“If he expects me to serve him further,” I said.
Hermes actually blinked at me. “You bargain with your Creator?”
I smiled back at him. “No,
And I opened my eyes in the prison shack at the Skorpis base, with Frede sleeping soundly beside me.
The rescue attempt, when it came, was just as fouled up as every other aspect of our mission to Lunga.
It was early afternoon. I was out in the submersible with nine of the other human scientists, including Delos—who went on every cruise—and Randa, who still seemed hostile and distant most of the time, although she could thaw slightly, especially when there was some interesting science to talk about.
The Skorpis warrior who accompanied us, so big that he could barely squeeze through the sub’s hatches, filled the tiny comm compartment with his bulk. If humans felt uncomfortably dwarfed in Skorpis furniture, this warrior seemed ridiculous with a comm set clamped to his furry head. It was designed for human ears and human dimensions, but the warrior had managed to get the earphone to stay in his cuplike ear by slapping a strip of gummy tape across his head. It must have hurt when he pulled it off. I could see the pale scars of earlier tapes etched into his greenish fur.
“Return to base,” he rumbled.
Delos, in the next compartment bent over the sensor displays, jerked his head up so suddenly he banged it on the metal overhead.
He yelped with pain, then said, “Return? Why?”
“Orders,” answered the Skorpis.
Rubbing his head, Delos reached an arm into the comm compartment. “Please give me the other headset.”
The Skorpis warrior complied and Delos held the set against his ear. Standing next to him, I could hear the communications operator on the other end.
“Enemy fleet has been observed approaching the planet. Return to base immediately.”
The rescue mission, I thought. My heart began to race.
“But if there’s a battle we’ll be safer here in the sea, submerged, than at the base.”
“Orders are to return to base. Immediately.”
Delos wanted to argue, but the Skorpis at the comm console was already leaning his thick fingers on the keypads that activated the automated controls. We were returning to base, following orders.
And the Golden One was coming to rescue my troopers.
We broke to the surface a scant kilometer from the shore and cruised to the pier. As I clambered through the topside hatch and out onto the sub’s deck, I could see no action. The sky looked clear and serene. But there was an air of electrical expectancy at the base that we could all feel as the human scientists who had remained ashore ran out onto the pier and helped tie up the sub.
We rushed back toward the scientists’ compound, escorted by two fully armed warriors who had met us at the pier and the Skorpis who had run the comm console in the sub. His two comrades handed him a rifle and a flexible reflective vest as they ran.
“There’s a shelter beneath the main building,” Delos told me, panting with exertion. “The Skorpis insisted on building it even though I thought it was silly. Shielded and everything.”
I saw that the base was buttoned up, braced for an attack. No one walking about, none of the usual drilling or workaday chores going on. Out by the perimeter the guns were manned. Automated laser batteries were already pointing skyward.
“I’ve got to see to my troopers,” I said.
“Don’t be foolish,” Delos said. “Come with us where you’ll be protected.”
“I belong with my troop.” I veered off, sprinting toward the prison shack.
No Skorpis tried to stop me, although Delos yelled, “Bring them to our shelter if you can.”
I waved and ran faster toward the shack.
It was empty. Had the Skorpis already moved the prisoners to safety? I was surprised, doubtful.
Then I saw, to one side of the shack, a pile of canisters. “No!” I shouted. “They didn’t!”
A high-pitched screeching shrilled through the air, the Skorpis equivalent of a siren, barely audible to a human. The attack was imminent.
No need to count the canisters. I knew what they were. Cryonic containers. The Skorpis had spent the morning freezing my troop. There was a big skimmer parked on the other side of the pile. They were going to move them to their food lockers when the attacking fleet was spotted.
I pounded the side of the flimsy shack hard enough to make it shake down to its plastic foundation. They’re frozen! Frozen!
A heavy hand gripped my shoulder. Turning, I saw it was the security officer.
“Get to shelter,” she commanded. “Attack is starting.”
As she spoke, a rash of laser blasts splashed against the energy dome shielding the base. The usually invisible dome flared flame red for an instant, then orange. It cleared, but I could see it shimmering above us.
“To shelter,” she hissed. “Now.” She wrapped an arm around my waist, lifted me off my feet and started running, carrying me like a sack of groceries.
More laser blasts splashed against the shield, and I heard the lightning cracks of the Skorpis lasers firing back. The whole world shuddered and we were knocked flat as a nuclear warhead hit the base of the shield. The shield absorbed most of the energy, but the kinetic pulse conducted by the ground was like the shock of an earthquake.
I scrambled to my feet; the security officer got to hers a bit more slowly. Through the shimmering shield I could see lights glinting in the sky, far overhead. Our ships, still in orbit, catching the light of the sun up there.
More nukes exploded and we staggered across the base, between buildings that swayed dangerously with each new explosion. The shield was flaming deeper and deeper into the red now, as more laser beams fired against it. It was only a matter of time until the shield was overloaded. Another blast knocked us to the ground again. Dust and grit filled the air, burning my eyes.
Spitting dirt from her begrimed face, the security officer pointed in the direction of the scientists’ compound. “Shelter,” she said. “You go there.”
“What about you?”
“I have duty station.” She hauled herself to her feet and started off in the opposite direction just as another nuke pounded outside the shield, making the shield go black for eons-long moments. The ground shook violently and several buildings collapsed. A heavy support beam cracked loose from one building and fell like an ax across the back of the security officer, flattening her beneath its weight.
I staggered over to her, through the choking dust, as more explosions shook the ground. The shield was visibly wobbling now, blinking red and orange and bubbling like water on the boil.
She was conscious, but barely. The beam had crushed her ribs, maybe broken her back. I strained against it, summoning up every reserve of strength in me, and hauled it off her. It fell to the ground beside us with a thunderous clunk.
I dared not turn her over. Her tunic was a mass of blood from her shoulders to her waist. She lay facedown, one cheek in the dirt, the other caked with grime.
One yellow eye gazed steadily at me. “You do not follow orders,” she muttered.
“I’ll get help.”
“No one will come. I am dead. Go to shelter before you become dead, too.”
Her eye closed. She stopped breathing. I felt for a pulse in her throat, in her wrist. Nothing. She would have gleefully ripped me to ribbons a few days ago, yet I felt an enormous reluctance to leave her there, to admit that she was dead and there was nothing more that I could do.
Another blast and the twisted, crazily leaning side of the building next to us began to groan and shudder. I jumped to my feet and started running, glancing over my shoulder to see the whole building collapse in a thundering heap on top of the Skorpis’ dead body.
