Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins (16 page)

Chapter 16

Huornillel
retreated from the Celaran stronghold when it was clear the new creatures were
not making constructive progress. They were in fact much worse off than she
was, having to hide like vermin on the base since their race did not have any
exposure to Celaran civilization. The guardian machines did not recognize them
as friend or foe.

Huornillel
enjoyed a straightforward mutual avoidance relationship with living Celarans,
but her relationship with their guardian machines was much more complicated. It
was a crazy mixture of dominance-avoidance with some of their static tools,
where she enjoyed dominance, but the living-tools, the machines that emulated
life, those operated on mutual avoidance unless Huornillel tried to go to the
restricted spaces. Then everything fell apart and it became a confrontation
relationship.

Aliens.
They are all totally crazy.

‘Contextual
interrelational reaction’, she called it. Some of the primitive creatures on
her homeworld operated on these principles: in some situations they would
choose avoidance, in others, confrontation, in yet others they could coexist in
dominance-avoidance pairs. Anything was possible and it could shift at any
time. It was exactly why wild animals were considered dangerous. They were
unpredictable. Wild animals, and aliens.

Her
toolkit observed something interesting from a Celaran interface she had studied
and learned about. One of the alien visitors had been dropped off in the vine
forest. It was alone.

These
others still operate in coordinated fashion. Therefore, the lone one is not the
dominant one, provided it is isolated as I suspect.

Could
Huornillel intercept the lone one and establish a dominant relationship? Then
that alien would become part of her network. If only she had been able to break
their control protocols. That was proving very elusive. Still, it might be
worth a try, she decided.

Huornillel
had been marooned on this planet for so long. What else did she have to do?

***

Siobhan
stood unsteadily on a vine and listened to the sounds of the alien forest. Her
hands shook. She wondered if she had been drugged or if she suffered tremors
from the ordeal. Even though she usually thrived on danger, she was not used to
anything like she had gone through in the Celaran building. At some point after
entering a new platform her memory ended. Then she had regained consciousness
back in the forest, alone.

“Telisa?
Telisa can you hear me?”

Siobhan
tried to open a channel to Telisa but it did not work. If Telisa had been
captured and released as she had been, the Celaran robots must have let the
other PIT member loose somewhere far from here. She tried to remember the range
of a civilian link without public boosters. She did not think it was far. Less
than a kilometer, maybe.

Siobhan
had her weapons and her pack. They had given her the tools she needed to
survive, at least, though her stealth suit was dead. Totally out of power. She
figured they did not want her to disappear on them again. Her hand went to her
front zipper. They had started to take the suit off, then stopped. If she remembered
correctly. They
had
stopped, hadn’t they?

The
vine forest had not been as intimidating before, when Siobhan had attendants
and teammates all around her. Now, her link saw no services except those
offered by her own equipment and weapons. She had no video feeds of what was
going on around her.

There
could be something stalking me right now, and I wouldn’t know it.

Siobhan
glanced behind her at the thought. She wished she could activate her stealth
suit.

I
don’t know how long I’ll be out here on my own. I need to be careful. Which
direction should I go?

She
stared up at the system star overhead, shining between two massive leaves. Her
link returned her approximate location based on the time of day and the angle
of the star. The answer hurt. She could be as far as 25 kilometers from the
last position of the
New Iridar
.

Siobhan
turned west toward the ship and started to walk. She held her laser pistol in
her hand and her shock baton hung from her belt. She thought about the dangers
they had encountered so far.

Net
creatures and bulbous silver things with tentacles. Wonderful.

It
got rougher. Siobhan felt drained of energy herself. Without an attendant to
map a good way, she often found herself stuck out on the ever-shrinking end of
a vine, or walking on a large one that twisted back the way she had come. At
least with her link working, she would not get lost, even though there was
nothing to connect to outside of her own tools. She stopped and drank some
water. She had enough to last her the journey, provided she got home in good
time.

Does
it ever rain in this awful place? I wonder if I can drink the sap of these
things like those bat-creatures.

A
shot rang out through the forest. Then another. Siobhan dropped onto the
waist-thick vine she was on and hugged it with her arms.

Who’s
shooting at me!?

Siobhan
did not see anything, but she heard something out in the forest. A crackling
sound. It sounded almost like fire. She looked into the sky for signs of smoke.
She did not see any from her positions.

She
aimed laser pistol back eastward and waited, prone atop the thick vine.
Something came into view.

The
creature looked like a huge army ant. Except instead of an ant’s head, the
foremost body part was dominated by a circular opening. Two wide black orbs sat
on either side of the tube. Huge eyes? The thing had no mandibles or teeth.

Then
she saw another. And another. Within another ten seconds she saw seven
altogether.

My
packets are fragged.

Without
moving a muscle, Siobhan let her pistol take a target signature from the
creatures. She prepared it to fire on them but waited.

Fight...
run... or just sit here and don’t move.

Siobhan
told her stealth suit to activate in vain. It did not comply. She rose onto her
knees and elbows, preparing to retreat.

Kablam!

The
vine exploded in front of her. The next second she was hurtling downwards.

Siobhan
found herself lying on her back in a rotting pile of giant leaves. Her pistol
was not in her hand. She grabbed her shock baton, trying to clear her head. She
felt fear and confusion.

Calm.
Think. I have grenades.

Siobhan
talked to a grenade with her link and gave it the signature she had collected.
It detached and moved ahead slowly. Siobhan did not give it the signal to
attack.

She
heard the things coming. Siobhan’s stealth suit reported a new malfunction. One
of its main processors had shut down, reducing its responsiveness to attack.

So
this is how I die. Equipment damaged from explosion. No power for stealth.
Surrounded by alien critters. How the hell do those things shoot? That huge
opening in their heads? Insane.

For
some reason she thought of sea divers who died in underwater caves when their
flashlights all failed to operate.

The
first creature walked into sight. Another one came behind it. Though headed in
her general direction, they did not seem to be coming right at her. The things
were looking up into the trees.

Is
there something else up there?

The
creatures were each the size of a dog. She saw now that the things had long
whiskers that barely touched the leaves and roots below them.

They
don’t see me. Now is a good time to use the grenade. But last time I moved it
did not go well.

Siobhan
told the grenade to stand by. She lay frozen, waiting.

As
she watched, one of the creatures became agitated. But it was not at her. The
thing was still looking
up
.

Bang!

Then
the creature’s head exploded in sparks and smoke. The thing dropped dead, smoke
pouring from the gaping orifice in its head.

That
thing just... launched a projectile and died.

Siobhan
suddenly thought she understood the thing. Like a bee willing to sting and die,
this thing shot its mini-cannon and died in the act.

So
it brings down food from above. Flyers, too. Ah, but that means... something is
coming to eat me.

She
had been “shot down” like a bird. Now she was chow lying on the forest floor
waiting to be collected! Siobhan had another, even more dreadful thought.

Only
two grenades... should I save the last grenade for myself? Or can I kill myself
with a shock baton? I can’t believe I traveled all this way and it comes to
this. Caden! If I don’t make it I’ll never see him again.

She
accessed the baton’s documentation with her link and read through the warnings
while the ground shooters walked by her. None of them seemed to target her
again. They all were looking upwards, scanning for things to shoot. Siobhan
concluded the baton could not kill her directly with its charge. Of course, if
she could bash her own brains in with it, there was always that.

Siobhan
shed her defeatist line of thought and prepared to defend herself. She tried to
stand. Her arms and legs were functioning thanks to the amazing protection of
the suit, but it was hard to walk on the surface. She wobbled upright. Rotted
leaves covered the area. Wherever she stepped, her foot broke through and slid
into empty space below, filled only with mush or air pockets between the roots.

Fine,
I’ll roll, or crawl, or something. I can’t climb upwards without being shot
again.

Siobhan
crashed through the forest. Each time her leg pushed through the surface detritus
and sank deep in, she half expected some sub-surface monster to grab hold of
it. She knew the Veer suit was tough. That helped calm her. Her usual fearless
demeanor had been shaken.

Siobhan
made it past three spires before she saw the next creature. She knew instantly,
this new thing was exactly what came after the shooters to clean up the fallen
food. It looked like an armored pig with ant-legs and a wide set of mandibles.
Hundreds of colorful sensor-hairs fanned out around its “mouth” that made it look
like a terrifying combination of a tusked boar, an armadillo, and a peacock.

Now
or never. Climb or grenade or baton or die.

She
looked for the shooters. She could not see any. Siobhan knew if she started to
climb, chances would go up that one could spot her above.

She
told her grenade to take it out. The device hurled forward. It followed a vine
and made good progress at first, then it slipped off the side and fell into the
bed of detritus. Siobhan heard the tiny click of its digger spines coming out.
Then the grenade struggled to make its way forward. It became visible again,
made it another meter, then fell into the mass of leaves and vines and roots
again.

The
grenade was still closer than she wanted it, but she knew it had good
directional blast control, and she had her suit. She would only have to cover
her face, or at least look away. The alien seemed to detect her. It moved for
her, allowing the grenade to intercept.

Ka-Boom!

The
thing exploded into pieces which rose, struck the leaves above, then rained
back down. It was filled with purple fluid that dripped from the leaves and
vines all around. As the detonation sound faded from her
sonic-dampener-protected ears, Siobhan heard a new scuttling in the forest. The
blast had agitated something. A lot of somethings.

Please
be running away...

Two
more of the awful scavenger things crawled into view. She thought she heard at
least one more. They crawled toward her.

Jammers.
That was a mistake.

More
adrenaline poured into Siobhan’s system. She came alive. She found solid
footing on a large root below the debris underfoot and held the baton ready.
The first creature arrived. Its long sensor hairs brushed over the leaf nearest
her. She held out the shock baton.

“Back
it!” she barked.

The
sensor hairs brushed the baton. The creature recoiled. It emitted a loud squawk
that caused yet another adrenal burst in Siobhan.

Then
it charged.

Siobhan
only had time to shove the baton between the stubby things she assumed were mandibles.
The baton reported a full discharge. The thing below her squawked again and
thrashed.

“Frackjammers!”
she yelled. The other two things were coming quickly now.

Siobhan
brought up the shock baton and slammed it down onto her attacker. It sank in with
a wet crunch. She saw more of the purple blood. She kicked the corpse back
savagely, blocking the line of attack of another armored pig.

The
third darted in and grabbed her ankle in its jaws.

The
Veer suit distributed the bite well, but Siobhan felt significant pressure on
her lower leg. It was just enough to creep her out but not enough to seriously
hurt her leg. The baton crashed down again and delivered another shock charge.
Her Veer suit insulated her from any of the current that might have traveled
through her.

The
jaws refused to come off her ankle, though the scavenger beast stopped moving
and leaked prodigious amounts of the bright ichor. Siobhan squared off against
the third, though her right foot was hard to move with its extra load. This
time, she had a nice clear swing, so she let go with her full strength. The
crunching sound came loud and wet. The thing toppled aside next to its
brothers, unmoving.

Siobhan
stood unsteadily, already breathing hard. Two more armored creatures walked
around stalks and trunks into sight. Siobhan felt something on her ankle. She
looked down. The remains of the thing attached to her leg was still trying to
bite her. She noted with horror that even the first creature, which she assumed
dead, had started to wriggle anew.