“What’s happening?” Helder asked as she took her place in line.
“I don’t know.” Yarnolio looked around at their unit, hustling into its lines in varying states of readiness. Some were still fastening their jacket buttons and crash collars, others were tucking headsets into pockets. They’d all been woken by a scramble alarm, but nobody knew why. All he knew was that a scramble at night-three and seventy was never good news.
The briefing room door opened and Lead Guard Baskensteen stalked in, a reader card clutched in his hand and a forbidding expression on his face. All of the Guards snapped to attention as he mounted the podium.
“You have a mission,” he announced without preamble. “It might be the most important one you’ve conducted in your lives, so listen carefully.” He put the reader card on the podium and looked down at them. “A little less than one hantick ago, two alien ships entered our atmosphere. One of them blew up. The other crashed fifty lengths northwest of Blacksun.”
Yarnolio gasped, and Helder uttered a quiet, “Holy shek,” but Baskensteen was already holding his hand up for silence.
“I know this is a shock, and I know you have questions, but there are no answers yet. That’s part of your mission. The ship that blew up didn’t completely vaporize. Pieces of it fell all over central Pallea, and the Whitemoon Astrophysics Lab has tracked the impact sites of the largest ones. We need to find them, collect them, and bring them back to Whitesun Base. We know nothing about the materials this ship was made from or what sorts of dangers you might encounter, so you’re teaming up. Each team will have one pilot, one weapons officer, and one Guard in a full decontamination suit for collection duty. If the piece you find is radioactive, mark it with a beacon and leave it for later collection, but otherwise I want every piece brought back here in a sealed safety container.”
He began reading out names and assignments, sending each team out the door as soon as they had their data. The room rapidly emptied until only Yarnolio, Helder, and four others remained.
“Your assignment is a little different,” Baskensteen said. “You’ve got the biggest piece, and it’s too big for a rescue transport. Yarnolio, you’re flying the cargo transport. Helder, you’re the weapons officer. The rest of you are handling the logistics of getting that chunk into the transport. Check the winches, take plenty of cable, and be ready for anything. Yarnolio and Helder, I’ve already sent the coordinates to your reader cards. Any questions?”
Yarnolio had about fifty of them, but none that Baskensteen could answer. After a moment of silence, the Lead Guard nodded sharply and said, “Then move it out. The sooner we get some answers, the better I’ll feel.”
It was a tentick before they could get the gear they needed on board the cargo transport. Yarnolio and Helder made good use of the time, as he wrapped up the preflight checks and she programmed in the coordinates and calculated their flight plan. The moment their board confirmed that the cargo door was closed and latched, Yarnolio called out a liftoff warning to the crew and pulled back on the thruster yoke. Though they’d been efficient, they were still the last to leave. Every rescue transport at Whitesun Base was already in the sky.
“Hope nobody needs our help tonight,” Yarnolio said.
“No joke.” Helder frowned at the map display, where a red dot marked their destination. “It’s going to be fun pulling anything out of those mountains.”
He nodded. “Especially if I can’t even land. That area is solid forest on steep slopes.”
“Guess that’s why Baskensteen told them to check the winches,” she said, pointing behind her to the cargo area.
“Did you bring a harness for yourself?”
“Of course.” She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Worry about your own job, grainbird. Let me worry about mine. I’ll handle the big weapons if anything scary crawls out and frightens you.”
It was the sort of teasing he heard every day on base, but tonight, flying through the darkness to pick up the largest piece of an alien ship, he couldn’t see the humor.
Helder’s smile slipped as the silence lengthened. “Er…you don’t think anything scary really is going to crawl out, do you?”
“I think that twenty ticks ago, we didn’t know if there was other life in the universe. And now not one, but two alien ships apparently took an interest in us. They didn’t call us, they didn’t communicate, they just appeared. What does that sound like to you?”
Helder’s voice was much quieter as she said, “It sounds like they’re not friendly.”
A beep on the console indicated an incoming communication from Base Control, with an accompanying text message ordering a scrambled channel. Helder tapped in the scrambler code and activated the com.
“Whitesun Base Control to all recovery teams. New information from Blacksun Base. The crashed ship has been located and the Lancer’s Guards are on approach, Lancer Tal leading. Reported size of the ship is three-quarters of a length. It appears heavily damaged but intact. Current supposition is that the two ships were in a battle. Be alert for evidence of this and report anything you find immediately. Whitesun Base Control end.”
Yarnolio and Helder stared at each other.
“Three-fourths of a length?” she said at last.
“Goddess above,” he whispered. That was the size of a port platform, a mid-ocean floating city. These aliens had the equivalent of a port platform in space. It would surely house thousands. And who knew what kind of weaponry they had?
“If those ships were a similar size,” Helder said, “and that one shot down this one, then it must have enough firepower to level half of Blacksun. What in Fahla’s name are the Lancer’s Guards going to do against that?”
Yarnolio shook his head. Base Control had said just the Lancer’s Guards, not the Lancer’s Guards plus a heavy artillery unit or aerial support. That meant they only had portable weaponry. It would be like throwing pebbles at a disruptor cannon.
As they flew over the first foothills guarding the interior mountains, he murmured an old prayer. “May Fahla guide and protect them on the dark path they must walk.”
Helder put her hand on his shoulder, a gentle touch where she had punched him just a few ticks earlier. “And if she calls the heroes home…”
“…their deeds shall ever be taught,” they finished together.