They made the administration center, identifiable even without the map on their consoles. It had a big, black exterior. Most impressive building for klicks in any direction. The Republic didn’t miss an opportunity to show the size of their boots as they were standing on you, did they? The doors were shut, blast shutters down over the windows.
“Looks like they closed up,” said Kohl. “Standard protocol, right? Seal the building, evac."
“Yeah, except for that,” said Grace, pointing. Down the end of the building, near the corner, were shards of broken ceramic and metal. The shutters were caved in, giving them an entrance into the structure.
“I don’t think that was the Republic,” said Nate. “They’d have a key.”
“Sure,” said Grace. She gave Nate a look that said sorry and sorry again, something hard but hurt in her eyes. She looked away before he could. “I’ll go in. See what … there is to see.”
“You do that,” said Nate. He watched her slip in through the hole in the shutters, her elegant motion like flowing water.
“So,” said Kohl. “What’s the deal with Grace?”
“There’s no deal,” said Nate.
“Cap, I might look big and dumb, but there’s been an ice sheet between you for the last two klicks. Right since those … bugs in people’s heads,” he said. “I don’t think I’m imagining it. El says I don’t have an imagination.”
“El’s right,” said Nate. He looked Kohl in the eye. “October?”
“Aw, shit,” said Kohl. “When you call me October, I know there’s the real deal coming.”
“I’m pretty sure Grace is an esper,” said Nate.
“Right, I’m going to grease her,” said Kohl. He patted the rotary laser. “This should heat her insides to about a million degrees. Be right back.”
Before he could walk off, Nate held out a hand. “Hold up.”
Kohl looked at him, at his hand, then at the hole. “Cap? Fucking espers, man. It’s the one thing we all see eye to eye on. They’re basically bad. Mind reading is bad. Right?”
“Right,” said Nate, slowly, “except what if it’s not?”
“No,” said Kohl. “No. It’s just bad.”
“I think we’ve got worse problems for now,” said Nate. “Also, if she’s an esper, she’ll read your mind and slice that sword through you.”
“She might try,” offered Kohl.
“Let’s use it as a test,” said Nate. “If she looks like she’s going to kill one of us, we do her first. That sit okay with you?”
“Not really,” said Kohl.
“Great,” said Nate. He turned at a rattling sound, the shutters rising around the windows of the administration center. Grace looked out at them, sword held in one hand at her side. “She got the shutters open.”
“She can find a switch,” said Kohl. “That’s a life skill right there.” His voice was grim. Nate looked at the big man, saw the laser pointed at the administration building. At the windows, and at Grace. Kohl’s frame was tensed, like he was a leashed hound, yearning for a moment of freedom.
“Kohl,” said Nate.
“Yeah.”
“Easy.” Nate walked forward, came face to face with Grace. “You find the door controls?”
“They’re on the door,” she said, voice muted through the ceramic pane. This close, Nate could see the hollows under her eyes. She turned, walked to a door, pressed the controls. The door opened without a sound, good Republic technology still working just fine, thanks.
Nate walked inside, Kohl on his heels. He turned to Grace. “Look,” he said.
“Save it,” she said. “Until later. When we’re in a place where things aren’t eating people’s insides, we can talk.”
“Until later,” he agreed. “Then we need to have a conversation.”
“That’s one word for it,” she said.
“Where,” said Nate, “is Penn?”
As if on cue, a central holo stage blinked into life, the lights coming up, systems humming back online. There was a hiss of static, then Penn’s head-and-shoulders filled the holo. It was a little ostentatious for Nate’s tastes, but it caught the eye. Penn’s image was looking over his shoulder, then back to them. “Captain. You made it.”
“Uh,” said Nate. “There’s weird shit happening here. We need to get the fuck out.”
“I’m sorry for leaving you in the dark,” said Penn. “On an unsecured line, I didn’t know what they might hear.”
“They?” said Nate.
“The Ezeroc,” said Penn. “I had to hope that, since you’d made it into the system alive, you were resourceful enough to make it past them. To here. I’m glad to see I wasn’t wrong.”
“The Ezeroc,” said Nate. “That some kind of militant faction? Crazy in the head after a local parasite infection?”
“No,” said Penn. “That’s some kind of alien life that wants to kill us all.”
“Got you,” said Nate. “It’s just that, in the thousand or so worlds we’ve seeded, we’ve never found local life larger than a hamster.”
“Who said,” said Penn, “that these are local boys?”
• • •
Penn wouldn’t come to them. He said it wasn’t safe; he said the building was infested, which was never a term that inspired confidence. Penn had sealed himself in the medbay, second floor. The medbay had its own power, its own air, and Penn said that was important. Keep your visors down. Keep your guns up. And then he’d clicked off the holo, and the escalator system had jerked into life.
Only way to go was up, right?
Kohl was in front, his bulk taking up a lot of lateral space on the escalator. Grace, in the middle. Nate at the rear, blaster out, pointing it at every shadow, every dark corner.
Being told that there were alien invaders was a new twist. Nate had heard a lot of tall tales, but a Rear Admiral’s word carried authenticity. Nate was pretty sure he was a Rear Admiral, or close to it: he could control the Gladiator, had the systems of the Republic’s own administration center under his control. He was in charge. In charge of a colony under siege.
What was weird was that if these Ezeroc were a bunch of brain bugs, it didn’t seem to make much sense they’d be a threat. The hosts didn’t seem … normal, not anymore, and with a bit of judicious quarantine that could have been hit on the head. Something smaller, maybe? An airborne contagion? It still made little sense; why infect a planet of people? It’d kind of tip your hand on the whole invasion front.
Who said aliens need to follow ’rational’ thought?
Sure, whatever. Just get Penn. Get the man, get out.
Kohl had made the top of the escalator, laser leading the way. The lights were out on this floor. Not just out, but broken, smashed. Floor-standing lights were twisted, bent, broken. Ceiling mounted strips had been torn free, shattered, thrown on the ground. This area would have been a faux-public area, Republic personnel on hand to help you pay your dues. There was nothing left of that now, cabinets strewn across the floor, tablets and consoles smashed, desks torn, wrecked, broken.
“We missed one hell of a party,” said Kohl.
“How many people would be on a colony of this size?” said Grace.
“Not that big of a party,” said Kohl.
“Just … how many?” she said.
“I don’t know,” said Nate. “I figure an edge world like this? We’d be looking at fifty thousand people at a bare minimum. Public transportation, businesses, the works. Republic goes big or goes home, you know?”