Chapter 21
“What is it?” Kellen asked, as the ship’s sensors found a large, apparently solid object in the swirling mass of the cosmic cloud.
“The readings are unusual,” Veirn said. “But the element trail leads directly to it.”
“Does it also lead away from it?” Kellen frowned, wondering if the entity had stopped here for long and why? This region of space had little to recommend it. No close planets. Debris and asteroid fields. The cosmic cloud. Only a very distant sun.
“Yes, it does,” Veirn said, “but we need to be sure our people aren’t here before we move on.”
It was correct, and Kellen felt something stir inside at Veirn’s words.
Our people.
The AI had risked as much or more than any of them in trying to find their people. If he had wondered if it was sentient? He didn’t now. He wished he knew how to tell the AI this.
“We might have a problem, Captain,” Veirn said. “But there is some good news.”
Hadn’t one of the Earth people said something about good news and bad news? And how to receive it?
“Let’s start with the good news,” he said, and then was sure he’d got the order wrong.
“I’m picking up a signal from the shuttle.”
Well, that was good news.
“And the bad news?”
“There is a small fleet of ships between us and the shuttle’s location. It’s coming from that unknown solid object,” Veirn added.
“A blockade?”
“If it looks like a blockade,” Veirn said. “And blocks like a blockade…”
“It probably is a blockade,” Kellen said. “But why? What’s there?” Besides their shuttle? he added to himself. But what kind of draw was it?
They had clear access to the shuttle, but they still lacked the information they needed to get home.
“You go first,” Tim said. “I’ll cover you and T’Korrin.”
But before Riina could move, the large avian reappeared, dropping down almost like a stone and landing on top of the shuttle.
It was a strange sight, since the shuttle was still cloaked.
It looked like the bird was perched in midair.
She’d have smiled, except for the fact that the large bird was now sitting on their ride.
“Who let the dogs out,” Lt. Dish said, “or rather, who brought them back?”
They were indeed back and making no effort to hide.
“My mom used to say that no good deed ever went unpunished,” Lt. Dish added.
It might be the first time Riina understood something Lt. Dish said.
The canines, the dogs as Lt Dish called them, crouched on their haunches, not in attack positions. That seemed like a small positive. The avian settled in like a bird on a perch, its wings tucked in at its sides.
T’Korrin flew up, once more facing the larger avian on its perch. Riina studied them. It almost looked like they were chatting.
“The other ship is back,” Tim said.
“I confirm that,” Trac said.
“What’s it doing?” Riina said.
“Circling this location, but at a safe distance,” Trac said.
Was there such a thing?
“Has anyone seen our host recently?” Riina asked.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on him,” Lt. Dish said.
She had? She exchanged a surprised look with Tim.
“He and his little friend,” a note of irony crept into her voice, “are still hiding in that derelict, or what’s left of it. It took a lot of incoming. So, they might be…”
She didn’t finish the thought.
“We need to check it out,” Tim said.
Riina nodded. They still needed someone with star chart data. At the moment, he was their only option.
“I could check it out,” Trac offered.
To her surprise, Tim shook his head.
“There is a damaged Q’uy ship here,” he said, as if that explained everything.
And perhaps it did. The presence of the ship could mean that the doughy alien was also familiar with the Q’uy robots.
“There was an energy field and other protections in place here until…” Tim paused. “Something took them down. But they could have been designed for my kind, before we, well, before,” Tim finished.
Riina knew some about before, knew more about after. She knew what had been done to upgrade their virus protections and other things. She knew how close a virus had come to taking them down. Had this place been rigged with them? It sounded as if that was what Tim was implying.
Veirn’s fragment had talked about something attacking the ship.
“Trac definitely needs to stay on the shuttle,” she agreed. There could be more traps, a trap designed specifically for someone like Trac. “You have good instincts,” she told Tim.
He looked surprised. “I do.”
“It’s part of being human,” she told him and his look of surprise deepened. He was, she realized, still working on that human part of himself. “It’s a work in progress for all of us.”
“Timmy’s in the well,” Lt. Dish said, over the comms.
Tim was too startled to even blink. Luckily Riina spoke what he was thinking.
“What?”
“It’s, well, Lassie, but you wouldn’t know that.” Lt. Dish, stopped, “it’s a kind of Earth shorthand for someone needing help.”
If someone needed help that the huge avian couldn’t handle? Tim wasn’t sure they could.
Riina met his gaze and shrugged. “At this point, anything is possible.” She stepped closer to the cloaked shuttle and looked up.
“T’Korrin, does someone need our help?”
She was asking the bird. He opened his mouth to point out that what they needed were star charts, flight data, a path home. But T’Korrin’s wings lifted, half lifting it off its perch.
“Is that yes?” he asked, dubiously.
“I think it might be,” Riina said.
Tim thought about asking if Lira could join them, but he had a feeling that would include Dr. Walker. That exposed too many humans to risk. He wished he could persuade Riina to go back inside the shuttle.
“Okay,” Tim said, “how about this.” He couldn’t believe he was talking to a bird, or possibly two birds. “We go see what we can do to help…whoever. You lift, Trac, and see if you can find some kind of central control for this place. I have a feeling there is more we need to know.”
“There is always more we need to know,” Trac said, “but if you can get the avian to get off, I will go see what I can do.”
“Just don’t get out of the shuttle to do it,” Tim cautioned. All they needed to turn this from a Charlie Foxtrot—Earth for messed up, he understood—to a major catastrophe was for Trac to get taken over and turned against them.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Lt. Dish said.
“Thank you,” Riina said, when Tim didn’t respond.
He couldn’t respond. Because if he did, he would say, “It needed only that.” So, he didn’t.
“Which way?” he asked instead.
The large avian lifted off the shuttle. So did T’Korrin. The avian landed on the debris to their right.
“You can go,” Tim said. He’d feel better with the shuttle in the clear. Better? Well, less awful.
When the shuttle had lifted away, stirring up more of the nasty dust, Tim took a moment to be grateful for his suit’s filters that made it possible for him to not smell that stirred up air.
Before he could do more than think this, the avian had dropped back into the vacated space.
“Weren’t we just here?” Riina asked.
T’Korrin flew down and landed on the avian’s head. Then he waved his wings and danced from one foot to the other.
“He doesn’t, he couldn’t want us to…” Riina’s voice trailed off as the large avian lowered its head and angled its body.
“I think he does,” Tim said.
“Well,” Riina said, “we did say we’d help.”
She started forward, but Tim caught her arm.
“I’ll go first,” he said. If this was a trick, she’d have some warning to get away while he got pecked to death.
But the avian didn’t peck him. It just lowered its shoulder some more, as if realizing how small Tim was. He realized Riina hadn’t stayed behind him.
“Give me a boost,” she said.
He sighed, and cupped his hands, lowering them so she could put her foot in. He used his cybernetic boost to propel her up on the back of the avian, then crouched and jumped, using the same boost.
He landed neatly behind the avian’s head.
It was unsettling, to say the least. He could feel the ripple of muscles under the feathers, his sensors registered its living warmth.
This close, it disturbed him to see the dirty grayness of its feathers.
This was no place for any living creature, let alone this large bird.
“Hold on,” he warned, as he felt the muscles bunching beneath him. Riina’s arms went around his waist, and he realized there was an upside to their current situation. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be wise to share this, however.
The bird lifted off, the span of its wings putting a massive shadow on the ground beneath them as they glided forward. Tim realized there was another benefit to this. He could see further and better even than when he’d been in the flyer.
As if the bird knew it, it circled the whole of the yard, its shadow finding and leaving pile after pile of broken ships and other debris that Tim couldn’t identify.
It seemed odd to him that anyone had taken the time to transport all this here—wherever here was—but humans did odd things for reasons he wasn’t sure he’d ever understand.
His cybernetics found and mapped the shuttle’s flight, while sending data of their progress back to it. It could only benefit the shuttle to have this information and would hopefully shorten the time it needed to be airborne and exposed while it searched for some kind of central control.
At first, it looked like a sea of messed up and damaged stuff, but finally, he thought he saw something that might have been a building.
When the bird angled direction toward the area, and so did the shuttle, he wondered if their destinations were the same?
But then T’Korrin peeled off and landed on the building and they went on.
Great. Their one source of communications had left them.
As the bird began to glide lower, he realized there was another area that could be buildings. In any other situation, he might have found it amusing that it was so hard to tell habitations from junk, but he was flying on the back of a large bird. It robbed him of the ability to be amused.
The bird landed on the top of the building and gave a loud cawing sound. Tim checked his tracking. The shuttle was at the other location. The possibly enemy craft was hovering closer, while still keeping its distance.
“I am attempting to jack into their systems,” Trac said.
Tim winced. “Be…”
“Careful. I know. Veirn is assisting.”
Now their ride lowered its shoulder again. Tim took this as an invitation to dismount. He clasped Riina’s arm and swung her down to the ground, then jumped down, landing lightly beside her.
It wasn’t ideal being on the roof. It was flat with several vents poking up from the surface. As far as he could tell, there was no egress point up here. But, after he’d paced the perimeter, he realized there was no other landing place for the bird.
“We need to get down,” he said.
Rinna held out her hand. He didn’t like lowering her somewhere he hadn’t checked out.
He sighed, and acquiesced to her silent request. Riina could take care of herself.
For the most part. He jumped down beside her.
It was a jolt, but within his ability to cushion the landing.
He was glad it wasn’t any higher, however.
This side of the building was a blank slate, so he led the way around, finding another blank side—not even windows broke the surface—but on the third side they found an entrance.
The rusted hatch wasn’t impressive. What was in there that the avian wanted them to rescue?
He tried the handle. It wasn’t a surprise to find it secured. He studied the lock and then tried a power surge. If it didn’t work—
It did. It still took extra boost to slide it back. Inside lights came on automatically revealing a dismal scene that matched the exterior. Rusted metal cages lined the walls on three sides. all were empty, which was a puzzle. There was a console, perhaps a security station?
Riina went to this and studied the controls.
“I think there is more underground,” she said.
He joined her. He’d seen controls like these before. After a brief hesitation—his mind on that Q’uy ship—he punched in using his cybernetics. The connection was slower than he was used to. This was an old system, old even by his standards.
It was also in an unfamiliar language. He tried triggering controls and after a couple of attempts, a hatch slid open just behind the control station.
“You should wait here,” he told Riina. When she started to object, he added, “Someone could come behind us and lock us in.”
She didn’t look happy, but she nodded. And she pulled her weapon, moving around the station so that the door was in clear sight.
Inside the hatch, he found lift controls.
Again, not in any language he could understand.
So, he pushed something. The hatch closed between he and Riina and the lift began to lower.
When it stopped and the door opened again, lights came on revealing a large cavern.
It had to reach up almost to the surface, he decided.
There were more of the cages lining the walls and another control station. But these cages, he realized, weren’t empty. He jacked into the control station again, and somehow managed to turn on the lights inside the cages.
Humans, animals, and one very large avian blinked at him.
He had a feeling that the avian was the Timmy in the well.