El pushed the throttle harder, feeling her body press against the acceleration couch. 4Gs, 5. She blinked, the lenses in her eyes flattening, making it hard to see. Her chest felt like a hundred rocks were on it. The holo still blinked COLLISION WARNING, over and over, then, BRACE BRACE BRACE.
“Not today,” she croaked, and pushed the throttle to the stops. The Tyche roared at the night sky, plumes of fusion fire in their wake, the crackle of atmosphere sending fire along the front of their hull. The ship shook and grumbled then roared as atmosphere tied to push her back. Something groaned in the hull, and El thought hold, girl, just a little longer, and felt thrust go past 6 gravities.
Pushing seven hard Gs on re-entry, the ground coming up fast.
El’s head was swimming. Flatten out. You need to pull out, or you’ll turn into a thin layer of burning materials. She clawed at the sticks with arms that felt like they weighed three hundred kilos each. Her fingers tried to work the controls, feeling the sticks move. El felt the Tyche respond, pulling out into a curve.
She could hear a noise and ignored it, figuring it was just Hope trying to scream without a lot of luck.
There was a clang as something in the ready room behind El broke loose, and she could smell burning. But they were still flying, not falling, and the atmosphere was slowing their descent. She pulled the Tyche’s curve flatter, putting the belly of the ship towards the deck. They were coming in to Nate’s last known position fast. The ship dropped from high-hypersonic down through hypersonic and into the merely supersonic. RADAR pinged the ground, mapped the surface. “You good?” said El.
Hope was gasping.
“Scream if you’re stroking out,” said El.
“I’m. Good,” said Hope. “Fly.”
“It’s what I do,” said El. The holo display changed from absolute velocity to airspeed. The Tyche did atmosphere, but not like she was born to it. The fusion drives pushed her along like a couple of angry bulls, and as they reached the thick, breathable parts of Absalom Delta’s atmosphere, she was recording a steady Mach 3.03. Precise. At least something was working.
The RADAR’s ground mapping filled the holo. Tyche came in across the ocean, water raised in their passage, to roar across a forested area. They’d be flattening or uprooting trees as they went.
“What,” said Hope, “are all of those?” She was pointing to the holo, Tyche’s ground map overlaid with many markers. Thousands of them. The Tyche thought for a second or two, then marked them as unidentified ground troops.
“People,” said El.
Hope worked her own console, got one of the external cameras to zoom in. The picture filled the holo between them, and then both stared at it.
El broke the silence first. “That’s not a person.” The urge to pull the sticks back, point the Tyche to the safety of the stars, was strong. But there were a thousand thousand asteroids up there, and moving up top right now would involve a high chance of suicide.
“No,” said Hope. “I don’t know what it is.” It stood at 2M in height, if stood was the right verb here. Lots of legs. A lot like a centaur crossed with an ant. El’s brain worked the problem for a little while, came up empty.
“Neither does the Tyche,” said El. “She’s never anything like that. Not in the databases.”
Hope turned to look at her. “What happened to the captain, El? Where’s Nate? Where’s Grace?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There was a hiss, and the sound of something clattering in the gloom.
“What the fuck was that?” said Kohl, swinging the laser around. Grace watched him point it at the darkness, like the darkness would say okay, you got me, this is what that was.
She felt her fingers tighten around the sword. Steel that had been with her for all the time that mattered. “Nothing good,” she said. The static in her mind was … getting worse. Growing stronger, a constant sibilant whisper of a thousand nothings overlaying each other. Then, silence, before:
Grace. Grace Grace Grace. GRACE.
Together.
She wanted to throw up. “We’ve got to go.” She turned to Nate. “Nate? We’ve got to go.”
Penn was already moving, hustling past them, a light rifle in his hands. “She’s right, Captain Chevell. There is really no time like the present.”
The ceiling erupted in a thousand pieces off to Grace’s right. Something massive came down with fragments of tiling, landing hard enough to be felt through the floor at her feet. Steel hissed its reply as she drew her sword, metal held low and ready.
Kohl was looking confused, then he seemed to gain purpose. “You know, I don’t want to even know.” He pointed the laser into the gloom where the thing had landed, and bright red lanced the gloom. Something keened in the dark, and there was a crack-and-pop, a sound like a coconut splitting open.
“We’re leaving,” said Nate, to her left. He moved forward.
The floor beneath his feet burst upwards, something monstrous coming into the lights from his suit. It had a lot of legs like an insect, or maybe arachnid was a better word, but now wasn’t the right time to be worrying about definition. A torso reared upright from its … abdomen? Body? It looked like an insect centaur. Clawed forelimbs reached for Nate.
Nate’s blaster barked at it, plasma blowing chunks off the creature. He fired, and fired again, driving it back, chunks of chitin blasting free to tumble, smoldering, on the floor.
Silence.
Grace looked at Penn. “What were you doing here?”
The Rear Admiral glanced at her, his face blank. Practiced. “Trying not to die,” he said.
They started towards the escalator, Kohl leading the way. One creature came up the escalator, and Kohl pointed his laser at it. Red light lanced out, but the thing jumped up, inverted, clinging to the ceiling. It scuttled towards them, Kohl’s laser fire trailing it as it ran. Kohl tagged it just before it dropped on the big man, stabbing down with those clawed appendages.
Nate fired at it, kept firing as the creature tried to back away. He kept firing until his blaster whined empty, and Nate tossed the spent battery aside, slipping a new one into the weapon. He reached a hand down to Kohl, helping the big man to his feet. Kohl looked stunned, blood trailing from a rent in his armor near the shoulder.
Penn pointed his rifle at Kohl. “Sorry, son,” he said.
Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace. GRACE.
She screamed, more to drive the voices out of her head, steel cutting through the air. Her sword cut through Penn’s rifle, carving a rent through the energy cell powering it. The weapon sparked and crackled, falling from Penn’s hands, trailing smoke. Grace continued her motion, turning around Penn and bringing her sword to the man’s throat. She leaned close, spoke in his ear. “Give me one good reason,” she said. “A good reason.”
“He’s already dead,” said Penn. “It’s how they get you. How they infect you.”