“We are outgunned,” Lyssa explained, her tone calm, while Fiori moaned, and Dalton tried to comfort her. Lyth and Yoan crowded up around me, staring at Lyssa in disbelief. The other two ships were yelling at us, and Lyssa had their feeds running aloud, so it was noisy on the bridge.
“I calculated we were outclassed by a factor of at least three hundred percent,” Lyssa continued, “given that there are three ships approaching us with their weapons systems activated. They’re faster than us, too. I presumed you would prefer me to choose a scenario in which we lived, Colonel. So I chose the one that provided the greatest odds.”
“Surrendering wasn’t even on the list!” I cried.
“No.” Her tone was one of agreement.
“What in hell is happening to you, Lythion?” Juliyana bellowed from the overhead speaker. “Why aren’t you running like hell?”
“I advise you do exactly that, Juliyana,” I said grimly, raising my voice. “We’ve surrendered.”
“What the fuck?”
“Get out of here,” I said heavily.
“I copied that, Danny,” Sauli said. “We certainly can’t outrun them or outgun them, if Lyssa figures you can’t. We’re coming about and recoupling with you.”
“No. No!” I shouted. “We’re the tethered goat! I order you to leave. Right now!”
“You’re not the captain of my ship, Danny,” Sauli said gently.
I wanted to tear steel plating apart with my bare hands. I ached with it. “What is wrong with everyone?” I cried.
Dalton’s hand settled on my shoulder. “We’re sticking with you,” he said gently. “I know that’s a difficult concept for you to wrap your head around. Just go with it for now.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Juliyana muttered from the speaker. “Us, too,” she added. “Coming about.”
I squeezed my temples.
“Lyssa might have made a smart decision, Captain,” Lyth murmured, next to me. “These things. They take captives. They don’t kill. At least, not straight away. And if they don’t kill everyone straight away, opportunities will occur later that we can take advantage of.”
“And now we get to see them up close,” Dalton said grimly. “Lyssa, record everything, from every angle, and add it to the black box, just in case.”
“I am,” Lyssa said calmly.
“Every second we’re in their presence will teach us a great deal,” Jai said, from the overheads.
“And they’ll learn from us, too,” Marlow pointed out, his tone one of warning.
I nodded. “Good point.”
The ship shivered.
“The Omia has attached a cable,” Lyssa murmured. “The alien ships are slowing. Their weapons systems are still activated, but their FTL curtains are not deployed.”
“They really are coming aboard,” Yoan breathed. “And we’re just going to let them?”
“We are,” I said, as crisply as I could. “We’ve got mere minutes to prep for this. Lyssa, I don’t want your avatar showing anywhere, while they’re here. And nothing in the center of the ship. Get rid of it.”
“The printers?”
“They can sit on the floor. Turn them away from the freight hatch, so all these fuckers see is metal.”
“What if they don’t breathe our preferred atmosphere?” Lyth said.
“That’s their bad luck,” I shot back and headed for the ramp down to the guts of the ship. Already, the walls and interiors, furniture and objects which were made of nanobots were melting into puddles on the floor, which ran like water along the floor to the drains that led to their storage tanks. “But they boarded the Ige Ibas, so if they breathe methane or something, they already know how to navigate our stuff. I’m not rolling out the welcome mat a centimeter more than I have to.”
Everyone followed me off the bridge except Lyssa, who had disappeared as ordered.
The exit hatch opened, showing star field, as Sauli and Kristiana, Jai and Marlow all pulled themselves inside and stepped through to the middle of the ship.
Jai turned and tugged on a lead. Coal appeared in the doorway, his forepaws making swimming motions. He whimpered as he landed awkwardly on the floor inside the hatch.
Then he spotted his siblings, who were shaking off the remains of the disappearing sandpit, and trotted over to them. Behind him, Sauli hauled Venni into the ship the same way. Venni merely looked sad, her blue eyes staring accusingly at Sauli for putting her through this.
Then she moved over to join the pack.
Another small shiver announced the coupling of the Penthos.
“You’re all certifiable,” I told everyone crowded around the hatch. “Juliyana even more so—she could have fought them.”
Lyth shook his head. Just a little. “Juliyana only looks suicidal,” he said softly.
“The alien ships are closing. Fifty meters off port,” Lyssa said from the overhead speaker.
Juliyana appeared in the open hatchway, hauling herself hand over hand. Then she flipped her boots forward and let them sink into the gravity of the Lythion until they made contact with the deck. She straightened and brushed off her hands and looked around at all of us.
She wore full combat gear, too. So did Calpurnia, who appeared right behind her.
“Twenty-five meters,” Lyssa warned. “They have what I presume are grappling hooks extending from the front of their craft. They are bigger versions of the line and head that tried to take Fiori.”
Fiori shivered.
“The chances are, they don’t have a molecular barrier,” Jai said. “They’ll have to bring their ship into contact with ours to board.”
The nanobots had all disappeared, leaving printers and concierge panels lying tilted at weird angles on the floor. Duffel bags and packs and personal possessions were strewn across the floor. The parawolves nosed at each one, sniffed and nudged them, then moved onto the next item.
“Can you sweep up everything and hide it, Lyssa?” I called. “Anything they see in here will tell them about us. I want to present them as blank a canvas as possible.”
“We should obscure the view to the bridge, too,” Dalton said.
“Got it.” Lyssa’s tone was remote.
Around us, nanobot puddles appeared and formed into platforms on wheels, that whizzed around the floor, extending claws to pick up everything scattered about and put it on the tray. The rolling trays hurried to the back of the ship and through a small hatch in the engineering bulkhead.
Where the ramp up to the bridge ended, a grey curtain of nanobots quickly built up from the floor, rising to the ceiling. The wall solidified. The bridge was blocked off.
“Ten meters. And…pausing,” Lyssa informed us.
My heart shuddered and hurried. I glanced at the portside hatch, which was the twin of the one which was open to the other two ships. I imagined the big, hooked nose ship hanging spitting distance from the other side of the door.
The single view I’d got of the alien inside his canopied fighter kept replaying in my head. The long snout with the circles of teeth at the end, and the red flesh around them. The enormous eyes.
Their implacable drive.
I was breathing too fast. I tried to slow it down.
“They’re extending what looks like a tunnel,” Lyssa said.
“A physical version of our molecular barriers,” Jai said, sounding curious.
The ship gave a little shiver.
“It has attached to me, right over the hatch.” Even Lyssa sounded subdued. “Filling with air. It seems to be a similar carbon-nitrogen-oxygen mix to ours.”
We could hear sounds on the other side of the fuselage, now. Scratching. Metallic clangs.
The parawolves were alerted and trotted over to us to face the hatch. Vara tilted her head, whining. I thrust my fingers into her scruff and tried to assure her, but my own near-panic would counter my soothing. “Quickly,” I said, coming to a fast decision and striding toward the back of the ship. “We put the wolves out of sight,” I added. “They won’t know what they are, and I don’t want them to know the wolves can fight. I want them as backup. Lyssa, open the access room. They can hide there.”
Lyth, Jai, Dalton and Sauli lead their parawolves over. We pushed them into the room, and I sent reassuring thoughts to Vara as I moved back to where everyone else milled, looking worried.
“They’re demanding I open the hatch,” Lyssa said.
Fiori drew in a loud, shuddering breath.
“Then I guess you’d better open the hatch,” I told her, taking up my position once more.
We all faced the port side hatch and waited for it to open.