Chapter 22
Riina shifted uneasily, checking the time once again. Tim had only been gone a couple of minutes. It felt like an hour. She tried comms.
“Tim?”
“Yes?”
The relief almost buckled her knees.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m not sure how to answer that question,” Tim said. “I have found a prisoner cell block. I am unsure how to proceed.”
“You can’t let them go?”
“I am one. They are many, including another large avian.”
“Timmy,” she said.
“Yes.”
Tim had left the console unlocked, but the language and coding was unfamilair.
She tried comms again, this time to the shuttle.
“Veirn, if I send you a video, could you help me out with this control station?”
“I could try,” Veirn’s fragment said cautiously.
She turned on her video feed.
“I am receiving,” the AI said. A pause. “It is similar to the systems I am currently attempting to access here at what we believe is the central command center. Please wait.”
Riina heard the scramble of claws on the metal ceiling and then a shadow darkened the doorway. After a few seconds, the bird’s head—or the part of it with an eye—filled the doorway.
“We’re working on it,” she said. She looked, without touching.
There had to be some kind of larger hatch entry for them to get the avian inside.
That had to mean the ceiling could be raised and the floor in the center of the room must also have some kind of opening. It was the only thing that made sense.
She studied it. Yes, she was certain it had to be a large hatch, too. If only she could find the matching control. Her comms crackled, then Veirn spoke.
“I believe I have translated the controls correctly, but the only way to know for sure…” the AI stopped.
“…is to try. Let me see them,” she said. The data packet arrived, and she downloaded it to her suit’s systems. Then activated it and suddenly the controls made sense.
If Veirn were correct.
Her hand hovered over the upper hatch control. Then she looked at the bird.
“I’m going to open it.” She pointed up. There was a pause, then the bird’s head vanished. Its shadow passed over the space outside. So, it had lifted off the roof. That was good. She pushed the control.
“The shuttle on the surface is in motion,” Veirn told Kellen.
He didn’t ask what that movement might mean. How could the AI know?
So far it didn’t seem as if the blockade could see them, so their cloak was working. If his ship had been equipped with phased cloaking, he’d have tried to pass through the blockade, but his ship was not equipped with the ability to pass through solid objects.
It hadn’t been offered the tech, but then he hadn’t asked for it. It had seemed unnecessary and risky. He’d seen video of a ship passing through another ship and the wrongness of it had given him nightmares. Now…
“Can we slip between the ships to reach the surface?” he asked.
“They are too close together for the size of our ship,” Veirn said.
His people were so close. It was frustrating to have come so far to be stopped now.
“Can we make contact with our people without our signal being detected?” It would have been nice to at least let them know help was here. And with their smaller ship, they could most likely pass between the blockade ships and get to them.
“I am uncertain,” Veirn said. It did not sound happy. The AI didn’t like being uncertain. “Their technology, some of their technology, is unfamiliar. I have been unable to access their systems.”
It had tried to access their systems? Kellen felt discomfort at the idea. He wouldn’t like anyone accessing his systems without his knowledge, but…they were far from home. They had no backup. And they had people at risk and out of reach.
“How…” Kellen wasn’t sure exactly how to phrase the question.
“The crew of the Najer had this capability and the information came with their information upload,” Veirn said. “I had not planned to use the information, but…”
And there it was again. But.
He needed to either stop the AI or give verbal approval.
“Very well,” Kellen said. “Just…do no harm,” he added.
And if the AI learned they were more than hostile?
If doing harm was the only way to get to their people?
He wanted to push the decision off until it had to be made but—and there it was again—in the heat of the situation was not the best time to decide.
At least it would give him something new to think about.
“Any ideas or suggestions on how to proceed?” Kellen couldn’t believe he’d said the words. He was the ship’s captain. He should know or have ideas. But it wasn’t unheard of to get ideas from the crew and Veirn was all the crew he had.
“I am running scenarios,” Veirn said.
Kellen might be surprised it had plural scenarios to run. He could think of only two. Try to shoot their way past them. Try to talk to them.
“I suppose we could try making contact with them,” Kellen said, reluctantly, presenting what felt like the lesser of two difficulties.
“I would save that as a last resort,” Veirn said.
Kellen wished they had another, different last resort than trying to make contact with a large, unknown flotilla of ships.
The building rumbled, reminding him of the seismic activity back on Arroxan Prime. Dust filtered down from the high domed ceiling.
“Riina?” He asked.
“I have opened an outside hatch,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” But the structure around him still seemed to shudder with movement. It suddenly felt urgent to make a decision about the prisoners. He still didn’t like his odds. But then, they hadn’t been that good since they’d been sucked into that unknown ship and then dumped here.
“Is there a secondary hatch in the floor?”
“Yes,” she said. “I was going to wait…”
“Open it,” he said.
He began to work the controls as he felt and saw the upper roof of the chamber begin to slide back. Its resistance told him that it hadn’t been activated in a long time.
And now, at his level, doors began to release on the various cells. The humans inside looked surprised and wary. Through the opening from above, T’Korrin flew down and began to circle the chamber, calling out what sounded very much like a warning.
The last cell door—the one that caged the large avian—shuddered open. The humans who had begun peering out of their cells flinched back.
Red lights began to strobe, mixing with the pale yellow lighting.
The huge bird stepped out, lifting and flexing its wings as if it had forgotten how to use them. Perhaps it had. Its gold and red gaze swept the chamber, stopping at the sight of Tim.
His throat went dry.
Then, far above, he heard the cry of the other avian.
This one lifted its head, returning the cry.
Its wings began to beat the air, stirring up old dust into mini vortexes.
Its massive legs bunched, and then it surged up, the wings frantically beating in its drive to rise.
At the opening, it was forced to contract those wings, but it seemed as if it had enough glide force to pass through and out of sight.
Pale light now filtered down through the dust and strobing lights as the avian flew out of sight.
T’Korrin remained, reemerging to begin its frantic calling and flying around and around.
“I know,” Tim said. “We need to go.
The structure began to shudder harder now, which just seemed petty to Tim. He’d just unloaded what had to be a lot of weight.
He waved at the humans, hoping it was the right thing to do, and opened the lift hatch door.
“We have to go!” he called out, aware they probably couldn’t understand him.
Now he could see stairs at each level of the prison. The humans, after some shuffling, began hurrying toward the stairs. The shaking of the various levels was probably helping to motivate them.
They scrambled down the stairs, their progress mostly orderly. This gave him hope. If anyone pushed or shoved, he’d make sure they weren’t on the lift with him.
As they reached the ground floor, he directed them into the lift. They didn’t look happy about it. He didn’t blame them. It looked like yet another trap. But it was the only way out for those without wings.
He did a head count and some calculations. They might all make it inside. Though there were many cells, they weren’t all inhabited.
There was a human woman clinging to the shaking railing as she descended the last set of stairs. A gap was growing between her and the rest of the humans. Tim left his post and ran to her, lifting her onto his back in a smooth movement that had to be a leftover memory from his time as a robot.
He felt and heard her gasp, but after a moment, her arms slid around his neck. He ran back toward the lift. They were the last ones, and the doors were starting to grind closed. He put on a burst of speed and managed to get them inside.
It didn’t feel like a win when the lift began to rise in slow, jerking movements. The humans made small, distressed sounds, but no one panicked that Tim could tell.
“We’re coming up,” he told Riina, not sure she could hear him over the groaning protests of the failing structure.
The shaking and shuddering increased. His systems had recorded how long it took him to descend. They were close, but were they close enough?
He lowered the woman, indicating to a male human to support her, then moved to the center of the lift and looked up. There was an access hatch. He crouched and jumped, punching through the hatch, before dropping down again.
He crouched, jumped again and this time was able to catch hold of the edge and pull himself up on top of the lift. It only took a moment for him to realize that the cable was taking too much strain for its age and condition.
He grabbed it, reducing the strain, shifting that strain to his shoulders and arms and legs. Did he have enough left of the robot to do this? He wasn’t sure.
He looked up, saw the hatch just above them.
“Can you open the hatch to the lift, Riina?” She hadn’t answered him before. He wasn’t sure why.
The lift strained upwards toward the dark rectangle.
He wasn’t sure how long he could do this.
Then the hatch slid open and Riina leaned out.
The relief might have given him the needed push for the last bit.
Of course, the lift stopped just shy of the hatch. It was yet one more part of this never-ending day.
He eased his grip on the cable. It held. Just.
He leaned down, reaching his hand. At first the humans stared at him. Then one man reached up and took his hand. Tim lifted him up and out, gesturing toward the open hatch. It was a scramble for him, but doable.
After that, getting the humans to take his help got easier. One of the males, Tim noted his face for future reference, helped the injured woman up before taking Tim’s help. They both boosted her up and out of the lift shaft.
The humans, Tim was glad to see, had already evacuated the building. He could see some of them still making their way around the huge gap in the floor where the hatch had been.
“Run. Get out of here,” he told Riina, urging her ahead of him as he once more put the injured female on his back. He couldn’t hit his top speed because of Riina and the humans ahead of him.
The shuddering and groaning increased. He guessed the structure was about to collapse in on itself. How far would the impact reach outside? Had the humans evacuated far enough?
Outside he found the avians and the canines herding the humans away from the site.
Tim didn’t have time to blink at the sight. He’d have to blink later. Now that they were outside, he could hook an arm around Riina’s waist and pick up the pace, his cybernetics boosting arms and legs.
It felt as if the ground were crumbling behind them. He didn’t dare to even look back, and it wasn’t until he was well clear that he remembered that his cybernetics could have, possibly had, recorded the event.
His single focus shocked him. But he didn’t have time to worry about that either.
If his head count was correct, they’d acquired at least another ten humans.
The woman struggled against him, and he stopped and lowered her to the ground. They were clear of the collapse, but only just. But now one of the large avians dropped lightly down in front of them, as if it knew not to slam into the ground.
The female limped slowly toward it, and it lowered its head and gently pressed it against her.
“I think,” Riina said, “they know each other.”
Now he noticed what he hadn’t noticed before about her. She was haggard and thin, dirty hair hanging around pale, purple skin. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him. He’d seen many strange things in his travels, but he couldn’t recall a purple alien.
His radio crackled once, then again. He heard Lt. Dish’s voice.
“How is Timmy?”
For a moment, Tim couldn’t think what she was talking about. And then, impossibly, he chuckled.
“Timmy is no longer in the well.”