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

  “Our problems are much more immediate,” Telisa9 said. “First off, if that thing makes a hole the outside pressure is coming in here. We could be crushed. Secondly, if we survive that, I suspect that robot is not nice.”

  A sharp snap announced Caden’s arrival in the cage. One attendant had arrived with him; it immediately started to orbit him.

  “Welcome to the party,” Telisa9 said dryly over their link connection.

  “Stealth yourself!” Siobhan snapped.

  His eyes widened.

  “Siobhan? You’re alive! We’re alive!”

  Siobhan smiled to see him, even in such dire circumstances. “Maybe not for long.”

  Caden saw the danger quickly.

  “What’s that thing?” he asked. He faded from sight to be replaced by his echoform.

  “Which one do you mean? The Quarus robot drilling in here?”

  “We don’t know that’s a Quarus machine,” Telisa9 corrected.

  “Why did it put us in here just to cut us out? This is crazy,” Caden said. He sounded more stressed than Siobhan had ever heard him.

  “The Trilisk machine did this,” Telisa9 said. “Not the Quarus, I think.”

  Siobhan tried to remain calm and think about that for a moment.

  That Trilisk thing could probably have killed us. But it sent us here... to die?

  Another shadowy form materialized from the murk behind the robot. It was a monstrous looking thing with four long, chitinous legs. The legs intersected at a softer-looking round mass, waving with tentacles. Siobhan blinked. Her mind tried to resolve the shape as a giant octopus eating a spider crab, but it did not quite work.

  “Is that a Quarus?” she asked.

  At first, the others could not tell what she referred to, but they found it quickly.

  “Ugh! Purple paste!” Caden commented in disgust.

  “Is that one organism?” Telisa9 asked.

  “The legs look like crab legs,” Caden said. “The rest? Ugh! It’s going to cut in here and kill us! I say we open fire now,” Caden said.

  “Yes. What choice do we have?” Siobhan agreed.

  “Calm down!” Telisa9 ordered. “I want non-suicidal ideas, people.”

  Arakaki appeared beside her with a loud snap.

  “What—”

  “We’re trapped in a cage, and a robot is drilling in here to get us,” Siobhan summarized.

  Arakaki activated her stealth sphere. “Let it weaken the wall for us,” she said. “It’s not getting in. We’re getting out.”

  “We’ll be easy targets once this fills with water,” Caden said.

  Arakaki took a second to digest the situation.

  “We all have suits, and we have at least half an hour of oxygen,” Arakaki replied. Her echoform tossed her projectile weapon aside and drew a laser pistol.

  “I don’t think that laser is going to work with bubbles in the water,” Caden said.

  “Well, it’ll be better than the submachine gun,” Arakaki said. “Besides, there are no bubbles yet.”

  “Keep them both,” Telisa9 said. “We might find a way up and out of here.”

  Arakaki shrugged and retrieved her carbine from the floor.

  Up out of here? It’s a long shot, but worth a try.

  “The ceiling,” Siobhan said. “I say we blow a hole through it while we still have air.”

  “There’ll be water on the other side!” Caden protested.

  “Gravity is pulling us this way,” Siobhan pointed out. “The best way to escape liquid is to ascend out of it.”

  “Why is the ceiling curved like that?” Arakaki asked.

  “It does curve. Are we in space or under an ocean?” Caden asked.

  “Too many unknowns,” Arakaki said. “We could be in a submarine under the surface.”

  “The ceiling might curve for added strength against huge pressures,” Telisa9 said.

  “The gravity here is stronger,” Siobhan realized.

  “Are you sure?” Caden asked.

  “Yes. It’s strong,” Siobhan said. “We aren’t on Celara Palnod anymore.”

  Abruptly a spray of water erupted from the cell wall where the alien machine had been working.

  “Time’s up!” Arakaki said.

  Telisa9 pointed to the ceiling. “Do it!”

  “Protect your heads, this may ricochet,” Arakaki said. She pointed her carbine upward and at an angle that would direct projectile bounces into the far corner of the chamber. Then she covered her face with her other armored arm.

  Siobhan told her suit to extend its helmet and looked away with an arm over her face.

  Ratatatat! Ratatatat!

  A hissing noise followed the immensely loud gunfire. Siobhan’s ears popped. Her suit’s soft faceplate flipped down and hardened into a visor. At the same time, she felt the suits’ gloves deploy over her hands. She clenched her new hand. She could feel the glove on it, but the sensation did not feel normal yet.

  “Okay, that was not expected,” Arakaki said.

  Siobhan looked up. The weapon had punched holes in the ceiling. Instead of water coming in, their air had blown out.

  Siobhan looked back to the wall of the cage. The machine was drilling another hole. The pressure of the water coming through the first opening was strong, but not as bad as Siobhan had feared. Also, the clear material that had been breached did not give any signs of nearing catastrophic failure.

  “The water isn’t spraying in that hard,” Arakaki said. “We aren’t at the bottom of an ocean. Probably a shallow body of water or a spacecraft.”

  It has to weaken that panel some more. We have a little more time!

  Telisa9 tried a laser on the ceiling. It cut through, so she connected the holes so that a piece the size of a large dinner tray fell down into the cage.

  “It’s a double bulkhead,” she said, shining her weapon’s light into the hole. “There wasn’t any water inside!”

  “So if we cut through the next one, will it fill with water or eject us into space?” Caden asked. Siobhan heard the desperation in his voice and felt the same in herself.

  “Into space,” Telisa9 answered. “Our last attendant just verified that there’s vacuum beyond this second bulkhead.”

  Fight in water or be ejected into space? How did we get into such a terrible position?

  “That space up there was not pressurized. We haven’t lost all the air, but we lowered the pressure considerably,” Telisa9 said.

  “Making it easier for that thing to break in,” Caden said. Siobhan supposed he might be right. The pressure on their side had been reduced.

  Two streams of water flowed into the cage now. The machine drilled at the third corner of about a square meter.

  “The water will flood this part,” Telisa9 said calmly. “We should crawl up there. It’s cover, and we can fight.”

  But we’d be trapped up there.

  “If they damage the other bulkhead, we’ll be blown into space,” Caden pointed out.

  “You’d rather stay here and fight those things underwater?” Arakaki snapped. She threw a smart rope into the hole. The rope slid itself upward into the space they had discovered, forming a ring around the far side of the ragged hole to anchor itself.

  The team scrabbled up into the space between the bulkheads in record time. More water sprayed in below them.

  “I could use the rest of the power in this laser to boil a bunch of water. Even though it wouldn’t be air, just water vapor, it might increase the pressure enough to keep this space from flooding?” Arakaki suggested.

  This is hopeless. We need to make a game-changing move, not hide here and die. Siobhan spotted their last remaining attendant and had an idea.

  “No. Punch a hole in the next bulkhead,” she said.

  “What?” everyone else said simultaneously.

  “Get me a hole big enough to get this attendant out. It can operate in space and send a message. Let the rest of the team know we’re in trouble!”


  Big trouble.

  “What? Into the vacuum of space that’s beyond this?” Caden asked.

  “Screw ourselves to let it out?” Arakaki asked, joining Caden in protest.

  “Yes. We let it out and send a message for help. Does it look like we’re getting out of here by ourselves?”

  As she spoke, a section of the clear material below gave way. Huge amounts of water poured into the chamber where they had been trapped.

  Telisa9 looked thoughtful. “Punching a hole in the outer bulkhead could be catastrophic.”

  “A ship this advanced will have patching protocols in place. Most likely it will repair itself within a few seconds,” Siobhan asserted.

  “It might repair it by filling this entire bulkhead space with quick drying foam,” Caden said.

  “We’re desperate. I say we get word out,” Siobhan said. The water level had almost filled the chamber below, and it was still rising.

  Arakaki shrugged. “Okay. I’m in.”

  “Do it,” Telisa9 said.

  Arakaki shot a projectile into the outer bulkhead. The round shattered. Siobhan felt her Veer suit absorb a ricochet.

  “This one’s much stronger.”

  “Grenade,” Telisa9 instructed. “Tell it to direct the energy toward the bulkhead, focused to a little larger than an attendant-sized area.”

  Arakaki took out a grenade and told it to attach to the ceiling as water started to fill their chamber. She motioned toward the other side of the space.

  “Get some space,” she said. “As long as the grenade’s not in the water, I hope the shock wave won’t be too much.”

  Everyone dropped to the floor. Churning water continued to come in through the hole they had created. The air pressure rose to resist it, slowing the flow. Siobhan grimly realized that if they were indeed in space, blowing a hole in the ceiling would break the equilibrium and they would lose what air they had left. If enough pressure was lost, the water would boil away, too.

  What other choice do we have? They were alone on an alien ship and it was filled with water, not air.

  Siobhan had time to glance below as the water covered her faceplate. She saw the thin robot smashing through a plate of the cage and struggling to enter the chamber below. She glanced at her new hand, even though she could not see it directly with her Veer suit’s gloves extended.

  Of all the times to have a new hand... I don’t need any more problems!

  Ka-Wump!

  The blast still caused a shockwave she could feel, even with the grenade programmed to hit the hull with everything it had. The outer shell of the grenade blasted away and struck the water. Suddenly Siobhan could barely see anything. The room filled with swirling water and bubbles.

  Here we go.... vacuum!

  Her heart pounded in her chest as a new release of adrenaline poured through her blood.

  Even for me, this is crazy...

  “I sent the attendant through!” Caden told them.

  The water continued to boil away. Siobhan assumed that they had created a hole into space which was sucking away their air and the water vapor. A hand grabbed her wrist.

  “Hold on here!” Caden told her.

  She felt the edge of the hole they had created to get through the inner bulkhead. She grabbed it and held on. She could feel water moving into the chamber, causing her body to shift about.

  Siobhan was not sure if it had been five seconds or fifty, but finally, the chamber calmed. She did not look up to catch a glimpse of how the hole might have been patched; she was concerned about the things below them.

  “They’re right below us now,” Siobhan warned. She felt completely unable to defend herself.

  Their space was now almost full of water after the boil-off and the new seal.

  The ship is compensating as we predicted. It makes sense, they must be able to maintain the environment within their norms, as long as the damage is not too severe.

  “Argh!” Arakaki erupted.

  “What is it?” Caden asked.

  Hisssss.

  Arakaki fired her laser downward. Then she swam to one side as bubbles rose from below.

  “It’s that robot,” she said. “It burned me. I don’t see the alien.”

  Siobhan could not tell how bad Arakaki had been hurt through the cloaking. Her echoform appeared intact, but Siobhan did not know how accurate that was.

  “It probably fled when we breached the outer hull,” Telisa9 said. Siobhan saw Telisa9 held her breaker claw.

  “Don’t!” Siobhan urged. “If it explodes nearby in the water, we’ll be crushed by the shock wave.”

  Underwater pressure waves were especially dangerous for creatures with air-filled lungs, even when they wore Veer suits. The explosive grenades would be dangerous. The same went for their breaker claws, which often caused explosions when part of their targets’ power rings became insulative.

  “My laser didn’t stop it!” Arakaki said.

  “Take turns, clockwise from me, hit it with your lasers,” Telisa9 said, pointing her laser pistol at the opening. She fired.

  Caden was next. His rifle was harder to line up, so he stood and shot downward. Siobhan could barely see evidence of the shots in the water, but tiny particles must have been absorbing the energy and burning, causing a slight glow in the initial path.

  “I got a kill confirmation,” Caden said. Siobhan felt a huge relief. It had died easier than she thought it might.

  “Everyone down there. We need to rally and hit them before they feel safe again,” Telisa9 said. “Siobhan, find oxygen or a power source.”

  Siobhan thought Telisa9’s idea was sound. The hole in the hull would have caused the aliens below to scramble to secure themselves. Once they realized the breach had been fixed, they would come back.

  The adrenaline flowed through her system. It usually made her feel better than this. Being trapped on a Quarus ship was not a flavor of excitement she enjoyed.

  At least it’s warm, she thought. But not too warm.

  She wondered what would have happened if the water had been above Terran body temperature. The suits would only have been able to keep them cool for so long without any way to evaporate moisture.

  “It could be worse,” she told Caden privately.

  “We’ll make it,” he said.

  She smiled. She was usually the one telling him some crazy thing would work.

  Arakaki led the way. She swam through the hole back into their ‘cage’ followed by Telisa9. Caden swam through next. Siobhan paused to look at the ceiling. Only a slender pocket of air or water vapor remained at the top of the little chamber. It did not look like enough for even one breath. She swam down through the hole after her teammates.

  “If there were any real troops in here I think we’d already be dead,” Arakaki transmitted. She held a laser in one hand and a long blade in her other. Siobhan assumed it was one of the amazingly sharp blades that were dangerous to carry.

  Our lasers barely work, we’re afraid to use breaker claws... grim. She supposed an elite soldier in her position would make a joke about alien sushi with great elan.

  Siobhan’s link received a notification that Arakaki fired her laser. Siobhan saw a flash in the water. Siobhan did not know what she could do to help, so she turned to cover the flank. She immediately saw a torpedo-shaped machine with four mechanical arms pulling away a section of the cage.

  “Robot over here,” Siobhan snapped.

  “Take it out,” Telisa9 said. “No breakers.”

  Siobhan did not want to use the laser. She knew that energy could provide oxygen. Instead, she manually selected her PAW’s projectile weapon and configured it for underwater. In a second the weapon told her it had adjusted the settings, but did not have the correct type of ammunition for submarine use.

  “Cut that leg off!” Caden called out. Siobhan assumed he was talking about another fight.

  Siobhan pushed off straight for the robot, bringing her to point blank range and f
ired anyway.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Bubbles erupted outward from her weapon, accompanied by vibrations she could feel through her suit. The robot was obscured. The rounds did not report any hits.

  No way I missed! It’s got to be that those rounds don’t work right underwater.

  The bubbles cleared away, revealing that the machine had been torn open. It sank in two pieces, arms still. She smiled.

  Knew it.

  Siobhan swept for enemies again and did not see any. She turned and swam toward the others. She saw Arakaki riding a long crab-arm with her blade out. She sliced through the limb, detaching it and dropping her back to the floor. Bright red blood poured through the water.

  Siobhan tried to assess the damage to the alien.

  “Are you winning?” she asked urgently.

  “It’s hard to kill,” Caden said. He placed the end of his combo rifle against the mass at the center and fired.

  Thump, thump.

  More blood and bubbles exploded through the water.

  “Hold your fire. I think it’s dead,” Telisa9 said.

  “It’s still moving!”

  “I think it’s... I think that’s how it dies.”

  Siobhan noted the Quarus had many tears in its flesh. Two of its huge legs had been carved off. It still moved, but not in any coordinated fashion. Ugly short tentacles waved around its body.

  “We need to find oxygen or start producing it,” Telisa9 said.

  “That drained our cells even further,” Arakaki noted grimly.

  “We can use the cell in my stun baton,” Siobhan offered.

  “Caden, find materials we can use to separate and collect oxygen. Siobhan, see if you can detect any free oxygen around here. For all we know, there’s a tank full of it in this room.”

  Caden started to search. “These machines are so blocky. I don’t think they’re filled with water. I think the spaces inside are mostly solid,” Caden said.

  “Well, if they were hollow, then any electrical connections would short,” Siobhan said.

  “Theories,” Telisa9 said.

  Siobhan half walked, half swam around their cage, scanning. Caden ripped a clear hemisphere of glass or plastic off one of the machines. Siobhan assumed it was to collect gases.