Chapter 13
It wasn’t much of a relief when they came within scanning range of the rendezvous point.
There were no life signs detected and the actual meet point coordinates still showed heat from the attack.
He brought the shuttle in as low as he dared over the site and turned on video to add to their scan data. Wisps of smoke still drifted up into the frigid air. A blackened circle had been carved out of the surrounding ice cover surface. And there might be a hole at its center. It was hard to tell.
There were no visible bodies.
“What’s that?” Riina asked, zooming a camera in on dark shapes off to one side of the impact crater.
Tim angled their path over the shapes so the cameras could get better views.
“Those are flyers. Ground vehicles perhaps,” she said.
“I am unable to connect with Dr. Walker’s flyer,” Veirn’s bit said over the comms. “All systems are completely offline.”
“I should check them out,” Trac said.
Tim wanted to object, but he’d have to gear up for the frigid temperatures and there was also a risk of atmospheric contamination left over from the attack.
He gave a sharp, reluctant nod and brought the shuttle down as close to the vehicles as he dared.
“What about…?” Tim wasn’t sure what to call the skitterfin, so he pointed at it.
“Fred will stay here with you,” Trac said.
Fred?
Trac lowered his arm until he touched Tim’s shoulder and the skitterfin unfolded its wings and three tails, scampered down Trac’s arm and wrapped itself around Tim’s neck.
He didn’t like it. It wasn’t painful, but the skitterfin was quite warm. And a bit prickly.
“Can I go, too?” Lt. Dish asked.
“No,” Trac said, activating the hatch and passing back into the rear of the shuttle.
The hatch hissed closed, leaving an awkward silence behind.
“He can act quickly,” Tim said, finally. “Without waiting for us to don suitable gear.”
“Oh.” Lt. Dish paused. “Right. That makes sense.”
“I’m still not picking up any life signs,” Riina said, “though the extreme cold might be masking them if they are geared up and on foot.”
It was a hopeful assessment, but right now all they had was hope.
The rear hatch registered as lowering, after a pause, he watched Trac approach the small array of flyers. None showed any sign of power, which made sense following the electro-magnetic strike. But in the light from Trac’s headlamp, he saw that two of the flyers’ doors hung open.
“I believe Harold accessed these flyers for supplies,” Trac said over the comms.
“Why Harold?” Riina asked.
“Only a robot could have broken into these vehicles,” Trac answered.
He was now surveying the ground around the vehicles. If Harold had survived the attack, then hope could turn into a small certainty. There was no reason for the robot to acquire supplies unless there was a human with him.
“I believe multiple humans walked this direction,” Trac said, pointing with his arm and his light.
It was in the general direction of the closest habitations. But it was an optimistic move. It was a long hike in the darkness.
“I’m going to follow the trail,” Trac said. “Follow me from the air.”
Tim didn’t like that, but again, it was the best option. Had he still been a cyborg, it was what he’d have done.
“I don’t like it,” Riina said.
“No,” Tim agreed. So far, there was nothing to like about this planet or their current situation. The skitterfin made a noise in his ear. Did that mean it agreed with him? He reached up and touched its nose. The skitterfin seemed to rub the tip of his finger.
At least it hadn’t bit him.
Tim, Riina noted, kept the shuttle at its slowest hover speed, but they still had to circle back to Trac when they got too far ahead of him.
“How far could they have gotten from our rendezvous location?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
There was too much they didn’t know, about the planet’s topography, about the timing of the attack, about who had been with Harold and Dr. Walker (the correct answer should have been nobody or just the side chick), how well their gear could protect them and whether it could shield them from life signs detection.
After being attacked, they would be attempting stealthy progress—or they should be. She’d have been keeping her head down.
The presence of the other flyers troubled her. Who and how many others had known about their impending arrival?
Was it happenstance or deliberate choice that the attack had commenced before they could get there? Had this alien entity known they were coming?
They’d made no attempt to contact them, so either they didn’t care, didn’t know or…planned to deal with them later.
She couldn’t, she realized wryly, blame them if they didn’t see the Quendala as a threat. It wasn’t a ship of war, though it was well-supplied with weaponry. And it was cloaked, she reminded herself. Odds were that the entity couldn’t detect it.
And the question after that? Was it well supplied with the right weaponry?
“There is no way to know this,” Veirn—or Veirn’s snippet said.
It took Rinna a minute to figure out which question it had answered. Inside her head, she’d already moved on.
“Yeah,” she said, to let Veirn know she’d heard it. Then she resumed her own thoughts. They’d never encountered anything like the entity, so how did she know if anything they carried would work against it if it turned out to be hostile to them? Or that the cloak would work against it?
“I wish we knew if any population centers have been impacted,” she said. She didn’t see how the planet could get by without some losses, even if the entity was trying to avoid populations. And right now, there was no way to know if that was the case.
“I have found them,” Trac said, suddenly.
Fred lifted its head, peering out the front window and his wings shifted slightly.
He made that soft sound again. Rinna glanced at him, but he was looking forward.
Trac wasn’t currently in sight. They were once more ahead of Trac and had to circle back to find the cyborg standing in a circle of what appeared to be armed humans.
Humans all pointing their weapons at Trac.
Fred made a sound that seemed scornful to Riina.
It was brave of them to point weapons at Trac, she conceded. It was a good thing that he was, for a cyborg, pretty chill. He’d even lifted his arms in an attempt to appear non-threatening.
It was a vain attempt, of course. He wasn’t the scariest of the cyborg models, but they didn’t know that. And he didn’t have to be. All he had to be was who he was.
No one had, as yet, fired on him. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t panic and start. It wasn’t a huge worry. Nothing they were aiming at him would even make a dent.
“Dr. Walker?” Riina figured it was worth a try, though the EM pulse must have surely fried his comms. It wasn’t a surprise when Harold answered.
“Dr. Walker is unable to communicate,” it said.
“But he and you are okay?” Riina persisted.
“We are not dead,” Harold said. “Dr. Walker has been secured with local restraints. He is worried about becoming an alien autopsy.”
It wasn’t clear if Harold shared that worry or not.
“Our planetary contacts, Lira and her father, are also under restraint. Most of these humans are not official representatives of the government, but there is one.” And then Harold added, “I would assess them all as what Earthlings would call trigger happy. Approach with caution.”
Riina wanted to go out alone to meet the group of humans. She thought she looked less threatening. If that were her criteria, then they should send Lt. Dish out, Tim thought.
Tim didn’t, however, say this out loud. He may be new to being a human, but even he knew it would be a bad idea.
“They might like a hot guy,” Lt. Dish said. “You never know.”
Tim blinked. Who was the hot—oh. He glanced at Riina and she grinned and shrugged.
“She might have a point.”
“I think I should go,” Lt. Dish said.
“Why?” Rinna asked.
“No reason. I’d just like to make first contact. It would be cool.”
This time the look Riina gave him was mixed with humor and wry. It was a good look on her. He wished…
He looked away. “We should call Trac back.”
“What about Dr. Walker?” Lt. Dish sounded alarmed now.
“I will go negotiate with them,” Tim said.
“I need to go, too, but Tim is right. We need Trac back on board.”
Trac could fly the shuttle and protect Lt. Dish if things went south.
Tim sent the recall code to Trac. He probably should have taken time to assess the situation better. Trac turned, possibly in mid-sentence and walked back to the shuttle, humans scattering to clear his path.
No one shot at him. That was a positive.
He unstrapped and found it interesting that Fred transferred to Lt. Dish. She looked startled but also pleased. She reached up and ran a finger down from the top of his head to the tip of his nose. Did this make Fred purr?
He left the cockpit and went to don protective gear, aware that Riina was close behind him. He thought Lt. Dish offered a mild protest. If she had, he ignored her.
Riina rushed to gear up, but he still finished before her. He picked up her headgear and held it out to her. They had both lowered their headgear over their faces before the ramp lowered again for Trac to enter. Tim checked the temperature of the air rushing in and was grateful he was protected.
Trac thumped up the ramp and joined them.
“What is the problem?” he asked.
“We need you to protect the shuttle,” Tim said, “while we try to talk to the humans.” He knew he shouldn’t call them humans, or rather, that he was a human, too, so it might be weird, but it was a hard habit to break.