He’d done what he thought was right, and she couldn’t blame him for the fact that she’d given him a reason to take her command. So they forgave each other and here they were, commanding an alien crew from a nearly empty bridge and preparing for a battle her ship was never designed to fight.
“Thank you, Commander,” she said. “What’s our status?”
“Would you believe we have shields?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Commander Kameha finished this morning. I can’t believe it either, but he said that Fleet needs to make an immediate offer to those Alsean engineers. Apparently, they’re quick on the uptake.”
“That part doesn’t surprise me. I’d like to recruit a few of their pilots as well. Speaking of which, I have good news. Remember the pilot that took on the ground pounder? He’s out of the healing center and ready to fly.”
Baldassar shook his head with a smile. “Definitely a warrior. Bounces out of the medbay bed and wants to get back in the fight.”
She looked at his relaxed expression and wished once again that they had never been forced to opposite sides. “If there is a fight, I’m going to miss you on the bridge when the fireworks start.”
“It’ll be strange. I’ve never been outside the Caphenon during a battle before. But they need me more out there than you do in here.”
“I just wish we had a few more pilots to help out. And fighters that will fly for longer than forty-five minutes.”
“Forty-five minutes might be enough.”
“For here, yes. Not anywhere else.”
With such a short limitation on flight time, it had been impossible to train any of the Alsean pilots on their fighters. Candini and Baldassar would be the only ones with decent weaponry, and they’d be shooting down as many Voloth fighters as they could. Nobody thought for a moment that the Voloth pilots, finding themselves in uncontrollable craft, would make the slightest effort to avoid crashing into villages or cities. Quite the opposite, in fact: Ekatya expected that they’d make their last seconds of life a suicide run. A fighter crashing into a village could wipe it out if the fusion core blew. But if they were targeted in the air, the explosion would be harmless and the only damage would come from falling debris.
Blacksun and the surrounding villages could be protected, to some degree. The rest of Alsea would not. The Alsean fighters couldn’t shoot them down because the nanoscrubbers didn’t affect shield generators. Which was good for the Caphenon, or they’d have no shields at all. For the Alseans, it would be a disaster.
Baldassar took her through the list of repairs and updates, and just for a moment it felt like a normal day. Then Kameha called in about testing the shields and Ekatya realized they would have to back the sky grip away. The braces holding the ship in place would be inside the shielding, but the sky grip was too large and too distant.
“Well, I guess I’m sleeping in my duty cabin,” she said. “I’m not going to be caught outside with no easy way in if the Voloth come.”
“Just like old times, eh? I remember you coming onto the bridge from your duty cabin more than once.”
“It was never by preference, believe me. The bed in my own quarters is a lot more comfortable.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for you. I’ll be sleeping with Candini in the fighter bay.”
She grinned at him, and his eyes widened as he realized what he’d said.
Every Alsean on the bridge turned to stare when they burst into laughter.
Chapter 54
Night watch
Bilseng Lokon sipped his shannel, trying to fight off sleep. He’d been here for two and a half hanticks and his shift was almost over, but this last half hantick was a killer.
He looked around again, still not able to believe he was sitting in the Gaian shuttle. It was a dream come true.
When Lancer Tal had put out the call for volunteers, he’d been heartbroken that he couldn’t sign up. Never in his life had he hated his mid empath rating quite so much as that day. But he’d been determined to help in some way, so he’d called Whitemoon Base, told them who he was, and asked for a job. Any job.
It seemed his name had weight, because it somehow made its way up the chain, and he’d nearly fainted when an assistant to Chief Counselor Aldirk had called to ask if he would like to be one of the lookouts. While the Gaians apparently had devices that could link to the shuttle’s quantum com, the war council didn’t want to depend on a single com method for something so crucial. Someone had to watch the quantum com every tick of the day and night, and all of the Gaians were needed elsewhere. Well, except one. He’d almost fainted a second time when Doctor Lhyn Rivers had walked up to him upon his arrival at Blacksun Base and told him she’d be training him. She was training all of the Alseans on lookout duty. He missed her next few sentences, because he was too busy staring at her smooth face and big green eyes, and only when she’d stopped and smiled at him had he realized she was speaking perfect High Alsean.
The training was simple, really, so he and the other Alseans jumped at the chance to ask as many questions as they could once they’d all had a few turns on the com. Doctor Rivers seemed happy to answer them, and asked her own in turn, telling them she was delighted to have the opportunity. She’d asked them to call her Lhyn, but he couldn’t. She was too beautiful and strange and altogether amazing to call by only one name.
He’d also met Captain Habersaat of the research ship Arkadia, which was now functioning as a lookout ship. The captain had the most eye-popping cluster of hair on his face. Until now it had never occurred to Bilseng that aliens would have body hair, because Alseans didn’t. But this Gaian had a beard like a male dokker. It hung low onto his chest and was twisted into a braid with a little bead hanging near the end of it, and Bilseng could hardly take his eyes off it while they talked on the com.
But that was during his training, which had been the single most exciting day of his entire life, even counting the night he’d found and tracked the Caphenon. Now he was finishing his second watch, and though he’d never have thought it possible, he was bored. There was only so much you could do, even in an alien shuttle, when your job was to keep a vidcom in your line of sight at all times.
The worst part was that he needed to urinate. Shannel kept him awake, but it also filled his bladder. And he just knew that if anything was going to happen, it would happen while he was in the Gaian version of the toilet.
He took another sip of shannel and stared at the dark screen. Then another sip.
“Shek it,” he grumbled, and stood up from the chair. Keeping the vidcom in view, he sidled away, moving toward the back of the shuttle. He turned his head to check his progress, glanced back at the vidcom, and gasped.
It was on.
“This is the Arkadia. Who—”
Bilseng landed in the seat so hard he nearly burst his bladder. “I’m here! I’m here!”
“It’s the Voloth,” Captain Habersaat said.
Bilseng didn’t wait to hear any more. He activated the code that had been pre-programmed into the wristcom they’d given him, a special code that went straight to Lancer Tal. She picked up immediately, even though it was only a quarter hantick past dawn.
“Which is it?” she demanded.
“The Voloth,” he said, and wiped his sweating palm on his pants.
“How many?”
“How many?” he repeated to Captain Habersaat.
The captain looked grave. “Two invasion groups. Four destroyers and two orbital invaders. They’re on approach right now. You have one hantick, maybe one and a half before they reach drop altitude. The Fleet forces are still half a day away.”
Bilseng repeated the information.
“Fahla save us all.” Lancer Tal cut off the call.
A tick later, Bilseng heard it through the open door of the shuttle.
The bells of Blacksun Temple were ringing.
Chapter 55
Battle of Alsea: Kylinn
“Kylinn!?
??
Someone shook Kylinn’s shoulder and she groaned. She’d been up half the night, tossing and turning in this awful bunk they’d given her on the base, and it felt as if she’d fallen asleep five ticks ago. Her brain couldn’t drag itself awake.
Footsteps ran along the floor, the barracks door opened, and the faint sound at the edge of her consciousness abruptly increased in volume.
Bells.
Kylinn sat up, wide awake in an instant as the fear poured through her system. Whitemoon Temple was ringing its bells. The Voloth had come.
She rushed to get dressed, nearly falling over the other three scholars in her four-day-old unit. They ran outside together and found their eight Guards already waiting in full combat uniform. The warriors must have slept in their gear.
Bare pipticks later they were roaring down empty streets in the roofless skimmer, the wind whipping past their faces. Soon they passed out of the abandoned city, speeding over the fields to their assigned station atop a hill.
Then they waited.
After all the rushing and stress, it was the wait that killed her. They stayed on the hill with nothing to do except listen to the wind and birds, watch the swell of the ocean, and admire the early morning sun glinting off the domes of the city. Her city. She’d been born here fifty-four cycles ago and never wanted to leave. People said Whitemoon was the most beautiful city on the planet, and she’d visited enough of the others to know it was true.
The thought that today might be Whitemoon’s last was choking her. It had already been hard enough watching it empty out over the last few days; people fleeing in all directions as they headed toward relatives’ homes and designated evacuation sites. Yesterday her bondmate had called from his mother’s village and said their son had been asking if they’d ever be able to go back. Kylinn had cried then, because she had no answer. She didn’t know if there would be a city to go back to—or if she’d be alive to see it if there was.
For more than a hantick she sat in the grass and tried to drink in as much of the scene as she could, imprinting it on her memory. Then all of the warriors lifted their wristcoms at the same time, their eyes intent on the message.
“They’re coming,” said Lead Guard Helmor. He was their unit leader, a young man half her age but with more assurance than she’d ever have. “Get ready. Remember what Prime Warrior Shantu said in your training. There are many ways to debilitate, but the most basic emotion of all is fear. Make them afraid. Think of the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you, and project it. Make them so afraid that all they can think about is getting out. It can’t be the kind of fear that makes them want to fight. It has to be the kind that makes them want to run and hide.”
Kylinn and the other scholars nodded. They were two men and two women, ranging from the woman barely past her Rite of Ascension to the gray-haired man she knew was over the cutoff age. He’d volunteered anyway, and confided to her that his bondmate, a retired warrior, had Returned just a cycle ago. He was fighting in his bondmate’s place.
They stood and watched the late summer sky, waiting for their first sight of the Voloth. For long ticks there was nothing. Then, suddenly, the sky was full of dots.
“Great Mother,” Helmor said. “They must have dropped fifty just on Whitemoon. I’ll bet Whitesun got hit with a hundred.”
The dots seemed to be unmoving in the sky, but she knew that was an illusion. Then one of them approached and whipped past a cloud so rapidly that she gasped, understanding for the first time just how fast they were falling.
“May Fahla guide and protect us,” Helmor murmured.
They all joined him, their eyes on the sky and their voices quiet. “… on the dark path we must walk. And if she calls the heroes home, our deeds shall ever be taught.”
I am going to be a hero today, Kylinn swore to herself. I will protect my family, my city, my world. Fahla, please give me strength.
The dots became dark lumps, then blocks as they drew nearer the ground and she could see them better. They were horrendous, nothing more than tubes and wiring and metal all cramped up into a rectangular shape.
“That’s ours.” Helmor pointed.
She followed his finger to the one that would fall nearest their location. Its descent slowed, and she realized it was firing thrusters. All of the ground pounders were slowing now, coming in for a leisurely landing as if nothing could harm them. In that moment she hated them. Barbarians, thinking they could destroy her world.
“Everyone in the skimmer,” Helmor ordered. “We have to get you closer.”
They ran for the skimmer, which rose up on its cushion of air and swooshed over the fields, drawing closer and closer to the monstrosity that was coming down for a landing. Kylinn never took her eyes off it, and just when she thought it could not get any more frightening, it unfolded. Four gigantic legs opened up, reaching for the ground as it slowed to a near hover.
“This is it!” Helmor shouted as the skimmer came to a halt. “Find their minds! Do it now!”
Kylinn reached out. Though it was a long range for her, she could sense them. They were full of excitement, arrogance, and contemptuous anger, and for a moment she wondered how aliens she’d never met could already view her as if she’d wronged them. They were ready to mete out justice for an offense she hadn’t committed.
Focusing harder, she fell into one of the minds. But another scholar was already in it, so she pushed into the next one.
She’d had four days to think about what her most terrifying experience had been. Now she closed her eyes and concentrated, remembering a time when she was eleven cycles old and had thrown a rock into a wasp nest to see what would happen. The wasps had boiled out, and she’d been covered before she could even move. It had hurt, oh Fahla, nothing had ever hurt that badly, and she had turned and run, screaming, hardly able to see and having only one thought in her mind.
Run! Terror! They’re hurting you, they’re killing you, get to safety, run!
The ground pounder’s legs were almost touching the soil when the thrusters shut off and it dropped the rest of the way, landing heavily. For a moment nothing happened, and then a hatch flew open in the bottom of its giant square head, next to one of the thick legs. It must have been twenty paces straight down, a distance that would easily break bones, but the alien that jumped out didn’t care. She screamed as she fell, and when she hit the ground, she didn’t move again.
Another came out and began clambering down the leg, crying out in an incomprehensible language. Kylinn felt his mind and knew this was hers.
Terror! Run! You’re not safe, you’re going to die, it hurts, it hurts!
He let go of the leg and fell the last five paces, landing on his back. Then he stood up and screamed, flailing his arms, beating at his body, scratching bloody marks down his face. Another alien dropped out behind him and fell straight down. This one rolled over and began crawling away on his forearms, dragging what looked like two broken legs behind him.
The mind Kylinn had been digging into suddenly went dark, and her alien dropped like a sack of grain. She looked up in shock to see the fourth Voloth leaning out of the hatch, a weapon in his hand. He turned and shot the one that was crawling, then turned again and shot the female who had already jumped and died.
Crying, he dropped his weapon and climbed down to the ground, where he curled up in a ball at the base of the leg and rocked back and forth.
Kylinn looked at the others in her unit. The three scholars were gray-faced and trembling, and when she raised her own hand, she could see it shaking as well. But the Guards weren’t looking at the Voloth. They were staring at the scholars.
“Mother of us all,” said one of them. “Mother of us all!”
Even Helmor looked horrified. Then he met Kylinn’s eyes and shook his head. “All right, come on!” he shouted. “This is what victory looks like. This is what we need them to do. It’s for Fahla and Alsea!”
“For Fahla and Alsea,” the other seven repea
ted, but their voices were low and Kylinn could easily feel their fear.
“Listen, we’re just as frightened as you are,” she said. “But that’s my city. I will do whatever it takes to protect it, so my family can come home. And when this is done, I don’t ever, ever want to think about this day again. Now take us to the next shekking ground pounder so we can kill it.”
But it wasn’t her little speech that broke through the warriors’ fears. It was Rafalon, the older man fighting for his bondmate, who reassured them when he turned and vomited into the grass.
“Fahla, forgive me,” he moaned, falling to his knees. “Oh, Fahla, help me, please.”
Kylinn went down next to him and grasped his hand. Projecting her understanding, she said, “Fahla doesn’t need to forgive you. You did what you have to, what she needs you to do. She gave us this gift to protect Alsea. But we’re not done. Come on, get up. There are more of them.”
He looked at her with streaming eyes. “I don’t want to do that again.”
“You have to. I’m sorry, but you have to.”
Helmor came to Rafalon’s other side and put an arm around his back. “She’s right. We have work to do. Get up. We need you.”
With their help, Rafalon rose and stumbled forward. The warriors closed ranks around them, united once more.
“What do we do with him?” asked the young Guard nearest the ground pounder.
They all turned to look at the remaining Voloth, who was still rocking and crying.
“We’ll have to tie him and leave him,” Helmor said.
They got back into their skimmer and closed the distance to the ground pounder, which was even more gigantic and frightening close up. As soon as they pulled to a halt, the young Guard jumped out and ran toward the Voloth, only to bounce off the shield they’d been warned about.
“Shek! That kicked like a dokker!”