Set Up

I gave Nai my radar before we landed.

It was a big decision, but one I felt I would regret not making.

The appealing alternative was to make a copy for her. But the trouble was twofold. Firstly, Daniel had helped shape the beginnings of the radar, and I’d found I couldn’t reproduce his work. I’d have to discern exactly which elements he’d contributed and carefully reverse engineer, which would take more time than we had, and even then still might not work the way I hoped. Secondly, I’d added to it, and I'd been just too good at it. I’d put in months of work. The radar had always been one of the most complex psionics I had, second only to the original mega-construct. The radar had only gotten more intricate with my additions and tweaks. I couldn’t even begin to reproduce it without disassembling it into more manageable pieces.

And if I had to do that…just giving those pieces to Nai would benefit us more in the short term.

So the choice I faced was rooted in the benefits of Nai having firsthand access to the radar weighed against the risks of something going wrong and neither of us having a functional version.

It was only by a slim margin. So, so slim.

But the former outweighed the latter.

Nai was going to be babysitting me the whole time. She could already respond to threats far better than I, and the radar would only make her more capable. Our chances were better if she was the one who was sensing the threats directly. At best, I would only ever be able to relay verbal approximations of enemy positions. Her options had been limited in the Green Complex in large part because she had been cut off from critical information that my radar could have given.

No, the edge the radar would provide her was just too good to pass up.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Are you sure you even can?”

“Yes,” I said to both questions. Whether I was sure she could put them together again?

Well…I tried to make it easy for her.

It had taken some work, but I’d spent the dozens of hours of our rocket flight disassembling the radar as much as I could.

“We land in ten hours,” I said. “It shouldn’t take too long to transfer the pieces to you. You just have to put them together.”

“Are you sure I can?” she asked, reading my face.

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

·····

It took every minute of those ten hours. She only managed to slide the pieces into place with a few minutes to spare.

Nai thrived under pressure.

No...that wasn’t quite true.

It didn’t come naturally to her. But she’d learned anyway, the hard way.

That made it easier to trust her when she said insane things like ‘we’re going outside to land’.

“Let me get this straight…” I said. “We’re going to be outside the rocket when it lands.”

“Beneath, actually,” she replied. “We’re going to crawl through the engine—don’t worry, it’ll be safe—and let the rocket push us into the cushion pit.”

“Why?”

I didn’t even bother asking how she intended for us to survive being between a moon and a rocket landing. We weren’t even going to be landing on a pad, we were using the moon landing equivalent of highway crash barricades.

“So we can enter the colony without being seen by the Vorak,” she said. “They know why we’re all here. The longer we can keep them in the dark about where you are, the better everyone is going to fare today.”

I tried to imagine what it would be like having to dig through gravel in moon gravity...it seemed like it would be a huge delay at first, but from the Vorak’s perspective…

They knew I hadn’t been on the first rocket. So it would be really confusing if I didn’t appear to exit the second rocket either.

“Alright,” I said, “so we just crawl through the engine?”

“There’s some spent fuel tubing that we’re going to use as an airlock,” she explained, materializing a large ratchet wrench. “Dyn will seal the way up behind us, and then we’ll depressurize and move to the exterior.”

“Is the radar still working?” I asked, trying to distract myself. It did not seem like a coincidence that Nai hadn’t brought this up earlier.

She gave a nod, but didn’t elaborate.

“If anything crops up, let me know. I don’t know how all the different pieces are going to work in your head. I customized a lot of them…any part of it could fail anytime.”

“I will keep you informed,” Nai promised, popping a piece of paneling free from the floor. “Now follow me. We’ve only got a few minutes.”

It wasn’t a long journey, but it was a very tight fit squeezing both of us into the engine component. It would have been pitch black if not for Nai creating a simple light source. Dyn finished tightening the panel behind us while Nai got to work on the next segment.

I hunkered down—well, technically up —in the cylindrical cavity, trying to stay out of the way while Nai ratcheted bolts loose.

The air in the cavity suddenly hissed as she loosened our exit enough. Disassembling a rocket in flight did not feel as ridiculous as it should have been.

But it was still terrifying.

Keep calm. Space suit. Air bubble. You’ll be fine.

Nai exited first and I followed her through the…well, I didn’t know the terminology for parts of a rocket. Especially not one like this.

Every rocket I’d seen on Earth had huge bell-shaped nozzles for propelling the exhaust and generating thrust.

But Nai and I emerged from our rocket not by a large nozzle but by a long-tapered wedge, almost like a blade.

I said.

she said.

We had precious little between us and the moon our rocket was falling toward. It was little trouble to an Adept like Nai though.

I kept a hand magnetized to the rocket while Nai formed a dome of grey crystal around us as our rocket fell toward the gravel pit. Once we had a shield to keep us from being crushed under the rocket, Nai added rudimentary cushions and straps to keep us secure against the bottom of the crystal dome. ‘Rudimentary’ was not a word I relished using in the context of rocket landings, but we wouldn’t be going that fast, and the rocket’s shock absorbing legs would cushion us too.

Still, it was nerve wracking to know we were approaching the moon’s surface, but being totally unable to see exactly when we’d impact.

With no visible warning, the rocket slammed into a pit of gravel, coming to a fairly soft halt for a few hundred tons of steel in freefall.

Nai wasted no time in dissolving all our landing precautions.

Serralinitus asked.

Nai replied.

·····

Force of emergence was a tricky Adept thing to wrap my head around. Daniel had been able to conjure specks with enough force to crack Vorak quarantine glass. But I hadn’t been able to displace the metal on a cheap lock.

But there were some nuances to it that I hadn’t appreciated until now.

We were stuck under a rocket that had buried us in forty feet of gravel, but Nai wasn’t even concerned.

She materialized a pole of crystal within the gravel, but she made it smoothly, from the inside out, so it pushed the gravel aside rather than materializing in and around the chunks. Then she made another layer of crystal around the pole, displacing the gravel where the new matter came to be. She continued adding layers and dissolving the previous ones until she’d made a crystal tube the size of a large sewer.

In just a few seconds, Nai had made us a way to travel through the pit without ever going up.

Nai and I walked out of that gravel pit, still forty feet below its surface. It took four series of makeshift sewer pipes to reach the colony structure, and even then we were still far below ground level.

One more tube going straight upward, and we reached the moon’s surface proper.

The view was an infinite field of stars that I once again had to force myself to look away from. The blue and yellow planet was out of sight, so at least I didn’t have that marvel to distract me.

I followed Nai’s lead and magnetized my hands as we climbed up the metal structure to a ledge.

A massive slanted series of gold panels leaned away from us, and for a moment I thought we were going to keep climbing, but Nai took us toward an access door.

It was hydraulically sealed like a submarine hatch, but Nai had another lesson in force of emergence.

she pointed.

I did so, and the shape of the door’s lock and mechanism lit up in my mind.

she instructed.

She could have burned through this door in a heartbeat. But that sounded like it was the first step in something that could depressurize the colony.

Or was it? The colony had air barriers to keep its precious local atmosphere from flying away. In fact, the barrier didn’t quite align to the gold paneling that roofed the colony. I could sporadically feel the positive air pressure on my space suit. There were small shavings of air barrier that extended into what would otherwise have been the cold vacuum of space.

Air pressure was the best way to displace the bolt, I decided. I had to make a thin peg to prevent a locking bar from bracing the hatch’s bolt, but once the bolt was free-floating, all it took was a small bundle of pressurized gas.

The bolt thunked free and I hauled on the hatch’s lever. Displacement didn’t necessarily mean break. Even if I couldn’t split the metal in half by creating matter inside it, I could still push it around.

I said.

Nai pointed out, re-securing the hatch behind us.

We were delivered into a very cramped industrial or mechanical access hallway of some kind. Metal and concrete were adorned with pipes and wiring running parallel to the colony cell’s exterior.

Nai said, picking right.

I said. Tasser was correct; I’d been in zero g before. And even though this wasn’t strictly zero g, it wasn’t far off.

I asked.

she said.

I had some limited functionality from the pieces I couldn’t disentangle enough to transfer, but that only made me worried that it wasn’t going to work properly.

I admitted.

Nai seemed to grow thoughtful as we picked our way through the dusty grey corridor.

<…Caleb, I’m not sure I have the dexterity to pull this thing apart and give it back.>

I told her.

<…You gave me the outdated model while you build a better one for yourself,> she asked.

I asked.

She snorted, but half-heartedly.

she asked.

I didn’t have access to the radar precisely, but I could vaguely tell when she tapped into it actively. She was casting her mind out into the colony, seeing where the closest minds were no doubt crouching low, taking shelter.

I told her.

<…I can…’see’ when your feelings change,> she said, frowning as she realized I had the same capability.

I said.

<…You’re staying [cool] right? Mind on the mission?>

Nai affirmed.

We emerged from the dusty access corridor onto a metal balcony built into the exterior structure of the cell.

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The ground was at least five stories below us, which I hadn’t been prepared for. The interior of each colony-cell was disturbingly comparable to architecture on the planet, with the sole exception of roads.

It was like someone had stuffed pieces of a city under massive gold paneled roofs. Which, in some sense, they had.

The layout gave off a strong European vibe to it. Tons of walkways, few dedicated roads, even light tram lines running the length of the cell. The only two features that grounded the colony in the ‘alien’ were the eclectic plastic rooftops.

The change in elevation across the colony threw me off. It wasn’t all built on flat ground. There were some seemingly natural slopes and slants to the ground, especially as you approached a park to the east as we entered.

My instincts said it was to do with drainage, and I had an urge to go see if there was a pond or something in that park.

Nai took us northwest though.

She took a few meters of run up, and leapt off the balcony, toward the nearest rooftop.

she said.

That was the plan.

We leapt from rooftop to rooftop going toward the northwest corner of the cell. It seemed just shy of a mile, but our pace felt good. Reduced gravity made clearing each leap easy. Fun too, but it wasn't hard to stay serious. Armed Vorak were about.

Even when Nai psionically signaled me to wait one rooftop behind, or for the two of us to freeze for thirty seconds, we were moving swiftly.

The small delays avoided us being seen. With my radar, Nai could detect both Casti and Vorak patrols. She didn’t even need her cascade. In fact, using it might have even proved detrimental to stealth.

Like the Green Complex, this place didn’t seem to have many security cameras. Nemuleki had been sure what monitoring systems were present would be focused on the commuter trams, the open walkways—all the public access points between colony cells.

We were more than halfway to our designated launch point when suddenly a distant droning rang out through the whole colony cell.

“All Red Sails personnel, this is Marshal’s Adjutant Tox Frebi, your orders are to stand down. Any rak who even spits on any First Contact proceedings will be—"

Nai froze in disbelief. So did I.

My first instinct was confusion. Even while ‘Marshal’s Adjutant Tox’ clarified orders, I couldn’t believe my ears.

My second instinct doubled down on my disbelief.

I insisted.

Nai hunkered lower and I could feel her mind racing.

<…Doesn’t matter,> she asserted.

We kept moving, still taking care to avoid the groups of Vorak scattering throughout the colony cell. They had been out of position when we landed. We were watching their redeployment be interrupted by the order to stand down.

Except it didn’t last.

A minute later the emergency sirens blared back up with a new message.

“Belay that. This is Marshal Tispas. Disregard Tox. Sten Ramor has command. His original orders stand: no Coalition gets off this rock.”

Knew it, I thought bitterly.

<…That explains so, so much,> Nai said.

I asked.

she said.

It clicked into place. Serral had thought it odd Tox was the one negotiating. Tox had tried to defy their Marshal and uphold First Contact.

<...Infighting?> I asked.

And my esteem for that Vorak had gone up so much in the last few seconds! It was so disappointing to readjust my opinion so soon…

<…I doubt it,> she said. But her pause didn’t reassure me.

Gunshots rang out nearby as fighting broke out in earnest.

We continued jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and any other day this would have been the most fun in my life.

Nai was right, I’d decided. At least partially.

I was learning too quickly. Astronauts trained for weeks in simulated zero g. But changing from Yawhere’s gravity somewhere near .7Gs to Archo’s approximate .2Gs had barely slowed me down. Relearning to lengthen my stride into long easy hops had taken minutes, instead of hours.

I could see the argument for it being caused by the circumstances. I’d already adjusted to new gravity before, plus astronauts trained thirty seconds at a time. I was being thrown in the deep end.

But still, we made too good of time.

Nai darted over the clustered buildings, sweeping the way ahead, and scanning for Vorak minds with my radar. It wasn’t difficult for me to follow the path she traced either.

I only had to magnetize my hands and feet once, to finish climbing up to a higher rooftop.

It was barely ten minutes after landing that Nai and I dropped down to ground level and stole inside a building at the far northwestern edge of the district-cell.

The signage inside was in more languages than just Starspeak, but from the words I could read, it appeared to be a storage business.

A completely empty storage facility.

I asked.

The building was empty, but the exterior doors had been unlocked. The stairwell labeled ‘launchpad access’ was too.

Nai said, and I felt her cascade ripple out in the direction of the launch pad. she said.

Serralinitus’s mission briefing had been clear. This was the launch point closest to our entry. Admiral Laranta had arranged transport, and the Vorak hadn’t been told where we’d be departing from.

How had our friendly rides been blocked?

How had they known which ones we were going toward unless…

What if it wasn’t just the friendly rides?

I asked, concerned. If the colony governor was cooperating with the Vorak, she could probably shut down the airspace of the colony.

<…No,> Nai said.

<…The Vorak would have seen our rockets,> I said.

Nai nodded along. she broadcast.

I listened waiting for responses, but heard nothing.

Still, I heard nothing.

“Nai, I’m not picking up whatever it is you’re receiving,” I told her.

She nodded at me, but there were bigger concerns apparently because she held up a finger so I’d pause.

she sent.

Something had gone wrong with my receiver. I wasn’t picking up the responses she was getting.

<…Acknowledged. The further launch points, the interior ones wedged between district-cells are likely still viable. Good luck.>

“” I said. It wasn’t a question.

Nai nodded.

“” she said.

I sent her.

I asked, consulting my rudimentary map of our launch sites.

she said.

It was a good thing we hadn’t run into any fighting; it left us with stamina to spare. Launch point sixteen was even further. And as easy as moving in low gravity was, it was not effortless.

We followed the signs to the shipping businesses’ small spaceport and hangar, once again plunging into the vacuum on the station’s exterior.

It was a narrow crossing, only a few dozen meters to the next colony cell. But it felt like I was walking between two massive bars of gold bullion. Each colony cell’s slanted roof stretching up and away like the walls of a deep valley.

But Nai quickly found us another hatch to Adept our way through and we disappeared into the next colony cell.

If the previous one had given me an ‘Amsterdam’ vibe, the next had much more ‘Brooklyn’ in it, though no less alien for it. There still weren’t major roads going through the interior, but the buildings here were much squarer with flat tops.

Each cell was half offset like brickwork, so while we exited the northwest portion of lunar Amsterdam, we arrived on the southeast edge of lunar Brooklyn. Launch point 16 was yet still past the northwest boundary of this new cell.

Nai opted to take us west first, moving toward one of the large tram stations. We would follow it underground, pop out in the next district-cell and slip north to the departure point, no one the wiser.

That plan was ruined when three Adepts ascended from the tram station we’d been aiming for.

Nai dropped to her stomach before they even came into view, I recognized the radar spooling itself faster as it detected the energy laden minds of Adepts.

The entrance to the underground tram was in a large mosaic plaza that connected the wide pedestrian avenue to yet another colony cell. The three Adepts turned toward us almost immediately and took a number of paces from each other, spreading out as they walked across the plaza stones.

We had encountered too little resistance. I’d known it couldn’t keep being this easy, but I hadn’t expected to recognize the first Vorak we really encountered.

Two of the Vorak wore glittering orange armor, but the third wore a familiar dark gray and green uniform of the Prowlers.

Vather.

He should have still been on Yawhere. We’d stolen the spaceport his fleet had occupied.

But he was here in the flesh. A streak of paranoia went through me at the thought of Stalker or Courser hiding somewhere nearby too.

Neither of those were the second Adept I recognized though.

Months ago, Sendin Marfek had chased me around, over, and under Demon’s Pit reactor. But while I’d been tangling with that Adept, Nai had fought one who created directional shockwaves.

I’d only seen them briefly before, but it had been a very memorable meeting. And here they were again.

Vather and the shockwave Adept both flanked one of the largest Vorak I’d ever seen. They stood more than a foot taller than their company, and their build could rival the bulkiest humans I’d met.

Nai recognized the hulking brute, going eerily still.

<…The big one, is that who…?> I asked.

Nai nodded.

This was probably one of the only Adepts in the star system who had fought Nai and lived to tell the tale. Except…no. All three of them had that in common.

I realized.

Nai said coldly.

I said.

Nai noticed. She pointed my attention toward five more Adepts sporting rifles who appeared behind us. They were split into two additional groups to complement Vather’s trio.

They’d loosely surrounded us, and were closing in.

We’d done our best to avoid patrols, but it had always seemed improbably to avoid any resistance. But they only had our rough location…they were spread out, casting a net.

I had no doubt all eight Vorak were running their tactile cascades underfoot, searching for the slightest hint of our presence.

I couldn’t see Nai’s face, but I recognized her body language as she frowned.

Nai broadcast. She was asking everyone we’d equipped with psionics.

Once more, I didn’t hear any response. But she did.

she asked incredulously.

I told her.

she shared.

Nai stilled while her mind raced. This was a tough spot.

I trusted her judgment to get out of it.

“No other way,” she whispered.

She reached up to undo the clasps on her helmet and began peeling herself out of her spacesuit. She was sending me back outside. She didn’t want to point the Vorak my way by making them wonder why she’d been wearing one.

she said simply.

I bit my tongue to stop myself from asking ‘are you sure?’

She was.

she said. Ordered.

she said. <…You’ll make it.>

I told her.

I held up my fist for her to bump and she hesitated.

I affirmed.

She chuckled, not quite humorlessly.

she said.

I blinked in surprise behind the visor.

Nai said.

I told her.

She bumped my fist before walking to the edge, in full view of the plaza. One of the rifle holding Adepts noticed her first, and a moment later all eyes were on her.

The Warlock stepped off the edge of the structure and fell to ground level.

“So!” she shouted, “who’s going first?”