Silent Songs (32 page)

observation lounge? She could scan the holos that showed the ship's interiors. If she didn't see any humans ... it could work.

Stepp glanced at the men flanking her. "What do you think?"

"Giving up doesn't feel right to me," Misha said.

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"I want to keep fighting," Brian agreed.

Stepp faced Javier. "Take these two with you, you'll need them. If the aliens ask me to surrender, I'll follow your script. You'll have to move quietly."

"We can be quiet, Captain." Javier reached over and shook her hand. "Good luck."

The two crewmen followed the ethnobotanist around a hibernator and disappeared.

The minute they were out of sight, the Captain regretted her decision. There had to be a better way, a plan that made more sense . . . but she'd been wracking her brain since this whole thing began and hadn't come up with anything better. There was nothing in her training that prepared her for this kind of emergency. She shook her head, trying not to second-guess her decision. Not fifteen minutes later, her voder flashed, grabbing her attention.

"Jane, they're outside the bridge," Renata said breathlessly, her composure fraying. "We're just about ready to come around the back of the moon . . . we should really be able to increase our speed then . . . ."

Chris called her, and the navigator turned her back to Jane, responding to her crew, trying to keep them together. She left her station, and Jane watched her lean over Moshe's console, and rapidly punch in some codes, while glancing at the doors.

I
should be there,
Jane thought guiltily, wanting to bolt from her hiding place.

"We're okay," Renata told the crew loudly, sounding as though she were trying to reassure herself, "we're okay!"

"No good!" Chris called out. "It's not working!"

Jane's stomach clutched as the sealed bridge doors lurched, then opened.

She watched, mesmerized, as a dozen bodies poured through the doors.

Renata worked mindlessly, as if there was still something she could do to keep them out. Chris leaped from his chair, grabbing the red-haired woman by the shoulders and yanking her away from the console. But it was useless; they were surrounded. Moshe sat at his station, wide-eyed, as the aliens loomed over him.

Stepp pressed her forehead against a hibernator, wishing she could just wake up.

"Captain Stepp," the mechanical translator voice rang out tonelessly over the ship's intercom, "your control place--your 'bridge'--has been secured. We wish to cause no harm. Please surrender and order your crew and

passengers to do the same."

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Jane shook her head, wondering how she should respond.

"Captain Stepp," the bodiless voice intoned, "we have your . . . navigator.

She will persuade you."

That'll be the day,
Stepp thought contemptuously. Renata and she had served together for years. She'd like to see anyone make that woman do something she didn't want to.

Renata yelled out, loud and clear, "Don't give up! Stand your ground!" Her admonition was abruptly cut off, and instantly replaced by a long, pain-wracked scream. Jane covered her ears, and turned to the voder, but she could only see the backs of aliens, everyone moving, scrambling.

Renata's screaming stopped, and Stepp could hear a sob, but then the navigator called out raggedly, "Don't give up, Jane!"

Then Taylor screamed again, and again, and yet again. Moments later, her shrieks were joined by a male, Moshe, Jane thought.

"No!" Jane yelled helplessly at the voder, forgetting the sounds were coming over the intercom, that no one was paying attention to their voders. "Stop it, damn it! Stop it!"

"Captain Stepp," the hated mechanical voice intoned, as if it had heard her,

"listen to your staff." The screams stopped, but she could plainly hear muted sobbing in the background. "It is wasteful and unnecessary for you to make us abuse them in this way. You are in a damaged ship, with no hope of rescue. Meet with us, and negotiate instead."

"No," Renata whimpered in the background, "don't, Jane."

"You have five . . . minutes ... to consider our offer," the mechanical voice intoned. "After that, your staff will persuade you again. They will continue to persuade you until you come forward. This persuasion causes no corporal damage and can be administered indefinitely."

That's it,
the Captain thought bleakly. I
can't make them go through that.

The short walk to her bridge seemed interminable. Once outside the bridge doors, she had to compose herself before facing the beings that had raped her ship, and captured and tortured her crew. Finally, she touched the controls, and the door slid smoothly up in its tracks.

That smell hit her again, the same odd odor she'd noticed when the airlock to the
Crane
had started to open. Her gorge rose, and she forced it down.

She made herself face the nearest soldier. "I'm Captain Stepp," she said softly.

"No," moaned Renata through clenched teeth. Her face was red and blotchy, and she was restrained by two of them, as were

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Moshe and Chris, but otherwise they all seemed unharmed.

"It's okay, Renata," Stepp murmured. She scanned her bridge, staring at the strange aliens who'd totally changed her life. "So, who's in charge?"

A rotund, green and gold being stepped forward and trilled oddly. "I am Dacris, Second-in-Conquest, and new Captain of this vessel," its translator rasped.

Not yet, buddy,
Stepp thought angrily.

"Captain Stepp," Dacris said, "there are still passengers and crew unaccounted for. They must come forward or . .."

"I know, I know," she said anxiously. "I was cut off from them, completely alone. They must be scattered all over the ship. Let me talk to them. They'll surrender, but it'll take time for them to get here."

Dacris stared at her with his bizarre, marbled eyes. "Tell them to hurry ... or you will have to persuade them."

Renata paled as he said that and Jane felt a flush of goose bumps travel over her skin. She stepped over to the intercom. "Before I call them. .. please tell me ... why have you done this? What do you want? We are only interested in peaceful interactions with other intelligent beings."

The alien moved close to her, and she had to force herself not to flinch.

"Your people have caused the death of over twelve of my soldiers, while I took the space station and this vessel without a single death on your side.

You talk of
peaceful
interactions? Your people aren't fit to live."

"Is that what's going to happen to us, now?" Stepp asked worriedly. "Will you kill us because we resisted you?"

"We are a civilized people," Dacris said. "We don't waste resources, and now, that's what you are. A resource, to be trained, cultivated, bred .. ." he ran a clammy digit over her face,
"consumed. .. .
Your offspring and their offspring will serve my house and my table. I'll look forward to that."

Jane took a deep breath and pulled her eyes away from him, trying not to think of the foolhardy group creeping through the service tubes. It had to work. It had to.

She turned to the intercom. "Attention . . . Attention .. . All passengers . . . All crew .. . This is Captain Stepp . . ." She swallowed. "I am asking you to give yourselves up. Come to the bridge, and give yourselves up. You won't be harmed. Just come to the bridge as soon as you can." She paused, then repeated it over and over, assuring the empty rooms and hallways that there was no choice, that it was time to give up.

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Twice her voice cracked, while Renata's quiet sobs sounded as bitter background music to her speech. Dacris moved to the bridge doors, waiting for the first person to appear.

"Do you command so little loyalty," he asked Stepp, "that you can get no one to obey you?"

"I told you, they're scattered . .. it'll take a while."

"Hold her," Dacris commanded his troops casually. "Give her the rod. They'll move faster if she persuades them."

The nearest soldiers grabbed Jane's arms as a third pointed a short, black club at her.

Renata shrieked, "NO! DON'T DO IT! NO!" distracting everyone on the bridge.

At the same moment, the two service doors slid open, and four enraged Simiu leaped out, teeth bared, roaring their battle challenge. Behind them, humans poured through the doors armed with clubs, scalpels, garrotes, and chains.

Renata lurched, freeing herself from her distracted captors. Grabbing a keyboard, she wielded it like a bat, attacking the soldier nearest her, smashing its skull. Taking advantage of the sudden confusion, Stepp slammed her booted foot down on the instep of the alien holding her right arm. She felt delicate bones snap, and the being screamed and released her. Swinging her fist with all the power born of desperation, she plunged it into the huge eye of the guard holding her left.

Freed, Jane tackled the alien with the black rod. The device barely brushed her, but Stepp's heart jolted at the sudden, shocking pain. Shrieking, she scrabbled after the weapon before it could touch her again. The Captain and the alien struggled back and forth, but finally, she forced the rod against its wide, blunt tail, and its high-pitched scream echoed throughout the bridge.

Jane yanked the rod out of its fist, and left the creature flopping in convulsions.

Swinging the thing like a gun at arm's length, she kept the aliens at bay as she edged her way to the control panel. Some of the troops brandished weapons at her, but none of them fired. She suspected the range was too close.

The bridge was in chaos, as aliens swarmed the battling humans. They piled onto the Simiu, who were viciously fighting for their lives. Alien blood shimmered everywhere--at least, Stepp hoped it was alien. It was thin, but still red. Trying to keep her attention focused on her job, she scanned the holos, searching for any humans that might still be collected somewhere in the ship. The cameras showed none.

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The Captain's hands hovered over the panels, setting up to evacuate the air.

She trembled inwardly, feeling this was wrong, all wrong. Who would she kill? How many? Jane thought of Dacris' boast that he'd conquered the station and her bridge without taking a single life. In her forty-three years, Stepp had never physically harmed a living soul.

Pushing all that away, Jane focused on the monitors. She could see no humans, just soldiers, alien soldiers, everywhere in her ship.
Where the hell
were they all coming from?
Her fingers touched the panel.

Suddenly Dacris landed hard against her, shoving her away from the console as he wrestled frantically with Javier. Stepp swung the rod, hitting the alien in the back, again and again. Javier had their lone blaster and tried to aim it at Dacris, but Stepp was right behind the alien and he couldn't.

Then the humans were grabbed by two other aliens who joined Dacris in wrestling the ethnobotanist for possession of the weapon. Jane shoved at them all, frantically trying to get back to her console. For a moment, she regained her place, and quickly searched the nearest holo.

They were on the other side of the outermost moon! She felt wildly elated, thinking she'd evacuate the air, kill the invaders; if they could hold the bridge for just a few more seconds, she'd rush the
Brolga
out of the solar system!

But as her fingers hovered again over the panel, she finally saw it. In a synchronous orbit behind the big Moon. The largest ship she had ever seen ... bigger than any Mizari ship. It was hiding there, behind the Moon, disgorging shuttle after shuttle, all of them aiming straight at her vessel.

That's where all the soldiers were coming from... those little shuttles. The troops must be packed in there like cattle. If Stepp evacuated the air, the next replacements would be wearing suits. She stood transfixed, despondent as a futile war raged around her. She had lost her ship.

Suddenly the blaster discharged, and over a chorus of shouts, Stepp smelled charred flesh and hair. An instant later, she was tackled to the ground by clammy hands and alien bodies, and the rod was wrestled away from her. The blaster whined again, and again, followed by human and Simiu screams.

Suddenly it was over and silence fell.

Immobilized on the floor, Jane could see nothing when the combat ended.

There were grunts, whistles, and twitters from the aliens and the sound of a Simiu panting.

We're finished,
she thought,
they'll kill us all.

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Moist hands grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet. Fearfully, Jane watched Dacris' expressionless face. His emotion was all in his eyes and his skin, his colors blazing so brightly she had to squint. He pushed the cool snout of the blaster against her face, and his musical voice took on the unmistakable sound of hysteria.

Stepp waited for a translation, but it never came. Glancing at his arm, she realized he'd been shot. His skin was charred and blistered, and the translator was destroyed.

The alien was out of control with rage, but now Jane couldn't communicate with him. Whistling and shrieking, he waved his uninjured hand around at the carnage. Dead soldiers littered the deck, and others lay wounded or bleeding.

Then Stepp saw one of the drum dancers. It was the soloist, Ahrakk'. His body was blasted, charred; he lay lifeless on the deck. The sight of it shocked her; Jane was overwhelmed by her responsibility for his death.

Remembering his beautiful performance, she swallowed a sob. The Captain tried to turn away, but Dacris forced her to see more. Two passengers lay facedown, plainly dead. Then a shock of red hair caught her eye.

"Renata!" Jane choked.

Her navigator lay sprawled, faceup, an expression of horror on her face.

Realizing she was dead, too, Jane wept openly, no longer caring who heard her or what they thought. She gazed around for the survivors, but there were no other humans, no other Simiu. Somehow . . . they'd already been . ..

removed. Alive? Dead? Would she ever know?

Dacris continued to harangue her in a language she could never