4

The city…resisted when Sara started making her way back to the lower floor.

“It’s a direct order.” Her voice echoed in the empty rooms in a very eerie way. “And you gave me a headache. Not friendly. Though I am happy you didn’t turn me into an alien hybrid creature.” Yet.

The resistance eased some, leaving a sense it felt almost forlorn.

“Look, I’ll try to come back, if they’ll let me.” Though the Old Man was pretty pissed. “If I’m not in the brig.”

Now she wished she’d waited to call the Doolittle, at least until she learned more about the weapons systems. It felt like she’d just peeked in the window at the pastries, but been pulled away before she could try anything. She made it down to the first floor. No lights marked her retreat. Now the rooms seemed shadowed and her footsteps sounded loud and lonely.

She reached the door—and it didn’t open.

“Please don’t do this. I have to follow orders.” Her voice echoed off about ten walls before fading away. After a pause, the door snapped open. Sara readied her weapon and stepped out. The light was already fading. Short days. If they didn’t get here before full dark, she was going back inside. End of story. Orders or no orders.

“Bravo5,” Carey’s voice crackled in her ear. “I’m not seeing your island yet.”

“Just follow my heading in. Once you pass through the cloak, you should see it.” But would they? Would it let them in? Sara ran to her ship, climbed in and turned on tracking. “I can see you both. You’re on course. You should be passing through the cloak…now.”

“Dang! I see it!”

Sara released a sigh of relief and climbed back out of her bird.

“Bravo1, we’ve lost you and bravo2 on tracking.”

Just as Sara had, they reassured the Colonel they were fine and in short order, they landed on either side of Sara’s craft. Carey and Fyn clambered out, both clearly relieved to see her in one piece. Before Carey could speak, Sara gestured around her.

“Would you have been able to just sit here, sir?”

He tried to look stern, but finally grinned. “Hell, no.” He looked at her, “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t in trouble. Have you got control of your ship yet?”

“I don’t know.” She started toward it, then stopped and turned. “You don’t want to see anything first?”

“We plan to look around, but the Old Man wants you heading back.”

“Oh.” Sara nodded. “Right.” She climbed in and it wouldn’t start.

Carey hid a grin. “Move, let me try.”

He couldn’t get it to fire either.

“Try one of ours,” he ordered.

They wouldn’t start either.

“This better not be a one way trip, Donovan.”

Was it? She didn’t get that feeling from the computer, but how to explain that to the Colonel?

“Sir, I wonder if maybe there’s an AI here, an artificial intelligence? Maybe it wants us to look around before we leave—” she hesitated. Would it let them leave? With the thought came that feeling of reassurance again. “Maybe it just wants company.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Fyn, try your bird again.”

Fyn climbed aboard and the engine fired, but as soon as Sara tried to get in, it shut down.

“I think it wants you to stay. Any idea why?”

Sara had an idea, but she wasn’t about to say it out loud. She kind of shrugged.

“Maybe it’s a guy AI.” Fyn grinned.

He tapped his radio. “Sir, something about the shield we passed through is messing up our…avionics, but Donovan thinks she can get it worked out. She just needs a little time. Fyn and I are going to take the ten cent tour while she works on the problem.”

While Carey talked to the Colonel, Sara looked at the building. Her ship wasn’t going to start until it was good and ready for her to leave that was clear. She just hoped it didn’t involve more pain.

Carey jumped clear of her ship. “You all right, Donovan? You look a little pale.”

“I’ve got a bit of a headache, sir, but I’m fine.”

“Take some Tylenol.” He readied his P-90. “And let’s start the tour.”

“I’ve only been inside this one building, but I think it’s their central command.” Sara led the way to the door. “Or it was. I haven’t seen anyone.”

“Yeah, we didn’t pick up any life sign readings but yours.”

Sara leaned close to Fyn as he came up. “Do you think there are those things on this island, you know, the ones that go bump in the dark?”

Fyn stopped and looked around. “If there are biters on this island, the repair should wait until it’s light.”

Carey stopped. “Biters?”

Fyn shrugged. “That’s what they do, so that’s what I called ‘em.”

Carey got on the radio again. “Sir, we’re going to have to delay the repairs until it’s light again. According to Fyn, night can be interesting.”

The Colonel was not happy, but agreed there was nothing else to be done. At least while they were inside, they could monitor Dusan activity.

“Maybe he’ll cool off before he sees you,” Carey said, cheerfully. “Lead on, McDuff!”

Fyn looked around the upper chamber. If this was a Garradian outpost, then maybe the stories about them were not as wild as he’d thought. Kalian—no, don’t think about him, not here, not now.

Sara seemed oddly wary. Something had happened to her while she was here alone. Why would someone with her…ability to heal…get a headache? And why did she touch the consoles like they were hot, just a quick touch to turn them on? And why wouldn’t the AI, if it existed, let her leave? It didn’t care if he or Carey did.

Carey studied the tracking map, his hands clasped behind his back.

“This is way cool, Donovan.” He looked back at them both. “I wonder what the weapons are like.”

“I know,” Sara said. “I was wishing I hadn’t been so quick about reporting in.” She rubbed her temple, almost absently.

“Thought I told you to take something for that,” Carey said.

“I did, sir. It hasn’t been long enough for it to kick in.”

Fyn was standing in line with her, while a console blocked Carey from having a clear view. He could see her clenching her hand so hard the fingers looked white. She managed a stiff smile.

“Maybe I should look around, see if there’s some place we can sleep tonight.” She looked around. “The couches look a little on the short side.”

“Sure, just don’t wander far.” Carey sat down in front of one of the consoles and tentatively touched the screen. Fyn noted it didn’t respond to him the way it did to Sara.

Sara walked out of the room, moving without her usual grace. With a quick look at Carey, he followed her out and found her in the hall leaning on the banister, her head down, her hands clenched on the wood. Her hair hid her face. Her body looked tight enough to bounce coins off of.

“Sara?”

With an effort, she straightened and turned to face him. She was dead white and still she tried to smile.

“What’s wrong?”

She touched her temple lightly and dug her fist into the side of her head. “Headache.” She paused, and then ground out, “I’ll be all right in a minute.”

He was about to call Carey when he saw her start to relax. She even managed a smile, though it was a bit on the wan side.

“Wow. I’m not used to getting headaches.” Her gaze did an odd, assessing sweep around her and Fyn had the feeling it wasn’t him she was talking to. “Do you want to take this floor and I’ll go check out the next level down?”

“You sure you’re all right?”

Sara wasn’t sure what she was, but she managed another smile.

“Not great, but good. The meds are starting to do their thing.” After a brief hesitation, Sara started toward the stairs. She had to pass Fyn and it didn’t surprise her when he stopped her, his hand on her arm. She looked up at him as warmth spread through her from the point of contact. In an odd way, it seemed to push the pain back even further. It was kind of nice to be worried over.

He must have felt the change in her because his eyes changed. He released her arm and ran a finger down the side of her face. It was both comforting—and a bit worrying.

She wished she understood better why he’d singled her out for… interest. She wanted to ask him, but it was hard to come up with a non-humiliating way to ask why he seemed to want the homely girl.

Evie used to tell her that there were different kinds of beautiful and the right man would find her the right beautiful for him.

Sara always thought that was a bunch of bull, but maybe Evie was right. She’d been right about most things. It was still hard to wrap her brain housing group around.

“What are you thinking?” Fyn sounded puzzled and maybe a tiny bit annoyed.

She kind of shrugged. “A lot of things, actually.” She hesitated. “You…kind of, seem to…like…well, me.”

At least he seemed to like kissing on her. Maybe that wasn’t the same thing with guys.

He looked surprised at first, and then he smiled. “Is that a problem?”

Sara hesitated again, but it had to be asked. “Why?”

His brows arched in surprise. “What?”

“Well, I mean, I’ve got a temper…and that baggage…” A lot of baggage. Faults, too, but would be unwise to list them all. If he did actually like her, why poison the well? “And there’s a lot of women with less…baggage on the Doolittle. Mary Kelly is a botanist and a former beauty queen. Of beet roots, I think.”

She faltered a bit at the look in his eyes. She couldn’t quite figure it out.

“And there’s Andrea Williams. Another scientist and very beautiful. She’s the blonde you danced with last night…”

His brows went up.

“Okay, they were a little short, but Sandy Willis is tall and beautiful. She’s head of stellar cartography…” The look in his eyes killed the rest of the sentence.

He looked like he was going to say something, but then stopped and looked over his shoulder toward the doorway to the control room.

“Come in here.” He drew her into a room next door.

The lights came on as they entered, revealing an office with the usual, though very sumptuous, accoutrements. Sara was vaguely aware that one wall was lined with what looked like books, while others had paintings attractively arranged. There was also a fire place. It was hard to see anything but the look in Fyn’s eyes.

He took her P-90 and set it on the desk, then grabbed both her hands, holding them against his chest.

“You really have no idea, do you?”

“Well, that would be why I asked,” Sara felt bound to point out, wondering if they were talking about the same thing. She could have understood his interest in her when they were first stranded on Kikk and he hadn’t seen anyone for months, but now? He had options. There were points for comparison.

“One of those songs your group sang last night, it could be about you. You really don’t know you’re beautiful, do you?” He sounded amazed.

Sara felt…winded. If she’d have had a hand free, she would have waved it in front of his face to check his vision.

“Who told you that you weren’t beautiful? And why did you believe them?”

“Well,” Sara looked away, then looked back at him, “I do have a mirror. I’ve been looking at this face for years, twenty-eight of them, actually. Well, I probably didn’t look for the first few—”

Actually, the first eight. For those years she’d had parents who thought she was wonderful and beautiful and smart—all the usual things parents believed about their own kids.

Instead of talking, Fyn started to touch her face. First he traced the shape. Then he outlined her nose and mouth. Her mouth might have quivered a bit. The pads of his fingers were slightly rough, but amazingly gentle as he explored her face. He stroked along her eye brows, and ran his hands into her hair, playing with the strands as if they fascinated him. It felt like he was…erasing homely, painting a new, beautiful reality onto her quivering skin. It wasn’t possible, but it felt wonderful.

When he’d reduced her to a puddle of longing, he finally kissed her. There was passion there, but if it had only been passion, Sara wouldn’t have responded so completely. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t give it a name, but it filled her with…delight.

When he finally came up for air, Sara took a shaky breath. “So how come you’re the first one to notice my…great beauty and charm?”

He smiled slightly. “Maybe the gods hid you for me.”

Sara had to smile. “It’s a working…theory, I guess.”

She wished they’d mentioned it to her. If she’d known who she was being saved for, she would have enjoyed being hidden in homely a bit more.

Her radio beeped. “Where are you guys?” Carey asked.

Sara straightened instinctively to attention. “We’re in an…office, sir.”

“Anything of interest?”

Sara grinned at Fyn. “Not sure yet, sir. Are you all right?”

“I’d be better if I could figure this stuff out. Let me know when you find something.”

“Yes, sir.” Sara looked around again, this time paying more attention. She eased away from Fyn, aware of an odd feeling of shyness. She felt him watching her as she went around the desk and pulled open a drawer. It wasn’t a huge shock to find it empty. She turned and pulled out a book. Fyn moved over to look at the paintings on the wall, though she felt him giving her the occasional look, too.

Sara opened the book. The script looked a bit like the Kanji, though she couldn’t find a recognizable pattern. She closed it and put it back.

“Well, clearly no where to sleep in here—”

“Sara.”

Something in Fyn’s voice made her uneasy. She walked over next to him.

“What?” He was looking at one of the paintings, so she did, too. Only it was like looking in a mirror. “Whoa.”

She bent closer. There were differences. The woman in the painting had longer hair for one thing. And her eyes were more blue than gray. Sara thought she saw subtle differences in the shape of the face, too. There was a gold plaque at the base that could have been a name. It was in the same script as the book.

“That’s kind of…weird.” She looked at Fyn. “They say everyone has a twin somewhere.”

“If the Garradians left this galaxy, it is possible they went to yours,” Fyn said. “You could be a distant relation.”

“We don’t even know if this is a Garradian outpost.” Sara felt uneasy, though. What if the city had… summoned her? “I wonder who she was.”

Miri.

Sara looked both directions. Fyn didn’t seem to have heard anything. She looked at the plaque, trying to find that name in the script. It was kind of like trying to break a code, but with a name, she began to see a pattern…

“She looks sad,” Fyn slanted a look at her, “the way you do sometimes.”

“I’d almost bet money that what makes her look like that has nothing in common with me.” Sara looked around. “Particularly if she lived here.” It was a long way from some of the trailer parks she’d called home.

“Where are you guys?” Carey sounded a bit…plaintive.

Sara gave Fyn an oh-oh look.

“We’re right next door, sir, in an office. To the right.”

In a moment the door slid open. He looked in.

“You haven’t got very far.”

“Sorry, sir. We got distracted by…all this.” It was partly true.

Carey joined them by the painting. “That looks like you.” He looked back and forth between them a couple of times. He didn’t seem as interested as they were, though. “I’d like to stay close to that tracking map, just in case the Dusan come back. Maybe we can move a couple of those couches in there? If it gets cold, we’ll huddle together for warmth.”

He grinned at them both, as if he suspected some “huddling” had already been going on.

“Or we could pull down some of the wall hangings,” Sara pointed out, relieved at his lack of interest in the painting.

Carey and Fyn exchanged “guy” looks.

Her stomach rumbled softly. And they’d left their emergency packs in their ships. It was already full night outside. Great.

“Just how long are the nights?”

“Longer than the days,” Fyn said.

“Maybe there’s a cafeteria?” Carey said hopefully.

Sara sighed. With really old food. “I’ll go look around while you two take care of the couch situation.”

When Sara finally rejoined the two guys, she had a better feel for the layout of the building. It was definitely an alien version of an office type building. It was kind of odd what had been left. All the desks she looked at had been cleaned out. But the offices all had paintings and books in them. Some had statuary and in one she found a sort of flute on a stand. The carving was intricate and beautiful.

Sara cleaned the mouthpiece and tried it out. The sound was haunting and beautiful and oddly familiar. She put it back and was going to leave it, but it felt wrong. It was almost as if it wanted her to take it, but that would be looting. Still, she could show it to Carey as part of her report. Acting on a hunch, Sara checked out one of the fireplaces and found heaped ash, as if someone had burned a lot of paper. It was the kind of thing someone would do when abandoning a position that could be over run by an enemy.

But it hadn’t been over run.

Who had hid it?

She’d pulled back the drapes in one office and looked out. Stars winked in the sky, but the landscape was lost in a deep, alien darkness. She’d let the drape fall back into place and moved on, but in her mind she was back in her dream, moving through a city teaming with life. She’d strained to see their faces, but everyone turned away from her. As she’d left, it felt like the cities’ ghosts followed on her heels, trying to tell her something she couldn’t hear.

She reported her findings to Carey and showed him the flute.

He looked at it for a moment, before handing it back to her. “I wonder how it works.”

“It’s not that different from our flutes, sir.” She put it to her lips and played a bit of something that flowed into her mind. The tone was different from an earth flute, deeper and sadder.

Carey quirked a brow at her. “Seems like you’ve made another friend.”

“I can’t keep it, sir.” Sara looked down at it, trying not to look wistful. For a moment it seemed she saw a flute like this one, held in small, fat kid hands and heard a voice telling her to be careful with it. “But it is interesting.”

“While I can’t officially sanction collecting, if I were to look away and you were to tuck it in your jacket, the world probably wouldn’t stop turning.” Then he grinned at her. “Though if it turns up on eBay, your ass is grass.”

“Yes, sir.” When he looked away, Sara tucked it away, not just because she had permission, but because she knew she was meant to have it. She looked up and caught Fyn watching her and blushed. She looked around, finally noting they’d moved three couches into the room.

“Oh, almost forgot. Look what we found,” Carey said.

She followed the two men out of the room and around the corner to the left. A door slid back on a balcony. Cold air rushed in as they stepped out. From this vantage, she could see two moons hanging together in the sky, with a third some distance to the left. In the silence, she heard the muted sound of waves hitting a shore she couldn’t see. The moons didn’t seem to give much light, though Sara could see vague outlines of nearby buildings, of course, she wasn’t sure if it was because she knew they were there or she could really see them.

Carey leaned on the balustrade. “This is a major find, Donovan. This is the kind of stuff we came to find. We have to stay and figure this place out.”

Sara felt something…relax inside her and she knew that her ship would start in the morning.

“We’d better head in. I’ll take the first watch. Then Fyn, Donovan last. Four hours each?”

Sara didn’t think she’d sleep, but to her surprise, she drifted off, coming awake with a jerk some hours later just in time to relieve Fyn. He gave her a hug, like they were a couple or something, and retired to his couch, leaving Sara to pace quietly back and forth in front of the consoles. Her headache was completely gone and she found she was curious. She sat down in front of one of the weapons consoles and tapped the screen. It lit with a dull glow, as if it knew it was night, as if it knew she didn’t want to wake anyone. After a long hesitation, she touched the screen again, spreading her hand over the surface.

Immediately the glowing beads formed and flowed into her palm, but it seemed they moved a little slower. Sara braced for it, but this time all she felt was a dull ache, as if the beads had adjusted themselves to accommodate her. It didn’t surprise her that she could connect to what was clearly some kind of computer. What did surprise her, she couldn’t process the information it seemed to be sending her, though perhaps that would come with time.

She looked at the two men. No movement from either.

What kind of weapons does this console control? She thought the question, curious if the AI would hear it. There was a long pause, so long she thought it couldn’t, then the symbols on the screen changed, reforming into something else, something with symbols and graphics. It looked kind of like a missile, though it seemed to have more fins then theirs had. And it was much thicker, if she was seeing it right. The graphics did show her the weapon from various angles.

How does it work?

Another long pause, then the screen changed again, this time into a video. The missile launched, heading toward its target, and then it split into multiples, but still with a central core. The smaller ones took out smaller ships, while the main one took out the mother ship.

“Cool.”

You wouldn’t use it on the Doolittle, would you?

The screen went black, and then slowly a variety of outlines formed. The enemies back then? One of them sort of looked like the embryo of a Dusan ship.

These were designed to fight the Dusan?

The screen went black again. Didn’t seem to be a yes or a no.

How come you can understand me, but I can’t understand you?

The screen didn’t do anything. Apparently she couldn’t understand the answer either.

The Dusan have been looking for this place, haven’t they?

Three symbols. Was that a yes?

Is this place the key they want to find?

Two symbols this time.

She’d take that to be a no. It’s not like the console was arguing with her about her translations. She didn’t know what to ask next, or maybe that was how to ask.

Did the Garradians live here?

That was yes. So this was the lost outpost. She knew what she could ask, but she was afraid of the answer. She knew the voice in her memory that told her to be careful with the flute.

Her mom.

And then the moment for questions was lost. Carey stirred on his couch. Sara blinked and the screen shut down before he sat up.

“Everything all right?”

Before she could answer, the tracking screen suddenly flashed, then showed the Dusan vessel returning.

Carey activated his radio. “Doolittle, this is Carey. You got incoming.”

How would their ship fare against this ship? As if to answer her question, the tracking map did a read out on both ships. Sara wished she could understand it. As they watched, it seemed like the Dusan ship turned itself inside out, it spewed so many fighter craft into space. She looked at the weapons console.

Can’t you help?

The answer seemed to be a firm yes. It lit up like a carnival ride. Symbols flashed across it. She looked at the tracking map and saw their position, saw four missiles begin to track toward the two ships.

“What just happened?” Carey asked.

Sara didn’t know how to answer that. Luckily he didn’t seem to need an answer. Fyn got up, started to ask what was going on, then saw the map.

“Tell the Doolittle not to deploy yet.” What if the missiles couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad?

She heard Carey relay the message. She watched tensely as the four missiles approached the Doolittle’s position and then went past it. All three of them sighed in relief. Then, just as it showed in the video, the missiles fragmented, the smaller parts breaking off to target the approaching attack ships. The pieces punched into the line of Dusan fighter craft, tiny flashes marking each kill. The four main missiles passed through the openings, on a heading for the main ship.

Flashes came from the Dusan ship and one of the missiles vanished from the map, but the other three plowed home and with a bright flash, the main ship disappeared. The little pieces were still cleaning up the smaller ships, though Sara wondered if there’d be enough little pieces. There were a lot of fighters. It was like watching stars wink out as morning approached. Then the pieces were gone. Some Dusan ships remained.

“Home plate, launch the squadrons now!” Carey shouted.

Now they saw dots flow out of the dot that was the Doolittle. It was like watching a video game being played by someone else. The remaining ships didn’t stand a chance, not against their guys. Sara ached to be there with them. This is what she’d trained for. And the more she knew about the Dusan, the more she wanted to kick their trash.

Only when the battle was over, did the Colonel contact them.

“What the hell was that all about?”

It was a bit disconcerting that Fyn and Carey looked at her for answers. Sara shrugged, trying to look as clueless as they did. Actually she was almost as clueless as they were.

“We’re wondering if there is an AI here, sir,” Carey said.

“AI?” There was a pause and she could hear a muffled voice. Then he added, “Artificial intelligence?”

Now Sara spoke. “It would explain the takeover of my ship yesterday, sir. It’s clearly got very sophisticated tracking capability. Luckily it seems to like us better than the Dusan. It acted on its own to protect the Doolittle.” Okay, after she asked for help, but no reason to mention that.

Carey cut in again. “Sir, this place is what we came to find. It’s amazing. We should land our research team.”

“Yeah,” the colonel sounded dry, “that’s what they are telling me, too. Once it’s light, we’ll deploy them and some Marines.” There was a pause. “And tell Captain Donovan to get her ass back up here as soon as it’s light. No more free-lancing or I will throw her in the brig.” There was another pause, then he added, “I want you and Fyn to supervise the landing. We may deploy your squadron there, but for now, you can provide air cover and logistics support until our people can figure out if the defenses are still good or nearly tapped out.”

“Yes, sir.” Carey looked pleased.

Sara looked at Fyn. He picked the wrong day to be the Major’s wing man. Or the right day. Depended on your perspective.