Fort Liberty, Volume Two (14 page)

The thing pushes up from the table and rises to her feet to stand before him. There’s no hesitation in her, no awkwardness, no confusion to reveal how alien she is, and yet, she is completely foreign, expressionless. She’s no longer the woman who cast smiling glances over her shoulder at him, not the one confessed her fears, or the one who looked up at him with such naked admiration.
You are the best of them.

He stares at her, helpless.

Dr. Williams edges around the table, trying to slip in front of it and introduce herself. “We welcome you. I am Dr. Williams, and it is my honor to be the first to extend the friendship of the human race. We wish to understand you. We wish to collaborate on the matters of this planet, and in planning the future of our two species.”

The thing looks at her, and there is recognition. Her face changes, no longer slack, but a close facsimile of natural human expression. “We are Devas. We understand your message. We also wish to collaborate.”

Williams releases an amazed breath, raises her hand to touch her visor in a gesture of surprise. But, of course, it’s not so much surprise as it is triumph. This is it. This is what they were all hoping for. This is the big moment. This is history being made, being silently watched from the control room, recorded in holo for posterity. This is the moment that changes everything.

First contact.

Mission successful.

Only he feels sick. He backs away, needing to be out of the room, out of the suit, some place where he doesn’t have to look at her.

“Logan,” she---it---says.

He shuts his eyes, as if he can just forget he heard it.

“You are the best of them.”

“What?”

“Niri is us,” It says. “We are her.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Her memories are ours.”

He releases a pained breath.

It takes a step toward him. “We know you are the best of them.”

What the?

“Him?” Williams says as if her miracle moment has just turned to shit. “He’s just a medic. He’s---with the deepest respect---not one of our important citizens. We have assembled great scientists, and great leaders, for you to meet.”

“We will meet them,” it says. “But we remember him. And he remembers us. He is important.”

Logan looks at it, and sees Niri, because he can’t stop seeing her, even though she’s no longer there. “Important to you? What are you?”

Now Williams is horrified. “Logan, perhaps you should---”

“No. Whatever it is… no.”

“Niri is us,” it says calmly, gesturing to the play of light outside the airlock. “We will show you. This message is for you alone.”

He shakes his head, teeth bared, wanting none of it.

“Corporal,” Williams interjects. “Devas would like you to accompany her into the cave system.” She lays it down so that there’s no question. This is not a request. This is an order. Only he doesn’t take orders from her.

He doesn’t move.

Williams pushes around behind him and opens the airlock with a swift punch of codes to the keypad. She turns, her expression tight with anger. She’s determined that this fragile moment of destiny is not going to get ruined by a slack-jawed medic. “Corporal,” she stresses it again so that he knows it’s his absolute duty to follow the thing into the caves. “You were warned this would be difficult. Do you want to understand about Niri now, or not?”

No. He frowns. Yes.

He curses against his suit’s plastic visor and follows ‘Devas’ into the cavern. He trails behind her as she crosses back into her glistening world. It’s light welcomes him with flushes of aqua and blue, messages he doesn’t understand, songs only she can hear.

She waits.

The airlock closes behind them, and he can sense Williams watching over his shoulder, her visor most likely pressed up against the door seal.

Devas doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes are on her colony. A faint smile plays on her lips. “Human sight.”

The cavern drops into blackness again.

His heart kicks, and he’s staring, like an idiot, at nothing, hearing his own desperate breathing inside his hood. It occurs to him that maybe this is an attack. Who wouldn’t think so? Maybe she’s moved. Maybe she’s coming closer.
What do you want? You bring me out here… to what?

A sprinkling of light appears along the arch of rock above them, thickening to form a dense band of glitter then diffusing from the center. The colony forms a watercolor in billions of glinting cells, until a Milky-Way-esque image hovers over the rock.

It’s some version of a clear Martian night, not the right colors, not the right clarity, but recognizable. It’s something they clearly took from Niri, from her memories. The image floats, too bright, too welcoming, dreamlike in the way that only Niri would have seen it.

Devas is standing in the exact spot he remembers, small within her sprawling celestial halo. Her face is upturned, her hair shining in a wet braid, her dark skin absorbing the color of liquescent stars.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, lost.

“Niri chose to be us, to be
one
,” she answers, distracted, as if discerning his voice through a chorus of others. “She chose to be a light for your world, and ours. Niri is us, and you are important. You are trusted.”

“Trusted?”

“Humans are now in a position to destroy us.”

Logan watches her for a moment, supposing that’s true.

She looks back at him, and for a second, her expression is pure Niri, pained by the idea of anger or cruelty. She’s too vulnerable, too human to be anything else. “They will try to destroy us. They will seek us out, like they sought us on Earth and on the ship that brought us here, and when we hid in the old settlement---”

“Niri, these are Niri’s memories, her life---”

“You fought for us.”

“Not for you.”

“She is us,” Devas insists.

“I don’t believe that.”

“How can we show you?” she asks, stepping down from the rock and slowly crossing the distance between them. “You need to see her when you look at us? You need her to say ‘I am here’?”

He presses his lips together, refusing to move even as she stops before him, way too close, gazing up so that it feels like there’s no space between them. It’s wrong, completely false, but there’s something there, some sliver of the admiration he’s seen in her before. She’s girlish, naïve, so distinctly Niri, and he can’t look away, can’t pretend he’s not seeing it.

She smiles, and it’s beautiful, hopelessly so. “I am going to change everything for the better. Soon, there will be no more destruction. Humans, in all of their worlds, will thrive. I will thrive. This is the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

“The way it is supposed to be. The way it is meant to happen. This is the next step, offered when it is right, when it is needed.”

“Niri---”

“You are wise enough to understand. I know you are,” she says, peering through the shine of his visor, focusing on his hair, his eyes. She lifts her hand, stroking her fingertips experimentally along the plastic.

He sways back out of reach.

“I know you,” she whispers. “I know you will not abandon me. I know you will not let them kill me. Other humans will come here to destroy me. They will hunt me as they hunt each other, but your leaders have chosen a different path for your species, a different future. They have chosen cooperation with us. Not all of them are wise, or truthful. Not all can be trusted, but they accept what must change. They have made this decision. They have bridged our worlds, knowing what it would mean, but they cannot protect me from those who would destroy me, and I will not survive without you.”

He struggles with that, knowing it’s a manipulation of sorts, and that he’s in serious trouble because the image of this woman gets to him in ways he can’t even describe. He’s looking at her now, and it’s impossible to believe that Niri is not in there somewhere. It’s impossible to believe that it’s not her asking for his help… because maybe it is.

“I’m part of a team,” he offers, trying to focus back on what she’s said. “I follow orders. Colonel Voss told me to take you---Niri---out of here, if I was asked to do so. I was not asked to do that.”

“You follow the Asura.”

“What?”

“Your loyalty is absolute.”

My…
“Yes,” he says. “To my command, yes.”

She holds his gaze, her expression burning with emotion, the way Niri’s often did, then it eases, and she turns her head, as if listening. “I understand.”

Understand?

She lifts her gaze back to the starlit ceiling, watching her Milky Way melt into darker blooms of color, lips pressed tightly together, a hint of fear maybe.

Logan frowns. “Niri---”

The airlock seal hisses, the door retracting.

Dr. Williams steps out onto the rock, unsure if she’s welcome or not. She forces a tight lipped smile, bows her head in respect to Niri. “My sincerest apologies, Devas. The corporal is urgently needed in another part of our station. He will return as soon as he can.”

Logan nods, first thinking that it’s an excuse, then seeing in the doctor’s face that it’s clearly not. Something’s wrong.

 

“They’re going to break through the monitoring station,” Nielson says, his voice sharp, pitched with disbelief. “They’re breaking through it right now.”

“What? What are you---”

“Some guys, Earthbounders. They landed in the hangar and blew open the elevator shaft, along with the car at the bottom. Now there’s shooting, and I… I can’t even tell what’s going on, but… it’s bad.”

Logan glances down at his wrist, seeing that all the comms are down. No green bead for Gojo, No bead for Voss. No one.

What the fuck?

The team was engaged while he was down here, useless, and unaware.

Now the enemy is already through the hangar, which means Voss might be dead. Wyatt might be dead. And Gojo… Who the hell knows where he is, but he’s either fighting for his life, or dead too.

Not those guys. Not my guys
.

Lock it down.

Do your job.

Nielson crosses behind one of the desks, pointing to one of the holo screens. “There was an explosion in the elevator shaft. The communications are out, but there’s still vid.”

The images on the screen are grainy, but Logan can see the fight raging. He ignores the smoke and shattered glass, focusing on the dark outline of guards changing positions behind control consoles. There’s no sound with the images, just quick, pixelated movements, a continuous attack coming from beyond the view of the camera.

One station guard drops in a lifeless fall against the cabinets.

They’re getting overrun.

Logan shakes his head, pushing the words out. “You have control over the second elevator?”

“We’re in lockdown. It won’t move.”

“Is there another way up?”

Nielson looks at him, . “You can’t go up there. You have to protect us down here. Those were your orders.”

“They’re blowing through doors. You took all my guns. What am I supposed to protect you with? I have to go up there to prevent them from coming down here because I’ve got nothing.”

“There’s an evacuation kit. It has an axe.”

“An axe? They have assault rifles. Do you know what a gun is?”

Nielson struggles, losing his mind. “I don’t think… I don’t know. Maybe someone has a plan---”

Another station guard goes down.

Too late.

Larger figures fill the screen, all of them Earthbounders in matching Bounder armor, but without helmets, as if there’s been a malfunction. Maybe an EMP, a gift from Voss.

They spread out from a tight stack, mowing down sectors, and clearing the control deck like they know what they’re doing.

“Shit.” Logan watches, unable to react as the fighting in front of the camera stops. The attackers move forward, and pass out of view, chasing gunfire that’s coming from another direction.

Some of the station guards are still alive, still engaged, and holding their ground off-camera, though maybe not for much longer.

They’ve lost control of the station.

A moment passes before another figure appears in the view, taller than the rest, with his long hair tied at the back of his neck. The guy is clearly in charge, and yelling orders. He sits down at the console and starts pulling up screens.

“They’ve already hacked in,” Logan says. “They’re going to lift the lockdown, restore elevator function, and open all the doors.”

“But---”

There’s nothing to say. It’s already done, already eating up whatever seconds it takes to disarm digital barriers, spread false authorizations through computer systems… it’s in progress.

Think
. Think.

Logan looks up at the cavern windows.