Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) (31 page)

Karen stood stunned on the porch as Reven stepped out to the sidewalk. She bent and picked up some kind of harness that she expertly stepped into and buckled up. The girl suddenly rose up in the air a few inches, the reason for the rise hidden behind the hedge. Ronnie didn’t even go through the opening in the hedge, instead he aimed the chair directly at the hedge. The chair would have easily cleared the low hedge, but it smoothly rose when it got to the barrier and descended on the other side, maintaining the same height above the top of the hedge as it had over the surface of the lawn. Ronnie turned right and zipped off down the sidewalk. Reven leaned forward and sped after him.

As she got farther away, Karen was able to see that the girl was riding some kind of skateboard.
It doesn’t have wheels either!
she realized.

Karen wiped at the tears running down her cheeks. Tears of joy that a chair like that was available for people like her son. Tears of sadness that they couldn’t possibly afford one.

She sank slowly into the old chair on the porch.

Karen was still sitting and moping when she heard chattering coming from her left. She lifted her eyes to see Ronnie and Reven talking animatedly as they zoomed around the corner.
It’s going to crush him when he realizes we can’t afford that thing!

Ronnie’s chair actually banked as he swerved over the hedge and into the yard, zipping up the stairs and leaning back hard to bring himself to a halt next to his mother. The chair spun and dropped at the last moment to place Ronnie next to her and at the same height. He threw his arms around her, “Mom! This is
so
awesome!”

“But Ronnie,” Karen said, a tremble in her voice. She didn’t want to ruin the moment, but she had to inject some reality into the situation, “we can’t possibly afford…”

“Mom! They’re
giving
it to me!” He turned to look at the girl as if confirming and his voice got hoarse with emotion. “Reven says that
I
inspired Dr. Gettnor to build it. He saw me making a long detour for a curb cut and realized that thrusters could make wheelchairs obsolete! He asked her to bring it to me.”

Karen turned to Reven in amazement and the girl gave an assenting nod. Karen said, “Where is he? We’ve… We’ve got to say thank you!”

Reven frowned and gave a little shrug, “He doesn’t get out much. He said I could bring him a vid so I set up a couple of cameras” she waved back toward the edge of the yard, “in addition to the one on my AI. You can say thanks right now and he’ll see it when I get the vid back to him.”

“We can go see him…” Karen said, even as she was wondering if the man lived near public transportation.

Reven was shaking her head, “He doesn’t like visitors either. Really… tell him thanks here on the video. That’s the best you’re going to do.”

After speaking their effusive thanks for the cameras, they listened for a while as Reven explained more of the features of the thrust chair. When Reven finished, she invited Ronnie to go to some kind of skate-park the next day. “You can do the same kind of stuff in your thrust chair that we do on our boards,” she said enthusiastically.

Ronnie looked a little bit dubious, but also had a hopeful look, as if he thought he might be able to make some friends.

When Reven rode away on her sky-board, Karen turned to Ronnie and said, “How do you know her?!”

“I don’t.”

Karen gave him a dubious look, “Come on, you
knew
who she was!”

“Yeah I do! She’s
famous
on the web! That sky-board she has is the only one in the world right now and she’s
amazing
on it.” He turned and looked wistfully after her as she vanished around the corner, “
Everyone
knows who
she
is.”

Just not me, I guess,
Karen thought.

***

“What?!” Levon snapped, annoyed at being bothered yet
again
.

Fourth Officer ducked his head submissively and said, “The object that visited the lander is now coming towards us.”

“
What
object?!” Levon barked angrily.

Looking thoroughly cowed, Fourth Officer said, “Remember? Balan, the prime officer of the lander, commed to say that a large object had approached from the direction of the double planet and slowed to a near velocity match with the lander? Well, now it’s left the vicinity of the lander and it’s coming towards us.”

A frisson of fear shot through Levon. She did vaguely remember the call from Balan. Mostly she remembered feeling angry about being bothered again. Balan had claimed multiple ridiculous things about the object. First, it had first been detected approaching at an unreasonable velocity. Second, it decelerated without generating any exhaust plume and Balan claimed it decelerated at rates that were just
too
high to be believable. Third, once it had matched Balan’s trajectory and velocity, it had irregularly increased and decreased its velocity so that it maintained
approximately
the same speed as the lander, though it was constantly changing.

Levon didn’t know which was more terrifying: The fact that she’d forgotten the call from Balan? Or, the possibility that the—apparently somewhat intelligent—inhabitants of the system might have some means other than rockets for producing acceleration?

“Levon?”

Levon realized that she hadn’t responded and the fools were going to hound her until she did.
Can’t even get a moment to think about it!
Levon felt her other officers staring at her, obviously worried about the delay in her answer. With an irritated shake of her head, she said, “And
how fast
is this object approaching?”

Fourth Officer glanced at his screens, “260,000 kilofargs/deciday (71 kps).”

Levon shook her head in disgust, “That’s ridiculous!”

Fourth Officer shrunk in on himself, but stubbornly said, “And it’s still accelerating at 2.7 gravities.”

With shock, Levon remembered that Balan had claimed an object approached him earlier while decelerating at 5.4 gravities. She wondered whether this could
possibly
be true but decided it couldn’t. “You’ve miscalibrated or miscalculated! I suppose you’re going to claim that it’s accelerating at that absurd rate, but that there’s no exhaust plume from its rocket engines?”

Fourth Officer only nodded.

“Recalibrate your instruments!” Levon turned, “Second officer, recheck his calibrations
and
his calculations!”

Second Officer nodded and headed toward Fourth Officer’s station. This action was carried out readily enough, but Levon did not miss the doubtful glance Second Officer cast in her direction. She wondered whether the crew was becoming mutinous. The hormonal changes that allowed a named prime officer like Levon to dominate her crew should make mutiny nearly impossible. The second officer Levon had killed had probably been able to propose relieving Levon only by focusing on following the directive from the Prenaust. Keeping in mind a directive from the supreme leader of all rendas could have allowed the second officer to begin some hormonal changes of her own.

Levon rose and headed for her cabin. Even if this alien ship was approaching, Levon would have days before it arrived. During that time, if Levon focused on
her
need to be dominant and her role as the named prime officer, she could induce even more hormonal changes in herself.

By the time the aliens arrived she could be indomitable.

Only a little more than two and a half decidays (6.25 hrs.) had passed when Levon got another call, this time from Second Officer. Levon’s head and shoulders ached from the hormonal changes she’d been able to induce and she
really
didn’t want to talk to anyone. “What now?!” she barked.

Second Officer didn’t sound intimidated. He said, “In another centiday (fifteen minutes) the alien ship will be at rest relative to us at a distance of about 26,300 kilofargs (10,000 km). It’s approached us on an oddly and irregularly curving path that I suspect is intended to make it a difficult target for our meteorite deflection system. Likely they’re wary after you had Balan shoot one of the aliens’ other vessels…” Second Officer paused, evidently waiting for Levon to respond. When she didn’t, second Officer continued, “We need to know what you intend to do in regards to this vessel.”

Levon felt her pulse thrumming with the hormones. Glancing in the mirror she saw her increased musculature—made more evident by induced fat atrophy— the muscles were standing out in bands.
I should have done this long ago!
She jerked open the door to her cabin and started for the bridge.

Rob glanced over at Dan Vincent and saw the major was as focused on the screens as he had been. During the approach they’d only been able to bring the smaller telescope located on the bottom of the saucer to bear on the alien ship. Now that they were nearing their 10,000 kilometer closest approach, they had the huge scope from the top of the saucer focused on it as well. The computers were combining the optical images from three telescopes over an extended period to give them a much better picture. “This one’s
not
designed to land on a planet,” he said

Dan shook his head, “Nope,
that’s
a space vehicle.”

It was obvious just from all the external plumbing. The irregular surface of the aliens’ ship would be disastrous if it entered an atmosphere at any speed. In fact, the whole thing looked like it’d been assembled from large numbers of modules packed in next to one another to form a long slender cylinder. There were no massive rocket nozzles on this structure, though Rob thought he saw a big assembly at one end that might represent a large plasma thruster. The other end looked like something weird was going on, but Rob couldn’t really tell what. “Do you know what’s going on, down on the right end of their ship?”

Dan shook his head, “Let’s zoom in on it.”

The saucer’s AI zoomed in, correcting pretty well for the fact that they were moving past the alien ship while constantly changing accelerations. Even though the AI knew the acceleration was going to change before it did, there were still some tiny bobbles in the alignment. Rob couldn’t figure out what he was looking at until a star suddenly appeared just in front of the ship. “Damn! That’s a huge freaking mirror on the front, isn’t it?”

Dan nodded, “Yeah. I think it’s cone-shaped like a rice paddy hat.” He said nothing for a moment, then with a sound denoting the satisfaction of understanding, “Ah… Remember, they passed
really
close to the sun. They must point that mirror at the sun and hide in its shadow.”

“Geez! That’s right! I’ll bet if there’re any flaws in that mirror it’s a freaking disaster!” He looked down at the scale bar on the screen and compared it to the alien vessel. “That thing’s huge!”

Dan gave him a look, “Only a few times bigger than this monster saucer you fly around in.” He looked back at the screen, “I wish we could make a circle around it to see it from all sides.”

Rob had just said, “Yeah,” when a loud bang sounded off to the right.

The AI spoke calmly, “The number five fusor is no longer providing power.”

Rob winced, “Shit! AI, boost our acceleration to vary from 1.5 to 2.5 gravities and begin irregular turns perpendicular to line of sight to the alien vessel.” He turned to Dan, “I’m assuming they’ve got to be shooting at
us
now.” Rob turned to the crew behind them, “Spread out and see if you can find any holes. Don’t let the gravity changes catch you by surprise! AI, give us a tone with a rising pitch before the gravity starts going up and a dropping tone before it starts going down. Have you detected any damage to the ship?”

The gravity had been smoothly increasing to above normal. Now a rising pitch accompanied it, but stopped rising and started to drop just before the weight they were feeling began to decrease. The AI said, “The number two water tank is undergoing decompression. It and the number five fusor are both in areas where atmospheric pressure is not maintained. Inspection will require that someone suit up.”

Realizing the biggest danger to the crew would be decompression, Rob said, “All hands, all hands, keep your helmets with you at all times.” He turned to Dan, “Any suggestions?”

When Levon arrived on the bridge, the eyes of her crew jerked around to stare at her.
That’s right, cower, you sniveling idiots,
she thought to herself. It felt
great
to be so dominant. “Show me this alien ship,” she snarled.

No one said anything, but an image popped up on the big screen. It showed a disc-shaped object. Levon narrowed her eyes, by the scale circle on the screen the alien ship would be about 200 fargs in diameter. Big, and a lot bigger than the twenty-one fargs Balan had claimed for his first visitor, but still quite a bit smaller than the
Flying Light
. Far too big to deflect with the meteorite deflection system, so Levon wondered what to do. Then she remembered that Balan’s twenty-one farg visitor had fled after being fired on by the lander’s smaller deflection system. “Fire the deflection system at them.”