Scattered Suns (51 page)

Chapter 108—JESS TAMBLYN

Jess did not bother using standard human coordinates or Ildiran starmaps to find Jonah 12...or Cesca. With his mind connected to the wentals, he simply homed in on Nikko Chan Tylar’s ship. He could sense they were all in terrible danger. Hurt badly...perhaps dying.

His water-and-pearl ship soon arrived at the far-flung planetoid. With vision magnified through the curvature of his water-membrane spacecraft, he stared in sick disbelief at a wide, simmering crater that glowed with residual radioactivity after an immense explosion.

Spiderweb cracks spread out through the frozen crust, as if the planetoid itself had nearly shattered. Vaporized methane snow roared up from the surrounding crater, forming an immense anvil-shaped thunderhead that dissipated into the vacuum. It looked as if an asteroid or a comet had slammed into the base. Jess thought of his strange wental-impregnated comet, but sensed that it was on a mission of its own, flying to its chosen destination. This had been caused by something else.

If that had been the Roamer base, nothing could have survived down there. “Oh, Cesca...” More words refused to come. Emotions welled up inside of him like a geyser forced up from beneath the ice sheet on Plumas. So many dreams, so many feelings, all of them unspoken...all of them too late.

Then he stretched his thoughts out through the water entities—and was astonished when they connected with the wental specimens aboard Nikko’s ship, the
Aquarius
. At first he thought the liquid creatures had somehow survived in the frozen environment, perhaps infusing the ice of Jonah 12 as they had in the wandering comet...but then he received direct images through his mind’s eye. Nikko’s ship had crashed, but the wental samples were intact.
Aquarius
retained part of its integrity...and Nikko and Cesca were still alive!

Jess dodged the huge cloud of ice and gases and cruised over the destroyed landscape until he found the dying ship crumpled on an icy plain. A long gouge showed that the
Aquarius
had crashed, skidded, and rolled. Pieces of the hull and mangled engine components lay strewn behind where the ship had finally ground to a halt. The hull of the
Aquarius
had ruptured, opening several compartments to the cold vacuum, but the main piloting chamber was intact.

Although Jess was stunned by the extent of the damage, the wentals reassured him that two passengers clung to life. Through the specimens inside the
Aquarius,
he heard Nikko speaking to Cesca. “It’s Jess Tamblyn. He’s come for us.”

Cesca said weakly, “I knew he would.” The words seemed to take every last scrap of her energy. She’d been thrown like a discarded doll when the spacecraft tumbled and rolled. Jess could feel that she was badly hurt, broken inside, bleeding internally, but the wentals did not understand her physiology.

Of more immediate importance, the two survivors didn’t have much air left—and in his water-filled wental ship, Jess didn’t know what he could do. He brought his spherical vessel over the crash site. “Find me a solution,” he demanded of the interconnected water entities. “Can I repair the
Aquarius
? Can I take the two humans to safety aboard this ship?”

You can take the whole spacecraft. We will show you how.

Cesca had lost consciousness, her skin gray with cold, blood running from her nose; Nikko huddled beside her in the only intact space within their ship, gasping in the last few wisps of air. In the large coral-frameworked vessel, Jess hovered like a full moon just above the wreck. Nikko shouted questions to the wental samples, but his connection with the entities wasn’t clear enough for him to pick up specific words. Though he seemed to partially understand what Jess intended to do, the young man didn’t believe it.

Gently, Jess settled the sphere down on top of the crashed
Aquarius
. The flexible membrane that formed the outer surface of the wental ship puckered and folded. The sphere enveloped the smashed Roamer vessel and drew it entirely inside the bubble. When all the seals had closed over once more, Jess lifted his alien vessel from the surface with the
Aquarius
inside the watery globe, like a rare specimen in an aquarium.

Dressed in his pearlescent garment, Jess swam through the interior of his ship and drifted around the scarred and blackened hull of Nikko’s ship. The other wentals were delighted to be reunited with the rest of the liquid entity.

Inside the microcosm of an alien ocean next to Jess, tiny creatures—from planktons to minuscule shellfish, rippling worms, and protoplasmic jelly creatures—drew together, attracted to the wreck of the
Aquarius,
as if it were a new reef they could call their home. Guided by Jess’s thoughts, they had a task to do.

Barnacles attached to the broken sections of hull. Microorganisms drew minerals dissolved in the seawater while others spun threads out of the framework of the wental vessel. Membranes folded over the gaps torn in the hull, separating oxygen from the water and allowing it to bleed into the sheltered compartment. The tiny oceanic army set to work on the
Aquarius,
rebuilding and modifying it.

Trapped inside the vessel, Nikko gaped at the furious activity bubbling around them. But he was obviously breathing easier now. Cesca, though, had not stirred. She had passed into a deep unconsciousness.

Submerged in the amniotic water, Jess stared at Cesca through the curved, transparent window. Soon the wentals would make it possible for him to enter the
Aquarius,
but for now he drifted on the other side of the barrier.

Nikko stared out at him, still holding Cesca. He touched her forehead, took her pulse, and looked back at Jess, distraught. “She’s dying, I think!” he shouted.

In the water outside, Jess placed his hands against the window, once again close but separated from his love. With burning urgency, he sent a command to the sea creatures and the wentals to hurry. Hurry!

Chapter 109—TASIA TAMBLYN

With the hydrogue warglobes swarming around them, the tension reached its peak, and Tasia felt as if her heart would explode. All of the dunsel human commanders had already issued the order.

Sixty rammers would charge with concentrated EDF weapons blazing before the final flash of deadly impact. Grinning with long-anticipated satisfaction, Tasia gripped the arms of the command chair, ready to sprint for the evac pod as soon as the rammers lurched forward.

But the Soldier compies did not respond.

“Rammers, full forward!” she repeated after a brief hesitation. “Engines primed for overload. Come on, you won’t have any trouble finding targets.”

It took Tasia less than a second to realize that something was terribly wrong. The compies just stood there. “Launch, dammit! Fire all weapons and begin full acceleration. Attack the hydrogues!” Now she noticed that none of the sixty rammers had moved forward. Not one.

All of the Soldier compies on her bridge turned from their stations. One spoke. “No.”

Since her veins were on fire with adrenaline and her attention focused on the enemy warglobes in front of her, Tasia did not immediately absorb what the compy had just said. “What?” Until now, she hadn’t realized the Soldier compies could speak of their own volition.

Implacable, the compies stood quietly in position, optical sensors turned toward her. They seemed to be having thoughts of their own, which was absurd for an obedient military-model machine. Of all the ridiculous times for a malfunction!

“Didn’t you hear me? I said full forward! Ramming speed. Go, go! Get the weapons—”

The nearest Soldier compy cut her off. “These battleships are now forfeit to us. All of them.”

Tasia studied the robots, and as they stared back, her gut turned colder than the oceans of Plumas. “Shizz, what the hell are you talking about?” She felt totally alone staring out at a sea of alien robotic eyes. “Shut down! That’s a direct command—all of you, shut down!”

Ignoring her, the military compies began to move about, operating their stations and activating communications signals. She heard them send buzzing messages. Tasia turned to the Listener compy. “EA, what are they sending? Tell me what’s going on!”

The little compy paused to eavesdrop on the message. “They are transmitting directly to the hydrogues.” She paused to consider her own words. “That is most unexpected.”

Soldier compies talking to hydrogues? What the hell?
“You’ve got to be kidding me! Using my comm systems? We could never communicate with the drogues before.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Master Tasia. If the new memory files you gave me are accurate, the hydrogues simply never responded before. That does not mean they couldn’t communicate.”

“Then what the hell are they saying?” She held out a desperate, but ridiculous, hope that the Soldier compies might be negotiating some sort of cease-fire, an end to hostilities. “Tell me it’s good news, EA.”

“I’m afraid it is not, Master Tasia.”

One of the other dunsel humans—it sounded like Darby Vinh—shouted over the comm system, “These damned compies have taken over! They’re—” His words cut off with a squawk and a wet-sounding noise.

Ignoring the man’s alarmed transmission, EA continued reporting, “They are using a Klikiss robot language. The message states that our Soldier compies are in the process of taking control of all sixty EDF ships.” EA paused again to listen. “I am afraid to say that two of the human commanders have resisted and are now dead.”

Tasia leaped out of her command chair, bristling. If the turncoat Soldier compies controlled all systems aboard every one of the rammers, she could never fight them. This was bigger, much bigger, than her mission here.

Seeing no other way out, Tasia lunged for the evac pod, her only chance to get away. Two of the stocky Soldier compies immediately moved to block the escape hatch. Three more military-model robots stepped toward her, their footfalls heavy on the deck.

Tasia heard a crackle of static on the comm, another brief scream, another panicked human voice, female this time. Then just a quiet hiss.

EA stared from Tasia to the Soldier compies, seemingly as confused as she.

The evac pod seemed impossibly far away, and Tasia’s shoulders sagged as she realized it would have done her no good anyway. “Shizz, if you bastards can take over my bridge in the middle of a battle, you could just as easily blast the pod out of space.” She froze. The ominous Soldier compies did not come closer.

Outside, the massed warglobes hovered above Qronha 3, but didn’t fire a shot, fearing nothing from the rammers. The hydrogues stayed in position, waiting.

Tasia caught her breath as the enormity of the trap became clear. Damn, the drogues had
expected
this turnabout! The destruction of the Hansa and Ildiran cloud harvesters, and this carefully planned EDF response, must have been a setup. The hydrogues, through the Soldier compies, now controlled all sixty of the special rammers.

“Lost the battle before I fired a single shot.” She clenched her jaw. The kamikaze ships hadn’t hit even one warglobe.

And why had all those Ildiran battleships simply turned around and departed as soon as the EDF rammers arrived? “Something here really, really smells. Is there a triple cross going on here?”

Another set of strange vessels—angular metallic constructions that looked like poisonous bugs—rose through the clouds of Qronha 3 and joined smaller hydrogue teardrop scout ships, all of which approached the hostage rammers. As the angular craft prepared to dock with Tasia’s ship, the Soldier compies moved to receive their new masters.

Helpless and trapped on her bridge, Tasia wished she had a sidearm, some way to blow off a few compy heads in a last futile, but satisfying, gesture. Given a little luck, she could have destroyed several of them in a wild last stand—but the sixty rammers held thousands of Soldier models.
Pointless
. Resisting would get her killed, just like the other dunsel human commanders. Or was she just postponing the inevitable? She didn’t see so much as a glimmer from her Guiding Star.

The rammer’s bridge doors opened. The Soldier compies turned slowly, as if mechanically coming to attention. Tasia reeled when she saw three towering Klikiss robots scuttle onto the command deck.

The black robots turned their headplates toward her. They paused for a moment of analysis, as if considering how much trouble she might still cause. The foremost beetlelike machine spoke. “These rammer vessels will not be used against the hydrogues. We have taken possession of them for our own purposes. Your Soldier compies are now loyal to us.”

Chapter 110—DEL KELLUM

By damn, the compies have gone berserk!” Del Kellum stared at the frantic reports that flickered across the control screens. He turned from one emergency to another, confused and enraged at the same time. “What set them off? Did somebody overload their programming with caffeine? Shizz, I can’t believe this! I thought their cores were erased before we put them to work.”

“They were, Del!” one of his assistants said. “Completely wiped.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

One of the smelter supervisors sprinted in as if something was chasing him. He ran so fast in the low gravity that he couldn’t stop himself in time and ricocheted off the wall; he had to scramble to regain his balance. “Del, I’ve got another report! The Soldier compies kept overloading Smelter G until the auto-crucible split open. The entire facility is melting down as we speak!”

“Casualties?”

“Our ten workers managed to get into a couple of grappler pods in time. The whole smelter’s just a hardening globule of slag—including the Soldier compies they left behind.”

Kellum grabbed the smelter supervisor by the front of his embroidered shirt. “Where’s Zhett? Has anybody seen her?”

“I’ve been running from crazy robots and molten metal, Del—”

Kellum went from one station to another. The situation was insane, but he would try his damnedest to get control of it. “Kotto Okiah left yesterday with his crazy doorbells, didn’t he? Two days ago? Maybe he could help our engineers reprogram those compies—or at least shut them down. Can we get him back here in time?”

“No way, Del. He’s halfway to Theroc by now.”

Kellum fumed at the various screens, studying the red flashes and the repeated alarms. “They’re wreaking havoc everywhere!”

One of his assistants studied the reports. “Seems to be only the Soldier models. The other compies haven’t shown any erratic behavior.”

“Thank the Guiding Star for that. But those Soldier compies are equipped for combat. They’re more than we can handle.”

“It’s not only the compies, Dad. It’s the Eddy POWs, too!” Zhett appeared at the doorway, looking extremely shaken up. Her long hair was tangled, her face and hands streaked with grime. Most of all she was flushed with anger. “It’s Fitzpatrick and his cronies—they triggered it.”

Kellum hurried toward her, opening his arms to embrace his daughter. “What happened to you, my sweet?”

She was too furious for a hug. “He tricked me, Dad.” Were those tear tracks on her cheeks?

Kellum tried to smooth her hair. “Explain yourself—but be quick about it.”

She told him how Fitzpatrick had tricked her, then locked her into a cargo storage area. Kellum sensed that she was leaving out significant parts of the story, but his anger was directed toward the EDF detainee.

Zhett sounded more incensed than hurt. “It took me half an hour to reactivate and communicate with the compies outside, so they could cut their way through the door and let me out.” Her nostrils flared. “He stole the cargo escort, Dad. He’s long gone.”

An avalanche of explanations tumbled together in his mind. “The Eddies did this to us? You think it was a
diversion
? Unbelievable! Look at the mayhem, the property damage. Who knows how many casualties they’ve caused!”

“That didn’t stop Fitzpatrick from manipulating me, stealing a ship, and flying away by himself. He left all of his comrades behind. Bastard!”

“Del, look at this!” shouted the smelter supervisor. “It’s getting worse every minute.”

On the screen, a single grappler pod flown by a Soldier compy drove like a missile into a partially constructed cargo vessel in spacedock. The framework girders crumbled and flew apart; the grappler pod’s fuel cell exploded despite all the internal safety systems, as if the Soldier compy had intentionally detonated it. Molten metal sprayed into space, splattering into globules from the overloaded Smelter G.

“Evacuate the spacedock,” Del Kellum said. “Get those workers out of there. Our priority is to get our people to safety.”

“Compies are supposed to have human protective programming,” Zhett said. “It’s ingrained in their core. How could it have gone so completely awry?”

“Ask your Eddy friends,” her father said.

Zhett scanned the screens for hot spots of robotic turmoil. “Could be the Eddies got more than they bargained for, Dad. Their own work crews are right in the middle of those battle zones.”

“Like touching an igniter to rocket fuel. It’s gotten out of their control.” Kellum wanted to strangle them all, one by one. “Even though they deserve it, I’m not going to play favorites. Zhett, go make sure the Eddies get out alive, even if it’s just so we can kill them later if we decide to.”

“Sounds good to me.” She sprinted away.

He pushed the smelter supervisor toward the central console. “Take over for a while. I’m going out there myself. Get a grappler pod ready.”

A short while later, when he finally puttered away from the administrative complex, Kellum felt as if he had entered the crossfire. Soldier compies were smashing everything they could, overloading systems, careening stolen vessels into storage asteroids or even unoccupied rocks in Osquivel’s rings. The military robots didn’t seem to have a plan, or even common sense. Kellum wondered how long the Eddies had been planning this strike. They were more insane than their out-of-control compies!

Zhett led several evac shuttles to the primary assembly platform, where the largest group of EDF captives had been assigned. While the Soldier compies continued their rampage on the assembly platform, she and her rescue team signaled for the Eddies to rush to their open ships. “Get your butts out of there!”

One of the frantic refugees was Kiro Yamane, who looked dazed. “It was a simple programming shift. It wasn’t supposed to do all this. I...I never intended to cause so much havoc. The compies are acting on their own—”

“You people disgust me,” Zhett said. “What were you
thinking
?”

As Kellum raced around his widespread shipyards, connecting the dots from disaster to disaster, he wondered how his clan could ever recover from this. It hadn’t been long since they reassembled everything and got back up to speed after the battle of Osquivel. But this damage was already far worse—and it didn’t look like the bedlam would end anytime soon.

Then, when he didn’t think anything could get worse, Kellum looked beyond the rings to see a cluster of incoming EDF ships on his trajectory scanners. He stared through the windowport of his grappler pod, astonished to discover an escort Manta cruiser and a cluster of smaller diplomatic ships. All of them looked fully armed. Kellum searched in his repertoire for a suitable curse.

An old woman’s scowling face appeared on a transmission screen. Her eyes were hard and sharp, and her voice was as heavy as a blunt club. “This is Maureen Fitzpatrick, former Chairman of the Terran Hanseatic League. Would somebody like to tell me what the hell is going on here?”