The Champion (13 page)

The walls let out the longest sigh yet, a sound of utter exhaustion and exasperation.

“Before you ask, it’s eight kilometers long,” Rosalind said. “That’s
twice
the length of the
Grieve
, around five times its mass. Not only have I been kidnapped, but now we find out the biggest ship in the galaxy isn’t one of ours. Fantastic.”

The sheer scope of the huge vessel started to hit home, particularly as the ships on its hull became recognizable forms. Military cruisers and battleships — considered large in their own regard — were like ants on a log.

Kimberlin pointed to the right.

“I think that’s the
Chan Cheng
,” he said. “I saw it in a documentary about the first League of Planets flotilla to enter Portath space. Those ships entered the Cloud a hundred and fifty years ago and were never heard from again.”

The others started to call out names of ships they recognized from movies, documentaries and famous images. So many ships had gone missing in the Cloud — finally, those ships were found.

Quentin tried to hide his excitement. All of the ships on that massive hull, every last one of them, looked perfectly intact. Still and unmoving, sure, but he saw no superficial damage on any of them.

He looked up and down the impossibly long hull, hoping to see the tiny
Hypatia
. The lines of a ship caught his focus: a Purist Nation destroyer, the
Israfil
. He’d learned about it back in the third grade, one of the few lessons that he’d found interesting. A hundred and forty-five years ago, the
Israfil
had been lost along with seventy-seven other ships that had pursued fleeing Tower vessels into the Cloud.

Bumberpuff pointed a long-fingered arm, down and to the left, at a Prawatt vessel that seemed more giant snake than spaceship.

“That’s Mister Muttonchops,” he said. “I’m sure of it. Muttonchops was a famed adventurer that set out to explore the Portath Cloud around sixty years ago.”

“It can’t be,” Rosalind said. She sounded surprised, delighted and terrified all at the same time. “Mister Muttonchops? Oh, Yahweh, it
is
him.”

Quentin saw John rolling his eyes at Ju. John mouthed the words
Mister Muttonchops
, then circled a finger near his temple:
what a crazy name
. Ju nodded, then quickly snagged a spilling handful of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth.

Ships from every known race, all stuck on the curved hull of an eight-kilometer-long alien vessel. There had to be five hundred of them in plain sight, hundreds more on the vessel’s far side. Could there really be over a thousand warships down there, a mixed-species armada forever frozen in place?

In the spaces where there were no ships, Quentin saw the hull’s polished gleam, so mirror-like that it looked like an identical Rosalind was coming up from inside to meet them.

He felt a gentle hand on his arm; Becca leaned in, spoke quietly.

“Jeanine could still be alive, Q. She could be down there. Have you seen your yacht?”

He shook his head and kept looking.

The view shifted: the ship in front of them seemed to be dropping out of sight — Rosalind was rotating.

“Hold on, everyone,” she said. “Looks like we’re landing. Yay, me — I get to spend eternity as a barnacle.”

The yellow sun came into view. Quentin squinted, held up a hand to block the harsh light. He couldn’t see the bumpy ship anymore, but in all directions, he saw the long, lethal silver shapes of the Portath ships that had first surrounded Rosalind, then escorted her here.

He felt the floor rock beneath him, saw some of his teammates stumble a bit.

Rosalind had just touched down.

14

Welcome Committee

QUENTIN AND THE OTHERS STOOD STILL
for a little while, almost afraid to breathe, waiting for something to happen. They looked out the viewport. Nothing there but the black, gnarled broadside of Mister Muttonchops to the left, and what looked like a Ki freighter to the right.

He and his friends were alive. That was more than Quentin had hoped for when Rosalind had first started calling out the word
contact
. Maybe they could figure out how to stay alive, and maybe Jeanine and Fred had figured out how to do the same.

John reached out to the bridge wall and rapped his knuckles against it, like he was knocking on a door.

SOONER OR LATER, EVERYONE GETS STRANDED ON A BIG-ASS ALIEN THINGEE
scrolled across his face.

“Hey, Rosie,” he said. “Got any hardware stashed in your various cracks and crevices? A gun in the hand is worth a bush with a bird, know what I mean?”

“Somewhere in that rambling bit of nonsense you mentioned the word
gun
” Rosalind said. “If that was your question, the answer is
yes
— I have weapons available.”

Quentin shook his head. “No guns, John.”

John seemed both annoyed and amused. “What are we going to do, Q? Build a campfire and sing some songs?”

Quentin gestured out the viewport bubble at the ships affixed to the huge hull.

“We’re going to do whatever the Portath want us to do,” he said. “Most of the ships we saw were military, full of spacers and armed marines. You know damn well they didn’t just go quietly.”

Kimberlin nodded. “Quentin is correct. If trained soldiers couldn’t escape, we’re not going anywhere unless the Portath let us go. Threatening them with guns — or, worse,
shooting
at them — is not a way to effectively communicate.”

Ju huffed. “Maybe you don’t
communicate
the same way John and I do.”

Quentin felt a sharp vibration roll through the ship’s deck.

“Oh, how nice,” Rosalind said. “My kidnappers have opened the lower hatch.”

John again rapped his knuckles on the bulkhead.

“Rosie! Gimme them guns! Now!”

“Dammit, John,
no
,” Quentin said. “We still have a chance to live through this.”

John pursed his lips and glared. He shook a finger at Quentin.

“You better hope you’re right about this,” John said. “Because if we all die? I’m gonna be
super
mad at you.”

“Super-
mega
mad,” Ju said. “And don’t even get me started how Ma is gonna feel if her boys die.”

Rosalind made a throat-clearing sound, which was odd considering she didn’t have a throat.

“While this continued display of intellect is quite riveting, I believe I have been boarded by robotic probes,” she said. “I’d show you, but those shmendriks also shut off my holo capability. If there
is
fighting, I would rather it doesn’t go down on the bridge.”

Bumberpuff strode to the entryway, waving for everyone to follow him.

“I’ll stay here, alone,” he said. “I’ll protect Rosalind, with my life if need be. The bridge is where her brain is, her soul, if you will, so you have to get out. I am sorry, Quentin, but this time I cannot be by your side.”

Quentin understood. He didn’t know what Bumberpuff had promised Rosalind to get her to make this voyage, but she hadn’t owed a thing to Quentin or Jeanine and she’d come anyway. Now she had no control of her own systems, had no way to defend herself — Bumberpuff felt responsible for that.

The Krakens players left the bridge. They carried no weapons, which was a good thing — at least, Quentin
hoped
it was a good thing.

Time to meet their new hosts.

QUENTIN TRIED TO TAKE THE LEAD,
but Kimberlin and the Tweedy brothers would have none of it; they all but pushed him back so they could stand between him and the oncoming unknown danger. Quentin stood side by side with Becca, while Crazy George brought up the rear. Doc Patah hovered just above George, wingtips and backpack almost touching the ceiling.

They walked down Rosalind’s black corridors, their way lit by the chips of light embedded in the gnarled material. The walls expanded to accommodate them just as they had when Quentin and the others had first arrived — since Rosalind wasn’t in control, maybe that was an automatic reaction, like a horse’s muscles rippling to shake off a pesky fly.

“I hear something,” Becca said. “It’s coming this way.”

Quentin heard it, too — a clicking, scraping, scuttling sound, like a horde of insects crawling across rocks.

Everyone wore street clothes, but they were facing this as a team: the Orange and the Black committed to tackling the next foe. Quentin had dragged them all out here, and yet they still circled around him, willing to take on any danger before that danger could reach their quarterback. The concept overwhelmed him, humbled him, made him wonder what he could have possibly done to deserve such selfless loyalty. Were it not for the incoming horde of whatever-the-hell it was, he might have cried.

He had to die someday. If this was that day, he couldn’t have asked for a better send-off.

The crawling sound grew louder.

John cracked his knuckles.

“I hope they have faces,” he said. “I like to punch
faces
, you know? I hate species that don’t have faces. No offense to Bumberpuff.”

Ju rolled his neck to the right, then to the left, the bones inside crunching like dry sticks.

“I prefer knees,” he said. “Nothing like making a knee bend the wrong way.”

The clacking/clattering/scurrying noise grew in intensity, to the point where it sounded like someone was frying a hundred hamburgers just around the corridor bend.

Quentin fought down a wave of fear. This wasn’t a football field, with armor and rules — anything could happen here. He and his friends could be shot down like animals.

Finally, their welcoming committee turned that corner and came into sight.

“
Dad-gummit
,” John said. “They don’t have faces.”

Robots of some kind, small metal spheres with long, thin, three-jointed legs ending in hooks that clung to Rosalind’s textured surfaces. The robots scurried across walls and ceiling and floor, a silvery sludge pouring along the corridor like a milk shake sliding up a straw. Weapons protruded from the front of the spheres: jagged blades, the rounded barrel of a projectile weapon, wavering coils of metal that sparked and flashed.

Quentin took a step back, fought the sudden urge to turn and run — there was nowhere to go. The tactical part of his brain kicked in; he looked for weaknesses, for the best way to attack the oncoming horde, but there were
hundreds
of them, their paths crisscrossing in front of and behind each other so fast he couldn’t make out one individual from the pack.

Just a meter away, and as one, the robots froze in place — a sprawling, noisy oncoming mass one second, so still and silent the next they might have been sculptures that had been there all along.

Quentin and his friends didn’t move, were almost as still as the machines.

The scuttling sound started up again, but not as intense as before, not as loud. At the bend in Rosalind’s black corridor, he saw the silvery robots on the floor sliding left and right... making a path.

Here we go
—
now we find out what the Portath look like
.

Around the bend came a blonde-haired, cobalt-blue-skinned Human woman wearing a long red robe. Unless the Portath came from Vosor 3, this wasn’t one of them. A flat golden choker glowed softly around her slender neck. Purple eyes took in Quentin, then each of the others in turn. She held up both hands in a gesture that said
be calm
.

“My name is Hulsey,” she said. “Do any of you speak English?”

No one answered. They waited, deferring to Quentin.

“We all do,” he said.

The woman let out a sigh of relief so heavy she practically sagged when it left her.

“Oh, oh good,” she said. Then, intensity flooded back into her; she spoke loudly, slowly, like every word mattered and there was no room for miscommunication.

“Listen to me very carefully,” she said. “Don’t make any sudden movements. Don’t be aggressive. If you do—” she gestured to the robots that coated the floor, ceiling and walls “—you won’t live long.”

John crossed his big arms over his chest. Quentin saw several of the silvery spheres instantly adjust their position, as if those were the ones that had been assigned to watch John and only John.

They already have specific targets. They’ll hit us all at once, pour over us, find their assigned prey and take us out
.

“John,” Quentin said quietly, “please do what the nice lady says.”

John let out a grunt of annoyance. Through John’s shirt, Quentin saw red letters scrolling across his back:
YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

“Hey, nice lady,” John said. “If we had, say, been standing in this here hallway holding some weapons and such and whatnot, what would have happened?”

Hulsey again gestured to the robots.

“The first wave would already be finished,” she said. “The cleaner machines would be on their way, to remove your pieces and wash down this corridor.”

“Hmmm,” John said. He turned and looked at Quentin.

SOMETIMES YOU’RE SMARTER THAN YOU LOOK
scrolled across his face. He shrugged, then faced the woman.

She watched patiently for a few moments, waiting to see if Quentin and the others would be dumb enough to try something. When they didn’t, she took in a long, slow breath, then let it out. She visibly relaxed a little, still tense but now hopeful she might avoid a bloodbath.

“This is an important question,” Hulsey said. “Is this all of you? Or are there others aboard?”

“One more, further inside,” Quentin said. “And the ship itself, which is alive.”

“Go get the straggler,
now
,” Hulsey said. “And for all your sakes, if there are more, if you lied, I need to know. The Portath, they ... they don’t like surprises.”

Quentin leaned close to Becca.

“You and George go get Bumberpuff. Tell him there’s no choice — he
must
come.”