“Yeah,” she said and yawned again. “No problem. It can probably land anywhere, except maybe in a volcano, you know? I don’t think any ship could land in a volcano. Where do you want me to land?”
“Take it to the Ish-Nul,” I said. “We need to let everyone there know what’s happened, and pick up Enra and Yaltu. Oh, and we should let them know Timo-Ran is now the mayor of Thaz’red.”
“I can do that,” Nyna said, “but there’s something you should know, too. The ship has a lot of information. It knows a lot of stuff, and I can access all of it. I found some of your crew. Not everyone made it, but some did. They’ve been shipped off to other planets. Looks like they were traded for new males—Xeno males.”
“Drones,” I said.
“Right, drones. I know where the planets are. I know where the Xeno Queen sent your people. They aren’t too far away, either, especially for this ship. The lot of us, flying this thing, we can save your crew.”
Chapter Twenty-One
As we made our way back to the planet’s surface in a Xeno ship, I found myself sitting in the chair next to Nyna. She’d talked me into donning a spidery interface. I didn’t like the look of the thing or the idea that it was going to read my mind and insert images into it, but Nyna assured me that it was painless and harmless now that the Queen was gone. I trusted her and placed the twitching, spidery device on my head. Its legs had shuffled around for several seconds, either inspecting my brain or getting comfortable. Then, I had felt it reach out and touch my mind. The effect was instantaneous and wonderful.
I could see through the ship as if it wasn’t even there. I could also feel it. I felt its heartbeat in time with the thrumming of what I’d thought were its engines. It was a living thing, and it had bonded with the priestess. It trusted her and obeyed her.
I turned my head and saw Druma coming into view. It was a green and blue planet, with small polar ice caps. Most of the world appeared to be covered in forests and jungles, though there were great seas separating several land-masses. It didn’t look at all like the dry, red surface of home, but it was beautiful in its own way, much like Earth.
I could see inside the ship as well. Skrew had found a soft cushion-like membrane in a small room. He’d curled up on top of it and appeared to be sound asleep. I guessed it had been a place for the drones to rest during their long journeys between Queens.
Beatrix was in another room inspecting her leg, which Reaver had healed. The look on her face told me the pain she felt was still a fresh memory, one that might take a while to forget or set aside. But she was tough, and I had no doubt she’d push through it.
Reaver was in a second dark, chitin-lined room opposite Skrew. She was lying in another Xeno bed, fitfully trying to sleep. She appeared to be distressed. Maybe she needs to talk, I thought. I’ll go see her in a little while.
I’d freed Druma from the Xeno and discovered a powerful weakness in the enemy. I’d learned they required controllers in order to perform nearly any action. It was a weakness I planned to exploit as often as possible.
However, I’d also learned that the Xeno had spread far and wide. There were at least three other colonies, but it was likely that there were many more in the galaxy.We were in the I’d learned that as well. The Xeno kept detailed star maps, and though they didn’t name the planets they’d discovered, each was tagged. I could see that we were we were actually in the same galaxy as the Sol system—but too far way to send a message and expect it to arrive in anything resembling a useful time.
Some were tagged as being sources of nutrition, others as sources of slaves. The most interesting were the ones marked as dangerous. Whenever Nyna attempted to learn more about one of the dangerous planets, she said a sudden feeling of dread about the end of all life everywhere overcame her. I wasn't sure if it was how the Xeno kept Queens away from planets that were likely to lead to their deaths, or if the level of danger Nyna felt was universal to all species. Druma had been marked as a friendly planet. There were no other details I could draw from Nyna. The designation was vague.
The Sol system had been discovered, but its two inhabited planets, Mars and Earth, held a special designation. I asked Nyna what she meant by special.
“Well,” she said slowly and dreamily, “the designations are emotional. Fear says it's dangerous. Hunger says there’s food. But from Earth and Mars, I get a mix, like the designation is in conflict or it’s changing, you know? When I look at either, I get a feeling that something bad might happen, but I also get excited. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s powerful.”
“Anticipation,” I concluded.
Nyna nodded, and we each got lost in our thoughts for a moment.
“It’s horrible what the Xeno did to those people in that room in the hive,” Nyna then said. “The Xeno put things inside of them. It made them change.” I felt her trepidation and sorrow through the organic network. “What if they did that to me?”
“I wouldn’t let that happen to you,” I assured her.
What I didn’t say was that if any of my shipmates or Marines were Void-touched and had also been infested, they might be more dangerous than an army of Xeno. I put the thought from my mind. I didn’t want Nyna to pick up on my concern. It wasn’t anything anyone needed to worry about at the moment.
“The
