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  “Is that going to be enough for you?”

  “It was before. It will be now.”

  “You seem to be enjoying piloting me.”

  She quirked her lips. “I might be enjoying myself, but this is temporary. I know it, you know it, and there we have it.”

  “You are correct. This is a temporary situation. When I get my proper pilot, I will be able to defend this world against the alien invasion force that is gathering above our heads.”

  Xaia directed one of the viewers to the sky. “Right. Those guys. I almost forgot why I was doing this.”

  They continued their sprint on through the hours before dawn until they were only minutes from the city. That was when the sky fell.

  * * * *

  Hima was feeling remarkably better. Her body was moving on its own and contributing to the motion that Len was engaged in.

  Len asked, “Did you know that the food would assist in your recovery to such a degree?”

  Hima smiled. “I hoped that it would. I haven’t had the stew for years, but it was like meeting an old friend.”

  “So, you eat insects?”

  “Of course. We are on a world we didn’t evolve on. We had to determine a qualified source. There are several insects on Hera that we can consume. The larger animals that we know about can’t live in the area around the valley. Too much radiation.”

  “How is it that your people thrive there?”

  Hima smiled and took another of the long jogging steps. “We were selected and then designed for it. Our early geneticists designed resilience into our skin. After a few generations, it didn’t need to be worked into the DNA. We used controlled exposure as adults to activate the resistance.”

  “You agree to this?”

  “If we want to leave the base... yes.”

  “Why is that a caveat?”

  “No one wants to bury someone who has been exposed to the valley and the radiation.”

  “You are on the other end of the social spectrum. You bring the babies into the world.”

  “From start to finish. I am with them at the consult and the implantation. I am on call for my assigned charges from that moment until two months after they give birth. I feel guilty doing this, actually. I should be helping the newest citizens get used to the world.”

  “Do you know their names yet?”

  She chuckled. “No. They are named at their first month, when all scans and tests come back. If they are strong, they are given strong names; if they need more assistance, they are given a more gentle name.”

  “Like Hima.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Yes. I was a weak child. I came early, and my mother’s midwife caught me on the way to the med centre. They had to use every tank and incubator that they had, but I pulled through. As a result, when it came to naming me, I was still in the med centre, so I was named Hima Dbor. Caretaker to Len.”

  “It is a good name.”

  Hima chuckled. “I like it. My clients find it comforting that even someone with a soft name can be strong and competent. It takes away some of the fear they have for their daughters.”

  “How so?”

  “If I wasn’t strong but I can still bring life into the world, then a daughter who is just a few days behind standard development will have a chance at a normal and distinguished career.”

  “So, you are an example.”

  “I am. And I am a damned good one.”

  He chuckled. “I—”

  Hima didn’t know what he was going to say next, but whatever it was was forgotten as an impact rocked the earth and spewed dirt up and into the sky. The fountain of soil was only a few kilometres away, but the impact was enough to have her staggering the bot for balance.

  They hadn’t seen it coming.

  Chapter Six

  Duel hummed softly as they moved toward the city. She and Kab had already shared deep memories via their link, so there wasn’t much for him to ask her, or so she thought.

  “How do you handle the dead?”

  She blinked. “Uh... carefully?”

  “No, I mean emotionally. Your society seems closely knit, so I am wondering how you deal with the loss of a citizen.”

  “We grieve, but it isn’t what I have read about in other cultures. We collect the dead from the place they passed or from the med centre. We carry them through the halls, wrapped in a shroud, until we get to the repository of the dead.”

  “Do you mean you as a team, or you as a person?”

  “Whoever is on duty carries the dead. We are slightly stronger than the average citizen and usually come from the Aka clan. We specialize in mining, and bodies are lighter than rocks.”

  “Ah, so how do the other citizens treat you?”

  “They are a little standoffish. Handling death is a bit of a taboo subject, even for the valley.”

  Duel saw the city appearing on her monitors, and she kept jogging. “We take them to the repository, clean them, dress them. They are prepared for their clan members to see them. All wounds are wrapped with gauze to conceal them. When the clan has seen them, mourned them, and said farewell, we take them to the burial site and place them on top of the bones of their sisters, mothers, and grandmothers. The soil of the valley decomposes them in less than a month.”

  “That quickly?”

  “Yes, it is thirsty stuff.” She smiled slightly. There was a slight flare in Kab’s systems for a moment, and then, it was gone.

  “What was that?”

  She was waiting for a response when the impact of the item shook the ground under her feet and had her staggering to balance.

  “Duel, are you all right?”

  She blinked and used the sensors to look around. “I am good. Just shaken up. What was that?”

  “The size and sound indicate the dropping of an attack ship.”

  “Aw hell. We were so close.” She looked toward the city. “Do you think we can get there before the aliens come at us?”

  “No. Sensors indicate a series of units coming toward us. They are going to engage us in a matter of minutes.”

  “And we only have the pulse weapons. Fabulous.” Duel opened the coms to the others.

  “Ladies and bots, I am tracking five incoming alien attack vessels. We have two minutes before they get here, so I would suggest that we spread out a little into less of a clump that can be knocked over with one blow. Also, get all the info from previous pilots on how to actually move in combat. It might help.”

  Hima murmured, “Good idea.”

  The bots separated and cleared enough space to be knocked over without taking one of the companions out with them.

  To herself she muttered, “Kab, I need every attack technique your pilots ever used.”

  “Downloading.”

  She nodded, and as the distant trees began to rustle, she wound her fingers around the edges of the handgrips and she angled Kab’s body to present a minimal target.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  Duel watched the trees in front of her part, and huge, thick, silver worms with arrow-like heads burst from the brush.

  Kab murmured. “Damn. They are using bots.”

  That made her feel better. With the left arm extended, she fired heavy bursts toward the silver and writhing enemy.

  The pulse of power shot forward and struck the creature right behind the head. Another caught it mid-body, and a third near the tail. The worm rolled to the side, but instead of remaining stationary, the parts sealed by oozing a blue-silver substance, and now, she had three enemies to fight.

  She yelled on the open com. “Don’t blow them apart! It doesn’t work.”

  Corbyn grumbled. “I have noticed.”

  Duel winced and walked toward the three attacking pieces that she had designated as hers.

  Bending down to grab one of the creatures was weird, but dodging the plasma that shot out of its mouth was something she was happy to manag
e.

  Duel gripped the first chunk while pinning the second piece beneath her foot. The second and third pieces hadn’t gotten their weapons up yet.

  The worms were three metres high and about ten metres long. The chunk was almost square as it fought for freedom.

  Duel inhaled and crushed it in her grip, holding tight and compacting it while running every scan that she could manage.

  The moment she hit the power supply, she felt it. The heat that was showing on her scans was unmistakable. It was going to explode.

  Duel muttered curses under her breath as she lifted it over her head and then hurled it back to its crash site. The explosion occurred mid-air, and it fell to the ground in molten flames.

  The third chunk of the worm had managed to start its plasma cutter and was working on her leg. She reached down, squeezed it until it was set off and then hurled it with slightly more grace than she had exhibited before.

  The bot chunk under her foot was simply crushed in place. She stepped away before the explosion but left it to burn in place.

  “So, they have exploding engines running through their bodies. Does anyone need a hand?”

  The signal came from Cio. “Lido needs help. The worm knocked us down and is burning through my chest. She is on fire suppression.”

  Duel swung around and started to head for Cio. He wasn’t the only bot on his back, but he was the only one that was melting.

  * * * *

  Lido was stepping aside to make room for the others when something hit the bot in the knees. She reacted like a human and bent forward, but Cio’s weight wasn’t distributed the same way, and they tipped to their back.

  “Damn it!” She looked through their link for how she could get upright again, but when she pushed up, she was face to face with whatever had come out of that ship.

  The nose was pointy and similar to a worm she had unearthed, but the scale was enormous. The height was nearly twice her own and based on the weight that was pressing Cio down it was dense and not hollow.

  The conical nose of the thing split in four and it exhaled a plasma jet. Cio’s systems went haywire, and Lido focused on rerouting the emergency signals through her mind and nervous system. It hurt like hell, but Cio was able to call for help while she woke up the fire-suppression systems to keep his body cool enough to function.

  “Kab is on the way.”

  Lido grunted. “Great. I am going to try something.”

  Instead of pushing to raise Cio, she lay back and made fists. With a silent prayer, she pulled her fists together and the metal bot on her chest crushed with a satisfying crunch.

  The squirming on Cio’s skin stopped, but the heat continued. Kab grabbed the bot by the tail and swung it up and out of the way, back toward the drop site. It exploded on the way.

  Lido rolled Cio over and stood up.

  “Thank you, Duel.”

  “You did great! Now, let’s help the others. I think Corbyn made a few extras.”

  Lido smiled in her helmet, and she had Cio give Kab a thumb’s up.

  The front plate of Cio’s body was a little melted, but it was still metal, and they hadn’t taken crippling damage. Time to get into the next fight.

  * * * *

  Corbyn fired randomly at the six squirming buggers at her feet. Three were firing plasma jets at Myx, and the other three were trying to knock her down.

  To Corbyn’s shock, Cio came striding toward her, bent nearly double. He took his fists and crushed one after another. When he had crushed the first two, he lifted them and hurled them back toward the landing site. They exploded enroute.

  Corbyn took the hint and did the same to the first of the three pointy bastards that she could reach. The toss of the crushed bot was rather satisfying.

  She followed suit with another and was grinning savagely as it crunched into rubble under her knuckles, even if they were actually Myx’s.

  “What’s mine is yours, Corbyn.”

  She grinned. “Only two to go.”

  “Shall we?”

  Cio got one of them, and they got the other plasma-spewing worm.

  Corbyn threw the last chunk of metal back toward where it had come from, and she looked around. She opened coms. “You finish up here, and I am going to check out the ship.”

  Lido’s voice replied. “Steer clear of the throw-way. There are still two more to go.”

  “Good tip.” Corbyn checked once more to make sure things were in hand, and one of the bots went sailing and sparking over Myx’s head as she began to look for its origin.

  * * * *

  The coiled bot jumped up and struck Iff in the centre of the chest. Nyvett shouted as his bulk knocked her backward and Iff’s body showed its attraction to the soil.

  Exterior sensors told her that the bot had hit her precisely where it needed to to knock her over. “How could it know that?”

  “If these are the same people that we fought before, they would have studied us as much as possible.”

  “Of course, but didn’t you actually fight people?”

  “Yes. I am supposing that we left survivors.” Iff grunted.

  The bot had wrapped around one of his legs, and it was using crushing force.

  Nyvett tried to get a grip on the head, but it was too smooth. The worm simply twisted out of her grip.

  The pressure that she was registering on Iff’s leg was tremendous. It was actually trying to pop the limb off!

  Kab came to the rescue, and Cio was right behind him. Together, they pried the worm off Iff’s leg, crushed the head, and threw it over the forest canopy and toward its landing site.

  Kab helped them stand. The leg was weakened, but it would support Iff’s weight.

  Kab helped Iff resume his path toward the city.

  Cio paused and then headed to the crash site.

  Nyvett felt useless, but if they were taken down again, they weren’t getting up.

  * * * *

  Len and Ai were kneeling, their sensors going wild as they scanned every inch of the bot. Len had the head shoved against a rock, and Ai had the tail.

  Hima murmured, “It is really one long engine with plasma generators every three metres. So, as long as we keep the pieces smaller, we can blast them.”

  Xaia spoke, “I believe that might not be the rule. Corbyn managed to make six of them.”

  Hima nodded Len’s head. “You are correct. We require more study.”

  Xaia sighed. “We don’t have time. Do one more round of deep scans, and we will analyze them later. We need to be going.”

  Hima looked up to see Kab helping Iff toward the city. “You are right. There isn’t time for experimentation.”

  Len placed his hand over the head of the creature, and he crushed the primary engine with precision.

  “Xaia, if you could throw it, I would appreciate it. I throw like a child.”

  Ai rose to his feet, whipped the worm over his head and its wiggling silver form disappeared over the forest before letting out a sharp detonation followed by flames.

  Hima looked around at the marks of what nearly was the death of two hundred years of maintenance. “I think we should go and check out that ship.”

  Xaia had a smile in her voice. “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

  They followed the other two who had gone in search of the origin of the bots while the other two went on to the city. It was the first time that they had separated, and Hima wasn’t a fan of it, but they had to see what they were up against, and getting a view of their tech was key.

  Hima tried to fight it, but she wanted to see what a star ship looked like close up. Even a drop ship would be something new.

  She followed the others and marvelled at how different it was to walk through forest. She hadn’t really seen a forest before, so stomping on one was a strange sensation.

  Chapter Seven

  Corbyn felt a little bad about leaving before every foe was vanqui
shed, but if it was an actual ship and not a drop ship, she wanted to be able to blow it out of the sky before it left the atmosphere.

  Myx’s feet crushed plants and small trees with every stride, but there was no avoiding it. Against all recommendations for cities, the humans of Hera had let the trees grow right up against their walls.

  Her sensors showed Cio, Ai, and Len behind her. In front of her, there were hot spots where the thrown and exploded bots had landed.

  The loose dusting of soil was her first clue that she was nearly to the impact area. The second clue was the huge ship that was settled in the centre of the landing, its payload bay open and no signs of life.

  Corbyn looked at the ship and slowly walked Myx around it.

  The length was nearly half a kilometre; it was too short for a long-term vessel. The fuel had burned away and left nothing but the unoccupied cockpit behind.

  The others arrived in the zone cleared by the impact, and they all began to make their own observations.

  * * * *

  Hima took Len straight to the cockpit. “Can you get information out of it?”

  “Why? We know where it came from. Orbit.”

  She sighed. “If they flew this ship independently or with the others, I am hoping that there is some record of their origin point. Their home planet.”

  “Ah. Right. Sorry, I was embroiled in some unpleasant memories.”

  Hima made a commiserating noise, and she crouched down next to the cockpit. “Open a jack and put the information into sealed storage for now, please.”

  Len put action to her request. A tendril of cable wrapped in metal eased into the ship. “It is too short.”

  Hima sighed and said, “Show me a schematic of where we need to get this cable.”

  She looked at the three-dimensional image that he projected in her mind, and she cocked her head. “Right. Pull in the cable. This is going to get messy.”

  He did as she asked, and she was just gearing up to rip the roof off the ship when Ai stopped her. “Allow me to use a more subtle approach.”