Outward Borne (24 page)

Like other small species, their
habitat occupied only half of a deck, the one immediately above the
humans, and unfortunately, it was now being shared with the Gracks.
The Frits were from a cold, snow-covered planet where they lived
their lives in a warren of tunnels and rooms that had been dug out
below the frozen land. They used the abundance of wood-like
material that the Das supplied to subdivide each level of their
habitat into additional floors, rooms, hallways, shared areas and
whatever they could think of. The place was a maze.

The Frits appreciated a good time.
Planning and staging entertainment was a serious endeavor. One of
their grandest rooms had been built around the main entrance. The
atrium-like space was as high as the habitat and curved around a
large open floor. The Frits had no use for the lifts that had once
occupied the entry and long ago converted the lobby into an
auditorium with a large bank of benches on the first level and
balconies hanging off the upper ones. On this particular morning,
the Frits were in the midst of a three-day music festival. A
multi-level stage had been built in front of the old main entrance
and partially surrounded by a U-shaped ice rink. The Frits had
sharp ridges on the outer edges of the fore and hind feet that
could grip ice and hard-packed snow. Skating came naturally to
them. It had been an important part of their lives on the Outward
ever since they learned how to make their own ice. Indeed, the
entire habitat was held at a temperature a comfortable few degrees
above freezing.

The first performance of the day
had just begun. The hall was something less than half full. The
band members displayed their instruments for review, just which
were used for what piece of music was always a subject of varied
opinions, and began with a rousing upbeat tune to get the early
arrivals in the groove.

Pic was nervous, waiting for his
cue. He had been skating in these shows for a long time and was not
nervous about that, but today his partner was a new girl, new to
the show, and he was rather taken. They were to enter the rink from
opposite sides in a fast, gradually closing spiral, which they
could do on all fours, then, when close, raise up, link together
and spin ever faster into a blur, stopping in sync with the music.
It was a good way to begin the performance. Pic wanted it to go
well and to create a good impression.

The pair completed their number.
It went well enough, they were facing the audience, taking bows,
Pic smiled at Smu, then wham, a great crashing sound came from the
stage. The tall double doors buckled inward and shook from a great
impact. Pic and Smu instinctively turned to look when a second
crash threw open the doors, smashing the stage and breaking it into
sections. The band and their instruments flew into the air, some
hung on, others became trapped as broken sections of the stage came
sliding across the ice, straight at Pic and Smu and the now
standing audience.

Pic grabbed Smu and pushed her toward the
seats. He began skating as fast as he could when he was hit by a
piece of sliding platform and knocked about. He landed three rows
up the steps, and sat there dazed as the audience raced for the
exits. Pic was stunned, his right leg hurt, but he grabbed Smu’s
hand as she crawled over to him.

“
What happened?” she asked, but
Pic was not sure. Perhaps an explosion, but how could the stage
explode? Pic heard some groans from the wreckage of the platform.
After making sure Smu was settled, he climbed onto the debris to
see if he could find anyone, perhaps someone caught in the
wreckage. Before he had time to look, he saw the tall entry doors
standing wide open and he stopped. Three huge beasts had come into
the habitat and taken positions, shoulder-to-shoulder, weapons
ready, intent on a fight. The beasts looked somewhat surprised, at
least hesitant, as if this was not what they had expected. As Pic
stared across the ice, another of the creatures stepped forward.
This one seemed older, more beat up, but clearly in charge. It
pointed toward Pic and to the balconies and exits, and gave some
command as four of the beasts lifted their arms and charged
forward. Chaos followed as soon as their hard scaly feet hit the
ice. They slid, fell, and could not regain their footing on the
slippery, unfamiliar surface, falling repeatedly as they struggled
on. Slowed but determined, they had been given an order. They all
but crawled toward the stands.

Pic was stunned. He had never seen
or ever imagined beasts so large as these, and they had no fuzz,
which was an odd thing to think under the circumstances. Two of the
creatures reached the edge of the auditorium and began to climb
into the balconies. There were a few Frits up there, watching, but
they ran through the exits as the Gracks began to climb. Pic
himself was immobilized by the spectacle. He could not accept that
they were being attacked. No such thing had ever happened in the
history of the Outward-borne Frits. His amazement was shaken loose
as the lead Grack grabbed the wrecked stage and pulled itself up,
not ten paces from Pic.

Pic jumped down from the broken
platform, grabbed Smu, and retreated up into the seats. Why he did
not out-and-out run, he never knew, but the two of them stopped
about two-thirds of the way up the steeply banked theater. He was
now well above the Gracks, looking down on this amazing scene.
There was another ripping crash to his right. Two Gracks had made
it to the first balcony when the artfully built railings and
seating broke away and came crashing down with the falling Gracks
and a cloud of dust. Two more Gracks were climbing over the
remainder of the stage, killing, and squashing whoever was still
alive. Enraged, they saw Pic and the last of the Frits scrambling
for the exits and charged into the auditorium. This too collapsed
under their great weight leaving them back on the floor covered in
debris.

Pic stopped again and looked down on the
sprawling Gracks, ready to jump back if they got too close, but
something was wrong. Two of the Gracks were stumbling about rubbing
their eyes, faces streaked with dirt. One had fallen from the
balcony and cut its arm. It was writhing in apparent pain. All had
broken off the attack.

The leader looked on in apparent frustration
with what was happening. He began to shout at them to press forward
when his breath caught, and with a wrenching, rasping pain, he
began to choke. Something was going badly wrong. Frightened, with
no idea what was happening, the Gracks began backed out of the Frit
habitat, pulling the double doors closed behind them.

Only Pic and Smu were standing in
the gallery to see them leave. Pic barked out some defiant
ridicule, but was immensely relieved that the huge beasts had
disappeared as suddenly and unexpectedly as they had burst upon the
performance.

The Frits never really understood
what had happened to them that day. They were attacked surely, by
some alien species no doubt, but why and why did they never come
back? Pic and Smu became celebrities. They were heroes in the
pleasant fiction that their brave defiance had turned back the
fearsome predators. Everyone should have such courage, should they
not? No knowledge of the ensuing battles or the threat to the
survival of the Outward Voyager ever reached the Frits peaceful
enclave.

Hacnick could barely see, his eyes
had swollen almost shut as he felt its way to its pallet and
collapsed in pain. Kubac had badly injured her arm when the balcony
collapsed and she had nearly fainted from the pain when the thick
splinter was pulled out. Already the wound was red and inflamed.
The skin of all of the Gracks that had gotten into the Frit habitat
was irritated and starting to blister, most had difficulty
breathing, and they were all getting worse.

Durack was enraged. Five fighters
had been lost to some vermin that had not even put up a fight. He
could not afford to lose anyone, much less a leader like Hacnick,
but now the worst had happened, he had lost key fighters and was
openly committed to the attach. They could not stop. The ObLaDas
were watching them, at least within their habitat; he knew that
much, and probably everywhere. They would know of their escape.
There was nothing left now, but to regroup the already
under-strength units and keep moving.

Two underage
Gracks were recruited as scouts to make up for Hacnick’s losses.
They would help a little and should be safe enough, Durack thought.
W
ithin the hour, Yacork lead a pack and
the two young scouts toward the conduit. It was the only portal
that had been found on the whole of the deck, so it must be their
way out. They forced open the shuttle tube doors only find a long,
empty vertical shaft that disappeared into the darkness above and
below. There was no good way to climb through the tube although
they might be able to rig some rope ladders to get to the lower
levels if needed, but he wanted something better. Yacork moved his
pack on toward the larger sliding panels around the right side of
the large circular column. There was sufficient space between the
heavy doors for Yacork to get a shoulder in and push them apart.
The opening led into the core of the conduit itself. This large
tube was much as it had been when invaded by the Cathians centuries
before. The shuttle shafts, several small service tubes, and a mix
of wires and pipes rose through the wide column. The large
truck-lift was now beyond the module bulkhead far above. A small
sort of ladder had been built into the wall near the doors. It was
the only way to maneuver through the dark
opening.

Yacork could see
lights that marked the access doors for each of the three decks
below. They were not far above the bottom of the conduit. This was
as expected. Durack had told him that the ObLaDas lived in the
lowest levels of the module, they would move in that direction,
but
Yacork was reluctant to begin. They
needed to find better weapons to have any chance. There seemed to
be a storage area a short way up the conduit, so Yacork had the two
young scouts climb onto the dimly lit platform with orders to pull
out anything that might be usable.

Soboc and Frapkik were excited to
be part of the battle group and climbed the narrow ladder, their
feet barely able to fit onto the small rungs. The platform
contained a number of hard brown containers and some loose
supplies. They rummaged through the boxes; most of it was food, and
disposable goods for the aliens housed elsewhere in the module.
They found some steel rods, but they were attached to a broken
exhaust fan and difficult to pry loose. In their struggle, Soboc
knocked over two drums of volatile oils, the very oils that the
ObLaDas sprayed over their skin several times a day, and the source
of the reeking odor that pervaded the entire ship. The drums rolled
off the platform and fell to the bottom of the conduit where they
hit the support flanges for the heavy structural cables and burst
open. The flammable fluids splashed across the floor and began to
evaporate into the confined space.

Durack’s suspicions were correct.
The ObLaDas had been watching them continuously and with growing
concern ever since they began their preparations to break out of
their compound. The Grack language was not fully understood, but
their actions were clear enough. LemTer, the long time Outward
Captain, had already begun to move weapons toward the Filim module.
A small supply of defensive arms had been built and stored at the
Filim hub where they could be quickly sent to any part of the ship.
Four heavy construction bots with powerful mobile lasers and two
crates of flybots fitted with multispecies tranquilizing darts had
been loaded onto the truck-lift. It was now headed toward the Filim
module and was no more that twenty minutes from the entry portal.
The darts had proven to be very effective when the Gracks were
first captured and should do the job here, or so LemTer thought. He
had not yet begun to worry.

The ObLaDas were surprised to see
the Gracks attack the Frit habitat, then puzzled by their swift
retreat. The ObLaDas knew that interspecies contact was extremely
dangerous and it was obvious that the Gracks that had been exposed
to the Frit habitat were in some distress. They undoubtedly
suffered a serious allergic reaction to the chemicals given off by
the fuzzy aliens, but the speed and severity of the response were
unusual.

LemTer seriously hoped that would
end of the Gracks assault. He did not want to see any more damage
done. The laser-bots and tranquilizer darts would be in place
within minutes and he would be able to keep them contained, or
drive them back into their habitat. Neither he nor any of the
ObLaDas had any military training, or any instinct for how such
operations were conducted, if they had, they might have anticipated
that the Grack’s would immediately try to take over the rest of the
module, but they did not and they had not. They watched the large
beasts break into the conduit with surprise and dismay. They must
do something to stop them from reaching the Das’ habitat and the
control rooms, but what? After some confusion, the ObLaDas finally
decided to cut the power to the conduit, it was not much, but it
would plunge the shaft into darkness and might slow them
down.

Soboc and Frapkik were caught on
the platform when the lights went out. They were only half way
through their search, so Frapkik climbed down the conduit girders
to get some torches. As he returned, the newly lit torch bumped
against a strut and some burning shards fell away. The resulting
explosion blew out the conduit doors on the first three decks.
Supply containers were knocked from the storage platform and fell
to the bottom of the conduit, feeding the oil fire below. More
significantly, the blast caused a severe buckle in the high-tension
tracks used by the truck-lift. The jolt ran up the cables like a
tidal wave, past the portal, and into the long arm toward the hub.
When it whipped into the descending truck-lift, the jolt was so
severe that all three of the heavy construction bots were flung off
and fell through the arm for a full minute before they smashed into
the entry portal. The impacts seriously damaged the bulkhead doors,
effectively shutting off the module, wrecking some communication
cables, and destroying the bots. All entry to the Filim module was
cut off.