“The drive gets packed away for in-system flight,” Lyssa said. “And because their fire ball weapon would rip right through the forward curtain if it was left out.” She moved her finger in a slow circle once more.
Now the curtains were gone, I could see nearly normal-looking engine exhaust cowlings, and beside them, maneuvering jets. I knew they were maneuvering jets, for they were firing, shifting the mothership’s angle. These jets, unlike our human ones, seemed to move on gimbals or some type of universal joint that let them turn in any direction. They were far more elegant than the jets we used.
The ship itself, besides being enormous, was also strange in design. There did not seem to be any portholes or windows, nothing that gave them an outside view. Perhaps they used screens exclusively. Also, the shape was just weird. The front of the ship—judged by the direction the ship moved in—was a blank ochre-colored curve. Featureless, except for a twin row of…vents? Exhaust ports? Decorations? The holes—or whatever they were—ran down either side of that curved fascia, which made me think of a very large, hooked nose hanging in space with no other features around it.
The rest of the ship was also a conglomeration of vaguely organic curves with fine lines. I glanced at the tiny port where the fighters had emerged, and guessed the fine lines running elsewhere would also be access points, joints, or the outlines of other openings.
“Nothing like a rail gun, or external weapon,” Dalton said, staring at the thing.
“The whole ship is the weapon,” I reminded him. “Did you see it fire?”
He shook his head. “We were coming up to that.”
Lyssa turned her finger in the same slow circle and the ship continued to come about. Now I could see the Ige Ibas and the shuttle, which the mothership had been hiding, before.
“This is when we came back from the Ige Ibas,” I said, recognizing the point.
The mothership was still turning and starting to glow, the hooked nose coming about. “It’s about to fire on you,” I told Lyssa.
She nodded.
The glow over the ship pulsated and ran like liquid down to the bottom edge of the nose, gathering into a fiery green-blue ball. The ball shot away from the ship, moving fast even on this considerably slowed playback.
The images in the tank jerked upwards, as Lyssa dropped the Lythion down beneath the trajectory of the fireball.
“Damn…it spat a wad at us,” Dalton breathed.
Fiori laughed and slapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.
The mothership was still turning, swinging back around to face the shuttle. It grew larger in the tank as the Lythion screamed closer.
Lyssa brought her hands together, scaling the view down once more, until the mothership wasn’t dominating the tank.
I stood up to look over it, at the tiny Ige Ibas and the even smaller shuttle. Off to the side from them was a blue glow—what was left of the fighter I had hit with the torrent shriver.
The mothership was enveloped in the greenish glow again. It coughed its fireball at the shuttle. Dalton dropped the shuttle down, too, and the fireball slammed into the side of the Ige Ibas and emerged on the other side and kept going until it disappeared off the edge of the screen.
I sat down again. My throat was dry.
Lyssa halted the playback.
“No, keep it going,” Dalton said softly.
“You know what happens after that.” Lyssa sounded uncomfortable.
“I know you put yourself between us and the mothership,” Dalton told her.
Lyssa dropped her gaze to the tank. “It was the only way to scoop you up. I would have come from the other side, but the Ige Ibas was in the way.”
“Lots of shipminds would have chosen to save their own asses first,” I said. “Thank you for what you did, Lyssa.”
“Stars, yes, thank you!” Fiori echoed.
Lyssa didn’t look up. She nodded stiffly.
I waved to the waitress. I badly wanted a scotch, to soothe my throat and my nerves. “We could sit here for a month, analyzing the footage, but I think we should save it until there are other minds in the room beside the three of us.” I looked around the table. “The human diaspora is in its tenth millennia. Never once in ten thousand years have we caught even a hint of alien civilizations. Not their ruins, not space junk, nothing. Now, they’re among us…and they’re not here on a diplomatic junket, either. Everyone has to know about this. Everyone must be warned.”
Dalton shook his head. “You don’t know their intentions are not peaceful. We could be misinterpreting them.”
“I do know,” I said, as calmly as I could, but damn, I needed that scotch! “They stripped the Ige Ibas of every human but the tiny one who hid himself away. And they tried to take Fiori.”
Fiori shuddered.
“There were more fighters behind the one that grabbed her,” I added. “Lining up for the rest of us. When that failed, they opened fire.”
Dalton didn’t argue that.
“I did a quick search on Eliot Byrne before I came to the diner,” I added. “It’s little surprise to me he’s got two successful colonies. He’s a former Ranger.”
Dalton raised his brow. “Son of a bitch. He never said anything about it to me.”
“Because he had a reputation as a wildcatter to keep up,” Fiori said thoughtfully.
I nodded. “His Ranger training helped him keep a tight ship. And it told him exactly what to do when the aliens showed up the first time.”
“He destroyed his data,” Lyssa breathed.
“He destroyed all knowledge of humans beyond the Ige Ibas,” I said. “He didn’t want to give the aliens a map telling them how to find more of us.”
—13—
As soon as we emerged
