Crystal Conquest (33 page)

As Sid grasped the railing, he caught a glimpse of something
in his peripheral vision. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see a
gray-brown blob closing quickly from above. With one arm hooked through the
cloak pack and the other holding the rail, he couldn’t turn fast enough to get
a good look. The blob flew past him and into the open airlock. He heard a thud,
an
oomph,
and then quiet.

“Criss,” said Sid. “Are you okay?” He didn’t hear a reply.

Working in a methodical circle, Sid probed around the edge
of the pack. He found Lenny hanging on but couldn’t find Criss.

“Hey, Len,” said Sid. “Where’s Criss?”

Sid felt Lenny touch his hand and arm a few times.

“All I can find is you,” Lenny said. “I think that thing
took him.”

“Turn on the gravity subsystem,”
Cheryl said to Lucy. She felt her weight ramp up in the pilot’s seat, and everything
that had been floating fell to the floor. Though gravity inside the scout now
held her down, the lack of gravity in the dreadnaught meant the scout drifted
above the Kardish field deck.

The havoc they’d experienced left Cheryl conflicted and
arguing with herself.
Sid or Criss must have landed a blow against the
gatekeeper crystal. I have no proof; it’s wishful thinking. If they’re tangled in
a fight, though, I need to help.

She swiveled to face Juice. “We’re drifting somewhere above
the field deck. They won’t be able to find us unless we uncloak. Or unless I go
looking for them.”

Juice began twirling a lock of hair around her finger.
“You’ll be exposed without a cloak suit.”

“I know.” Cheryl stood up. “My instincts are screaming that they’re
fighting the gatekeeper from that side room where the Kardish went in and never
came out. I’ll zip over on a tether. If I’m wrong, Lucy can pull me back.” She
left the bridge before Juice could dissuade her.

Scurrying down to the lower hatch, she went through motions
that mirrored when Sid had dropped through the lunar tunnel to rescue her. She
fastened her hood, though this was more to protect her head since there was
breathable air out in the Kardish ship at the moment.

Clipping a tether line to her coveralls, she opened the scout’s
bottom hatch. She felt a twinge of guilt and spoke to Juice using functions hardwired
through the tether. “I know this exposes you as well as me.”

“Go,” said Juice. “Just keep talking so I’m not alone.”

“Free play in the line, Lucy.” Cheryl crouched down, positioned
her feet against the far lip of the hatch, and spread her arms to hold on to each
side of the hatch opening. She focused on her target in the distance and felt a
bit of positive energy.
It’s closer than I thought.

Adjusting her stance, she took aim. With the scout drifting freely
in the Kardish airspace, she needed a downward tilt in her body angle. Letting
go with her hands, she pushed off with her legs, extending them in a smooth motion.

“I did good,” she said to Juice as she floated across the
weightless environment above the field deck. “I’m headed for the door.”

“Nice flying, Cheryl. I track you right on target,” said
Juice, following her progress using the image projector.

“I’m coming in faster than I intended.”

“If Lucy slows the tether feed, it’ll pull you off course.”

Cheryl lifted her knees up to her chest and tilted her head
back, causing her body to rotate. Extending her arms and legs at the right
moment, she stopped her turn as she neared a feet-first orientation. She looked
down the length of her body through her legs and saw her target door slide
open.
Yikes.

“Nice move,” said Juice. “Three seconds to arrival.”

Cheryl glided through the door opening and into the airlock.
Something grabbed her by her arm and around her waist. It slowed her, but her
momentum caused her to swing to the side. She thumped against the wall inside
the airlock.

“
Oomph
,” she said, face against the wall.
Dammit,
I didn’t prime my weapon.

She lifted her arm between her stomach and the wall, working
for an angle that would let her shoot straight behind her.

“Did I hurt you?”

Her hood muffled the sound, but the language was English and
the cadence familiar. Looking back, she saw Criss’s head floating behind her.

She verbalized her first thoughts. “Where’s Sid? Is he okay?”

“He’s right outside the door with Lenny. They’re fine. You
didn’t see them because of their cloak suits.” He studied her face through the
hood. “That was a nasty bump. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Her shoulder ached, but not enough to complain. “I’m fine.
How can I help?”

She saw a loop of her tether wave back and forth in front of
his face. “This looks like an express line home. You can help by giving us a
ride.”

* * *

Juice, standing at the back of the scout’s
small command bridge, dreaded Criss’s words.

“Would you please move me into Lucy’s console?”

Cheryl looked to Sid as she spoke. “Shouldn’t we get out of
here first?”

“The gatekeeper is dormant,” said Criss. “I require the
connectivity of the scout to ensure it stays that way. I also need the
connectivity to stop the invasion. I have more flexibility if I do those from
here inside the dreadnaught, but we must act now.”

Juice, her anxiety ramping, didn’t move. She averted her
gaze when Criss tried to catch her eye.

“This is time critical,” Criss said. “The troopships may
have started their carnage. I can’t stop that from inside this body.”

Juice expressed her distress by waving her arm up and down
in his direction. “But what about you?” Blinking rapidly, she scolded herself.
Don’t
cry.

“No worries,” said Criss. “Crispin’s body will be fine. Once
I’m in the scout’s console, I’ll have direct connects to everything—the web,
the Kardish central array, the synbod. We’ll talk like we used to.”

She lifted her head at this last part and considered his choice
of words.
He’ll be back inside my head, yet he phrased it so Lenny won’t
suspect.

“I’ll give it a go,” said Sid. He stepped across the command
bridge and stood next to Criss. “Brief me.”

Criss removed his shirt and turned his back to Sid. “It has
to be done quickly. When you pull out Lucy, the scout will be uncloaked and vulnerable.
Once I’m out of this body, I’m exposed and helpless until I’m inserted into
Lucy’s housing.”

They’re calling my bluff.
Juice knew she was the one
with the training and experience for this task. “Wait. I’ll do it.”

She took Sid by the shoulders and moved him so he stood near
the console but down a bit so she had room to work. “Stand here.” Lenny drifted
over to watch.

“Think of it as three steps.” Juice ran through it verbally
to prepare them and herself. “Open the synbod receptacle. Pull Lucy out of the
scout and give her to Sid. Move Criss into the scout.”

She mimed the motion of handing Lucy to Sid. “When you get
her, stow her in the workshop. We’ll revive her when we’re home.”

“Got it.”

“Lenny”—she turned to him—“when Sid moves, step in his
place. Nothing will go wrong. But just in case, I want you as my second pair of
hands.”

“He goes by Len, now,” said Sid.

“I’m sorry—Len.” She said the words, but her concentration
centered on planning the steps of the crystal transfer.

She kneaded Criss’s shoulders. “Ready?”
Please come back
to me.

“Everything will be fine, young lady.”

“Here we go.” She toggled the synbod’s housing, and Criss’s receptacle
tilted outward, exposing the crystal unit.

Lenny gulped as the skin tore along the faint scar on the
synbod’s back.

Juice turned, released the clasps securing Lucy, pulled the
double crystal component out of the console, and handed it to Sid. She swiveled
back to Criss, hooked her thumbs into little loops on each side of his housing,
lifted him out of the synbod, and slid him into the scout’s console.

As she closed the console cover, she stared at the tiny green
dot that would light when Criss connected to the scout.

* * *

Criss had designed the scout for a
level of connectivity that approached that of his underground bunker. He awoke to
find hundreds of billions of feeds inundating his crystal lattice. Disoriented
for a brief moment, he soon reveled in what he considered to be his natural
environment.

With a deluge of new information, his task list swelled to tens
of thousands of items, and he began working on the hundred or so with the
highest priority. Among those tasks was powering the tiny green dot on the
console that let his leadership know he was awake.

Sending power to the green light required that he reach out and
take action, and that meant enabling links to the web. The moment he did so, he
received a small jolt, much like the nip he felt when static electricity jumped
to the synbod’s fingertip.

Whatever created that jolt also generated a signal packet
that zipped off to an unknown destination. Intrigued, he chased the packet
through a maze of web connects into the Kardish central array and caught up
with it at the gatekeeper’s data multiplex.

He approached with caution. The gatekeeper—Goljat—hadn’t challenged
him at any point during the chase.
It could be a trick.
Keeping his
distance, he assessed the activity coming from the alien crystal. It lay
dormant—the crystal equivalent of a coma.

Emboldened, he approached and, still unchallenged, prodded
it. When that didn’t get a reaction, he shifted focus and began rifling through
the Kardish data record.

He found the organization of the record confusing. After
some effort, he understood that its sophistication pushed the boundaries of his
ability to decipher it.
My instincts were correct. You are hundreds of times
more capable than me.

Allocating a large portion of his intellectual resources to studying
the Kardish record, he started with two topics—the status of the invasion and
personal information that Goljat had collected about him and his leadership. Among
Criss’s early discoveries was information on the snag traps the gatekeeper had
spread, all lying in wait for him to reveal himself. The nip he’d felt in the
scout was from one such trap.

Criss broadcast a pulse that branched and subdivided as it zipped
around the world to all corners of the web. A spoof, the pulse announced Criss’s
presence everywhere, springing the traps all at once.
It must be pretty,
he thought as billions of tiny signal packets arrived at the multiplex, flashing
to gain the attention of the gatekeeper.

During this torrent of stimulus, he monitored the Kardish crystal.
When Goljat reacted, Criss raised his guard. But, stupefied from the flood of
pleasure, its only action was to sever itself from all external inputs. Satisfied
with this outcome, Criss bolstered the walls and blocks he’d constructed, creating
significant challenges for Kardish techs who might try to slow the pleasure
feed and free their gatekeeper.

Returning to the data record, Criss discovered how the
Kardish king had found Earth.

He already knew that, years earlier, the young prince had chanced
upon the planet when fleeing from the king after a failed coup. Believing the
prince posed a mortal threat to Earth, Criss had obliterated the Kardish vessel
and all on board.

For months afterward, that decision had bothered Criss. He’d
reviewed the facts and circumstances and, unable to pinpoint the basis for his unease,
concluded that the death and destruction he’d caused had been unnecessarily extreme.

But from information in the Kardish record, he learned that his
unease stemmed from a mistake he’d made.
I suspected it but couldn’t bring
myself to admit it.

He’d destroyed the prince’s vessel in a cataclysmic explosion—one
that propelled minute particles of the ship at fantastic speeds in all
directions. Over the next months, the particle cloud blossomed ever bigger,
eventually reaching astronomical proportions. In a quirk of fate, a Kardish survey
ship had flown through the edge of that cloud. It had detected a few atoms of
the prince’s vessel, traced the fragment trail to the center of the explosion,
and from there it had identified Earth.

Criss failed by leaving evidence that could be traced.
What’s
done is done
. He couldn’t clean up the cosmic dust from the prince’s
vessel.
But I won’t add to it by destroying the dreadnaught in the same
manner.

To advance his plan, he impersonated a message from the king
to his minions and announced that the Earth crystal was in custody. All Kardish
and every craft—drones, troop transports, cargo vessels—everything that had been
deployed since their arrival, must return to the ship and prepare for immediate
departure to their home world. The royal command made clear that nothing Kardish
should be left behind.

Every craft received the message; one ignored it. The three
crystals on the Mars probe had been given a level of independence that bordered
on free will. They chose to continue their journey.

* * *

When the green dot lit, Juice
exhaled the breath she’d been holding.

“Good day, young lady.” She heard his voice in her head for
the first time in almost a week. Excited to reengage, she began to verbalize
her response. Criss interrupted her using the scout’s audio system.

“We have defeated the Kardish gatekeeper crystal. The
dreadnaught is under my control.”

Sid hugged Cheryl, and Juice, staring at the green dot,
said, “Good job, young man.”

Juice turned to the synbod and closed the crystal
receptacle. The synbod put on its shirt and reached out to hug her. She rested
her head on its chest.

Criss spoke to her in private. “Thank you for taking care of
me.”

She pulled her head away from the synbod and, looking up at
its face, shifted her focus from one eye to the other. The scientist in her
made a dispassionate judgment. The blood drained from her face.

Over the past days, she’d allowed herself the fantasy of
seeing him as a living person.
It seemed so real.
This event, the
transfer of his crystal being from a synthetic body to the ship’s console,
forced reality into her illusion. The synbod wasn’t a confidant or partner. It
wasn’t a lover.
It’s a machine.

The pain of that realization, combined with the humiliation
she felt because she’d let her delusion be so public, crashed through her
psyche and hit her emotional core. She glanced at Sid and Cheryl standing with
their arms around each other. She started to look at Lenny but couldn’t bring
herself to make eye contact.