The Catalyst (Targon Tales) (22 page)

“We can help you get back,” Nova said.

“Go! Caelyn will need time to get ready for the jump. I’ll get there.” He smiled crookedly. “Well, hopefully. If I’m not there by the time the defense launches, just go. I’ll take my chances with the professors.”

Nova grabbed Caelyn’s arm and dragged him into the passageway. She dodged people right and left as they hurried past the hangar and into the lift, praying to several gods that weren’t especially native to her species that no one would stop them. The levels above were nearly deserted until she reached the liftplane bays. Some of the other pilots were also getting ready to join the battle. At this point she was prepared to shoot the first rebel who dared to stand in her way.

No one did. She got Caelyn into the Dutchman and breathed a loud sigh of relief when the gate slammed shut behind them. “Get ready to do whatever it is you need to do,” she said. Like the pilots on both sides of the Dutchman, she started her pre-fight checks, silently fretting over Seth. Caelyn slipped into the co-pilot couch and engaged his neural interface in preparation for the jump they planned to make.

She cursed under her breath when the minutes ran by like seconds and there was still no sign of Seth. The lights in the corridor had turned orange; soon someone would activate the air lock hatches and they’d be forced to launch without him. She scanned the halls with the ship’s exterior cameras as if doing so every few minutes would hasten his arrival. “Where the hell is he?”

“Don’t be swearing like that in front of the Delphian,” came Seth’s calm voice over her earpiece. She heard the ship’s gate open behind her. “He’s delicate.”

Chapter Thirteen

 “All right, are we ready for this?” Seth gripped the headrests of the pilot and co-pilot’s chair and vaulted into his seat. “Caelyn? Are you feeling it?”

The Delphian, already secured for the flight and tapped into the Dutchman’s central processor, nodded. “Almost there,” he said. His half-closed eyes were focused on nothing and he did not react when Nova leaned over him to shift the gun controls to the right side of the cockpit. “I have the coordinates and the keyhole. Such a long reach...”

“Can you make it?” Nova asked. She threw Seth a worried glance. The possibility that Caelyn might not be able to calculate the breach in his current state of mind had not even occurred to her.

“Guess we’ll find out,” Seth said. “Hang on to something, Red.” He engaged his own interface and released the docking clamps. A mild push of the thrusters allowed the Dutchman to drop away from the carrier. Nova gripped the handle of the gun control panel with one hand while she loaded up the weapons she would need for the battle ahead. Seth rotated the Dutchman and accelerated, soon joining the other ships heading toward the arriving battleship.

“Max shields,” she said. “Let’s hope we don’t have to engage.”

“You may not have a choice,” Seth reminded her.

Her lips formed a thin line. “I know. Just get us out of here.”

“Come on, Caelyn,” Seth called to the Delphian. “We need this to happen.”

Caelyn reclined motionless on his bench, his mind locked to the Dutchman’s navigation system as he probed the unimaginable distance between the microscopic breach in space and its terminus. He felt his way while the ship calculated, looking for the exit as he slowly spanned the reach to show the Dutchman the way out again.

“They’ve launched the fighters,” Seth said.

Nova nodded. Her displays, too, showed a squadron of Union fighter planes, mostly the high-performing Kites, issue from the colossal ship to meet the haphazard rebel fleet in a tight and unwavering formation. She was very well aware of what these pilots were capable. Seth veered to the periphery of the field to flank a wing of Shrills racing toward the Union fleet. Four rebel cruisers brought up the rear.

“This is going to hurt,” Nova said. “They’re engaging.”

The Air Command fighters waited no farther than weapons range to rain a barrage of laser fire onto the Shrills. Nova saw a small squad veer left and head straight for the Dutchman. She placed her defensive fire before them, pleased when they were forced into evasive maneuvers.

“I’m almost there,” Caelyn said, somehow sounding very far away.

“Dutchman,” someone’s voice reached them via their com. It was one of the rebel commanders. “Quit evading. They’re wide open over there. Take them out!”

“Roger, command,” Seth replied, painfully aware that this transmission would be picked up aboard the Union carrier. He rolled again to get out of the way of the Kites. “Engaging.”

A direct hit impacted against the Dutchman’s portside shield.

“Nova!” Seth snapped. “Stop playing nice.”

She ground her teeth and edged her fire closer to the Kites. One of them seemed to have some trouble and crossed over, dangerously close to his team members. Nova exclaimed in dismay when her fire grazed him and he spun away to break up at a safe distance from his squad. “One of ours, Seth! Gods, I hit one of ours.”

“There’s an Eagle after us.” Seth’s sensors had detected the high-end cruiser bearing down upon them, practically shouldering the smaller planes out of the way. “I think they know we’re up to something.”

Nova redirected her fire and singed one of the Eagles’ noses. She hoped that they realized her deliberate avoidance of serious damage and decided to stand down to investigate. But there was no time for guesswork when a pack of Shrills and Kites came between them. “I can’t, Seth! Those are my people. I’m going to tell them who we are.”

“No!” Seth shut the com down. “Hold on. We can do this.”

“Go negative now!” Caelyn shouted suddenly and Seth veered to punch the Dutchman forward, directly at the keyhole coordinates. The ship sped away from the battle while Nova fired in front of her pursuers to keep them from gaining and following into the breach. With more important targets than a fleeing rebel ship, the Eagle turned away and left the chase to the Kites.

“They must think I’m a really bad shot,” Nova said but neither Seth nor Caelyn even heard her words. Both of them were now a part of the ship’s control system, their minds focused on nothing but the breach in space that now widened to receive the Dutchman.

Nova suddenly realized that she had never even jumped a charted site while not at least in grappling distance of something more solid than the ship’s tactical controls. The ship plunged into nothing and she lost all perception of light or sound or even the floor beneath her feet or the guns in her hand. The tremendous vertigo of the moment seemed to turn the inside of her head upside down and she was no longer sure if she was even standing upright.

When she could see again she was on the floor, crumpled beneath the com console with a new pain blooming between her shoulder blades. “Seth!”

“I’m on it.” He gained control of the careening Dutchman to slow the ship and get his bearings in this new sector. “Breach closed behind us. Check the Delphian.”

Nova pulled herself up and peered into Caelyn’s face. He was breathing evenly, slowly, his eyes closed. The blue brows were drawn together as if in pain or concentration. “Caelyn? Are you still with us?”

He nodded slowly but did not open his eyes.

She looked over to Seth. “Systems?”

“Still checking.” He also remained with the neural link, probing the Dutchman’s functions to check for damage. Even a slight miscalculation on Caelyn’s part could have lethal results on a jaunt like this. “Hmm, not good.”

“What is it?

“Coolant.” He rose from his chair, swaying as if from vertigo. “About as tapped as our Delphian. We’ll be lucky if we don’t burn out the processors. Going to be an interesting ride back.”

“And who knows what we’ll get back to,” Nova said. “I can’t believe I killed one of ours. A Union pilot! This is terrible.”

“Not so much fun being a rebel, is it?” He opened a hatch in the floor and prepared to climb down, wincing when he bent his injured leg.

“Have you done that? Killed Union soldiers like that?” She raised her hands before he had time to object to her question. “Yes, yes, I know. Don’t ask.”

He straightened up again and took her face into his hands. “You can’t save everybody you like any more than you can just shoot everybody you don’t. Collateral damage, either way.” He kissed her and turned back to the hatch. “Prepare for landing, Lieutenant.”

She dropped into his chair and cast the scanners for Naiya which soon appeared on their sensors. “I don’t think I’ve ever known of a jumpsite opening so close to a place you actually want to get to. No wonder Rellius is so hot to get here. Barely any travel involved on this side.” She heard him rummaging below the floor of the cabin and waited to enter Naiya’s atmosphere until he emerged again. The planet grew in her real-video screens, suspended in the light of a distant binary system. “Ready for entry,” she called to Seth. Caelyn, beside her, flinched at the sound. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

“I will be,” he said. “We’ll need to decon before stepping out. There hasn’t been much time to study the planet.” He swallowed before continuing. “Most of the samples were on Tyra, so they’re lost now anyway.”

Nova nodded. “Erratic orbit,” she said when she felt Seth’s hand on her shoulder. “Pressure is fine. No oxygen, gravity a bit heavy, and it’s as hot as Feyd on a summer day. Super.” Seth dropped onto his heels and gripped her chair when she descended but the transition was smooth and they were not jolted too badly. Caelyn’s landing coordinates guided them to an island near the planet’s equator.

They watched Naiya grow on the screens, its dun-colored surface slowly distinguishing itself from the amber fluid that filled the oceans. An occasional outcropping of rock or heavily eroded crater pockmarked the solid ground fissured everywhere by channels and rivers, vast bays and inland seas.

Nova hovered the Dutchman into a landing. A plume of dust rose up and hung in the air like fog.

“Is that what I think it is?” she said.

“Water ash. Just lying around like so much dust. Let’s get suited up.”

They helped Caelyn climb out of his chair. Still disoriented and exhausted from the incredible mental strain that the jump had demanded, he moved slowly and with care. They pulled their gear from the cargo hold and climbed into it, taking their time while the dust settled around the ship. It was a while before all three were securely sealed into their cocoons and breathing bottled air. The last step was to subject themselves and the cargo area to a decontamination pass before meeting Naiya’s open environment. Seth dropped the cargo bay gate and peered outside.

One by one they exited the ship and looked around themselves in wonder. The ground under their heavy boots gave way before they found solid purchase as they walked to the ocean’s edge. No waves rose above the thick fluid stretching to the curved, yellow horizon. Shifting bands of orange and amber light played over the sky, coloring the water ash floating like lace on the surface of the sea. They felt no wind against their bodies in this oddly melancholy world. It was desolate and dull, even by Nova's spaceship-bound standards, yet she felt a warm, comfortable peace here as though nothing ever intruded upon the silence. She was certain that it was possible to sit by the shore for hours and never feel boredom or loneliness.

In the distance, an oddly shaped structure rose above the dull sheen. Narrow towers reached for the overcast sky, their superstructure gnarled and uneven as though encrusted with Class Three fauna. Or Class Five residents.

“Do you hear that?” Nova said.

“Yes,” Seth replied. “But how?”

A constant sound hung in the air like a distant song or the soughing of wind though some otherworldly chime, audible despite the sealed protection of their helmets.

“You’re
feeling
that sound,” Caelyn said. “It’s from below. The Naiyads make it. They know we’re here.” He gestured back at the Dutchman. “The landing of ships here is painful to them. The vibration interferes with their song.”

Nova stared out over the sea, content to remain standing there forever but unsure why she felt that way on this lifeless expanse of shoreline. “This place is beautiful,” she murmured.

“Wait till you see below,” Caelyn said. “Come.”

They followed him into the sea, moving slowly as they stepped deeper into the fluid. The ground dropped rapidly but there was very little change in buoyancy. Nova took an involuntary and very deep breath when her helmet at last also submerged. She felt an assuring hand press against her back and turned to peer at Seth. His face was barely visible behind his visor but his expression echoed the wonder she felt.

The three travelers moved sluggishly in the thick fluid, aware of a thousand points of light around them, unable to discover the source of any of it. Soon they saw a multitude of Naiyads glide toward them with undulating movements of their long limbs. In places the crowd was so dense that they looked like a seething mass of tentacles. The teeming bodies parted as if to outline a passage against the lighter-colored sea floor which the travelers cautiously followed.

Nova wondered how they could ever have thought of the Naiyads as squid. Many of them hovered at eye level and their thin, fingered limbs reached nearly to the sea floor. Some luminescent substance pulsed along these limbs in shades of pink and blue. The large, bulbous eyes observed them with evident curiosity.

“Are you getting anything but that singing, Caelyn?” Nova asked.

“Not so far,” the Delphian replied, his calm voice barely distorted by their sound system.

“Look,” Seth said. “The way they move. This must be a sort of communication for them.”

Indeed, some of the Naiyads’ were touching each other and some moved their nimble appendages in distinct patterns too complex to be merely accidental. There was no current here that they could feel, yet some of the creatures undulated in synchronicity to express something far beyond their visitors’ comprehension.

Nova moved as if in a dream. The substance in which they were immersed pressed against her body like warm oil but she felt afloat and her feet barely touched the ground. The song in her mind increased in volume but did not cease its hypnotic one-note effect. She turned slowly to gaze at the display of color and light all around her and wondered if she was, indeed, asleep.