The Spreading Fire Read online

  Cara was halfway down the access ramp when a tall man with close-cut, black hair and a regal face caught her in an enormous bear hug. Ngoba Starl lifted her effortlessly, his refined suit wrinkling against her battered shipsuit and jacket, and he laughed with such deep affection that Cara couldn’t help but feel welcomed.

  It was overwhelming. She didn’t deserve such emotion.

  Setting her down again, Ngoba looked her over with his sparkling, brown eyes, his square jaw set in a smile that said she could never do wrong in his eyes.

  How Cara wished that could be true.

  And was that a parrot settling back down on his shoulder?

  “Look at you,” Ngoba said. “Look at you! I saw the vids, but couldn’t believe it was our Cara come back from the far reaches. Our own pirate captain doing Cruithne proud!”

  Cara couldn’t remember Ngoba’s face ever beaming with such joy. She didn’t know how to respond.

  “I missed you, too,” she said hesitantly.

  “Give her some room,” Fugia commanded. “Let her get down the ramp, for stars’ sake, Ngoba. You’re bawling like a baby.”

  The small woman, her jet-black hair wrapped around her head like two raven’s wings, peered around Ngoba’s back like he was a column in her way.

  “She doesn’t look anything like the vid show,” Petral said, sarcasm heavy in her voice.

  Cara accepted a long hug from Fugia, who whispered in her ear, “It’s about time.” Then Cara moved to tall, long-legged Petral, her purple-black hair and dark eyes alive with movement.

  “Give me a hug,” she said. “How’s my hacker? You still busting into systems?”

  “I’m a little older than that,” Cara said.

  “Enjoy your youth while you can,” she said. “Before you know it, you’re just old and timeless like the rest of us.”

  Cara extricated herself from Petral’s toned arms, and found herself looking at Fran, who was standing at the edge of the group. The woman who had once loved Cara’s dad, Andy, was wearing a utility suit similar to the one Cara remembered, her dirty-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, tools hanging from her worker’s harness.

  “How are you, Cara?” Fran asked, the first person to pause and just look at her.

  Cara felt herself melting under Fran’s deep, understanding gaze. She fought the tears welling in her eyes. She had been so angry at these people for so long when she was younger. Why hadn’t any of them saved her and Tim when her mom left them with their aunt on High Terra? Why hadn’t they stepped in when her mom finally stopped returning contact, and Cara was left in the residential academy, and Tim ran away?

  The memory of Tim’s death struck Cara again as she looked at Fran. She felt the same loneliness and powerlessness, the feelings that had driven her away, out in the dark as far as she could run, finding herself deep in the Scattered Disk, where she forged a new family.

  But she reserved no anger for Fran. Cara knew that she had told her dad she would love him no less if he went back to Brit Sykes—the woman who perpetually ran away.... It was Fran who loved unconditionally, and Cara wished she had reached out earlier.

  The buzz of the now-gone Link suppression rose like a ghost in her mind; a wall between now and everything she should have done before.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Rondo, who was leading Osla down the access ramp, then turned back to Fran and spread her arms for an embrace. She caught the reticence in Fran’s gaze, and then the smile as the woman stepped forward.

  From the direction of the wide opening into the interior corridor, a lone voice shouted, “Chancellor Osla, see me!”

  Cara quickly found a lone man in a blue shipsuit standing in the opening with a fist raised. In another few seconds, a throng of hard-faced men and women followed, dressed in the same suits she recognized from the attack on Luna, armed with rifles, pistols, batons and other bits of junk that might cause harm. Moments later, the entrance was filled with people, and the crowd kept coming.

  “See me!” they shouted. “See me!”

  Osla’s smile had gone from pleased to open rapture.

  * * * * *

  Port Authority klaxons roared to life round the docks. Cara immediately turned to grab Osla by the arm, not letting him go.

  “Did you plan this?” she demanded.

  The chancellor shrugged as he stumbled forward. “When have I had time to plan an escape?”

  “You scheme in your sleep, I can tell.”

  “I’m glad you’ve got such a high opinion of me.”

  Cara pulled him with her free hand, sighting the approaching force with her pistol. While a few of the Andersonians looked confused and uncertain, they were pushed forward by others with murder in their faces.

  “Get behind those crates,” Ngoba shouted The grey parrot on his shoulder swayed as he drew his pistol and side-stepped toward a stack of shipping containers.

  On Ngoba’s signal, Cara switched to the local tacnet to hear the incredulous voice of the port authority officer as he answered,

 

  The officer obviously heard the urgency in Ngoba’s voice. He affirmed the request.

  Ngoba dropped the Link connection to the SF and activated the Lowspin tactical net. Petral and Fran already had pistols pointed in the direction of the approaching Andersonians, though no one had fired yet. It was only a matter of time.

  Cara pulled Osla toward the crates a few meters away. They wouldn’t offer much cover but it was something.

  Ngoba called.

 

  Fugia Wong said.

  Cara looked from the approaching group to Fugia as she decided whether she wanted to stay and fight.

  Ngoba said.

  Cara laughed.

  Petral said, pulling her rifle to her shoulder as she settled in behind a shipping crate.

  Cara asked.

  Ngoba looked at the parrot on his shoulder.

  Cara frowned. Who was he talking to?

  The parrot spread its wings again and tilted its grey head.

  Cara took a second to connect the conversation on the Link with the bird sitting on Ngoba’s shoulder, until each of its gestures locked into place with the voice in her mind, high-pitched but calmer than the humans’ by far.

  The front line of Andersonians formed a line at the edge of a shuttle resting on supports. They seemed to be waiting for some command from the rear, which came without Cara hearing.

  “Here we go!” Petral shouted.

  The Andersonians opened fire with a mix of projectile and pulse weapons. Osla laughed with pleasure as rounds struck surfaces all around them. Cara stopped herself from knocking him unconscious.

  Ducking behind cover, Rondo picked among his coat pockets until he pulled out a piece of fabric that turned out to be a black bag. He promptly pulled it over the chancellor’s head, muffling the laughter.

  “Thank you,” Cara said.

  Crash the grey parrot called, launching off Ngoba’s shoulder. He flapped his wings hard, staying low to the deck, before gliding to another stack of crates.

  With Osla secure between them, Cara and Rondo ran after, zig-zagging on their way to the door.

  * * * * *

  It didn’t take Cara long to realize that Crash the parrot had the ability to
manipulate station systems via the Link. The access door slid open as they approached, and the little grey bird sailed through the exit ahead of the others.

  Once Rondo and Osla were through, Cara paused in the doorway. The corridor in front of them was lined with network equipment and other support infrastructure that made no sound, while the hangar behind them was a chaos of weapons fire, shouting, and clanging metal, as Fran’s drones dropped whatever they could grab onto the Andersonian forces.

  The attackers had brought a chaingun to the front of their line, emplaced it between two crates, and were now walking kinetic fire toward the scant cover where her friends were pinned down.

  “I have to help them,” she told Rondo.

  The big man nodded solemnly, tightening his grip on Osla. “I’m not letting anybody get this one, even if I have to weld him inside a shipping container.”

  Osla released a muffled laugh, and Rondo cuffed him in the back of the head. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”

  Crash asked. He had perched on a bit of conduit ten meters down the corridor.

  Cara said, still amazed she was actually talking to a bird. Was it an AI frame of some kind?

  the parrot said, looking at her with one gold eye at a time.

 

  Rondo said.

  Cara gave him a nod. They had only flown together for a short time, but she was already impressed with Rondo’s courage. Despite the fact that he looked like a malnourished bear on two legs, he thought things through. And he had her back, though he had never said as much. He was acting like crew.

  she commanded, and sprinted back to where Ngoba, Fran, Petral, and Fugia were firing on the spreading Andersonians.

  As she took position behind a disassembled engine cone, she glanced back to find the exit already closed.

  Ngoba said when he realized she had returned.

  Fugia said.

  As Fugia and Ngoba sniped at each other about Cara’s upbringing, Petral lobbed two grenades into the gun nest that was pinning them down. Two explosions followed, flinging bodies in all directions.

  Fran complained.

  Petral gave her a grin and tossed three more grenades. With the chaingun immobilized, Petral moved to a shuttle hull on their left to take up a flanking position as Fran continued to harass their attackers from above with her drones.

  Petral was about to circle behind the Andersonian line, when a group of Admin Security troops appeared in the main entrance. Their sergeant took stock of the situation in a few seconds, likely aided by drone surveillance, and then roared for his teams to flank and enclose. Scant seconds later, the Andersonians were enveloped in crossing fields of fire.

  Cara had moved ahead of Ngoba’s position, scanning the cluttered hangar for anyone who may have come forward of the Andersonian line. As she expected, while the main force was held down by Admin Security, four soldiers armed with rifles were sliding along the wall.

  Sighting in, Cara’s heart pounded as she watched a grizzled soldier raise a sniper rifle to aim at Fran’s center of mass, where she crouched nearby, attention on her drones.

  “No!” Cara shouted, running forward, pistol raised.

  As she expected, the sound drew the sniper’s attention. He lifted his head, then shifted the rifle to aim at her. Cara shot him in the head, then leveled fire on the other three, forcing them back behind cover.

  When she reached the dead sniper’s body, she crouched behind the crate and continued to fire on his comrades. Ngoba and Petral moved up beside her as Cara fired until her pulse pistol’s battery ran dry.

  the Security Force lieutenant called on the general tacnet.

  Ngoba shed his fatigue and answered with a hearty, “Yes, I am. It’s about time you repaid my kindness, Lieutenant Fairly!”

  Cara dropped into a sitting position, catching her breath.

 

  There was no answer.

  PARROT GAMES

  STELLAR DATE: 08.13.3011 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Lowspin Docks

  REGION: Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol

  Jogging after the parrot, Rondo held Adama against his side with one hand, and kept his other hand on Osla’s cuffs, steering him. The narrow corridor had made enough turns that Rondo had lost his bearing on the hangar behind them. He had the feeling they were headed deeper into the asteroid, despite the fact that the deck beneath his boots had switched between worn rock and metal a half dozen times.

  Despite the hood, Osla kept up, shuffling his feet.

  Crash called, pausing on a network box. The parrot stretched his grey wings and nibbled at his chest, apparently unfazed by the constant flying.

  Rondo, on the other hand, was starting to feel out of breath, and Adama was letting his displeasure be known by digging his claws into Rondo’s side.

  Rondo called.

 

  Rondo stopped in the middle of the corridor to catch his breath. Adama took the opportunity to climb up his chest and sit across his shoulders, tail whipping against Rondo’s beard.

  Crash said, sounding surprised.

  There was a friendly curiosity in the bird’s voice that was childlike, while also confident and intelligent.

  Rondo scratched the black cat between the ears and under his chin.

  The immediate purring had a calming effect on Rondo, though he was still worried about Cara. What a mess to have escaped Luna, only to walk into a trap on Cruithne. Did Ngoba Starl know his station had been infiltrated by the Collective?

  Crash flew closer, perching on a conduit that placed him on an equal level with Adama.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Rondo watched the two animals assess each other.

 

  He squinted to get a better look at Crash, whose round eyes swam with whorls of gold and red.

 

  Looking in the bird’s eyes and listening to his calm voice, Rondo felt the weighty realization that Crash was not human or AI.

  Adama stiffened slightly, again digging his claws into Rondo’s shoulder. The cat studied the parrot for an intense few seconds, then relaxed to start cleaning a front paw.

 

  Crash tilted his head, looking at him with one eye at a time.

  “Are you two talking about me?” Osla asked, his voice muffled by the hood.

  “Shut up, or I’ll tape your mouth,” Rondo told him.

  “You’re a jerk,” the chancellor said.

  Rondo directed his attention back to Crash.

 

 

  A squealing sound from the corridor in front of them made Rondo freeze. He listened for a se
cond, then grabbed Adama and slid the cat into his inside coat pocket. Drawing his pistol, he flattened against the wall.

  Rondo suggested.

  <’Crash’ is fine. Can I call you Rondo, like Cara does?>

 

  Crash left his perch on the wall to glide to Rondo’s shoulder. The parrot was lighter than he expected. His wings brushed against Rondo’s ear as he settled into place, claws definitely more substantial than Adama’s needles.

  The sound of hurried footsteps on metal echoed in the corridor, and then a group of three Andersonian fighters appeared around a turn twenty meters away.

  Rondo crouched, making himself smaller against the bulkhead. The maneuver didn’t do much good.

  he said.

  The Andersonians didn’t seem to have seen him amongst the conduit runs he was tucked behind, so Rondo waited until they had cleared the turn by about five meters.

  He was about to squeeze his trigger, when Osla jumped up, shouting, “I’m here! Save me! It’s your Chancellor Osla!”

  “Dammit!” Rondo cursed. He yanked Osla down on his rear, then raised his pistol again and started firing.

  Cara asked over the link.

  * * * * *

  Thankfully, Adama did not dig his claws into Rondo’s side as he fired and slid backward. He hit the closest Andersonian in the thigh, and the man fell against the wall, yelling in pain. The others took a second to realize what was happening before returning fire. Rondo continued to shoot, but his aim was bad this time, the sights swimming in his vision, and the other two insurgents fell back and flattened themselves against the sides of the corridor.

  Ignoring Cara’s hail for the time being, Rondo yanked Osla to his feet and shoved him against the wall.

  “Hey, that hurts,” the man complained.

  “Apparently, you never learned to keep your mouth shut.”