Khoth nodded.
You can come in, Gehenna sounded so sad. I think you should.
“Gehenna says it’s clear,” Jace told him.
The two of them then strode up the gangway and stepped into the gloom of the Khul ship. For a moment, the whine in Jace’s head became deafening and he saw auras even in the dark. A headache spiked through him and he nearly went down, but Khoth grabbed his arm.
“Jace?” Khoth’s voice was threaded with alarm.
“I--I--I’m okay. It’s just. I don’t know. It’s gone now. Passing,” Jace said as he managed to keep his feet.
Cold sweat coated his face. Something wasn’t right. But what was it?
This whole place isn’t right.
Even with his helmet up and purified air rushing into his suit, Jace still smelled--or imagined he smelled--the sharp, metallic bite of blood and pain. Lights on either side of their helmets switched on automatically, even as Jace was suddenly aware that he had some kind of heat-sight as well that was not part of the suit, but part of him. But his eyes were fixed on the pods that lined the walls of the Khul ship. Only a few dozen of the hundreds were filled. Jace recognized the Naruto-runners from earlier that day. Their eyes were open. Their mouths parted in agony. He saw dark shapes move underneath their skin.
He only got out, “They’re alive. They’re really alive.”
Before the light from the ship’s doorway was cut off as the door slid shut. Then the Khul ship’s engines rumbled to life.
The Plan
“Gehenna, what the hell is going on?” Jace’s voice came from behind Khoth. It was surprisingly controlled, but there was an edge to it.
Over the head’s up display, HUD, of his helmet, Khoth saw Gehenna’s response, I don’t know! It’s unclear if the Osiris has lost control of its blocking of the Hive ship or…
“Or?” Khoth asked.
The cursor blinked for a long moment and then, Or the Osiris has allowed this ship to take off.
“What?” Now Jace’s voice was a trace shrill. “Why would it do that?”
It wasn’t Gehenna who answered, but Khoth, “Because it wants us to destroy the Hive.”
That was the only logical explanation. From what he could tell, the Osiris was meant to battle. His sister’s journals suggested that the faction that had likely made it had determined that offensive action against the Khul was the best way to end the conflict. So what better way now than sending up the Pilot, an Alliance soldier, and a cleaning bot to destroy a Hive.
“It wouldn’t do that! It wouldn’t… would it? Oh, it kept talking about the mission or something. Maybe that’s this, but… dammit!” Jace groaned. “I’ve lost the signal to the folks on the ground! I can’t reach anyone! Can either of you?”
No. The Osiris may be blocking that, too. Or it may be the Hive! Gehenna spun her tentacles around her like a dress in her anxiety. I cannot tell. I will need to dive deeper into this to determine what is going on!
Khoth believed it was very likely that she would only figure it out much too late. They had to act now.
“Thammah? Flight-Commander Thammah, come in!” Khoth commanded.
But there was no answer.
“Osiris? Osiris, damnit? You can hear me, I know you can!” Jace was shouting, threatening the ship’s strange AI.
But Khoth knew that regardless of who or what had done this, there was only one solution. If they were going to get back to Earth, they had to do it by themselves. He started moving.
“Khoth?” Jace called, a little panicked. “Uhm, where are you going?”
He heard the clunk of Jace’s boots on the metal floor of the Khul ship.
“To the cockpit of this ship. We need to take control of it and pilot it back to Earth,” Khoth answered even as he began moving. “Going to the Hive is death.”
“Yeah, yeah, good idea to go home. Bad idea to go towards death,” Jace said, and Khoth was pleased to hear how Jace was controlling his breathing and focusing on the mission.
