Xenotech Queen's Gambit: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 2) (37 page)

Through the ships’ transparent domes I could see that Hither, Ray Ray, and CiCi were piloting three of them. Older men I didn’t recognize were operating two other ships. The large, bald man whose muscles had muscles must be Bruno and the dapper gent with a mustache who resembled an older version of Wesley from
The Princess Bride
was likely Hither’s Uncle Richard.

I was glad for any extra help we could get and was even more pleased when two of the ships landed in the wide aisle next to me. They didn’t have operators. Pomy got in one ship and shot up to look for targets. I waved to Hither’s ship and climbed in the other imagination station, putting my backpack tool bag under my feet and buckling my flight harness securely. Then I pulled back on the yoke and took to the air. I wanted a bird’s eye view of the chaos.

I didn’t see any lavender smoke, so it looked like none of the spheres had been triggered yet. Thank goodness for small favors. On the other hand, there were more than a hundred sphere throwers, each with several spheres. Pomy, Perry, Barbara and the other volunteers continued to take out terrorists at ground level.

When one of the spheres came close to the stage I watched Shuvvath’s project in action. He’d covered the front and sides of the stage with the same kind of Orishen mutable composite fiber panels I’d used on the kiddie train ride at the carnival. Like the Orishen mutacase on my phone, the panels responded to Shuvvath’s mental commands and sent up extensions to divert and grab spheres that got that far. More than two dozen spheres were already tucked away under layers of panels, making it look like opaque bubble wrap.

Then I saw a commotion over in the students’ section. Eight octovacs had returned from transporting robot components and my phone had worked with Poly to turn them into an exoskeleton and armor for her. One octovac rode on her chest and three more were on her shoulders and at the small of her back. She stood on another pair with their tentacles wrapped up around her legs. Like a matched set of bucklers, she had an octovac on the back of each of her hands with several tentacles spiraling up her arms. More tentacles stretched out from the octovacs on her hands extending her reach. Her black robes were held tightly against her body by shiny, segmented tentacles and somehow, incongruously, she’d retained her mortarboard hat.

Now that I think about it, she looked a lot like the tree character from
Guardians of the Galaxy,
the one that only knew three words. Poly didn’t need words at all. She was identifying terrorist sphere throwers, incapacitating them, capturing their spheres, and collecting them in a pile below her, like so many skulls at the foot of the throne of a barbarian conqueror. Once she’d eliminated all the Earth First Militants in her vicinity, she had to shift a hundred feet to another, more target rich environment.

Then I noticed movement on the roof of the Carlos Museum. I was about to fly over and check it out when my phone chirped.

“It’s Terrhi,” said my phone. “She’s crying.”

“Put her through.”

“Uncle Jack, Uncle Jack, you’ve got to help!” said Terrhi.

She was speaking, and sobbing, softly.

“What is it?” I said, using my most attentive and concerned tone of voice.

“It’s Daddy,” she said. “He’s going to call for an energy beam.”

“From the
Charalindhri?”
I asked.

“Uh huh,” Terrhi said between sobs. “As soon as he can get Mom and me into the tanks and away from here.”

“Thanks, Terrhi,” I said. “I really appreciate the warning.”

“I don’t want you and Aunt Poly and Aunt Pomy to get crispy fried,” she cried.

“We don’t want that either,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure out something.”

“Spike and I know you will, Uncle Jack. You’re our hero.”

“Tell Spike to be brave,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”

“I will, Uncle Jack. Bye.”

Terrhi closed the connection. I had my phone call a familiar number.

“Well, Mom, did you decide?” I said.

“What to do about that
small
favor you asked?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “Lives are at stake. Lots of lives.”

“I’ve decided,” she said.

“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,”
I said.

“Why couldn’t you just say ‘do it now’?”

“You’re the one who gave me
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
when I was seven.”

“Don’t be a smart ass to your mother.”

“Why should I stop now?”

“Okay,” she said, after a pause. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now go stop those sphere throwers,” said my mom.

“What?”

“You heard me. I’ve been watching the Emory graduation ceremonies from up here in orbit.”

“Thanks, Mom. You’re the best Mom I ever had.”

“Go!” she said, “We’ve both got things to do.”

We ended the call.

I zoomed up another hundred feet to see more of what was happening. Queen Sherrhi and Terrhi and Spike were still on the stage, but they were surrounded by Tomáso, Diágo and other members of the Queen’s guard. The human dignitaries and speakers previously there had, quite wisely, left. The Orishen imagination station ships, Shuvvath’s morphic panels and assistance from Perry, Barbara, and other volunteers from the crowd had turned the tide. More sphere throwers were now subdued than active.

Then I heard a shot from somewhere below me. I couldn’t tell where it came from, but I thought it was generally from the far side of the Quadrangle. The roof of the Carlos Museum would be a perfect spot for assassins to hide if they wanted to hit someone on the stage.

The stage!

I shifted my gaze.

Queen Sherrhi was down.

Chapter 42

“We adore chaos because we love to produce order.”
— M. C. Escher

I zoomed back to help protect the Queen, but it was too late. I parked my imagination station next to the stage, put my backpack tool bag over my shoulder, and circled around to climb up the human steps to the raised platform.

Tomáso looked angry enough to take on one of the enemy robots singlehandedly and win. Diágo was bending over his monarch.

“It’s a tranquilizer dart, not a bullet,” he said, removing a long, thick, feathered needle from Queen Sherrhi’s side.

He kept his body between his queen and the front of the stage. After hearing the good news, Tom
á
so looked marginally more in control, but still seemed like a thundercloud ready to storm and throw lightning bolts.

A few moments later I was pleased to have Pomy and Poly, without her octovac armor, join me on the stage. Maybe the three of us could help Tom
á
so calm down and figure out how to get Queen Sherrhi out of there and to a place of safety. I looked around for ideas and found one.

“Tom
á
so,” I said, “there’s a carpet covering the stage. If you and Di
á
go and the guards each take a corner, you could carry Queen Sherrhi to one of the tanks.”

The Queen’s consort looked down at me with eyes as deep as black holes’ gravity wells. He nodded.

“Make it so,” he said.

Poly and Pomy pushed the podium and unneeded human-sized chairs off the stage. I moved to the back left corner and lifted up the carpet so that Lohrri could move to the bare platform and lift it, then repeated the same drill for the back right corner with Nadd
é
o. Poly and Pomy were doing the same in the front for Tom
á
so and Di
á
go. I joined them.

Then we heard more gunshots—hundreds of them—but they weren’t gunshots, they were spheres exploding in the Quad, releasing lavender mist. Spectators, the ones who were still around, anyway, began screaming and speeding toward the exits. Those caught by the mist collapsed, sound asleep. The spheres embedded in the stage’s panels had exploded, too, but hadn’t released their mist. The Orishen mutable composite fiber panels’ layers were flexible and hadn’t ruptured, holding in the purple vapor.

Tom
á
so uttered a sharp phrase in Dauushan best translated by the German word
schnell
and the four Dauushan adults carried the Queen down the ramp at the back of the stage and away from the lavender mist along a broad sidewalk. When they’d managed to carry her a hundred feet toward where the tanks were parked, Tom
á
so paused. The adults carefully put the Queen down. We were on a sidewalk lined with bushes covered in bright pink blossoms between two academic buildings. Tom
á
so took out his skateboard-sized phone.

“Stop!” I said. “You don’t need to do this. The plague isn’t what you…”

Unfortunately, Tom
á
so wasn’t paying any attention to me. I grabbed one of his sub-trunks, but was like a mouse trying to stop a human by tugging on its pants cuff.

“Captain,” he said, “do you have our position? Good. You know your orders. There’s been a release. I need a full power sterilizing beam across the entire Quadrangle on my mark. Now.”

For a few seconds nothing happened. Then I heard an anemic sound from his phone’s speaker like the noise the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon made when it failed. I smiled.
Thanks, Mom.

Tom
á
so looked disgusted. I was glad he wasn’t looking at me. He put his phone away in a holster on his foreleg and picked up his corner of the carpet again. They carried the Queen another hundred feet. Poly and Pomy and I followed with Terrhi and Spike beside us, keeping in tight formation.

“Tomáso,” I said, “you don’t have to worry about the Compliant Plague.”

“Why not?” he snapped. “Do you want us all to be turned into zombies doing Columbia Brown’s bidding?”

“No,” I said, “but Mistress Marigold analyzed a sample of what they’d produced. Professor
Murriym…”

“Who?” said
Tom
á
so. He’d forgotten I’d told him about her.

“She’s a specialist in Old High Nic
ó
sn,” said Poly. “The mate of my professor at Georgia Tech.”

“Hrrrumph,” snorted Tom
á
so.

“She thought the inscription Columbia Brown’s people gave her was a practical joke, so she took some liberties with her translation,” I said.

“And?” said Tom
á
so.

“It’s not the Compliant Plague anymore,” I said. “It’s the
Complacent
Plague. It just makes you feel like not doing much of anything for a few hours.”

“When were you going to tell me this?” said Tom
á
so. “
After
I incinerated hundreds of people?”

“Sorry about that.” I said, “I tried, but you weren’t ready to listen.”

“Humans are strange,” said Tom
á
so.

“You have no idea.”

Tom
á
so, Di
á
go, and the guards picked up their corners of the carpet again and managed to get a bit closer to the tanks. Poly and Pomy and I walked to one side, near a row of blooming rhododendron bushes. Terrhi and Spike stayed with us.

In the distance, I heard the rotors of an industrial-sized hovercar heading our way.

I noticed movement off to the side. A tall black woman with short, tightly curled dark hair stepped out from a space between the bushes. She was wearing glasses and a triumphant expression. There was a pistol in her right hand and a sphere in her left, ready to throw. It was Columbia Brown.

“I’m here for the Queen,” she said, “and the Princess.”

Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say.

“You know you don’t have the Compliant Plague in that sphere, right?” I said. “What you’ve got is more like a short-term tranquilizer.”

“Either way will be effective for my purposes.”

She sneered at me.

“How are your ribs feeling, Jack?” she said. “I didn’t appreciate being trapped on that Orishen troop ship.”

“Not sorry about that,” I said.

“You’ll be sorry about it when I’ve got the Queen and the Princess.”

Spike growled. Terrhi held on to his neck.

“Keep that beast under control,” said Ms. Brown.

She pointed her pistol at the unhappy tri-sabertooth.

“I need you and your mother alive,” she said to Terrhi, “but I wouldn’t mind putting a bullet through your cat.”

Terrhi whimpered and pulled Spike close against her with her trunks. I heard a scurrying sound from the rhododendron. Blasted chipmunks. Tomáso took a step toward Columbia Brown.

“Stay back,” she said. “I don’t need you alive either.”

She waved her gun at me and Poly and Pomy and the remaining Dauushans.

“Or any of you, for that matter,” she said. “So sit tight and don’t cause any trouble.”

“I will enjoy dismembering you,” said Tom
á
so.

Remind me never to threaten his family. Tom
á
so took another step forward. The noise from the industrial hovercar was getting louder.

“That’s enough,” said Columbia Brown. “Time for you all to chill out.”

She raised the sphere above her head and threw it hard at the concrete sidewalk—but it never got there. Two of Dree’s clones scurried out of the bushes. One of them intercepted the sphere and tossed it up in the air to the other clone, like they were playing volleyball back in the executive floor elevator lobby. Columbia Brown lunged for the sphere, but the two clones thought she was playing and tossed it wherever Brown wasn’t. After a few back and forth moves, Poly grabbed the sphere in mid-air and put it on the ground.

Terrhi picked up the sphere in three of her sub-trunks, pulled it back over her head and launched it at Columbia Brown like a rocket-propelled warhead from a bazooka. It hit Brown in the solar plexus, forcing the air from her lungs and knocking her to her knees. Before she could recover from the impact, Spike was on her. The big cat knocked her over and put a heavy paw down on the pistol in her gun hand.

“Good Spike, good boy,” said Terrhi.

“Thanks, buddy,” I said, taking the pistol away and joining Columbia Brown’s wrists with zip ties.

Then the industrial-sized hovercar appeared above us. The four adult Dauushans crowded around their queen, forming a defensive barrier. The business end of a heavy caliber machine gun poked over the side of the hovercar. To add to our challenges, Ms. Smith, Agnes Spelman’s executive assistant from Factor-E-Flor, stepped out from the same spot where Columbia Brown had been hiding. She pointed a pair of pistols at us and we all froze. Poly had moved a bit off to the side and I could see that she was considering attacking our latest opponent. To pull it off, she’d need a distraction.

I was about to try something, but didn’t have to. Chit came flitting in from overhead and landed on Ms. Smith’s nose, singing
I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General
in a loud, braying voice that certainly wouldn’t have passed an audition for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. Chit buzzed her wings in front of Ms. Smith’s eyes to provide added distraction.

While the executive assistant was confused, Poly stepped between her two pistols and slammed the heel of her right hand into the center of Ms. Smith’s chin. Smith’s teeth snapped together and the woman toppled to the ground like a tree knocked over by a falling giant robot.

“That was impressive, Sis,” said Pomy.

“Thanks,” said Poly, rubbing her hand.

The machine gun operator in the hovercar above us shot off a couple of rounds to get us to back off from Ms. Smith and the immobilized Columbia Brown. We did. It’s not wise to argue with a machine gun. To accent the point, a chunk of brick blown off the side of one of the nearby academic buildings by a bullet whacked me in the sternum, nearly knocking me over. My pupa silk shirt went rigid, but it would likely leave one heck of a bruise.

Tom
á
so and Di
á
go must not have been feeling wise. In a move so fast I had difficulty following it, Di
á
go knelt, then Tom
á
so climbed on his back. The Queen’s consort stood on his back legs, and stretched out to his maximum height. He extended his trunks far enough to grab the far side of the giant, donut-shaped hovercar. Then he jerked down hard and flipped the machine gun operator, the pilot, and the two other men aboard out of the vehicle. Lorrhi and Nadd
é
o plucked the sailing men out of the air and set them none to gently on the ground. The hovercar regained its equilibrium and remained floating above us.

I handed Poly and Pomy some zip ties and we bound the men’s wrists. Poly had the honor of binding Ms. Sleeping Beauty Smith, collecting her two pistols in the process. She gave one to her sister. I kept the one from Columbia Brown.

“Way to go, guys,” I said, complimenting Tom
á
so and Di
á
go. “Think you could toss me up there?”

By way of an answer, Tomáso grabbed me around the waist and threw me thirty feet into the air, up and over the side of the hovercar. I landed in the large open cargo space in the center and took the controls. Then I found a flat spot not far away and set the craft down. That accomplished, I shut the craft off and returned to the rest of the group. I hadn’t even noticed my sore ribs when Tomáso had grabbed me. It must be all the adrenaline.

Mike and Martin arrived next. Martin and two City of Atlanta police officers took charge of the prisoners and their weapons. Columbia Brown looked like she would have been much happier if our positions had been reversed.

“What do you think we should do with her?” said Martin.

I reached in my backpack tool bag and pulled out the sleepy gas sphere.

“Here,” I said. “Put her in a sealed room and throw this in after her.”

“Is it… ?” said Martin.

“Yes,” I said. “The
real
Compliant Plague. Just be the first one to give her a command and she’ll tell you anything.”

Columbia Brown looked worried. I knew that if
she
had developed the real Compliant Plague she wouldn’t have hesitated to use it. Martin might find interrogating his prisoner a lot easier if Columbia Brown thought her alternative was being a plague victim. Martin and his law enforcement colleagues led the prisoners away. It sounded like my friend was humming
Jailhouse Rock
as he prodded Columbia Brown along with her own pistol
.

While Martin and I had been talking, emergency response personnel arrived on the scene. They gave Queen Sherrhi an injection of something that woke her up. I hoped it wasn’t a grajja derivative. Tom
á
so and Terrhi hugged the Queen Matriarch and made happy Dauushan family noises. Di
á
go and the royal guards just looked relieved. Spike gave me an affectionate head butt and let me scritch him behind the ears before he returned to Terrhi.

Then Mistress Marigold found us. She was still in her academic robes and enticed the pair of Dree clones to approach her with drugged balls of ground meat, just like I had done on the seventh floor of MF&P’s headquarters. Moments later, she put the sleepy plants in a sealed basket and took Poly and me aside for a quick conversation.

“I used extracts from plants native to Dree’s homeworld and created a vaccine that should work for both the Compliant and Complacent versions of the bio-cybernetic nanoparticles.”

“That was fast,” I said.

“Nicósn biosciences have come a long way in fifteen thousand years.”

“Tom
á
so will be happy about your vaccine,” said Poly.