The Eternal Enemy (37 page)

The frozen moment passed, and the Hydrans burst into a flurry of motion. Straka and Wilhelm didn't wait to see what the Hydrans would do. They leaped to the ground and ran for the closest Hydran. They ran with a vengeance that sprang from revulsion and disgust.

The Hydrans seemed to be confused, disorganized. Some of them were gathering in a tight little group, while others ran for the sanctuary of the nearby buildings. Straka knew how much faster the Hydrans were than she was. If it came to a footrace, she would have to lase their legs off.

She and Wilhelm managed to overtake the one who'd been eating, who was frozen in shock. They had just a few seconds left before all hell broke loose. Wilhelm wrapped his arms around the Hydran before it could react and sealed its joints with his palms. A simple but effective technique. They ran back to the ship with it.

Wilhelm threw it up into the bay and wheeled around in time to see the group of unarmed Hydrans mounting an attack. Straka had made it back to the ship, and Wilhelm could tell they'd be on him before he could hoist himself up into the bay.

He saw no choice. He turned to make his stand.

A thin, slicing beam shot from over his head, lasing the approaching group. Wilhelm took the opportunity and put his hands on the bay's deck.

Straka hoped Wilhelm had enough time to get on board. She kept careful watch of the crowd of Hydrans, ready to slap the bulkhead to start the bay door's closing mechanism.

And then Wilhelm disappeared from sight, dragged downward as if by some tremendous undertow in a sea of Hydrans. Straka leaned over the edge and peered downward. Three Hydrans had Wilhelm down on the ground. They were pounding away at his hardened skin, biting at his eyes and face with their slicing mouths. Straka took careful aim and sliced one of them in half. But that did not deter the other two. She glanced up and saw another group of Hydrans advancing from the left. She realized they were trying to flank her. She had to get Wilhelm aboard, and fast!

She leaped to the ground right beside the churning bodies. She kicked at one of the Hydrans' heads and landed a good blow. The Hydran fell away. Wilhelm had another Hydran left on top of him, but Straka had to let him handle it on his own. She had to deal with the advancing left flank. In another moment or two they would be on her. She activated her laser and swept it back and forth for all she was worth.

Another group started advancing from her right. Where the hell was Wilhelm? What was keeping him? She wheeled to her right and started lasing down the other advancing group. Wilhelm was still on the ground. Another group was mounting an attack from the left. One group directly before her was still coming on, and her right flank was being surrounded too. This was no time for trying to be nice, no time for heroics, Straka realized. She had to get that last Hydran off of Wilhelm, and she had to do it now!

Let them come, she thought. All I need is a second or two.

She ran a step to her right, then looked at Wilhelm. The Hydran was all over him. She stomped down hard on the Hydran's back to get its attention. When it turned, Straka kicked it squarely in the head. Then she lased it. Wilhelm remained on the ground. He wasn't moving. Straka started to get panicky. They were all around her now, advancing at top speed.

And then she saw Wilhelm's chest, bathed in red. She wheeled to face the Hydrans.

She started lasing them, turning 180 degrees, slicing and toppling bodies as if they were targets in a shooting gallery. A few moments of that slowed them enough to give her a few seconds. She reached down for Wilhelm, lifted him under the arms, and flung him into the bay. The advancing group of Hydrans was only a meter away now, coming on fast. She had only an instant to activate her lasetube.

She sliced down body after body as they toppled at her feet. And still they came.

Straka had no idea how much longer she could keep this up. Activating the lasetube drained huge amounts of energy, and she knew she would tire far too quickly to keep it powered.

Where the hell was Katawba? Couldn't he see that they needed help?

Maybe Katawba's in worse shape than us, Straka thought.

Maybe this wasn't such a great idea.

The advancing Hydrans were climbing over the bodies of their fallen ranks, coming on strong, not letting a few hundred dead stop them. But it was taking them longer to get within attack range. If her energy held out, Straka figured she had a chance. Slim, but real. While they were climbing over bodies, she lased them down, adding to the barrier of dead Hydrans between herself and the ever-advancing wave.

She decided they were slowed down enough for her to take a chance. She turned, reached for the deck, and pulled herself up. No time to close the door yet. Keep firing. Christ. How many of them are there? A few Hydrans managed to get close enough to touch the deck, to try to scramble up. Straka lased their hands off. And then she looked up, out over the immediate threat, and saw something that made her blood run cold.

A whole new wave, reaching back as far as she could see, was advancing. They walked over the bodies of their dead cousins, knocked each other down in their frenzied attempts to get to the ship. Straka touched the wall, activating the closing mechanism at last. The door started its slow descent, cutting off her view of the distant advancing wave. That was fine with her.

After lasing through the narrowing opening, after the eternity of the closing sequence, the bay door closed, mangling several sets of Hydran hands in the process.

She slumped to the deck, exhausted.

And then she looked at Wilhelm.

Wilhelm wasn't moving.

Markos knew this rescue attempt would cost them something in time and energy. There were some cutoff points—realistic limits—and they were quickly approaching them. He watched through the small screen and tried to make sense out of what he saw. It was impossible to make out any details or get a true feel for the flow of the battle.

He started to think that something was going wrong. Still, if it were, Katawba was down there, ready to help, as were Kominski and Markatens in H-2. But it didn't look right. It shouldn't be taking Straka this long.

“What's going on?” Jackson asked.

“I can't tell,” Markos said. “Not through this screen. All I know is they're still fighting.”

“Let's get down there. Now. If they're still fighting, they need help.”

“They've got help if they need it. There's no need to move.”

“We're going down,” Jackson said.

“Don't even think of it,” Markos warned. “Or I'll do to you what I did to Kominski.”

Straka knelt on the deck, arms wrapped around Wilhelm's bloody torso. The skin around his neck had been severed by the Hydran's attack. Straka needed to cry, to feel the tears roll down her cheeks, but the tears wouldn't come. They couldn't.

This wasn't supposed to happen, Wilhelm. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be, she thought.

Straka rocked on her knees, swaying to some unheard heartbeat, a pounding throb in her own chest. She looked at Wilhelm's quiet face, his clear, crystalline eyes. She wished she could go back and make things right, do things differently.

“Give me another chance,” she said softly.

But no one heard her plea. She turned to the Hydran, her immobilized prisoner, and eased Wilhelm to the deck. She stood, rushed to its side, eyes blazing with strong clashing colors, light reflecting off the Hydran's shiny black body. Straka made her fist rock hard and in the same instant brought a crushing blow down on its chest.

Something cracked.

“I'm going to kill you,” she told it, knowing full well it couldn't understand. “Slowly. In stages.”

Hand still clenched, still rock hard, she turned back to Wilhelm. Dead Wilhelm.' Somewhere in the background, Straka could hear voices filtering through, calling her, calling Wilhelm.

I'm sorry, she thought. Sorry it was you. Sorry it happened.

It isn't fair.

She could hear the voices again. They were coming from up in the control room. She looked up the long ramp and remembered the radio. It had to be someone calling. She didn't want to answer it, to talk to anyone, to face anyone even over the radio. She would have to tell them what had happened to Wilhelm.

Still, she knew she had to.

She turned away from the motionless Hydran and walked up the ramp. She felt tired and old. She recognized the voice as she approached.

“Are you all right? Straka? Wilhelm? Answer!”

Straka sat in the control seat, the seat Wilhelm used to sit in, and buried her face in her hands. Her hardened right hand took her by surprise.

“Straka? Are you there? Wilhelm? What's going on?”

Straka softened her hand and flexed it, staring at it as if it weren't a part of her body. “I'm here, Katawba,” she said. “I'm here.”

“Straka? Wilhelm? Are you there?”

Straka realized she hadn't activated the transmitter. She touched the plate and activated it, then said, “I'm here. Wilhelm is dead.”

“Is that you, Straka? What did you say?”

“I said that Wilhelm is dead. The Hydrans got him.”

“Listen to me, Straka. Get the ship up. There are Hydrans crawling all over it. And there are groups of them forming in the streets with some strange-looking weapons.”

“Right,” Straka said.

She started activating H-l, thinking about Wilhelm. They had never been truly close until their imprisonment on Aurianta. And it had been Wilhelm, the best pilot, who had chased Markos on Gandji, when Markos had slammed into the boulder.

… Slammed into the boulder?

Everything around her came back into clear focus. Wilhelm may be dead, she thought, but with the Habers death can be a temporary thing. Just like it was with Markos.

Her hands flew over the activating plates as she brought the ship up. She realized the sooner she got Wilhelm back to the mother ship, the better his chances of being brought back to life.

Markos had changed him, and now Markos could resurrect him. It was the least he could do.

29

Markos knew what was coming and he didn't like it. Though he knew there was nothing he could do, Straka and the others would never believe him. His wedge docked with the
Paladin,
and Jackson touched the bulkhead, making the docking permanent.

Markos didn't even want to get out of his chair. He sat staring at nothing in particular, in no great rush to enter the mother ship. He felt weary from the constant impossible battle with the Hydrans, from the hundreds of little confrontations with the crew. His supposed allies.

And now Wilhelm, their best pilot, was dead for no good reason. He was dead for trying to help some Terran he never met, who might not even be alive.

“You coming?” Jackson asked.

“I'll be there in a minute.”

“I'll see you on board.”

He was certain they wouldn't believe him. They were like that—sure of things they knew nothing about. He wondered how far they would push him. Well, they can demand all they want, Markos thought, but there's nothing that can be done.

When he finally mustered the strength and entered the mother ship, he could feel a difference in the air. The mood on board was intense. The crew had gathered in the rec room, with Wilhelm's torn body stretched out on a table. Markos glanced at Wilhelm, then swept his gaze over the crew.

He had been right. It was obvious in their eyes, in the way they held themselves, in the way they had laid out Wilhelm.

“Where's the prisoner?” Markos asked.

“In the lab,” Straka said.

Markos turned to leave.

“Wait,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”

“Can't it wait?”

“No.”

Markos glanced once more at the crew. They looked hostile. He realized he shouldn't have stayed aboard H-4 for so long. They had obviously set up some unified plan of action.

“Then come with me,” he said, “and we'll talk.”

“Talk here.”

“I've got a lot to do, Straka. Unless you've given up the rescue attempt. If you haven't, the Hydran has got to be questioned.”

“He'll keep. Wilhelm won't.”

“Every moment we delay could prove costly. I don't look forward to spending an additional hundred years finding new Hydran colonies that wouldn't have been there if we'd acted now. The longer we wait to complete the seeding, the more Hydran outposts we're going to have to seed.”

“Wilhelm's life is worth it.”

“Wilhelm is dead.”

Straka locked eyes with Markos. Markos knew what was coming. “So were you,” she said.

“True. And sometimes I wish the Habers had left me dead.”

“Just bring Wilhelm back,” she said.

“Let's talk about this alone, Cathy. Please.”

“Talk here—now, in front of everyone.”

“I can't do a thing for Wilhelm. I know nothing about reviving him.”

“Just bring him back, Markos,” she said with a little more force in her voice.

“Believe me. I would if I could. But you forget—I was on the receiving end of it. Being brought back didn't make me capable of doing it for someone else.”

Straka rose to her feet. Markos didn't like the way her facial muscles were tensed, the way the power throbbed in her eyes. The rest of the crew was tensing up, and he saw that she was leading them. The Old One was nowhere to be seen, and Markatens was probably in the control room, monitoring the systems and keeping an eye on the planet.

Straka pointed to Wilhelm. “Are you going to bring him back or not?”

“For the last time, Straka, I can't. I would, but I don't have the knowledge.”

Straka wheeled around to face the crew. “Get the Hydran,” she said. Jackson flashed red. “The rest of you know what to do.”

They all seemed to hesitate for a moment, grudgingly getting to their feet. Straka turned back to face Markos. “Last chance. Are you going to bring him back?”