The Celaran Solution (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 9) Read online

  “Maxsym. We’ve made progress over here. What’s going on at your end?” she asked.

  “All quiet on the Western Front,” Maxsym said.

  “What?”

  “Sorry. An anachronism,” he said.

  “How do you know so much about the past?” she asked.

  “I’m a student of history,” Maxsym answered simply.

  “I take it nothing unusual has happened,” Magnus said, bringing the conversation back on point.

  “Correct. No contact with the team. The only worrisome thing was that the battle sphere got rejected from the temple like our attendants. So they’re on their own.”

  “We’re coming to your position. We’ve made important contacts with another Celaran sect that can join us.”

  “So ‘take me to your leader’ actually works? Ah, nevermind that last,” Maxsym said neutrally. He sounded distracted.

  “Let’s make sure it’s still him,” Magnus suggested to Telisa privately.

  She held her hands out like asking ‘how?’.

  “Maxsym,” Magnus began. “We made some observations of new Celaran behaviors while we were in that town.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “In low-calorie intake and high-stress conditions, the Celarans become violent,” he said.

  “Amazing! I’m not sure that makes any sense, though. Is it genetically triggered? Did Lee offer any insight?” Maxsym asked animatedly. His interest came through loud and clear to Magnus.

  “Nothing yet,” Magnus replied.

  “That sounds like him,” Magnus offered to Telisa privately.

  “What now? How can we contact them?” Telisa asked on the channel.

  “They’re probably dead,” Marcant said. “They had no chance against Trilisks, or even Trilisk machines that may have been left there.”

  Marcant’s candor reminded Magnus a bit of Imanol. The difference was, though, that Imanol would have said it with the intention to provoke; Marcant was just being logical. He decided to respond with a like argument.

  “Conjecture. It’s too early to know that with any certainty,” Magnus said. “We have to wait. Unless we can get creative and think of a workaround.”

  “I can tell when I’m being manipulated,” Marcant said. “But Adair, Achaius, and I will think on it.”

  “Good,” Magnus said.

  Telisa looked at him and sighed. He could tell she was frustrated.

  “Time to workout,” Magnus said.

  “You expect me to—”

  “What better time? There’s nothing we can do yet.”

  He knew she would reluctantly accept his advice. There was only one question left.

  “Virtual or incarnate?”

  “That was an easy mission—” Magnus started, then launched a punch directly at her face.

  She dodged it easily.

  Trilisk Special Forces.

  “...so we should do some work incarnate,” he finished.

  Telisa nodded. They walked to the gym closest to their quarters on the assault ship. When they arrived, lights flicked on to show a wide open area with a relatively soft mat floor. The only hint of the many forms of exercise equipment the facility had were the barely visible seams in the mirrored wall where various apparatus would fold outward as needed.

  “If every marine in the Space Force was like you...” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter much,” she said. “Combat robots are still faster. They usually only miss me because they’re programmed to fire at normal Terrans.”

  Of course, she was right. Even host bodies would not be more effective than frontline battle machines or Avatar battle modules like Cilreth had narrowly missed on Brighter Walken.

  Unless they wield some alien toys. The breaker claws are amazingly good at taking out all kinds of robots.

  They took off their Veer suits and squared off against each other in their undersheers. Magnus knew the drill. The workout would focus on him first.

  He launched a series of attacks. Although his speed and coordination were excellent, she easily danced around his strikes and avoided his takedowns.

  Sometimes, instead of dodging, she would stand and block. When Magnus kicked her forearm, she either blocked it hard or flipped his leg on by. When she blocked it, it felt like kicking a carbon support strut. When she hooked it, she added to his own force to throw him off balance. She mixed it up so that he did not know what to expect when.

  Magnus shot for her legs. Telisa stopped him with a sharp hit on his shoulder, deflecting him. He rolled out of it and to the side. He ignored the frustration and kept trying. His normally well-coordinated moves became short and awkward when attempted on such a superior opponent.

  They continued for twenty minutes, until Magnus staggered and slowed to a crawl. Then they took a break to drink and did two more ten-minute rounds. Magnus was unable to land a blow or achieve a lock.

  “Let’s switch,” Magnus said, gasping for breath. He stepped toward the wall and one of the seams opened to allow him into a shower tube. He washed the sweat from his body for a few seconds. Then he emerged and put on his Veer skinsuit.

  Telisa stood ready in her undersheers. Magnus allowed himself to drink in the sight for a moment. Still breathing heavily, he brought his hands back up.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  Telisa went to work. She launched a side kick at his belly. The armored suit did its job; Magnus felt the impact across his entire torso rather than just the spot where her kick had landed. Even so, he grunted and fell back to the ground. He turned it into a roll, trying to come back up on guard.

  Telisa was not in his field of vision. He felt two more blows fall across his back as she struck from behind. She concentrated on landing blows. They had found if she continually swept him to the ground, it ended up being more of a workout for him than for her.

  Magnus lumbered around the workout area, taking hit after hit as a walking punching bag. He tried to anticipate and block whatever he could, but for the most part, it was a lost cause.

  After half an hour, Telisa called a break through her link. Magnus dropped his arms and rested. She was barely breathing hard. When Telisa had first joined PIT, they had trained together and it was barely a workout for Magnus. Now the situation had reversed itself.

  “Time to roll,” she said. Another door opened in the mirrored wall and retrieved a thick garment. Magnus took off his Veer suit and did the same.

  They grabbed each other by the collars and started. Here, too, they had developed their own set of rules to deal with Telisa’s superior physical capabilities. Magnus tried to use strikes whenever he could to gain an advantage, while Telisa merely attempted to subdue him without harm.

  Magnus launched an elbow at her face. When Telisa covered to absorb the blow, he trapped one of her arms and pulled it back with both of his, going for an armbar. Telisa let her arm extend and then tapped, even though they both knew he could not break it. She was too strong. Such concessions were necessary for Telisa to be a good training partner: Magnus had to be able to practice his techniques.

  After another hour had passed, Magnus succumbed to the fatigue. His earthly muscles could only take so much. Telisa was fine; her enhanced musculature could replenish itself in real time and under load as long as she supplied the protein and calories necessary to fuel it.

  Magnus stood up slowly and headed for the shower tube. He grunted. His body felt like it had been pummeled by a thousand rubber mallets.

  “Workout’s not over yet,” she said from behind him. “You don’t know your own limits. If we push it, you still have more in you.”

  Magnus turned to her and opened his mouth to reply to her slightly patronizing tone, but Telisa slipped her hands in under his drenched gi and opened it, letting the top fall to the ground. Her soft touch started to explore interesting places.

  Oh.

  “I... actually, I think maybe I can power through some more,” he said.

  “Good,” sh
e said, sweeping him once again.

  ***

  Another day passed on the Iridar. Magnus knew that if the team did not show up soon, Telisa would start to talk about going in there herself. He contemplated the problem in his barren quarters. Magnus and Telisa had few personal possessions left after the crash of the last Iridar. They both kept weapons and armor littered in their sleeping spaces. The rest of their things were in a cargo bay workshop, where Telisa had artifacts and machines to study them and Magnus kept robot hardware. They did not even have to maintain their own fabricators anymore since Siobhan created everything they requested with astonishing efficiency.

  Magnus leaned against his sleep web and sighed.

  I’ll need to convince her she can’t go in there.

  His mouth compressed. It was a tall order. Telisa would set her mind and then no one could stop her.

  Is there any point in trying to win that one? No. Take a battle you can win and settle for convincing her to wait longer.

  Soon, Telisa came to his quarters. She walked in without saying anything. Instead, she looked at him and waited for him to address the subject. He said nothing.

  Telisa breached it anyway.

  “They haven’t returned yet. I may have to go in,” Telisa said on the team channel.

  “Ludicrous!” Marcant said before Magnus could say anything.

  An unexpected ally. Good.

  “No!” Magnus said with equal conviction.

  “Think for a second. I’m a host body. Whatever defenses are set up may not activate against me.”

  Magnus made a quick adjustment to his argument. Marcant would be the logical one, so Magnus shifted to an emotional tack.

  “I can’t lose you,” Magnus told her on a private channel.

  “You’re not going to lose me. Shiny will give you a replacement.”

  “Vaguely possible,” Marcant was saying on the team channel. “But not worth risking your life on, especially when we have a team that walked in and hasn’t come out yet,” Marcant said. “Wait longer.”

  “A replacement would be very much like you. But a different person,” Magnus said.

  “This is how we’ve chosen to live. Dangerously, but with rich rewards,” Telisa said to both of them.

  “You’re a hypocrite,” Magnus said aloud. “You told us we were going to play it safe this time around.”

  “I’d be a hypocrite with a Trilisk AI in hand,” Telisa said.

  “Vines on fire! Calm down,” Lee told them. “We have yet to see if the other team will come back.”

  Telisa laughed. “You think we’re getting ahead of ourselves?” she said. “It’s been too long.”

  “Wait another cycle of fresh starlight on the leaves,” Lee said.

  “You know, if everything is fine, and they’re just not done yet as you suggest, then it won’t hurt for me to go in there and join them,” Telisa said.

  “I didn’t say everything is fine in there,” Marcant said. “I suggested they’re all dead.”

  “I was speaking more to Magnus and Lee’s urging to wait longer,” Telisa said.

  “I also believe you should wait longer, or come up with another way to investigate the site,” Maxsym chimed in. “If you go, you’ll never hear my theory about why the Celarans become violent,” he added.

  Telisa stopped. She obviously wanted to go in, but she was not ready to ignore her entire team’s input.

  “Okay, I’ll stay. Tell me,” she said.

  “Imagine you have twenty individuals going into a famine,” Marcant said. “If everyone holds tight and weathers it out, maybe half of them survive. But those left are greatly weakened and left vulnerable to disease and predation.”

  “Ah. But if they fight, and some die...” Telisa continued.

  “Yes. Then there are more resources left for the others. They would come out of the famine healthier, having divided the resources among fewer individuals from the beginning. The theory is somewhat akin to the way our bodies might drop muscle weight going into a famine in order to reduce caloric requirements.”

  “Seems logical. Which means it’s probably wrong,” Marcant said. “The truth is probably something weirder than we can imagine.”

  “What do you think, Telisa?” Maxsym asked.

  “I think it was well worth staying for, Maxsym, thank you,” Telisa said playfully.

  Magnus remained worried.

  We have another day at most before she goes in there anyway.

  ***

  Magnus was remotely inching attendants around vines at the Trilisk site when his link received an urgent interrupt. It came from an attendant... one of the attendants from the team that had gone into the Trilisk temple.

  “Telisa? Are you getting this? One of our attendants is asking for help from the outer system.”

  “It must have found something at last! Or do we have a new visitor?”

  “Actually, neither,” Marcant said. “This was Siobhan’s attendant. I mean, the one of hers that was not kicked out of the temple!”

  “What? How?” demanded Magnus.

  “I don’t even have a theory to put forward. It’s happened before, but the attendants were always displaced on-planet.”

  “We sent attendants out there searching for enemy ships,” Telisa said.

  “This attendant is definitely not one of the ones we sent to scour the system. It says our team is being held prisoner on a Quarus ship! And... they request urgent extraction.”

  “Everyone get your gear! We’re going in there,” Telisa said.

  “It could be a trick. It’s probably a trick,” Magnus said.

  “Wait. You misunderstand,” Marcant said. “They request extraction from the new location. Not the Trilisk complex under the temple.”

  “Out in space?” Telisa asked, exasperated.

  “Apparently, yes,” Marcant answered.

  Could it be a distraction? For what purpose? Magnus asked himself.

  Telisa changed tack quickly.

  “Marcant! Get this ship en route now!” she ordered. “Maxsym. We may have found the other team. Get that ship ready for action!”

  “Okay. Where are we going?”

  “I sent you a pointer. Be ready for combat.”

  “Uhm, I’m hardly qualified—”

  “That Vovokan ship will run itself in a fight,” Telisa interrupted him. “Do you know how to tell it to fight for you?”

  “Yes,” Maxsym said, though his voice cracked.

  “Good. Here’s our course,” Telisa said.

  Under Marcant’s direction, the Terran assault ship lifted off from Celara Palnod.

  Chapter 15

  Siobhan blinked. Dark gray walls surrounded her.

  “Where is it?!” she barked. She spastically turned her weapon left then right, searching for the Trilisk machine.

  After another moment, she saw that the uneven gray tones were not on the surfaces around her: they were shifting shadows beyond translucent walls. She was trapped in an empty transparent box only of perhaps ten meters on a side.

  It’s not here!

  She stood and listened. Nothing.

  No, it’s that I’m not there.

  “Telisa? Team?” Her team channel was empty.

  Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. She saw dark shapes through the walls... banks of alien machines in all directions. There were no portals in the clear walls, the floor, or the ceiling.

  Her stealth sphere had deactivated. It responded to her status request, telling her it was ready to cloak her on command. She was alone and visible.

  “Where am I?” she asked aloud as if pleading for someone to hear her.

  Siobhan reached forward and placed a hand against the wall. It was cool and smooth. She peered through the fog outside but then realized it was not fog.

  That’s water! Or some liquid. An alien environment...

  She spoke her conclusion aloud.

  “Quarus! Frackedpackets!”

  That explaine
d why the machines around her now looked so different. Trilisk constructs almost always had smooth and simple exteriors. Each bank of machinery she saw through the dim water had an accompanying host of tubes and complex surface features. What light there was came from long glow strips on the ceiling outside her prison.

  Movement caught her eye. A dark form approached her chamber from the outside. Siobhan immediately flipped over into stealth mode.

  Something bumped against the clear chamber that trapped her. Siobhan recoiled from the clear wall she had touched.

  “Calm down... calm down,” she said in half-panic.

  Siobhan heard a loud snap, causing her to jump again.

  “Five Holies!” said a familiar voice.

  Siobhan turned to see Telisa9 right beside her.

  “Where? What?” Siobhan asked. Telisa9 did not respond. Siobhan realized her stealth sphere had dampened the sound.

  “Stealth yourself!” Siobhan sent over her link. Telisa9 turned into an echoform overlaid onto Siobhan’s vision.

  “What happened?” Siobhan asked.

  “That Trilisk machine got me. I thought I was dead,” Telisa9 said. “Where are we now?”

  “It’s a reverse aquarium. We’re on the inside,” Siobhan summarized.

  “How could we possibly... end up in a Quarus cage?”

  Siobhan had no answer.

  The dark shape Siobhan had caught sight of earlier neared one of the clear walls. It resolved into a black robot. It had the streamlined shape of a huge fish, much taller than its girth. There were no eyes or mouth, however, where the mouth of a fish might be, a sharp spike extended to tap against the clear wall.

  Even though it seemed futile, Telisa9 and Siobhan both leveled their weapons at the thing. A whining noise started up. A small white spot formed on the clear wall where the thing had contacted it.

  “It’s cutting in here!” Siobhan announced.

  “Why would it do that? We’re trapped.”

  “I don’t know, but it must know we’re here. Our stealth spheres were both off when we arrived.”

  “Prepare your suit for immersion,” Telisa9 ordered.

  “My suit only has a half hour of life support available,” Siobhan said. “That’s mostly water out there, right? We need some kind of electrolysis unit.”