Earth Song: Etude to War (64 page)

“I would also like a brief report on the disposition of those forces,” Minu asked, looking hser straight in those almond shaped eyes. “In exchange I will share the same.”

“We will need to discuss this on Herdhome.”

“I understand.” She turned to Badcold. “We have an understanding. However, I’d like to ask something more.”

“Yes, First?”

“We would like to enter into negotiations with Beezer to purchase ore, and for your species to crew our starship.”

The Beezer chuffed and Minu smiled. A huge piece had just fallen into place in her grandest plan yet.

Chapter 78

September 18th, 534 AE

Unknown Star System

Aaron woke up in the formless darkness of his cell to the typical panic he usually felt in zero gravity and total darkness. He’d been dreaming once more about the crash that cost him his legs and almost woke up screaming.

There was a slight growing gravity that he could detect, and sure enough one of the walls (ceiling) bumped into him a moment later. His jailers used to simply turn it on to their normal (about 1.2 human normal) first thing in the morning. However after he’d nearly dislocated a knee they were forced to admit humans did not always land gracefully on their feet and started this new ritual.

After gravity was resumed to normal, the lights along the edges of his cubical cell began to glow and a voice yowled, “Food in five minutes.”

Luckily he’d been allowed to keep his translator. Even after at least seven weeks of captivity, he’d barely picked up a word or two of their language. He was sure quite a bit of it was beyond his ears’ ability to hear.

Aaron moved quickly to the room’s small necessary niche. He relieved himself in the puddle of water after using it to wash a bit. It was disconcerting to wash in the same water he crapped in each day. He was counting on the ship’s systems to keep it sterile. At least he thought he was on a ship. Crapping on camera didn’t bother him as much; most Chosen lost all sense of modesty after the Trials.

No sooner than he was done the niche closed and the door slid open. A Tanam warrior brought in a moliplas bag and dropped it on the floor before retreating. She still carried a pair of beamcaster pistols and light body armor. He should have considered it a compliment. Instead he just felt like the prisoner he was. The display of force was enough that he never considered taking on the huge cat, and that was likely the purpose.

Inside he found the same thing, just like every day: a reproduction of the Chosen ration pack he’d had in his hip bag the day he’d been captured. Tuna salad, wheat crackers, peaches, and celery sticks. All badly reproduced and even the celery tasted mildly like meat.

He’d tried to explain he could eat meat if it was cooked. That seemed to disgust them even more than the fruit he ate every day. After weeks on end of the same thing, he was beginning to wish they’d toss in a piece of raw meat again.

The reproduced food had the same ‘not quite right’ quality as some of the early reproductions on Lilith’s ship, a further hint that he was also on a ship. Also he’d felt what had appeared to be a ‘tactical jump’ several days ago. Did they have that drive technology also? He made sure to tell Lilith if he ever saw his daughter again.

When
, damn you.
When you see your daughter again.

After he choked down the food and stuffed the garbage in the little chute extruded for that purpose, he began his daily calisthenics before they turned off the gravity again. That was when a little screen came alive by the door. He stood up and faced it in surprise.

“Human.”

“Yes?” he replied and gave a little bow. Must keep decorum.

“A deal has been struck for your return. You are lucky, the crew is as bored with rations as you are and were beginning to bargain on what you tasted like.”

“I’m flattered.”

The Tanam who spoke seemed to consider it a compliment and nodded. “As your status has increased you will be moved to better accommodations on my vessel.”

“Can I have the owner of knowing this vessel’s name?”

She considered him for a moment then gave a snapping yelp. The translator considered for a moment then spoke. “Tail Snapper.”

“A fine ship’s name,” Aaron lied and smiled. The captain bought it and nodded again.

“Your exchange is in five days, we are making space to hand you off. You have been a compliant prisoner,” and she signed off. Aaron had the distinct feeling that the last part was not a compliment.

Despite the promise of better accommodations, Aaron went through his routine in case he had to spend another night in the room. But as promised, the warrior who’d always brought his food arrived two hours later, opened the doorway, and allowed him to exit.

“You are valuable for a human,” the warrior said.

“And you don’t stink too bad for a cat,” he replied. The translator again rendered it as a compliment and the warrior nodded. Aaron sighed at the hopelessness of insulting them subtly and walked in the indicated direction.

Compared to Lilith’s ship, the Tanam ship’s passageways were cavernous, easily twice as wide and half again as tall, owing to the size of its crew. And there were a lot of them. In the five minutes they walked together, including two trips up zero gravity tubes between decks, he counted twenty warriors and twice that many ship’s crew (identifiable by their utilitarian dress, less facial tattooing, and that many were smaller males).

He made an assumption that the ship was much less automated and filed it away for later. Maybe he’d get to see some of the engineering spaces or the bridge? They’d covered his head with a bag while transporting him in a craft and been careful enough that he hadn’t known for sure he was even in a ship until now. Even with the larger crew, the ship seemed no larger than the Kaatan. So a frigate or corvette?

They’d just reached what Aaron assumed was his new home when an ungodly screeching erupted from the corridor and green light bars began to pulse along all the surfaces. The warrior who’d been escorting him cocked its head and looked both ways in surprise.

“What’s going on?” Aaron asked. The sound was horrendous, but the green lights had him disarmed.

“Battle,” she snapped, black fangs dripping saliva.

“But—” Aaron started to say.

The Tanam opened the door and shoved him in with a quick push from a middle arm and the door slid closed. A second later the ship shuddered from an unmistakable weapons impact. He dearly hoped his daughter wasn’t about to kill her father accidentally. The feeling of drastic acceleration and movements of equipment within the hull was equally impossible to misconstrue. The Tanam were fighting back.

Almost right away he was jerked off his feet and flung across the floor. This vessel’s gravitic technology was not nearly as developed as the Kaatan. He looked around the spartan cabin, desperately looking for somewhere to strap down, and found nothing. At least there was a padded platform, probably the bed, and a chair not designed for his physiology. He dove into the bed, lay on his stomach and grabbed on for all he was worth.

Trying to interpret what was happening was almost worse than the beating he took. The ship absorbed fire several time then seemed to try and make a run for it, only to then begin radical course changes.

“You’re outmatched,” Aaron said aloud. Could it be Lilith coming to rescue him? How could she possibly know where he was or what ship he was on?

Then came the horrible sound of a direct impact against the hull. It made the craft ring like a bell and the sound of crunching duoalloy and moliplass transferred along its length like an echo chamber. Another impact, this was making the lights flicker, and the gravity failed. The ship was defeated.

“A space suit might be a good idea,” he wondered aloud and pushed off the bed. Dim recessed greenish tinted lights came alive and showed him the interior of the cabin enough to move around. There was a locker next to the door. Empty. And none of the controls worked either. Plus they were all written in Tanam script.

“Where’s the button for catnip?” Lots of green flashing indicators he figured were problems, and one yellow tab. Curious, he pressed it.

The door made a pinging noise and Aaron eyed it curiously. Upon closer examination he found a little recessed loop was now accessible. No doubt made for a Tanam claw, his fingers were a poor substitute in tensile strength. Still he managed to get two index fingers through and grunted past the sheering pain as he pulled the door upward enough to float through.

Outside a solitary Tanam male was up to his waist in an access panel. Dozens of smoldering components were floating all over the corridor and he was fishing through his equipment bag for replacements. The air reeked of overloaded circuitry and burned cat hair.

Aaron floated past the male technician. Even a non-combative Tanam was several hundred kilos of cat he didn’t want to mess with. At the end of the corridor was a vertical shaft. He was just trying to decide up or down when “whoomph!” went the hull and his ears popped.

“We’re breached,” he said aloud and spun around. He pushed off with his legs and rocketed past his former cabin and the still occupied Tanam. As he figured, this direction led to the hull. Already the air was moving in a slight breeze as he found the outline of an airlock.

No-one was inside so he slid in looked at the controls, all in Tanam. Grabbing his translator pendant he pushed it against the controls and listened as it read off the options one at a time.

“Come on,” he growled as it talked of pressure equalization, lighting, safety override, all the while he was breathing harder as the air got thinner. Finally the translator said ‘cycle interior door closed’.

He blinked tears from his eyes to see the translator’s tiny screen and jabbed at that icon. The inside door whirred closed with a thump and air rushed in.

He watched the hallway through a window no more than twenty centimeters across. Small bits of debris whirled by for a time as the ship decompressed to vacuum. Afterward he checked the locker inside. It held six Tanam vacuum suits and a pair of beamcaster rifles.

The suits were easily three times too big, but they were a backup. Using the pendant he read off the lock’s displays until he found the oxygen telltale. It had its own supply now estimated at six hours, the suits probably several more hours each as well. He also checked the beamcasters. Loaded. So he had a couple days, and could fight.

The wall against his shoulder vibrated and he pushed over to the airlock door just in time to avoid dying. A beamcaster bolt penetrated the inside door and burned a fused line of slag into the exterior door. Air began to rush out.

With no more options, he clambered into one of the six legged cat suits and clumsily pulled it closed. There were locks in the gauntlets to allow the cats’ claws to penetrate through. He almost screamed in pain as he shoved a pair of fingers through to pull closed the magnetic seals. The lock was almost in vacuum by the time he got his fingers back inside. He pulled his arms into the spacious interior of the suits and rubbed them. They felt almost frozen.

The icons on the suit’s HUD all showed yellow. He knew green was bad, so hopefully yellow was good. The pressure was light but the air was sufficient, so he got his legs through by scrunching up the abdomen as much as possible and pushed back over to the door.

A firefight was going on outside. His airlock door was throwing a meter long plume of white mist into the corridor as it gamely tried to maintain an atmosphere and likely would until it exhausted its supply. He saw four Tanam, their backs against the end of the corridor and in combat armor firing furiously down the corridor.

The space outside was so flooded with billowing mist from his lock and whirling debris he couldn’t see who the cats were fighting. He thought he spotted a pair of scurrying crab-bots before another bolt nearly took his head off. He pushed backwards and wedged himself into the suit locker for the most safety he could afford.

The airlock door was five centimeters of dualloy and he could still feel the electric shiver of particle accelerators as the cats exchanged beamcaster fire. He looked in the lock and couldn’t find any defensive shield or forcefields. He took hold of a beamcaster rifle as best he could (without exposing his fingers to vacuum again) and prepared. After another few minutes, the shooting stopped. Someone had won the engagement. The question was who?

After a time, the wall reverberated from an impact, and then another. Someone was beating on the lock door. He decided to remain where he was and after a minute, a well-controlled plasma beam started cutting into the lock. It only took seconds of robotic precision to proscribe a half meter wide circular cut and the chunk of airlock door drifted inward. As he’d expected a crab-bot stuck its ‘head’ in and scanned the room.

“Maybe it will miss me,” he wondered, just as the head locked on him. He considered shooting the bot. Considered it just long enough that the option was removed as the head retreated.

He fully expected a pair of dragonfly-bots or worse to dart in and fill him with holes. What he didn’t expect was a tiny figure in combat armor, just small enough to fit through the hole, to wiggle through and deftly catch the edge of the lock with its lower appendages and produce a pair of miniature beamcasters to point at him.

The faceplate of the armor was polarized providing no detail of the occupant. It was no more than a meter long, fairly squat in appearance, with forelimbs longer than the rearward ones. It shimmered from its active shield and its weapons were trained with ambidextrous precision. Aaron let the rifle go with a gentle push and it floated across the lock away from him.

The visitor slapped one of its weapons onto its side (where it stuck) and with incredible grace swung closer. He tried to push back a little farther into the locker. It reached out and he saw its armored gauntlet ended in grasping claws, not like the long serrated ones of the Tanam. It tapped his faceplate and cocked its helmet slightly. Aaron realized his faceplate must be polarized.