What do you want? she whispered silently, though she didn’t expect bacteria to understand language any more than dogs did. With animals, she used images or, if the animals relied upon senses other than sight, she tried to think in terms of those. But what kind of senses could bacteria have? Could they feel by any meaning of the word?
Images were pushed into her head, and she saw the Snapper being buried in boulders, as if she were watching from high above.
“Yeah, show me something I don’t know about already,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
More images flashed into her mind, a whole barrage of them. They changed rapidly, like a slideshow zipping past too quickly to interpret. She thought she saw an image of the old Starseer ship—at least it matched the picture Zhou had dredged from that database. It was flying through the tunnels, zipping through them so quickly the ship should have been bouncing off the corners.
Jelena willed the entity, if she could call it that, to slow down the display. She often bargained with the animals she contacted, offering treats or something that might appeal to them in exchange for cooperation. But what could she offer bacteria? She doubted the ham cubes Alfie enjoyed would entice them.
Somehow, the idea came across, though. The images slowed down. She saw the ship flying into the chamber they were in now, a chamber that she sensed had been hollowed out over centuries by the bacteria. It was empty, free of all rubble. The Kirian ship disappeared, and she couldn’t guess why until she started to see the tower erected, seemingly out of thin air. Those displaying the images in her mind must have jumped back in time even further.
There were no tools and no giant cranes to move parts. The tower seemed to grow out of the stone floor of the chamber. She also had the sense—the bacteria conveyed the sense to her—that the project had taken years, if not centuries, like the chamber.
The rod thrust up through the ceiling until it reached the surface of the asteroid. She couldn’t hear anything in the vision—though she was aware of clangs and voices in the corridor outside of NavCom—but she sensed pulses of something. Light? Energy? Waves of whatever it was were being sent out through the tower. The antenna at the top. Were these the radio waves that Erick had speculated about? As experienced through the bacteria’s point of view? Could bacteria have points of view? Who or what could they have possibly been trying to communicate with? The Kirians? Was it possible they’d called the Starseers out here? Lured them out?
At her thought of Starseers, the old Kirian ship returned to the images. It flew into the chamber and without hesitation opened fired on the tower. Strange, alien emotions washed over her. Surprise, horror, defeat, and many others that she couldn’t pin a word to. Anguish mingled with it all.
Then came the retaliation. The boulders started pouring down. The—
“I’m so glad we’re leaking shield power like a glass shot full of blazer holes,” a harsh voice rang in her ears, “and the captain is lying on the deck taking a nap.”
“Stop,” came Zhou’s response. “She said you can’t have that.”
“She’s busy kissing the deck. Get out of the way, Zhou. You’re supposed to be working for our team, anyway.”
Jelena blinked until awareness—and her sight—returned. The images had so consumed her that she hadn’t seen Brody step into NavCom. And when had she fallen onto the deck? She was slumped on her knees against the control panel to the side of her seat, her head lolled back.
Brody bumped her leg as he tried to lunge past Zhou, who was standing between the seats and blocking him from reaching the artifact. Abelardus hovered in the corridor uncertainly. Jelena shoved at Brody, but it was ineffective from her position. He didn’t even seem to notice. He lunged again, trying to knock Zhou aside. Zhou was sturdier than he looked and blocked him again.
Brody snarled and launched a mental attack at him. Zhou gasped and grabbed at his head.
Jelena gripped the back of her seat and pulled herself to her feet. She tried to shove Brody back with a telekinetic push, but her vision swam, and blackness threatened to knock her on her ass again. She settled for slamming her palm into Brody’s smug jaw.
He stumbled back, surprise flashing in his eyes. He almost crashed into Erick, who was stepping into NavCom with a remote control in hand. Thor walked behind him, and he must have seen the attack because he shoved past Erick to get inside first. He stood between Brody and Jelena, his hands out to stop further altercations.
That was fine with Jelena. She didn’t want to altercate. She also didn’t want to worry about the artifact, and she almost rolled her eyes when Thor peered past Zhou to check on it. Afraid someone else had left fingerprint smudges on it?
“They instigated it,” she said, memories of the images flashing back into her mind.
“What?” Erick asked, then gripped her arm. “Are you all right? You look rough.”
“Zhou said I looked determined and captainly.”
“Zhou’s smitten with you. Of course he says things like that.”
“Er.” Zhou flushed, but didn’t deny it.
Jelena shook her head, waving away the silly conversation. “The Starseers attacked first. I mean, I think they did. That’s what the bacteria showed me. The Kirian ship came in and fired at the tower, and the bacteria retaliated. I think. I still don’t know why the old Starseers were here. Was it possible they were lured in with that radio signal? Enticed to come explore? And then destroyed because they shot the…” Jelena trailed off, both because she realized she had no idea what exactly had happened and because she couldn’t assume she’d been shown the truth. And also because everyone was looking at her like she was spaced.
“The bacteria showed you?” Brody said. “Woman, you’re off your orbit.”
Erick squeezed her arm in a supportive gesture, but he also looked concerned for her. “We’ll worry about that later, all right? The shield power is under fifty percent and dropping. We need to get out of this asteroid.”
“I’m not in disagreement,” Jelena said. Some archaeologists could come visit later and figure out the story. Maybe Young-hee would need a break from her five children someday and put together a field trip. If she was wise, she’d do her study from outside the asteroid.
“We’re ready to break free,” Thor said. “Ostberg has his device online.”
Erick waved the remote control.
“And Brody, Abelardus, and I are prepared to help fling boulders around. Masika is up in the turret, ready to fire the star cannon, though we may want to reserve that for a last ditch effort or until the way is partially cleared, otherwise a lot of the energy will be hurled back at us.” He glanced at the shield graph still floating in the air, the percentage dropping like the countdown timer on a bomb. “Jelena, can you man the blazer controls while navigating us out of the tunnel?”
“Yes, of course.” Did she look so bad that they thought she couldn’t push some buttons?
“We better start now then.” Thor squinted at Brody, who was still throwing contemplative glances at the artifact.
If anyone lunged for that thing, Jelena was going to grab it and beat them over the head with it.
Thor smiled faintly at her and gestured for her to take her seat.
Zhou scooted out of the co-pilot’s seat. “Should I be doing anything?”
“Just stay out of the way,” Brody growled.
“Here.” Jelena grabbed the artifact and thrust it toward him. “Put that down your pants so nobody’s tempted to grab it while we’re working.” She glowered at Brody.
“My… pants?” Zhou accepted it, but he stared very dubiously down at it. “It looks like it could be radioactive.”
“All the more reason for a Kirian to hold it,” Abelardus said from the corridor outside. “We’re more resilient when it comes to radiation.”
“Just hold it,” Jelena told Zhou. “Erick? Ready when you are.”
He nodded and pushed something on his remote.
Jelena rested her hands o
n the control panel, eager to move the ship.
Seconds passed, and nothing happened. She glanced at the sensor display to see if it would show whatever energy the pulse generator was supposed to create.
“There it goes,” Erick said.
Jelena reached out with her senses, hoping to feel boulders shattering apart, but the bacteria apparently weren’t done communicating with her. They took the opportunity to jump into her head again. She gasped, pushing the presence away. She couldn’t let herself be taken away from the moment, not now.
“It’s working,” Thor said, his gaze toward the view screen, seemingly unaware of Jelena dealing with their one-celled enemy. “The boulders are breaking up.” He looked over at her and down at the control panel.
Right, she was supposed to be moving the ship as soon as she could. There was still too much weight pressing down on them, though.
“Can you work on the ones directly above us?” she asked Erick.
“I’ll try. The generator is basically shooting pulses out in all directions.” Thor closed his eyes.
Jelena could feel him sending out mental energy, and though she couldn’t see the results on the view screen, she was certain he was moving some of the boulders up there.
“We’re also destroying boulders,” Abelardus said.
Brody’s eyes were closed in concentration too. He might be an ass, but he wanted to survive this.
Remembering her secondary duty, Jelena tapped the blazer controls, tentatively at first. The shields phased to allow the Snapper’s fire through, and even though she knew the time they were down was measured in milliseconds, and that only the pane in front of the weapons dropped, she could imagine boulders slipping through to smash against the hull.
But nothing like that happened. She fired again, sticking to short bursts. Boulders blew up where the weapons struck, and she began to think this would work. It might take a while, but they could clear a way out and be able to escape.
“Uhm, shield power is dropping faster now,” Zhou said.
Jelena frowned. Were the bacteria making some kind of extra effort to keep them from escaping?
“I better get to engineering,” Erick muttered and jogged past Brody and Abelardus.
“We can extend a barrier around the ship if we have to,” Thor said, his eyes still closed as he concentrated.
“One we can fire through?” Jelena asked. “And use the pulse generator through?”
“If I hold it, the others can—” He gasped, going rigid.
“What is it?” Jelena started to reach for him, but other gasps of pain came from behind her.
Brody snarled, Abelardus groaned, and Zhou bent double, the artifact gripped against his stomach.
The bacteria? Could it attack them with Starseer-like power?
Whatever they were doing, it did not hurt Jelena, but the images flooded into her mind again.
This time, they didn’t show her the Snapper or the old Kirian ship. They showed her the surface of some moon or planet, with an icy tundra stretching in all directions and white mountains rising in the distance. Here and there, something that reminded her of the cobwebs in the tunnels gathered in pockets across the surface, metallic shrouds that glinted with lights that blinked different colors. Through the link, she somehow learned that they were large masses of the bacteria, cities in a manner of speaking, and she was looking at Trajea, what had been here long before the planet had been turned into asteroids.
Ships flew through the starry sky above the icy surface. Jelena recognized them from pictures in history books. The original colony ships.
Three of them cruised over Trajea’s icy tundras. On their way to colonize and terraform the more hospitable planets? If so, why had they flown so close to Trajea?
Wait, she thought in confusion. Had Trajea been a planet when the colony ships arrived? That definitely wasn’t what the history books said. This had always been an asteroid belt, as far as humanity knew. Even Zhou had said that if Trajea had been a planet, it must have been long ago. Or had he said that? She considered his comments, his surprise that the mountains and canyons remained, how time and impacts from other asteroids hadn’t worn them away completely yet.
A scream pierced her consciousness. Was that Zhou?
Why are you attacking us? she cried through the link, sending an image of NavCom with everyone hunched over in it. The words would mean nothing, but the bacteria seemed to understand images. Or they understood how she saw the world and were giving her something she could grasp.
Even though the images of the ships flying over the tundra continued to play in her mind, something else came through the link. She sensed that the bacteria were divided, that some were trying to communicate with someone who would listen in the hope of solving their problem peacefully—getting her and her destructive kind out of what remained of their planet, their home—and the others were behind the attacks, dealing with the threat the only way they were sure would work, the way that had worked in the past.
Let us go, she thought, sending images of the Snapper flying out of the asteroid. We won’t come back. We’ll tell people there’s nothing here for them.
Zhou might object to that, but he would understand. And Abelardus and Young-hee and the Starseer archaeological team? Well, they’d seemed far more interested in the artifact than in the life here. Had they even known about it? Someone must have. Someone in the Starseer government, someone who hadn’t wanted anyone to come out here again because… Because why? Because of the threat from the bacteria? Or some other reason?
In her mind, one of the colony ships fired, startling her. The others fired too. Not simply blazers—or whatever cutting weapons they’d had back then—but something much larger. Huge torpedoes. They soared down to the surface, one landing in the mountains, another in a canyon.
Abruptly, she realized they weren’t torpedoes. Those dark oblong objects were the cases for explosives. Nuclear warheads. Why would the colony ships have brought such weapons? Had the ships expected trouble? Nuclear weapons would be a dangerous thing to carry during the two-century trip to the system.
The warheads exploded with intense blinding light that seemed to burn right into the center of Jelena’s brain. Pain slammed into her brain, too, and she crumpled to the deck, curling into a ball. She felt the deaths of billions and billions of bacteria that had lived on Trajea, that hadn’t minded its icy environs.
In the aftermath, the planet fractured, broken into thousands and thousands of pieces scattered along what had once been its orbit. What became the Trajean Asteroid Belt. The colony ships continued on, heading into the system, to the core worlds they would settle.
Jelena grew aware of the deck under her hands, the cold textured metal against her skin. She was on her knees next to Brody, who’d also pitched to his hands and knees. Zhou writhed in pain between the two seats. Somehow, these bacteria were able to attack with the same kind of power that Starseers possessed. She sensed Thor marshaling himself, readying some attack, even though he, too, was in pain. He reached for Zhou. No, he was reaching for the artifact.
Don’t attack back, Jelena managed to tell him, though she could barely think, barely move. The deaths of all those bacteria and the destruction of an entire planet lingered in her mind, leaving her brain as weak and shaky as her arms and legs.
We’ll die if someone doesn’t do something, Thor snarled, and she felt his pain vividly. His desperation.
The bacteria shifted the images in her mind, showing her how a small number of their kind had survived. They’d slowly banded together, increasing their numbers during the asteroid’s slow orbit until they could build something. The radio tower. They’d used their own bodies to create it, just as their bodies had once created those webs, the colonies which they’d lived underground in, choosing to stay in the tunnels so they could hide their existence from the human invaders of the system. The bacteria had turned on the radio, transmitting out to the stars, hoping for help from others of thei
r kind that they believed lived in other systems. Others that could come to assist them in driving out those who had attacked them and taken over the system.
Jelena could hear her heart pounding in her ears as these revelations were shared. If this was a true story, her ancestors had destroyed a civilization. At some point in their journey, they had realized there was an intelligent civilization already in the system and that it might object to humans coming in to colonize the rest of the planets. Maybe they’d even known that before the expedition left Old Earth. Was that possible? Had those warheads been sent on those three ships from the beginning? And had they been given orders to deal with Trajea before entering the system?
The thought sent the chill of space through her. She couldn’t assume she was getting the truth from these bacteria, and yet… why would they lie to her? Right now, they seemed to believe they had the upper hand, that they could kill her crew the same way they’d killed the Kirians.
“Got you,” Thor snarled, bringing her back to the moment.
Jelena lifted her head as his hand wrapped around the artifact. He pressed it to the deck and gripped it with both hands. Its crimson glow flooded NavCom, throwing its eerie light across his lean features, making them seem cold and harsh. She knew right away what he intended to do.
“No,” she whispered and gripped his arm.
Jelena had to keep communicating with the bacteria, the ones open to listening. Maybe she could bargain with them and convince them to get the others to stop. But she needed the time to do so. What was the shield power at? She couldn’t see from the deck.
Before she could communicate with anything, she had to convince Thor not to use the artifact. She shared with him the thoughts the bacteria had been sharing with her, that maybe humans were in the wrong here, that their ancestors had nearly annihilated a species, that the Starseers who had been sent five centuries earlier had come to destroy that radio tower and make sure the bacteria couldn’t get help, that the bacteria communicating with her were all that remained of a civilization that had spread across an entire planet.