Shattered Dawn (The Eternal Frontier Book 3) Read online

  “That bomb is transmitting a signal to my suit,” she said. “Go ahead and tap into the communication arrays on the Hope. You can confirm the power leak yourself.”

  The vines continued squirming at the terminals, but Raktor said nothing.

  “See?” Sofia asked. “The bomb is set to go off when my heartbeat ceases. I knew you would play us, Raktor. I needed some assurance you would tell us what we want to know without trying a double-cross. Unfortunately, I was knocked out a bit too early for that, but hey, now we’re making up for lost time.”

  Blood still dribbled down her forehead, and her face was rapidly going white. He moved in to steady her.

  “I got this,” she hissed.

  “You are an unkind human,” Raktor said.

  “On the contrary,” Sofia said. “I knew you would be unkind. This was just a precaution.”

  “Your friends will die if you set off this bomb,” Raktor said.

  “They have their EVA suits. They can survive if the temperature goes haywire, if the atmosphere is sucked out by vacuum, and if all the life-support systems are completely destroyed. But you can’t, can you?”

  Again, Raktor was silent.

  Sofia’s knees shook. She stumbled forward, catching herself. This time, Tag didn’t try to intervene; he didn’t understand her strategy, but he respected her.

  “I don’t know if you noticed,” Sofia said. “But I also suffered a nasty head trauma. I’m getting weaker as we speak. Can barely keep myself upright. It would be a real shame if I dropped dead right here.”

  The vines suddenly sped from the ceiling. For a wild moment, Tag thought they were going to tear him and Sofia to pieces, but instead they carried a handful of silver objects: data cubes.

  “This is what you want,” Raktor said. “All the information we have gleaned on the humans here. They left fifty years ago. The coordinates are on these devices. We give you our word on this, though you have done a most unkind thing. Please, just leave us be. Leave us to live; leave us to spread our seedlings in peace. We have had enough of you humans.”

  The klaxons’ wailing ceased, and the flashing lights returned to their steady glow throughout the atrium. Vines parted along a corridor, and Tag started walking toward it. Suddenly, he was lifted off his feet as a large vine scooped him up. Another grabbed Sofia and shoved them along, carrying them back to the passageway leading to the labs. Coren, Alpha, and the marines soon arrived on other vines, each looking bemused by their unconventional mode of transport.

  “What just happened?” Bull asked. “I could barely breathe one minute, then the next I’m here.”

  “Like riding a bronco,” Lonestar said, grinning, “only a lot less fun.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Tag said. “Then we can debrief.”

  To his surprise, Bull saluted and then jerked his chin at the rest of the marines. “You heard the captain—move out!”

  “Bracken, Jaroon,” Tag said. “We’re getting back to the ships. Had a bit of a run-in with the natives.”

  “Affirmative,” Bracken said. “We have recovered all the data from the Mechanic portion of this station that we could.”

  “Same with us,” Jaroon said. “We believe we may have some information that will be of interest to you.”

  “Great,” Tag said. “We’ll arrange a conference once we’re all safe.”

  They continued past the specimen chamber, where the odor of death chased them through the laboratories. With their previous route blocked, they were forced to use an alternative passage that took them back to the chamber where they had first run into the broken stairs and ladders.

  “At least going down is easier than up,” Sofia said. She leaned over the precipice, placing her hands on the busted rungs of a ladder.

  “Can I help you now, or are you going to give me the evil eye again?” Tag asked.

  “Help now is fine,” she said.

  They made it to a catwalk. Sofia started to slip herself over the side, and Tag leaned over, gently easing her. She still had to drop a few meters to reach the deck, but at least she had let him do something.

  “What a gentleman,” Sumo said. “How about I help you now, Captain?”

  “Thanks,” Tag said. Sumo guided him down, and at his nod, she let him drop the couple meters. He tried to absorb the fall, bending at his knees, but still slipped, covering himself in the gunk along the deck. Soon the others had finished helping each other down. Alpha leapt down last; her droid chassis would have no issue with a drop of a few meters.

  They made it back to the docking bay and into the Argo without running into more scorpioids or vines. As the airlock hatch closed behind them, something slipped through. Tag turned, pistol drawn, and he realized it was the cat-thing. Its tails flicked lazily behind it, and its green eyes widened as it looked up at him.

  “Aw, that thing’s kind of cute,” Lonestar said.

  It rubbed against Tag’s legs, then wound between Alpha’s.

  “Fascinating behavior,” Alpha said. “May we keep it for further observation?”

  “It’s probably dangerous,” Tag said reluctantly. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. We don’t even know what it is.”

  “According to the laboratory documents, this creature is a Rizzar. They are domesticated animals that often accompany the Mao-Mao-Go people.” Alpha showed them an image of the Mao-Mao-Go on their terminal. The bipedal aliens shared some common traits with humans although they appeared covered in scales and had far more reptilian features. “As loyal companion animals, they are fiercely defensive of their families.”

  “See?” Gorenado said, bending down to pat the thing’s head. “This little guy might not be so bad.”

  Tag couldn’t believe the hulking marine had already been won over by the Rizzar.

  “It did try to save us,” Sofia said. “A few times, if I remember right.”

  “Fine,” Tag said. “But if that thing tries to attack anyone, I’m giving it back to Raktor.”

  The Rizzar let out a growling purr again as if to assure Tag that would not happen.

  “It needs a name,” Sofia said.

  Sumo turned to Gorenado. “What did you say when we first saw it? It would only survive in the Hope if it was deadly, smart—or lucky.”

  “Lucky it is then,” Sofia said.

  Tag turned to Sofia as the airlock hissed open, releasing them into the ship. “How did you sabotage the life-support systems, and when did you bring a bomb aboard?”

  Sofia laughed. “I didn’t. I had to use a power cable from the life-support systems to jumpstart the repair bot, but I never had a bomb. I’m just glad Raktor believed me.”

  “Me, too,” Tag said.

  “See?” Sofia said. “Sometimes it pays to have an anthropologist with ET training around. Understanding aliens can be pretty helpful.”

  Coren gave her a sideways glance. “You think so, huh?”

  “I can read you like a book, Mechanic,” Sofia said.

  “Really? And what am I thinking now?”

  Sofia pressed her fingers to her temple and closed her eyes like she was probing Coren’s mind. “You’re ready for a meal, and you think humans are stupid.”

  “Impressive,” Coren said in a tone that contradicted his statement.

  “I do not think humans are stupid,” Alpha said.

  “Thanks,” Sumo said. “We humans appreciate your confidence.”

  “Quit your sucking up,” Gorenado said, clapping Alpha’s shoulder. “You’re just saying that to make the captain happy.”

  “Either way,” Tag said, smiling as he looked at his crew, “there’s plenty of work to do. Grab some food and rest, and then let’s start parsing that data. We’ve got some other stupid humans to track down.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The hodgepodge of spaceships that made up the space station glimmered through the viewscreen. Tag reclined on the crash couch, lost in his own thoughts now that he was safely aboard his sh
ip. No more scorpioids or Dreg after him. No more plans to outwit a giant sentient carnivorous plant. No more nightmarish tableaus of alien carcasses strewn about a “Specimen Collection Chamber.”

  No, those images only existed in his mind now, every time he closed his eyes.

  He shuddered.

  Something truly evil had been going on aboard the Hope. What had the Collectors wanted with those species? And what did they do to the humans?

  An alarm on his wrist terminal chimed. It was time to debrief with Bracken, Jaroon, and his crew. As he followed the corridors to the captain’s conference room, he wondered briefly what it was that Captain Weber had been sent to destroy on that station. Surely it wasn’t Raktor. Even the scorpioids—though dangerous—were not a significant threat to humanity. Maybe the SRE had known about the Collectors and wanted to take them out.

  Tag entered the conference room and slumped into his seat. He nodded a brief hello to Alpha, Sofia, Bull, and Coren, then hit a button on the terminal in front of him. Jaroon’s holo-projected, amorphous form flickered into existence in one of the seats, and Bracken appeared beside him.

  “First order of business,” Tag said, “I want to construct a timeline for what happened with this station. After scouring through the data we recovered and what we got from Raktor, there’s a bit of a discrepancy.”

  “Discrepancy?” Jaroon asked. “What do you mean?”

  “The Hope recorded its last log entry approximately three hundred years ago after describing some kind of threat to humankind,” Tag said. “The Hope continued to send courier drones to Earth and other elements of the UN.”

  Bracken’s lips pursed. “Judging by your human expression, you don’t know what was on those drones.”

  Tag sighed. “Unfortunately, according to the SRE, we never received those messages.”

  “Or maybe,” Sofia said, “no one ever admitted to it.”

  “Most of the courier drone logs were scrubbed,” Alpha said, “and I was unable to complete the restoration of these logs due to poor data integrity.”

  “When you say most,” Bracken said, her holo leaning over the table, “does that mean you recovered something?”

  “Yes,” Alpha said. “There was a final courier drone fleet sent approximately fifty years ago. It was passed along to a set of coordinates where no humans were known to reside. It is unclear to whom the message was sent, but the content of the message is reasonably understandable.”

  “And what is it?” Jaroon asked.

  “It simply said that the station will be abandoned.”

  “Not very helpful,” Bull said, folding his massive arms over his chest.

  “No,” Tag said. “But this does align with Raktor’s claims that the humans left at about that time.”

  “That is accurate,” Alpha said. “I haven’t uncovered any evidence that humans remained on the ship after the final ship log.”

  “Then how do you explain the courier drones?” Coren asked.

  “Automation,” Alpha said. “The courier drones were all prescheduled. They were programmed to be sent at regular intervals to Earth and other human-controlled colonies and space stations with frequent status reports regarding the Hope’s conditions, discoveries, and research projects.”

  Tag steepled his fingers. “I’m guessing this threat that the humans encountered was the Collectors. The specimen chamber data logs suggest the experiments began after the Hope’s crew reported that grave threat.”

  “That hypothesis is certainly upheld by our own findings,” Bracken said. “The data we recovered from the Mechanic battlecruiser described being conquered by an unknown race. The ship was subsequently boarded, and the captain had only a few minutes to describe the invaders. He mentioned they had blue skin, were bipedal, and were two-point-five to three meters in height. Their technology was able to overcome the battlecruiser’s systems, somehow shutting down their AI systems and the energy shields.”

  “When did that happen?” Tag asked.

  “Approximately one hundred fifty years ago,” she replied. “I do not think the technological capabilities or the descriptions match humans in the slightest.”

  Tag caught the implied jibe that human tech couldn’t possibly disrupt Mechanic tech like that, but he had to admit it made sense. “Maybe these blue beings were the Collectors.”

  “The Melarrey ship we investigated recorded an encounter very similar to what Bracken described,” Jaroon said. “And I don’t mean to be condescending, but I’ve seen your human technology, and we’ve seen what the Hope looks like. I doubt humans took over the Melarrey vessel and added it to the station like that. It just doesn’t feel right to me.”

  “Here’s what bothers me,” Sofia said. “Raktor absolutely knew what humans looked like. I’m guessing our ugly plant friend was one of the aliens that escaped the specimen chamber at some point.”

  “What are you implying?” Tag asked.

  “Raktor must have seen humans aboard the vessel, which meant they were still there after the Collectors took over.”

  “That’s debatable,” Coren said. “Whatever it is, plant or something else, it was able to access the station’s computer systems. It probably knew what a human looked like based on the data available to it. In all likelihood, it was just lying to get you off the station.”

  “I’m not buying it.” Sofia drummed her fingers on the table. “It had at least some comprehension of human value systems and ethics. I don’t think it was just making that stuff up, and I doubt it got that understanding from the ship’s systems.”

  “What if there were humans still aboard the Hope?” Bull said, curling his fingers into fists. “Maybe they were enslaved by the Collectors. Three hells, maybe they were just biding their time, resisting the Collectors and inciting rebellion.”

  Tag frowned. “If these Collectors were as technologically advanced as Jaroon and Bracken said, I doubt any human resistance would’ve lasted against them.” Bull’s cheeks started to turn red as if Tag had just insulted him. “Look, I want to believe humans would’ve fought them and might’ve even inflicted some damage, but we need to look at facts and probabilities.”

  “You sound like a Mechanic,” Bull grumbled.

  “What do we know?” Bracken asked, ignoring Bull. “Most of the data has been corrupted. We have files documenting the physiology and cultures of the species that were imprisoned on the station. From the ships, we have evidence that the Collectors are more technologically advanced than we feared.”

  “And evidence that they are exceedingly strange,” Jaroon added. “Hobbling together a station like that from scrap ships is not something we have seen before.”

  Tag’s eyes went wide. “Yes, plenty of scrap ships from the races they captured. But no Collector ships.”

  Bracken’s expression didn’t change, but the nerve bundles behind Jaroon’s eyes sparked with electricity.

  “Look,” Tag said excitedly as a theory took shape in his mind. “That last courier drone was sent to coordinates where no humans had ever lived, but it might’ve been a report to a Collector space station or ship or colony or something. The last Collector ship probably left then, too. They abandoned this place for whatever reason. I’m willing to bet that Captain Weber was supposed to nuke the station because the SRE thought the Collectors were still there?”

  Coren and Sofia were nodding. The area of Jaroon’s jellyfish-like body where his head was bobbed, expanding and deflating. Bracken merely stared at him.

  “You think we’ll find the Collectors at those coordinates?” Sofia asked.

  “Or at least another clue to their trail. And if we find them, we’ve got the weapons to end them.”

  Tag looked around the conference table. Even Bracken’s golden eyes glowed as if she was imagining the Collectors exploding into a million irradiated pieces.

  “These Collectors possess technology beyond what we’re capable of,” Tag said. “They may have stolen the nanite technology from the hu
mans aboard the Hope and perverted that to enslave the Drone-Mechs. They might be our culprits.”

  “Captain,” Alpha said. “If I may interject, we still haven’t found definitive proof that nanite research was being performed aboard the Hope.”

  “I understand,” Tag said. “But this is the simplest explanation. Most of the data was scrubbed, so I have no doubt that they’d scrub that, too.”

  “I have to agree,” Jaroon said. “This all certainly sounds plausible.”

  Bull punched into the open palm of his left hand. “I say we take the fight to them. Let’s finish Captain Weber’s mission.”

  Bracken’s brow furrowed, her fur crinkling. “I suppose if we concoct a reasonable countermeasure strategy—or a feasible method of escape—I could be convinced to pursue these Collectors.”

  “Yes,” Coren said, his sole working eye glaring with a hint of anger. “And if they are responsible for the nanites, we will have our revenge.”

  “Based on our current assumptions and the data analyses I have run, I give Captain Brewer’s hypothesis an eighty-seven-point-three percent chance of proving true,” Alpha said.

  Only Sofia looked unconvinced. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I buy this whole explanation. Raktor said he last saw humans fifty years ago.”

  “He lied to us, Sofia,” Tag said. “He tried to trick us—he tried to murder us. It stands to reason he was lying to save his own viny ass.”

  Sofia brushed a hand through her long brown hair and left it on the back of her neck. “Fine. Let’s go find your Collectors.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Tag gasped for air but didn’t let the pain stitching his sides slow him down. He nodded at the terminal, ramping up the speed on the treadmill, and he forced himself to run faster, telling himself that he enjoyed the sensation of sweat dripping and muscles cramping. If his time aboard the mutant station that had once been the UNS Hope had taught him anything, it was that maintaining some semblance of physical fitness was going to be useful if he wanted to stay alive against whatever the universe threw at them next.