“Wisps! To me!” Nicole shouted desperately, spinning back around and sprinting toward Allyce. There was another door beyond her at the other side of the room, as well as the one past the treatment cages to her right. If she could stay ahead of her attacker long enough to reach one of those, she would hopefully be able to find some Wisps to assist her. She picked up her speed, not knowing how much closer the Koffren behind her might have come and not daring to slow down long enough to find out.
She was a couple of steps from the end of the cages now. Flipping a mental coin, she decided to turn right and try for the door at that end. It was farther away, but she knew the layout better at that end. She reached the end of the cage and started to turn right.
“No—left,” Allyce said, so quietly that Nicole barely heard her over the clump of her own footsteps.
She hesitated, uncertainty braking her rhythm and slowing her down. Allyce’s face was rigid with stress and resolve, but there was pain and something that looked almost like pleading in her eyes. Nicole hesitated another step, slowing even further. Then, somewhat to her own surprise, she shifted direction, turning to her left as Allyce had ordered and trying to pick up her speed again. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Koffren looming behind her, much closer than he’d been, his sword raised toward her. She turned her attention forward again—
And saw to her horror that, barely fifty yards away, the path was blocked by a line of crates, stacked two high, laid across the entire width of the room. A single gap remained, all the way to the left, beckoning invitingly.
Except that it was just more of the trap. Even as she continued running toward it, she could see that it was too narrow to allow her to slip through. She would make it probably halfway before getting stuck, leaving her helpless to get hacked to death by the Koffren behind her.
Unless …
She eyed the top level of crates. Allyce was the only one she knew had been up here, and the other woman had never struck her as being all that strong. On top of that, this was a treatment area for animals that had long since disappeared from the Fyrantha. There was no reason for any supplies to still be here, and anyway Allyce could hardly have lifted that many packed crates up there by herself.
And if they were indeed empty, there was a chance Nicole could slip into the gap, reach through to the far side of the barrier and get her hand on the back side of one of the second-tier crates, and push it past her to slam into the Koffren.
It was a huge gamble, possibly the last gamble she would ever make. But at this point it was her only chance. It was too late to veer around toward one of the other doors without crossing the Koffren’s path, and the barrier was too tall for her to jump over.
She was bracing herself, eyeing the gap and mentally running through the procedure, when the second Koffren leaped into view from behind the barrier, soaring effortlessly over the top of the crates and landing with a thud almost directly in Nicole’s path.
He straightened up, his sword gleaming in his hand. His face was invisible behind the perforated helmet, but Nicole could imagine the look of triumph and anticipation that must be plastered across his face.
And suddenly Nicole had no chances left. None.
She slowed down her mad dash, coming to a halt a few yards from the Koffren. With her own footsteps silent, she could hear the thuds of the Koffren coming up behind her. Her comment to Iosif about leaving a note for Jeff flashed to mind, together with all the heavy weight of irony that now wrapped around it.
“I’m sorry,” Allyce said quietly.
Nicole turned her head. Allyce had left her seat on the floor and was walking toward her, her arms wrapped around her midsection as if she had a stomachache, the dangling ends of her scarf bouncing gently against her chest in rhythm with her walk. “Yeah,” Nicole said. “Me, too.”
“It was the only way,” Allyce said. She straightened up. “Watch her,” she warned in a louder voice. “She may be booby-trapped. Hold her arms away from her sides and let me check.”
Nicole frowned as the two Koffren wrapped their hands around her wrists and twisted the arms to point straight up over her head. She could feel their breath on her cheeks and the top of her head: a soft, leisurely flow from the one who’d jumped the barrier; faster, heavier puffs from the one who’d had to chase her. Allyce walked up to them, and once again Nicole saw her brace herself as she reached up to the ends of her scarf.
But instead of taking hold of the scarf itself, Allyce’s hands reached up behind the scarf and pulled out two objects that had been pinned there out of sight. Her fingers wrapped around them; and as Nicole’s eyes and brain belatedly identified them as hypodermics with extraordinarily long needles Allyce thrust them up at the Koffren’s faces. The needles slipped through the holes in their masks—there were simultaneous jolts as the needle tips jabbed into the hidden flesh behind them—Allyce’s thumbs squeezed the plungers—
An instant later one of the Koffren let go of Nicole and slapped his arm against Allyce’s chest, the impact sending her flying backward into the side of one of the cages. She gasped with pain as she bounced off the bars and dropped to the deck, rolling half over as both Koffren yanked the hypos from their faces and helmets and threw them aside. The one who’d hit Allyce strode toward her, lifting his sword for a killing blow. Nicole tried to pull away from the other Koffren, but could only gasp as he tightened his grip still further. Allyce pushed herself weakly up onto one elbow, her face twisted in pain as she watched her death approaching.
Then, to Nicole’s astonishment, the grip on her arm loosened. At the same time the other Koffren broke stride, his sword drooping, his body swaying. Nicole frowned, wondering what was happening.
And as she watched in stunned disbelief, both aliens collapsed to the deck and lay still.
For a long moment she just stared at them. Then, she raised her eyes to Allyce, still half lying on the deck.
Allyce nodded wearily at Nicole’s silent question. “Cyanide,” she said, the word coming out with difficulty and a spasm of pain. “It blocks oxygen absorption into the blood. Figured it would kill anything that breathes the ship’s air.”
“The animal treatment room,” Nicole murmured. “You had plenty of hypos in the medical center, but you needed to find longer needles.”
Allyce nodded. “Sorry.” Another spasm of pain. “The only way to get them close enough together was to convince them I was on their side and use you as bait. Can you give me a hand?”
“Sure,” Nicole said, hurrying over. “How bad is it?”
“At a guess, a couple of bruised or fractured ribs, possibly a broken collarbone”—she broke off for a stifled gasp as Nicole knelt down beside her—“and maybe some internal injuries. No—don’t touch me. You can call Wisps, right? Can you get some of them to carry me back to Sam and the hive?”
“Sure,” Nicole said, frowning. Now that Allyce mentioned it …
She looked around. She had called for the Wisps, hadn’t she, just before the big chase started? Yes, of course she had. But that had been a good couple of minutes ago, and not a single Wisp was in sight.
“I had to do it,” Allyce said, her voice twisted with pain and pleading. “You know that, don’t you? It was my fault they killed Bennett. My drug. My stupid damn—” She broke off in a gasping sob as fresh pain stabbed through her. “I was so focused on going home I didn’t think.”
“It’s okay,” Nicole soothed, still looking around. Had the Wisps not heard her? Were they afraid to respond?
“I messed it up for everyone,” Allyce went on.
“You didn’t know what they were going to do,” Nicole said. “None of us did.”
Or were they simply not able to come into the Caretaker’s stronghold?
Nicole hissed under her breath. Fine. If they weren’t coming on their own, she would just have to go get them.
“I’ll be right back,” she told Allyce, straightening up. She would head through her usual door, she decided, and the route she knew best. “Stay here.”
She headed off, hurrying down the wide lane between the cages. If she couldn’t get any of the regular Q4 Wisps to come, then she’d have to go back to the hive and grab Cambria and the others. Whatever was keeping the Wisps away, her personal group would hopefully not be so squeamish.
Still, as she jogged along, she kept her eyes open for a gurney or cart or something else she could use to get the injured woman out of here. But there was nothing. It was going to be Wisps, or Nicole’s own arms and back.
She reached the door and touched the release. It slid open and she stepped out into the dimly lit corridor. A couple of corridors over, she knew, would be one that connected to the crosswise vent between her and Q3. There were bound to be Wisps there. She rounded a corner—
And jerked to a sudden, horrified halt. Ten feet in front of her was an armored Shipmaster.
Only he wasn’t standing facing her. He was lying sprawled on the deck, his front legs twisted around each other, his neck tilted backward at a strange and painful-looking angle. The tilt had opened a space between two of the neck plates, and there was a pale pink liquid oozing slowly from the gap, adding to a puddle staining the deck.
He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. He was dead.
Murdered.
For maybe ten seconds Nicole just stood there staring at the armored corpse. It shouldn’t have been as bad as the human bodies she’d seen sometimes after a shoot-out or one-on-one killing, she told herself numbly. But somehow, it was.
Maybe it was even worse. The Shipmasters always seemed so proud and invulnerable in their shiny armor and fake centaur bodies. Seeing one dead was somehow even more shocking than seeing one of the far more fragile Wisps dead.
Something cold settled around her heart. Fake centaur bodies …
Breaking her paralysis, she forced herself to walk over to the dead Shipmaster. Forced herself to roll him over onto his right side so she could get at the storage compartment. Forced herself to probe at the slippery metal until she found the catch. Forced herself to open it.
The storage compartment was empty.
She swallowed hard. Back in Q4, Fievj had been carrying spider gun magazines and dissolving liquid. But the rack holding them had been different than the one she was looking at here. This rack was like the one she’d first seen in Fievj’s storage compartment, designed to hold the four-foot-long tubes of greenfire weapons.
That rack had enough slots to hold six of the weapons. If this one had been full, and if the Koffren murderers had gotten all six of them …
And then, an even more horrifying piece of the puzzle dropped into place.
She was panting heavily when she reached Allyce. “Come on,” she said between breaths as she crouched down beside Allyce and got her arm around the injured woman’s shoulders. “We’ve got to go.”
“What’s wrong?” Allyce asked, her face contorting with pain as Nicole levered her to her feet. “Where are the Wisps?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t wait for them,” Nicole said. Easing Allyce around, trying to give her support without further damaging her ribs, she started her toward the door. “There’s a dead Shipmaster back there, and we need to get out of here.”
“A dead—? What?”
“And he had greenfire weapons with him,” Nicole went on, hurrying her along as quickly as she dared. “Maybe as many as six of them. They’re all gone.”
“But—” Allyce turned her head to look at the dead Koffren behind them. “They why didn’t they…?” Her voice and the question faded into horrified silence.
“Yeah, you got it,” Nicole said grimly. “He was killed by a Koffren, all right—the sword mark in his throat shows that much. Only these two weren’t carrying the weapons. Which can only mean one thing.
“There are more of the damn aliens aboard.”
Nicole had been afraid she would have to carry Allyce the whole way, probably aggravating her injuries in the process. To her relief, they’d only gone a couple of corridors before Nicole’s periodic call for Wisps finally brought a pair of them out from wherever they’d been hiding. She ordered them to bring Allyce along behind her and hurried on ahead to the hive, wishing now that she’d listened to Iosif and brought a spider gun with her. They weren’t a lot of use against greenfire weapons, but it would have been better than nothing.
She’d been afraid she would find chaos, with dead bodies scattered in the corridors, dining room, and medical center. But to her relief, she found no evidence of a battle.
On the other hand, as she walked quietly through the corridors and checked the public rooms, she also found no evidence that anyone was there at all, alive or dead. The greenfire weapon she’d used in the big Q4 battle hadn’t disintegrated people, but just poked holes through them. Could there be a setting she didn’t know about?
For that matter, it was only a guess that the dead Shipmaster had been carrying that particular weapon. If he’d had something even worse, they were all probably dead.
It was with a painful mix of relief and horror when she reached the cluster of rooms farthest toward the rear of the Fyrantha that she found the nine dead Wisps, scattered across the deck with the familiar greenfire weapon burns scarring their delicate bodies.
“It was your Ghorf—Kahkitah—who came and warned us,” Iosif said, gazing into the coffee cup he’d barely touched. “He barreled in, babbling about a bunch of Koffren being on their way and carrying greenfire weapons. We first thought he was hysterical, but there was something about his face and voice that finally convinced me. Damn good thing I listened.”
Nicole nodded silently, feeling as hollow inside as Iosif looked.
Nine Wisps dead, killed by a single greenfire shot each. A tenth dead from multiple spider gun rounds, which Sam said had suffocated it by constricting its chest and lungs. Two other Wisps still alive, but hit with so many spider shots that their wings might never function properly again.
And Travis and Bungie and the other four gang members gone. Apparently, the Koffren had decided they wanted some prisoners.
“We tried to warn the Wisps,” Iosif went on, a fresh edge of bitterness creeping into his voice. “We didn’t just run and hide. But Jeff had ordered them to guard the prisoners, and we didn’t know where you’d gone, and they wouldn’t listen to any of us. We didn’t have enough people to carry them all away, and even if we had they’d probably have gone back. We didn’t have a choice but to leave them.”
“I know,” Nicole murmured, the faces of dead Wisps floating accusingly in front of her face. Ten more lives to add to the growing guilt crushing down on her heart and mind.
“So what now?” Iosif asked.
What now? That was the question, all right.
In theory, the plan she and Jeff had concocted could still work. The crucial problem, though, was that it had been designed for only two Koffren. Now, even with Allyce’s small victory they had a bunch more to deal with. Could the plan be adjusted to take account of that number?
Especially since she didn’t even know how many of them there were. However they’d come aboard—whether through the Wisps and the Fyrantha’s teleport or from a ship or something else—there was no way to know what that number was. They had six greenfire weapons; but whether there were six Koffren, or six hundred, or six thousand was completely up in the air.
For that matter, did the Koffren really only have six weapons? All she knew was that they’d killed the Shipmaster up on level 6. If they could kill one, why not more? Why not even all of them?
“Fievj said he and the other Shipmasters were worried that the Koffren might take over the ship,” she said slowly, trying to think it through.
“Jeff told me that was just a line to sucker you into walking into that trap in Q3.”
“It was certainly a line,” Nicole agreed. “Doesn’t mean there couldn’t have also been a grain of truth. What if they really are worried about the Koffren and don’t know what to do about them?”
“I hope you’re not suggesting we ask Fievj for another meeting.”
“Hardly,” Nicole said. “Though if a panicked Nevvis walked in here without armor or weapons, I’d probably listen to him. No, I was thinking more along the lines of finding a way to take out the Koffren before we present our terms to the Shipmasters.”
“Interesting,” Iosif said. “Any idea how we would do that?”
“Not yet,” Nicole said, looking at her five Wisps, gathered in defensive positions by the dining room door. At least they’d been out of the Koffren line of fire. “Jeff will be back soon. Hopefully, the three of us can come up with something.”
“Yeah,” Iosif said. He didn’t sound all that enthusiastic. “Well, until then you’d better get some rest. Before, you looked like something the cat dragged in. Now, you look like the dog’s breakfast.”
“I suppose,” Nicole said, too weary to know whether he was being insulting or just trying to be funny and not caring either way. “I need to check on Allyce first.”
“You want me along?”
“No, thanks.” Nicole stood up. “Cambria? Come on. Time to go.”
Allyce was lying on one of the medical center beds when Nicole arrived, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and a bit labored. “How is she?” Nicole asked.
“Not too bad, all things considered,” Sam said, sounding unusually subdued. He’d never really warmed up to anyone aboard the Fyrantha, as far as Nicole knew, but he’d at least respected Allyce on a professional level. “One cracked rib, two more bruised, a wrenched shoulder, and a mild concussion. Her spine was undamaged, and she even got away without breaking either collarbone. Pretty lucky, really, for someone who got thrown against a wall.”
“Yeah,” Nicole said. “Real lucky.”
Sam’s lip twitched. “You know what I mean. What the hell happened, anyway?”
“She laid a trap for the Koffren,” Nicole said. “Hypos with cyanide and long needles to get through the holes in their masks. One of them lived long enough to throw her against a cage.”
“So they both died?”
“Yes,” Nicole said. “And no, that doesn’t mean Kahkitah lied about Koffren with greenfire weapons on the hunt. There’s a new group of them aboard the ship. I don’t know how they got here.”
“Great,” Sam muttered. “Like things weren’t bad enough already.”
“Yeah,” Nicole agreed soberly. “And they’re probably going to get worse before they get better.”
“Maybe.” He eyed her closely. “There is an easy solution, you know.”
“That I die?”
“Funny,” he said. “I was thinking more that you turn yourself in.”
“Same difference.”
“I don’t think so,” Sam said, his voice low and earnest. “They don’t want you dead. They just want you to stop making trouble.”
Nicole snorted. “Haven’t you heard a single thing Jeff and I have been saying since the Q1 arena? Earth is on the line, Sam. They want fighters—whole planets’ worth of battle slaves—and they know now that humans can fight. The only way to save our world is to stop them here on the Fyrantha.”
“You don’t know that,” Sam insisted. “Besides, you also said that humans are the only ones who can do maintenance on the ship. If they take everyone off Earth and throw them into battles, who’s going to fix things when they break down?”
“Do you even hear yourself?” Nicole demanded. “How many of us are aboard the Fyrantha right now? A couple of hundred? A thousand? Fine—let’s say the Shipmasters keep a million of us around to fix things. That leaves—what? Six billion they can send off to get slaughtered?”
“More like seven and a half,” Sam corrected coolly. “And the million they kept out would be the best of the best. Frankly, I think humanity could do with a little thinning.”
Nicole stared at him. He returned her gaze without flinching, his expression set in stone. “You mean people like me?” she asked.
He shrugged slightly. “You and your boyfriend kidnapped me. He said—”
“Bungie isn’t my boyfriend.”
“He said he’d shot a man,” Sam continued, ignoring her protest. “So yes, actually, I think civilization would get along just fine with fewer people like you.”
Nicole took a deep breath. This wasn’t the time to have this discussion. Especially since, speaking of Bungie and Trake, she could almost agree with him. “I’d prefer to eliminate bad people by encouraging them to become better people,” she said. “The Fyrantha’s resources and science might help that happen. But they won’t if everyone’s lying dead on some alien battlefield.”
Sam shrugged again. “You first have to be willing to change. Not sure how many of them want to. But I suppose that’s not the issue here.”
“No, it’s not,” Nicole said, feeling her brief surge of passion fade again into her tiredness. “What’s important right now is that Allyce is going to get well.”
“She’ll be fine,” Sam said. “She’s patched up and started on the fast-track to healing. She’ll be functional in a few days and fully healed in a couple of weeks.”
“Does she need someone to stay with her tonight?”
Sam shook his head. “I gave her a sedative to help her sleep, and I’ll keep an eye on the monitors in my room. I’m not expecting any problems, but if there are the alarms will signal me and I’ll be on it.”
“Okay,” Nicole said. “Thank you.” She turned to leave.
“You aren’t going to ask about the drug?”
“What—? Oh, right,” Nicole interrupted herself. She’d almost forgotten that she’d asked if he could whip up a drug that would enhance human combat capabilities. “Did you come up with something?”
“I think so,” he said. “I’ve been playing with a mix that would have most of the amphetamine pluses and none of the minuses. Another day or two and I should be ready to give it a test.” He cocked his head. “I trust you’ll be able to find me a volunteer?”
“I’m sure I will,” Nicole assured him. “Good night. And if you need any help with Allyce please come get me.”
“Of course,” Sam said. “Sleep well, Nicole.” He gave her a brittle smile. “Pleasant dreams.”
Nine hours later, still not feeling fully rested, she dragged herself out of bed. She spent the next hour eating while she, Jeff, and Iosif discussed possible ways of dealing with the unexpected influx of Koffren.
And somehow, despite Nicole’s best efforts, her thoughts and plans kept coming back to Sam and the drug she’d asked him to make.
It was an unexpected and unsettling development, especially since the reason Nicole had suggested the project in the first place was simply to give him something to do that would keep him busy and out of everyone’s hair. The thought that it might actually have become a vital piece of the campaign was strange in the extreme.
It was strange to Jeff and Iosif, too, and just as unpleasant to them as it was to Nicole. They weren’t any happier with the plan that emerged from the discussion, Iosif in particular pointing out the huge risks, the small chance of success, and—in his mind—the unnecessary complications.
But it was the best they had, and Nicole hung on to it grimly. In the end, with nothing else that offered a better chance, the others reluctantly agreed.
Later that night she slipped into the medical center. Luckily, Allyce was awake, and Nicole was able to have a long, private talk with her. The injured woman wasn’t any happier with the plan than Jeff and Iosif, but her anger at the Koffren and her still lingering guilt over her supposed complicity in Bennett’s death were more than enough to bring her on board. Leaving her to her task, Nicole slipped out of the room, not wanting to be there if Sam checked his monitors, saw that Allyce was awake, and decided to look in on her.
One more night’s sleep, this one much shorter than the last and even less restful, and it was time. She sent Jeff and Iosif to their appointed tasks; and then, feeling a little like a lamb going to the slaughter, she returned to the medical center.
This time, she found Allyce asleep. “How is she?” Nicole whispered to Sam.
“Better,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to wake her up.”
“More painkillers?”
“No, just the Fyrantha’s healing enhancements,” Sam corrected. “Kicking the metabolism to full repair mode tends to put people to sleep. You just drop by to check on her?”
“No,” Nicole said, watching Allyce another moment. The other woman’s breathing was definitely smoother and easier than the last time. That was a good sign. “No, I came to see if your drug was ready to go.”
“Really,” Sam said. “Well, you’re in luck—I finished the last non-bio test this morning. What I need now is a human subject for the final test.”
“Good,” Nicole said. “Here I am.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You? I assumed Jeff would insist on playing guinea pig.”
“He’s busy with other things,” Nicole said. “Besides, if something goes wrong, you said yourself that I was one of the expendable ones. Remember?”
For a moment his face went blank. Then his lip twisted as that part of their previous conversation, apparently forgotten, came back to him. “Fine,” he growled. “Sit down—that chair by the door—and roll up your left sleeve.”
Nicole did so, watching as he walked over to one of the workstations and picked up a bottle and a hypo. “How long until the drug takes effect?” she asked.
“Not long,” he told her as he filled the hypo about halfway. “A few minutes.”
“And I’ll have enhanced speed and strength?”
“That’s what you asked for, wasn’t it?” he countered. He set down the bottle, did the little tap-and-squeeze thing Nicole always saw doctors do on TV, and then walked back to her. He tapped twice on the skin just above the inside of the elbow, then slipped the tip of the needle into the flesh just over the vein. “Okay,” he said as he pulled it out and set the hypo aside. “Give me a rundown on how you feel so we can get an idea of the timing.”
“Right,” Nicole said. “Nothing yet—”
She broke off, gasping, her arm suddenly feeling like it was on fire. Reflexively, she grabbed it, pressing hard against the skin.
The pressure seemed to help. The heat faded …
A strange dimness seemed to wash across her eyes and mind, like the sun going down and leaving everything looking flat and dim, all the colors washed out. The sun had gone down on her brain, too, leaving it hard to think or comprehend what was happening. “Sam,” she breathed, her voice sounding strange and distant. “Sam, what’s happening?”
“You’re saving the ship,” he said, his voice as distant as hers. “That’s what you wanted, right? Well, you’re saving it. You’re saving it in the only way you ever could.” He stood up and took her arm. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
Nicole tried to fight it. But somehow it was impossible to disobey his voice. She stood up at his urging and turned toward the door. “Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“The place you’ve been heading since you first got here,” he said. “The place you’ve been trying to take all the rest of us.
“I’m taking you to hell.”