Syn-En: Plague World: The Founders War Begins (16 page)

Davena shrugged. “We will explain that we are not carriers, and the Founders need not fear us.”

An ache pulsed at the base of Nell’s skull. What was she missing? There had to be an argument to sway the oracle.

Bei’s presence was a warm caress in her mind.
The argument will not be settled today, but we have time. A whole day before the
America
reaches orbit
.

Before they had to decide how they would remove an unwilling people from the planet. If the fermites let them. Although Nell knew Bei would protect Human life with everything in him, she also knew the fermites tipped the scale in favor of any means necessary. She shuddered. Given how the Founders treated those they conquered, perhaps it was the lesser of the two evils.

Apollie folded her legs Indian-style. “The Founders will not listen. They will keep hammering at you, and hammering at you, until you surrender or die. Are you willing to be responsible for the death of your people when you could have prevented it?”

“I have faith in the Meek.” Davena raised her hand. “We shall not perish.”

Men and women in blue wove through the crowd. Some carried corn tortillas, other slices of yellow bread. Baskets of peaches, apricots, and apples were set before every fourth person. Orange blossoms decorated a basket of greens, while palm leaves held fish cooked to a golden-brown.

Nell’s mouth watered. If she didn’t eat soon, her stomach would try to slip through her belly button.

“Let us table such discussions for later and celebrate our reunion.” Lifting her face to the heavens, Davena raised her arms. “Let us thank the Meek for such a bountiful offering, for the return of our brothers and sisters from the stars, and a future of peace.”

The natives mimicked the motion of their leader. “Praise be the Meek.”

Nell bowed her head.
And if there cannot be peace, give these people a sign it is time to move on. Something in bright neon that blinks off and on, so even the most determined accepts their fate
. She removed a peach from the basket before handing it to Bei. “Davena, I’m sure you know that this is not all of our people. We would like your permission to move our ships closer to your village.”

“Of course.” Davena licked speckles of fish from her fingers.

Bei’s fingers dug into the soft flesh of the fruit.
You can’t seriously believe—

Admiral,
excitement raised the pitch of Queens’s voice.
All systems are back on line. We’re beginning our mission in three....two...one. Birds are in the air. I repeat, birds are in the air.

Bei bit into the mangled peach. 
How did you know?

Nell shrugged.
I guessed. Everyone fears the unknown. We were the unknown, so the fermites protected the villagers and shut us down
. She shifted on the ground. Her butt was going numb. Maybe she could drag a chair off the ship. “Thank you for your hospitality, Davena. One of my favorite things of away missions is eating the food. I’m always amazed at the number of planets who have a plant similar to Earth chocolate.”

Davena dredged a pinch of flatbread through the juice surrounding the fish. “I am not familiar with chocolate.”

A piece of peach jammed in Nell’s throat. She pounded on her chest to dislodge it. Her windpipe burned for a second then disappeared. Fermites. She wiped her mouth. “I can’t believe you don’t have chocolate.”

Doc rolled a piece of fish in a squash blossom. “Nell Stafford has a secret stash of it under her bed. I’m sure she’ll share.”

Nell’s mouth fell open.

Bei shook his head. “She moved her secret stash to the top shelf of the closet. Elvis got high after finding it.”

She elbowed her husband in the gut. “It’s hardly a secret since everyone knows about it. And I moved it to stop Elvis from binge-eating his doggy-funk away.”

Chocolate was rarer than gold in the universe. It wasn’t to be wasted on those who don’t appreciate its innate goodness.

Apollie removed a knife from her breastplate and skinned an apricot. “He will perk up once his pack rejoins the ship. Of course, your conceiving would do the same.”

“Your oracle is trying to conceive a child?” Davena touched the uneaten fish head and tail. It shimmered for a moment then disappeared in a burst of glitter.

Nell wiped her hands on her pants. Now that was a superpower she could have used as a teenager. She tapped the peach pit. It moved an inch. Figures.

Bei set his peach stone near hers. “Nell and I have decided it is time to start our family.”

“Then I will ask the Meek for their blessing on your endeavors.” Davena beamed at them. “While you are trying to convince us to leave, you will stay in our most comfortable rooms and I will sample your chocolate.”

Nell eyed the cliff-dwellings. The place had maybe sixty rooms. While the natives didn’t have three thousand people as Groat as said, there still wasn’t much room for everyone. Her comfy bed on the shuttle beckoned.

“We accept.” Bei broke the heel of the bread in half and gave her a piece. “I hope you don’t mind, but we’d like to explore your planet while we’re here. There may be other Humans to persuade.”

Davena’s shoulders bowed. “You may explore, but we are the only ones to survive. The records state that we once covered the planet and now we are so few and our numbers are dwindling. We are failing the Meek.”

Doc scooted his hand close to hers but didn’t touch her. “Maybe I can help you with that.”

The oracle straightened. The air twinkled with fermites. “Truly?”

Doc’s jaw worked up and down. A gurgling noise came out of his mouth before he blinked and reloaded his brain. His skin flushed red. “I mean, find a way to...to increase everyone’s fertility. Everyone’s.”

Nell bit her lip to keep laughing. Doc would never be a Mata Hari. Good. She liked Davena, even if the woman was a stubborn knucklehead.

Laughing emicons erupted in the WA.

Davena set her chin on her steepled fingers. “But you will help us only if we agree to leave our home.”

Doc clamped his lips together and glanced at the cliffs. “You can’t reproduce if you’re dead.”

Bei wiped his fingers on his trousers. “Doc will help you if he can.”

“Yes, Sir.” Doc jerked his head once.

Nell tuned out the undercurrents of an argument brewing in the WA. They could hash it out. Her power levels were at a hundred percent and her skin shifted back to its normal pale color. Energy pumped through her veins. Eating real food had done her good. Should she return to their earlier discussion? No, why spoil the mood. They had twenty-four hours.

Through the parted walls of the canyon, she spied the towering pillar. Heat shimmered through her, soft and comforting. “I want to see it.”

She needed to see the writing etched into its side, feel its strength against her palms, and absorb its power.

Davena rose to her feet. “It wants to meet you as well.”

Groat sagged against the steering wheel of his shuttle. The metal hull creaked and groaned. Wind beat branches against his ship. He didn’t care. He’d made it down. Safely. Swiping at the sweat pooling at the base of his eyestalks, he straightened. “Scan for any sign of the virus.”

Mopus claimed the Scraptors had the vaccine. But the stinky politician would say anything to farther his own ambitions.

Groat cracked the knuckles of his hand. Recovering a data crystal packed with top secret weapons research would catapult anyone’s career. He splashed oil onto his arm. Why should Groat stop at Commander of the Fleet. Once he won this insignificant war, he would push for a seat on the Commerce Board.

“Aye, Commander.” The recruit quivered in his new, pink armor. Shaking humanoid hands pushed the levers and twisted knobs. “Scanning for the virus.”

Air whooshed through the vents. Groat inhaled the pungent ozone before manually adjusting the outputs. His new shuttle didn’t have these problems. But his grandsire had always said the older ships were better at landing on Surlat. He’d flown twelve missions to the planet before the disease had taken his life.

Groat’s father had landed three times before the virus struck.

Groat would not die on this miserable space rock. He had a bright future ahead of him. He crossed to the hatch from the bridge to the hallway.

The console in front of the recruit burped. “No virus detected, Commander.”

“Very good. Tridit, meet me in the airlock.” Groat’s joints liquified inside his armor. He would survive. He must survive. He entered the corridor. Spotty lighting cast the hallway into balls of light and pits of darkness. A half dozen doors hung askew in their rusty frames. Conduits rattled against the blistered ceiling. Holding onto the rail, he mitigated the wobble and shake in his limbs.

One bulkhead door shuddered open. Then another. His boots clomped on the metal deck. His claws scratched the paint from the walls. The last hatch spat steam as it groaned opened. Water vapor pebbled on his arm. Cooling vents clicked and chilled air washed over him.

He stepped inside the decontamination room before the door shut again. Steam belched and hissed until the air fogged with it. One dead Munician. Two dead Municians. Three—

The overhead fan purred to life, chasing away the steam and leaving only the plip-plop of water.

Starting with his eyestalks and ending with his boots, Groat shook off the water. Droplets pinged the pipes and shower heads. He picked up his tail and smoothed away the moisture. Damn, that decontamination solution dulled his armor’s shine. He rolled his shoulders. As Commander of the Fleet, he could requisition enough oil to bathe in.

He cranked the wheel, opening the door to the airlock.

Tridit, his second-in-command, stood with an extra rebreather in his hand. Dents marred his blood red armor, and he lacked the newest set of stabbing appendages. “I bet our stinky political officer is gnashing his perfect teeth that you disregarded his advice.”

“The Humans will learn to fear us. I will not hide from them, when we have the right to this planet.” Groat inserted the oval rebreather in his mandibles. The thing wouldn’t prevent the virus, but it would slow down the infection, plus the built-in microphone would relay directly to their internal com. “Mopus has spent too much time coddling the weaker species. Diplomacy should only be used for stronger foes—to buy time until we conquer them. All others should be crushed.”

He ground his fist in his hand. If Humans had been dealt with when they were pounding rocks and picking bugs off each other, he wouldn’t be risking his life now.

Then again, he wouldn’t be on the verge of becoming Commander of the Fleet.

He removed a projectile pistol and an energy gun from the rack by the outside hatch.

“The diplomats are valued too highly.” Tridit threaded throwing knives in the strap across his segmented chest. “We do all the work. And yet, we are the least respected of the Founders.”

Groat punched the button embedded in the hull next to the exit. “This war will change that.”

Tridit grunted. “I’ll outgrow my armor before the Board risks bleeding red on the budget and approve a war.”

The door retracted. Sunlight crept inside the airlock. Metal complained as the ramp slowly extended.

Stepping from the shadows, Groat surveyed the landscape. A deep gash slashed through the forest floor, uprooting pine trees and shoving them to the side. Nothing moved. Any living thing was smart to fear the Scraptors. Not that fear would save them. “The Board won’t need much convincing. Since losing their favorite lab rats, the Decripi’s new medical advances have been set back a decade. The Accumula has seen their markets diminish by half as the Skaperian worlds are once more dealing cheap ore mined by humans. And the Unadul are bitching about the corruption of their art by invasive species.”

Stopping next to him, Tridit exercised his pinschers. “The Founders like to complain. And complain. And complain.”

“True.” The ramp creaked to a halt. Groat marched down it. In the valley, surrounded by tall trees, he couldn’t see the pillar. The pillar would help him get his bearings. “But, the citizenry are already complaining about the rising price of commodities. Since this is an election year, it won’t be long before the Board must listen.”

“And offer promises they have no intention of keeping.”

“We’ll make them keep them.” Groat scrambled out of the furrow his ship created when it landed. His boots punched holes in the brown dirt as he climbed. His weight crushed the patchy grass. Veering left, he headed up an incline. “The citizens need to know the extent of this NSA threat. Scare them enough, and they’ll give us a bucket with bottomless credit.”

“For that to happen, there would have to be an attack on one of the home worlds.” Tridit snapped off branches, clearing a path through the forest.

“Not all Humans have left.”

“That’s because some aren’t willing to give up their pets. And why should they? Property is property.” Tridit shoved over a sapling. “We never should have signed the Erwar Codicils.”

“They’ll be rescinded after the war.”

Tridit’s eyestalks swiveled on his bullet-shaped head. “How do you know this?”

“Because I will be Commander of the Fleet, and you will be my second.” Groat paused on a rocky ledge. Over the splash of water, did he detect voices?

“I heard it, too.” Tridit clacked his pinschers. “What do you say we begin the clean-up of the planet a little early?”

Groat licked his lips and his blood pounded a battle cry inside his veins. His armor had yet to taste the enemy’s defeat. Still... “After we have the crystal, we shall celebrate.”

Tridit’s appendages drooped. “What’s on this crystal anyway?”

“Weapons information.” Spearing the mountainside to keep his balance, Groat scaled the rocky slope. “We both know that the Founders have done nothing but the minimum of research into new weapons since the Plague hit. They claim they’ve had to start everything from scratch. They won’t have that excuse when we return.”

“And if they try?” Tridit hacked at the branches as they neared the top.