasts ripped through space, missing him by such a narrow margin that the static discharge overloaded the scout’s secondary systems. Now he wished he had a smaller, faster ship.

Throwing caution to the winds, Conrad powered up the Ildiran stardrive even before he was safely out of the system. As he accelerated, another blast from the Manta’s weapons damaged his engines. Stuttering away to safety, Conrad lurched off course and engaged the stardrive.

The warglobes and the turncoat Manta closed in on the spot in space where his ship had been. Too late.

96

TASIA TAMBLYN

E
ven constant terror could be mitigated by sheer tedium. How in the world had Robb endured years of this?

After an uncountable number of days trapped within Qronha 3, Tasia found the monotony maddening. They couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t plan anything, couldn’t imagine even a crazy chance of escape. They exercised, told stories (many times over), and devised games with what little they had. Mostly, though, they just sat together, minute after minute after minute. She was surprised the captives hadn’t killed each other even faster than the drogues had.

Worse than boredom, though, was when something
did
happen.

A Klikiss robot plunged its beetlelike body through the membrane wall like a rogue asteroid. Smith Keffa squirmed away, crying out in abject fear. The alien machine lumbered forward with a stormy sense of urgency and focused its red optical sensors on EA. “You are a spy.”

The suggestion was so unexpected and absurd that Tasia actually burst into laughter. “And you’re a deranged can opener.”

The robot droned, “This compy has transmitted information about our activities here. We can no longer permit this.”

Though baffled by the nightmarish situation, Tasia moved protectively next to her compy. “How can EA possibly be a spy? Who would she communicate with?” Robb grabbed her arm to pull her away, but she shook him off.

The Klikiss robot paused as if considering whether it should bother to answer the question. “We now understand the anomalies we previously detected. Microscopic surveillance apparatus was cleverly implanted within innocuous circuitry. We presume that data acquisition was previously passive, but now it has become active.”

“That’s . . . ridiculous.” Tasia’s voice trailed off as pieces fit together in her mind. Her superior officers had pleaded ignorance as to what had damaged EA, claiming they had simply found the compy with her memory wiped. But they had given Tasia plenty of reason for distrust, and she certainly wouldn’t put it past them to install a spying device in EA.

“A human scout ship tapped into this signal and acquired information about the hydrogue citysphere in Qronha 3,” the robot continued. “Therefore, your Listener compy is a threat to us.”

“That conclusion could be correct,” EA said. “After my memory was wiped, something was planted inside me, like a parasite that I could not identify. I expect it was some sort of extremely low-level recorder-transponder, masked by white noise and scrambled. Supposedly undetectable except with specific equipment.”

Tasia stepped between the looming black machine and the compy, thrusting her chin forward. “It doesn’t matter. If the EDF installed surveillance, their purpose was never to gather information about hydrogues or Klikiss robots. They did it to spy on
me
.” She flashed a hard glance at Robb. “Probably hoping I would reveal the names or locations of Roamer outposts. Bastards!”

The robot was unimpressed. “We cannot allow it to continue.” An articulated arm shot out from the black exoskeleton and seized EA’s silvery arm with a clawed hand. “By removing the spy, we remove the threat.”

Tasia grabbed the compy’s other arm in a tug-of-war. “No! She’s my compy. EA is—”

“Do not allow yourself to be injured on my account, Tasia Tamblyn,” EA insisted in a voice that sounded calm, even resigned.

Not listening, Tasia tried to pull her compy free, but the Klikiss robot knocked her sprawling with another powerful mechanical arm. Robb rushed to her side and helped her up, but her mind had only one focus. “EA!”

“We hate our Klikiss creators for what they did to us,” the robot droned. “However, their methods of torturing us for their own entertainment are quite applicable to our dealings with other betrayers. We learned much from them. We learned to enjoy inflicting pain, on both a large and small scale.”

“Maybe we can disable the spying function!” Robb suggested.

The black robot dragged EA away. “We will disable it. Permanently.”

The compy turned her head and looked directly at Tasia with flickering optical sensors. “I was unaware of this until now. I do not remember. I did not intend to betray you, Tasia Tamblyn.”

“Of course you didn’t!” Tasia lunged one last time for EA, but she could not get a grip on the slippery polymer skin. “Leave her alone!”

The little compy could not resist as the Klikiss robot pulled her through the membrane into the extreme high-pressure environment of the hydrogue citysphere. The captives peered through the transparent membrane in horrified anticipation.

“At least they didn’t take one of us,” Keffa moaned. “They just wanted the compy. At least the robot didn’t touch us!”

“Shut up!” Tasia cried.

“We’ve seen them take humans for experiments before,” Keffa continued. “They slice and cut and torture!”

A woman named Belinda seemed frantic. “What are they going to do with the compy? That poor compy—”

As if emerging from pools of congealing lead, six hydrogues took humanoid forms. They looked exactly—excruciatingly—like her lost brother Ross. From media footage, Tasia knew the drogues usually manifested themselves as her brother, for some incomprehensible reason. The emissary that killed Old King Frederick had looked just like Ross. All of these here in the citysphere did the same whenever they chose to mimic a human form. Tasia felt ready to explode. The drogues had killed Ross, destroyed his skymine—that was what drove her into joining the EDF in the first place.

Hateful bastards!
Why would they bother taking a human shape deep in their own environment? Did it somehow enhance their observation of the prisoners? Was it part of their experiments? Two more Klikiss robots marched in from curved and angled walkways. Something was going to happen.

“Stop it!” Tasia screamed at the black robot through the gelatinous wall. “Bring EA back!”

The little compy stood like a convicted prisoner before an executioner. While the quicksilver hydrogues watched with expressionless yet hauntingly familiar faces, the three robots surrounded EA. Clearly unable to escape, the compy did not even try to struggle.

Each Klikiss robot extended a full set of sharp arms tipped with wicked-looking implements. Together, they grasped the small arms, turned EA as if determining the best approach. Then, in a flurry of articulated limbs, they sliced and tore open her silvery polymer skin.

Pressed against the translucent wall, Tasia watched in horror. She screamed. Robb put his arms around her, but she couldn’t feel him.

EA turned her head, and Tasia got a last glimpse of golden optical sensors. The Klikiss robots continued their work, rapidly and efficiently dismantling the helpless compy. Her limbs, her body core, her head, her internal circuitry, the governing boards and mobile sensors, were all stripped from her alloy bones and crushed beyond recognition. Within moments, nothing remained except a clutter of discarded components.

Wearing identical, unchangeable expressions, the Ross-hydrogues dissolved and flowed away. The Klikiss robots also departed, leaving the scraps of EA in full view as if to push the remaining captives closer toward total despair.

97

JESS TAMBLYN

A
s Jess approached Theroc in his water-and-pearl ship, he saw that a bizarre gargantuan
forest
had somehow sprung up in orbit. More than a hundred gigantic treeships stood sentry high above the atmosphere like colossal guard dogs with spiked collars. Thorny boughs were spread to drink the unfiltered sunlight pouring onto the dayside.

When he saw the verdani battleships, Jess understood exactly why the wentals had sent him here. Incredible armies were gathering. Inside the water-and-pearl ship and in his very blood, Jess could feel the water creatures singing. The pull was like a riptide.

The energized comet had already drenched the ground, reinforced the wounded trees, and spread through conduits of the worldforest, the roots and soil. From his strange vessel, Jess could sense the isolated moisture drawing together like gathering thunderclouds. Ready for war.

At the fringes of the atmosphere, the mammoth many-branched trees drifted aside, allowing Jess’s vessel to pass unhindered. The elemental creatures sensed each other, remembered past battles in which both races had nearly been eradicated. By facing their common enemy together, they were far stronger. Yet this was more than a mere alliance; this was elemental synergy.

Jess had come here to facilitate that bond.

His vessel descended through the atmosphere, touching cumulus clouds whose fresh moisture rejuvenated the wentals. Below, the once-verdant landscape was healing. Blackened scars from the hydrogue attacks were flushed with fresh green.

The interlocked worldforest canopy swayed, and a whisper of voices like rustling leaves joined the constant buzz of wental thoughts inside his head. Boughs swept past him as he descended into the regrown treetops, finding open passages through the tall dense forest. His spherical vessel touched down in a clearing near the main human settlement, where a dozen more towering verdani battleships stretched sharp branches to the top of the sky.

Emerging through the soap-bubble wall, Jess could feel electricity in the air: a life, an energy, an anticipation. Under the overarching worldtrees, people came forward. Seeing the Therons and emerald-skinned green priests hurrying to greet him, he held up his hands in warning. “Please keep a safe distance.” He looked at the faces staring at him, then added, “I represent the wentals.”

Jess felt an unnatural stir within him, a signal from the trees. An animated sculpture walked forward—a perfect replica of a man, moving with all the grace of a living human despite his wood-grained skin. “And I am Beneto. Of the verdani.”

The golem appraised him, then reached out. Before Jess could draw away, Beneto clasped his hand and squeezed. Expecting a disastrous discharge of deadly energy, Jess flinched, tried to call a warning. But the wentals within him did not harm the strange wooden man. Instead, they found a kindred spirit.

Beneto’s hard lips curved in a smile. “We were expecting you. Together we will create a new navy.”