The Texas Renegade Returns

Continued in Part Two: "Lab Rat One"





Lab Rat One Description




Touchstone: Part Two

April to mid-July



In the months since Cassandra Devlin walked off Earth onto another planet, she has grappled with everything from making blankets to helping psychics battle the memories of monsters. Not able to find a way home, she has instead gained friends and a purpose. Unfortunately, that purpose brings with it the pressure of being more than a little valuable, and those she has befriended are also her guards, ordered to explore and control her abilities to find out just what it is a touchstone can do.



Test subject was not the career path Cass had been planning.



With no privacy, too-frequent injuries, and the painful knowledge that she must always be an assignment to her Setari companions, Cass can only wish for some semblance of normality and control.



And as her abilities become more and more dangerous, tests and training may be the only thing capable of protecting Cass from herself.





April


Tuesday, April 1

Fool

April Fool's Day. Totally appropriate for the idiot who turned down a chance to go home to Earth because she thinks she should play hero. Fortunately, all my contribution to the hero-ing business involves is standing where I'm put, ready to be hauled about by the people whose job it is to save the planet, or the galaxy, or however much of the universe is supposedly at risk. And what I've really signed up for is more labrattery, to figure out what 'touchstone' means.

I missed having a diary yesterday, and considered switching to an electronic version, but I'd have to use Taren script. Being able to write in English, to have a book filled with the things no-one here can understand: I think I need it even more now I've decided to stay. This new diary comes all the way from Kolar, and has thick, white-brown paper, and a picture of endless waving grassland on the cover.

Starting fresh like this made me feel like I should write down some missed-it-by-a-few-months New Year's Resolutions, but everything I've thought up so far is something I don't really have any choice about. I can't choose not to be on second level monitoring, and I don't want to resolve to not get injured, or save the universe, or anything completely out of my control. But the least I can do is try to is:

- Make more than a half-assed effort at training.

- Find a way to be Cass instead of Caszandra.

- Remember that even kittens might be evil.

Some of those will probably fall into the too-hard basket as well, but it's something to go on with.

After my meeting with the Nuran, I emailed Mara and asked if I should send her dress to laundry, but she said to just bring it down to her rooms the next morning and we could go on into the city. I was pleased, because I'd been expecting my security to be tightened, not relaxed. The invitation did make me remember "psychological aspects", but I think I'll go nuts if I don't take most things at face value, if I waste my time trying to decide if people like me or have been ordered to entertain me. I have to accept that it's probably both, and move on. Part of my strategy for coping with staying.

Besides, I was very interested in seeing Mara's apartment, which turned out to have the same layout as mine, just with a mildly cluttered and lived-in air. I liked the public space decoration: all the walls looked like gauzy curtains that shifted as if the wind was blowing them. Not what I was expecting for a world where hardly anyone has or wants windows.

"Lohn's just getting ready," Mara said, when I handed over the bag and dress. "Maze's description of your expression when he gave this to you has made me regret not going along to watch."


"Was wondering just exactly what wanted me to do with Nuran," I admitted.

"We're going to have to get you some clothes without unfortunate messages written on them. Sit down."

She took the dress off into her bedroom, and I sat down and was gazing about interestedly when the bathroom door opened and Lohn came out.

"Mar, did I leave my–" He stopped and we looked at each other for what couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds, but felt a good deal longer, and then he turned and went into the bedroom and I thought about how fit and good-looking the Setari are. Lohn's got an incredible body, and has the added advantage of being fun and easy to get along with. Of course, he and Mara are so obviously a couple that I've never spent much time thinking about him in terms of being an attractive male creature, but I gave the question some serious consideration just then.

"Sorry about that," he said, coming out a minute later with Mara, this time with clothes on. Very pink in the face.

"Now you don't get to tease me about dress," I said, trying not to laugh or display any recollection of thoughts about attractive male creatures.

Mara, once she saw that I wasn't going to act like a twelve year-old about seeing a hot naked guy, smiled and said: "I don't think he's capable of that. He's been thinking up silly questions to ask you all morning."

"Is going to be very disappointed then." But I knew he'd ask anyway. I don't mind Lohn's teasing. He's never mean. "Can we really go out into city? Was worried I end up confined to quarters."

"For the moment the rule is that anywhere outside of the core Setari areas you must have at least two people escorting you, and one of them must have Combat Sight." Mara led the way out of her apartment. "If we take seriously the idea of the Nurans having a reason to kill you, then you're a good deal safer anywhere with us than alone in your rooms. Fortunately you were already in a suppression room, but we don't have any real idea of the limits of the Nurans' abilities or whether they'd be able to locate you through the suppression."

"Maze said he didn't have any threat sense from your Nuran," Lohn added. "But called him 'beyond formidable', which is Maze-speak for 'I don't think I could take him'. Still, this idea that they might decide to eliminate you rather than, ah, rescue you is just speculation. For one thing, it doesn't match what little we know of the Nurans' philosophies. And if your talent set really is that rare, it doesn't seem likely that they'll give up on the rescuing option."

I wondered if the Setari would be sent to try and rescue me back, but didn't ask, only hoped it didn't come to that. I sure as hell don't want to play Helen in a space-aged Trojan War.

It was a great day out. We went to a Tairo match, had lunch, shopped a little, and toured some of the more scenic bits of the city. There was a wonderful flower garden, and we spent some time on this amazing game, where the aim is to get from one side of a room to the other, except the room is full of constantly moving platforms going in every direction, and a 'Levitation field' slows your fall if you miss jumping from one to the next. That impressed me immensely, for all that I spend my days with flying psychic space ninjas. I let myself enjoy it all. Lohn and Mara are great together, and they treat me like a younger sister. It was easy to forget they'd probably been assigned to me for the day.

I kept thinking about my decision to stay, about how immediate my refusal to go with the Nuran was. It wasn't just a fit of heroic self-sacrifice. I mean, I'm miserable a lot of the time, and I'll never stop missing my family, or real music, or all the things I liked to read and do which just aren't here. But now that I'm getting better at speaking the language I'm having fun more often, even when First Squad aren't going out of their way to entertain me. Enough to make me wonder if going home to be just another noob at university would be a little bland.

I think in part I've caught Mum's I-want-to-know-what-happens-next disease. And, seriously, visiting other planets, cruising around exploring lost alien civilisations. Working with psychic space ninjas. It's far from dull. I want to help the Setari win. To fix the problem, and stop monsters getting out and killing people. And play more amazing games, and see more planets. I guess, in a stressed, periodically lonely and uncertain of the future way, I'm happy here.

At the least I was in quite a cheerful mood when Zan came swimming with me today, and only briefly wondered if it was her turn on the Baby-sit Devlin Roster. She seemed tired and less Zen than usual. And I think she was curious about the Nuran, since she made a few oblique references to him without outright asking questions. I'm not sure how secret he's supposed to be, but since Zan's one of 'my' captains, I figured it wouldn't hurt to explain what had happened.

We had lunch afterwards, and I told her about April Fool's Day and hoaxes I'd thought funny, and then about that War of the Worlds radio play, where all these people thought Martians really were invading. Then our schedules for the next month were updated, and I'm being posted back to Muina, along with Twelfth, Fourth and First Squad.

When I asked, Zan said she didn't know how she felt about the trip; Muina was a nearly mythical thing in a way and the idea of being able to go there, to touch the past which was so central to her present, was something she wasn't sure she was equal to. That's the most open speech she's ever given me, and it left me pleased but also worried about her.

Twelfth are going to be boring themselves with guard duty at Pandora, and First and Fourth are forming an expeditionary squad with a small team of greysuits to start investigating the biggest of the big cities. This is a lot more dangerous than guarding Pandora, since the Ddura don't seem to sweep places without patterned roofs nearly as frequently. And I'm assigned to Fourth Squad, so a lot of enjoying looking at Ruuel in my future – not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. And Zan might get in a bit of enjoying looking at Maze, heh.

Zan is still the only person here who pronounces my name the right way. Of course, I've never tried to correct the initial misspelling, but I like Zan for paying attention when I first talked to her.

Wednesday, April 2

Moving base

The Nuran is the main reason I'm being sent back to Muina. Not only in the hopes it will make it harder for him to find me, but because KOTIS figures Fourth Squad dragging me around interesting Muinan buildings is the best way to go about finding out what a touchstone is. They're hoping for more security clearance, and I naturally want nothing to happen. Still, on the scale of things I've had to do as part of my career as an experimental animal, exploring lost civilisations rates far higher than blood tests and brain scans.

I'm already itching to be outside, out of Tare's endless box cities, though I'm going to miss Ghost. I did think semi-seriously about smuggling her along in my backpack, but, meh, I don't need another lecture and they might want to capture her again. So far as I can tell, after she escaped she hasn't been sighted by anyone but me. I'm happy to keep it that way.

I'm in 'my' pod again, comfortably surrounded by First Squad. Alay's on the mission, although she's still walking with a pretty pronounced limp. She'll be on limited duty until she can move about properly.

Ruuel is in the opposite corner from me, in the pod Taarel used last time. The pods all face forward, so all I can really see is a bit of arm and a leg right now, but that's probably all to the good. I'm currently in one of my wish-I-didn't-like-him moods. Mainly because of a dream I had last night, where I kept following him around until he gave me this irritated, long-suffering glance and I woke up feeling absolutely mortified.


I guess that counts more as a nightmare than a dream, and I can put it down to a pre-Setari era show I started watching in preparation for working with Fourth Squad called Super Sight Six. Psychic detectives! The main character is a nightmare-ridden Place Sight talent, who is recruited by this hilariously 'New Age Guru' Sight Sight talent. There's a good-looking but temperamental Combat Sight talent, who I bet is going to turn out to be the love interest; a Gate Sight talent constantly distracted by distant, undiscovered gates into near-space; a Symbol Sight talent who loves puzzles; and a Path Sight talent who prowls about restlessly, then bounds off on the track of something. These are the Taren stereotypes of what the various Sights are like, but I'm particularly finding the Place Sight talent's story useful, because it helps me understand both Ruuel and Halla far better. The feelings, even the thoughts of living creatures leave the strongest impressions for Place Sight, and that can be as wonderful as seeing 'patterns of joy' as a musician plays, or as horrible as a brush against someone's arm bringing a flood of hidden hate or lust or resentment. It's considered rude to touch Place Sight talents, and if you do, whatever you're feeling strongly at that point is likely to be very clear to them. Fortunately the visual component isn't as clear-cut, and the touch component usually needs direct contact, meaning the gloves shield most of it. And back when Ruuel and I had our handholding marathon, it hadn't occurred to me to lust after him.

Unfortunately Sight Sight is very visual, and whether through Place or Sight, he is no doubt completely clear on the fact that the enhancing stray thinks he's hot. And who knows what Tsur Selkie has seen watching mission reports?

Cringe factor 9.

Architectural Fail

The Setari squads on this mission are all very upbeat. They like this assignment. Even those who simply consider Muina a part of the past hope that by being able to properly explore it they might find records and explanations and solutions. They so rarely get to do anything except fight an unwinnable war.

I'd wanted to talk to Zan during the flight, but she and Ruuel and Maze went off to be captainly at each other. Still, I had a nice chat with Mori Eyse from Fourth, and Dess Charn and Sora Nels from Twelfth, about our various assignments on Muina. Since I mainly knew Twelfth Squad from the grim race of the Pillar retrieval, I'd been curious to know if they were as temperamental as Lenton, and whether they seemed to resent Zan as much as he does. But they were unexpectedly normal – overly serious as almost all of the Setari are, but polite and with hints of personality behind the rigid professionalism. Very few of the Setari are willing to be 'off-duty' around me, but Twelfth unbent enough to ask questions and have non-controversial conversations.

Pandora looks horrible: a big white blot on the landscape. The main building is up to its third story and still growing, though most of it hasn't had the interiors finished. No sign of balconies, though there's more windows than I feared. There's a bunch of smaller outbuildings which are in use, though – amazingly quick construction. Sora was telling me that they don't dig the foundations, that the buildings send down roots (like teeth, given what they look like) and that fittings like pipes and ducts grow themselves, all based on an immensely detailed scale model. Around the construction site are tents and vehicles and people and dirt trampled to mush, and the beginnings of paths spreading like white filigree.

"How many people are here now?" I asked, as we took one of the floating sleds across to what had become a place I barely even recognised.

"Over two hundred and fifty." I'd asked Mori, but it was Ruuel who answered – since I'm assigned to them, it means I travel with Fourth Squad rather than First, who were on a different sled.

"For now this is Muina's capital," Ferus added. "I was very disappointed that the meaning of the name wasn't included in the announcements."

"Meaning of name is gift," I said. "Or giver of gifts or something like. Been a while since I read Greco-Roman myths."

"Do you know all the different beliefs of your world?" Mori asked.

"Not even close. Earth has hundreds of different languages and cultures. Greco-Roman stuff comes from over six thousand Tare years ago – it's not an active mythology." At least, I'd be really shocked if anyone was actively worshipping Zeus and Hera and all them.

We only spent an hour at Pandora, watching more supplies and people being unloaded from the Litara and waiting for the Diodel arrived. The Diodel's a smaller ship than the Litara, and has been off surveying, and is going to be our base during the mission. It 'beds' (pods) thirty and the crew, in addition to First and Fourth Squads, are a bluesuit called Onara who commands five greensuits, a pinksuit, a medic called Learad with an assistant called Vale, and eight greysuits who are the research team – mainly archaeologist sorts. The head greysuit is a woman called Rel Duffen, who doesn't seem keen on either the Setari or me, but at least isn't overtly hostile.

The pods are in long lines down the centre of the ship rather than grouped in rooms. I'm between the two squads, with Zee in front of me and Sonn behind. And Ruuel one behind her. While I was waiting for the ship to take off I sent Zan an email which said: "On Earth, if someone seemed unhappy but not like they wanted talk about it, I'd send them a message which said *hugs*. If you get any free time, I recommend going to watch the otters." I attached a very badly drawn map, and was glad when she sent me a reply: "Thank you."

I don't want to prod Zan too hard. I'm starting to accept how unlikely second level monitoring makes it for anyone to talk about anything sensitive with me. And how I've got Buckley's chance of being taken off second level monitoring any time this century.

Today's going to be a long day. We're heading to the largest of the old cities, which is several time zones away from Pandora, and the sun will set in our new location well into what would be sleep shift for the squads who started out from Tare this morning. They think the city was once called Nurioth. Guess the Nurans named their moon after it.

Once we were underway the ship captain, Tsel Onara, gave us a to-the-point rundown of what we would be doing that day. Over the last few days the Diodel has been making an air survey of Nurioth, mapping it and looking for a place which was both central and clear enough to set down. They'd located a patch where there were no buildings beneath the trees, so first up the Setari (and me) are going to go down and 'weed' a clearing. They want a very big area, as level as possible, with a large perimeter so they could see anything approaching the ship.

After that, the Setari are going to tour the immediate surrounds and clear out any threats. Depending on what the Setari's threat assessment is, the greysuits may or may not be permitted to enter the nearest building, guarded by a mix of greensuits and Setari. Everyone is to be back at the ship before the sun starts to go down.

Archaeology is a slow business, so I don't see how a team of eight can do anything more than a basic review. They're really just checking to see what the conditions are like here, and whether useful things like writing might be better preserved. We're flying over the city now and it's seriously huge.

Thursday, April 3

Demolition

We levitated down into the park, both Setari squads together, and me tucked under Par Auron's arm. It was a gorgeous park. Tremendously overgrown and neglected of course, but the whitestone paths were still in place, and the leaves were just starting to turn red and yellow, gem-like against black wood. Once the Diodel had stopped hovering overhead and zoomed off to circle the city, birds began to peep and chirp cautiously. We'd come down in a relatively clear section in the very centre, and in one direction was an avenue of trees – the strength of the whitestone had kept all but a few trees to the outside of the path. The spot where we'd set down had a barely visible round shape – either a filled-in pond or a border of a garden – and the plants underfoot were fine and feathery.


"Mark two," Maze said. "Distant."

'Mark two' is a bit like saying 'ten o'clock'. When a squad enters a space, they count the direct left of the gate as mark 1, and continue around to nine for a semi-circle, or sixteen if the gate is central rather than on one side of the space. Since there'd been no gate involved here, they'd set a direction for mark one before leaving the ship.

"Structure at mark five," Ruuel added. "Beyond that is out of range. Sweep?"

Maze nodded. "Take ten to sixteen." First Squad enhanced before heading out, leaving me to trail along with Fourth Squad in a big semi-circle through the half of the park in the opposite direction to the big avenue. I think that half must have been more cropland than park, since there was barely a trace of paving and I saw occasional patches of some kind of grain plant, struggling in the shade of the trees.

Just like with Pandora, the place was seething with life, except some of that life was Ionoth. I guess the memories of monsters are just another predator to deer and pippins, and the miniature pigs, and some things very like chipmunks which I hadn't seen at Pandora. Birds in every direction, especially a really annoying plump and hysterical type which stayed hidden in the grass until you were right on it and then shot up into the sky shrieking its head off. I was busy being guilt-ridden that we were about to level the entire area, and kept thinking of that old song – I've no idea who it's by – that goes "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot". It's not like we don't clear-fell on Earth, but having been fed environmental awareness since grade one, I couldn't help feeling responsible all the same. It overwhelms me at times: accidental or not, I changed a world. Worlds.

First Squad took care of whatever was at mark two with a minimum of fuss, and it wasn't until we were at the mark thirteen that Fourth Squad found anything of interest, pausing.

"Underground," Ruuel said. "Hold here, off surface. Sonn, with me. Stay unenhanced."

That was an odd one. Auron and Ferus levitated those staying behind while Ruuel and Sonn walked to a patch of leaves which seemed totally unthreatening until these huge greyish tentacles whipped up out of holes and tried to grab them. Ruuel cut one in two, dancing back out of the spurt of blackish blood, and then lifted himself and Sonn into the air so she could blast the tentacles with bolts of lightning. Trap-door octopus. Other than that, there was only an encounter with a handful of toothy monkey things, nothing that made Fourth Squad even break a sweat.

It was a big park and too overgrown to walk through quickly, so it was over half an hour later when we met back up at the central circle. Then the stronger Telekinesis talents – Maze, Zee and Ferus (whose first name is Glade, which I thought very ironic) – had a logistics discussion before enhancing and pulling trees from the area I thought had been fields, stacking them to form walls dividing the park into a half with trees and a half without.

You don't just pick up a tree; they're too firmly rooted. Instead they quiver, and rattle from an invisible wind, raining leaves and bugs, then burst upwards in showers of dirt. We kept a respectful distance after the first one, and Lohn and Sonn followed along behind looking alert as scores of critters ran in every direction. Ruuel took everyone else on a little hunting trip after something which had strayed within his detection range, and I trailed along at Maze's elbow, trying not to fall in the holes, and thinking over how much Jules would love to be in my place.

"What are you trying not to laugh at?" Lohn asked me, when we were about a third through the field half of the park.

"Setari have great future landscape gardeners. Get Maze add nice water feature."

Maze heard that, and shot me an amused look over his shoulder, but kept concentrating on uprooting trees.

"Not our usual style of mission, true," Lohn said, surveying the destruction all around, but then giving the telekinetics a narrower glance. "More difficult, in some ways. We're not really designed for sustained output."

That also got a look from Maze, but then he nodded and said over the interface: "This is sufficient clearance. Meet back at the centre point."

We turned and walked back, Maze, Zee and Ferus occasionally filling in the larger holes left behind, or tossing boulders over at the stacked rows of trees. They looked extremely tired, and I was starting to feel that way myself. Enhancing people never feels like effort, until I abruptly fall asleep afterwards. We sat down on the rim of the central circle and waited for the Diodel to show up and kick up a lot of dirt and fallen leaves in our faces and make us really want the shower we were all looking forward to anyway. There's six to share between the Setari and the greysuits, and I wasn't at all inclined to object when Zee took me along for first shot at them, and then to eat and straight to bed. Even though it wasn't yet sunset, it had still been a long day for everyone, and I felt sorry for whichever of the Setari had to sit up during the sleep shift, since someone with Combat Sight has to be on watch at all times.

It's still night out. I woke ridiculously early, well before everyone except the people who were on duty, but that's given me a chance to catch up writing this. I think it will be dawn soon. I'm sitting in the common room area, which has a window giving me a lovely view of darkness. It was a little eerie walking past everyone's pods, the covers all closed and opaque. They have good sound-proofing and I couldn't hear breathing, though there was a hint of someone snoring.

Setari Summer Camp, day one.

Very expensive guards

It was starting to grow brighter outside when I finished writing about yesterday, so I turned out the lights in the common room (faintly chuffed that I could do something like turn the lights out – I still haven't fully recovered from my early days in medical purgatory when I didn't have access rights to do anything). The window wasn't facing fully in the direction of the rising sun, but I still had a great view down a slight slope to a flat area with a large number of buildings, and then a steep rise up a hill and some very impressive buildings on top of it. It's all very overgrown, but beautiful in the dawn, the whitestone gradually picked out in pink light. It must have been a very grand city once.

It was still only half-light outside when I had an uneasy sense of being watched and turned my head to find Ruuel standing looking at me. I've no idea how long he'd been there.

"Is watching the dawn a custom of your home?" he asked, coming over to where I was sitting on a window seat arrangement before one of the long viewing windows: my favourite spot on the ship.

"Think I've seen more Muinan dawns than Earth's." I turned back to the window, since that was the easiest way to deal with how good he was looking just then. "Generally stay up a lot later on Earth, so don't get up as early. Is better when you can hear the birds."

He didn't say anything, so I risked a quick glance at him. Ruuel has a way of gazing off at things – maybe using Sights, maybe just thinking – wearing this distant, contemplative expression which makes me want to stare at him in turn. I hastily looked back outside, and said: "More sensible roofs here."

"Sensible?"

"The trees are what Earth calls deciduous – they're losing their leaves in Autumn – so chances good it snows in this area. Flat roofs like those at Pandora must have needed a lot of clearing in Winter. These almost all seem to be sloped." Though I guess, since they were built out of whitestone, the weight of snow on the roof mightn't be a big problem. "Couldn't work out what they did for heating and cooking, either. Nothing that looked like a chimney or smoke vent in those houses. Only found a couple of kilns or ovens and those were separate from the other buildings. Could find very little information on Tare about what daily life was like on Muina."


"We have lost almost all that we were." He didn't sound particularly upset, but it made me wonder just how much the Nuran had gotten under his skin, saying that Tarens don't even know what Setari means. And almost as if he knew what I was thinking, he added: "If we are to believe the one calling himself Inisar, we are not to be trusted with the past."

"Nurans as human as Tarens or people from Earth. Chances are just as fallible and ready do stupid things."

"An observation almost equal to Tare mostly treating you as civilised people should."

That made me turn around, but he was already walking away. And of course after that I spent the entire day thinking about him and being stupidly aware of everything he did, which was annoying. Being assigned to Fourth Squad is giving me way too many opportunities to look at Kaoren Ruuel, and my resolution to just sit back and enjoy the scenery isn't all that easy to keep.

Otherwise it was an uneventful day for me. First Squad, minus Alay, roamed about killing Ionoth and mapping the immediate area, while Fourth Squad escorted the greysuits about as they uncovered and looked over a small pavilion in the park, and then moved on to the buildings nearest to the ship. The greysuits switch constantly between eager excitement, nervous glances at all that sky without ceiling, and avoiding creepy-crawlies. All of us were slathered in a very effective insect repellant, but every so often someone would turn over a rock and try not to shriek.

I stayed with Fourth Squad, watching Ruuel not reacting to the way the leader of the greysuits, Islen Duffen, made it clear she wasn't interested in hearing the observations of Setari Sight talents. I guess it's true they don't have any formal archaeological or historical training, but Place Sight is a powerful tool, even factoring in the amount of time it's been since anything except animals and Ionoth were here to leave traces of self behind.

If Ruuel cared, he didn't show it. Ferus thought it was funny, and Auron doesn't seem to let much get under his skin. Halla and Eyse were briefly annoyed, then decided to look on the light side. Sonn was fuming, but Ruuel sent her to do a patrol of the outside of the building with Halla, and she'd cooled off by the time she came back. I did school work, and read books, and thought about the enormity of cataloguing an entire city. Even the initial recording of sites, while looking for any kind of writing, will take months. The entire planet will take centuries. Archaeologist is definitely going to be a booming career choice – KOTIS didn't have any on staff until Pandora was founded and Islen Duffen is a brand new recruit, who will ultimately be coordinating an ever-increasing horde of minions if the reclamation of Muina goes to plan.

Fortunately, once the immediate area is a little clearer, fewer Setari will be devoted to babysitting. And, no matter what Islen Duffen's opinion of the value of their observations, Fourth Squad's more likely to be able to detect and analyse strange Muinan installations than any of the greysuits.

And Ruuel has some vestige of a sense of humour and I'm liking him more than ever. Damn.

Friday, April 4

Chipping away at the whitestone mountain

Today was First Squad's turn to baby-sit greysuits, while Fourth Squad continued the wider area patrol. Our survey site was chosen because the buildings in this part of the city are large and suggest importance, and the Setari are systematically going to each one, doing a circuit of the exterior, and then looking inside. The greysuits aren't very keen on the Setari going inside, so they're only allowed to do more than look from the door if they're dealing with Ionoth.

I guess there were bones everywhere, but it was only when we went into some rooms which had been partially closed off that it was really brought home to me that this must have been one of the places where everyone abruptly dropped dead. Where, most likely, the Ddura had killed everyone. It was a lot harder to think of it as a big, lonely energy-dog after seeing so many grey and dusty skeletons lying where the people who lived here had fallen.

Yesterday First Squad were thoroughly tired by afternoon, and this time Fourth Squad were starting to look worn by lunchtime. They didn't do that much fighting compared to clearing the spaces, but wandering around constantly combat alert, and using Place Sight when they thought it appropriate, gets pretty draining after hour upon hour. Setari missions are usually two to three Earth hours, not all-day assignments. They stayed typical Fourth Squad, practically talking in abbreviations while on duty, but I think part of the strain was the place itself, by the history and the deaths of more than memory monsters. When we finished our second patrol loop they were more subdued than businesslike.

Fortunately they're growing a little less formal back on ship, and I ended up sharing a dinner table with Lohn and Mara, Mori Eyse, and the two junior-most greysuits, Katha and Dase, who were very interested in Earth's early civilisations. We moved to the common room afterwards and I tried not to feel too pressured when my attempts to dredge up memories of archaeological expeditions and discoveries on Earth attracted a larger and larger audience. I talked about Macchu Piccu and the discovery of Tutankamen's tomb and even Islen Duffen was interested, though she acted tremendously disapproving and asked lots of Devil's Advocate-type questions. It's so strange to be the only person who knows any of this stuff, and to have my rambling memories treated as important. I wish I'd paid a lot more attention in all my classes.

No-one stayed up too late, though, which was good for me since I had been walking all over the city as well. It's a little hard to tell how much I'm effected by enhancing, but I know I am now, though I wasn't dropping with exhaustion today the way I had been after all that tree-uprooting. Time to go to sleep now, and to try not to think too much about Ruuel asleep two pods over.

Saturday, April 5

Dase

It took me half the day to figure out that Dase (Dase Canlan, one of the junior archaeologists) was trying to flirt with me. Flirt seriously, I mean, not the teasing-flirting that Nils from Second Squad seems to do almost unconsciously. Dase and Katha had asked Islen Duffen if they could explain to me some of what they were doing and rather to my surprise she agreed, so I had some lessons on 'field archaeology'. I do wonder where Taren archaeologists usually do their archaeology – there can't be that much left of the early days of Tare's settlement that doesn't have mega-buildings sitting on it.

Before I twigged, I was just enjoying having some people to chat to who were willing to be not 'on duty' every second of the day. It was only when we went in for lunch that Dase switched more to asking about my family and how I felt about the things I was doing on Tare that it filtered through to me that he was smiling at me a lot. He wasn't pushy or sitting too close or anything; it was just that kind of vibe.

Looking back, it's funny how disconcerted I felt. It's not as if I've never dated. And Dase isn't some damp mouth-breather. Not so fantastically fit as any of the Setari, unsurprisingly, but with this cute, flopping-into-his-eyes fringe. Twenty-two or three, possibly, which still seems too adult to me, but I guess isn't so much older than me. He'd probably score a 7 on the Orlando Bloom-meter, and is a pretty nice guy. A bit earnest.

It's not easy to decide how to react to a guy when you know people are watching. But the main hurdle was that Orlando Bloom would score about a 7 on my Kaoren Ruuel-meter. And Ruuel was sitting at the next table. Fortunately facing the opposite direction, though I held no hope that he wasn't sparing a fraction of his attention to the "psychological aspects". I am part of the Setari's duties.


I dealt with Dase by asking Katha a lot of questions, always keeping the conversation group-focused, acting completely oblivious to any kind of undertone. Hell, for all I know he was just being friendly and I was reading way too much into everything. But I did spend the rest of the day trying to work out how I would feel if I wasn't so fixated on Ruuel.

That wasn't easy, and I had an annoying internal argument about whether or not I should try and get to know Dase better, because it was silly to push a perfectly nice guy away in favour of a one-sided crush. But that's how it is. The thing with Ruuel will either fade or it won't, but right now there's only one person I want flirting with me.

For all that the mind boggles at the idea of Ruuel flirting.

Sunday, April 6

Umbrella of the Apocalypse

Ruuel woke me up just on dawn with an override and a typically curt text message: "Aft lock."

Not sure if it was an emergency, I released my pod's lid, making my nanosuit grow back its feet and gloves as quickly as I could manage. I did bring a bag of normal clothes along, but it's simpler to wear the suit to bed precisely because of mornings like this one, though I guess I mainly wear it because I would have felt embarrassed slopping around in pyjamas while everyone else was in uniform.

Mara was with Ruuel and one of the greensuits, standing on the small ramp down to the trampled dirt outside. Ruuel touched my arm and then turned to gaze into the half-light.

"Possibly just a false alarm," Mara said, squeezing my shoulder in apologetic greeting. "Combat Sight is giving me nothing specific, but I can't escape the sense that something's there."

Mara's turn for the late watch. She'd woken Ruuel, who in turn had woken me because he was no more certain. I looked out at the hazy shapes of the stacked trees and the endless stretch of whitestone buildings. The air was sharply crisp, with a fragment of breeze rattling leaves. Otherwise, nothing.

"No birds," I noted. That early, bird-calls should have been just starting up, but it was like the city was holding its breath.

Ruuel glanced back at me, then nodded at Mara. "Something is coming. It's still in near-space." He set off a full alert alarm and headed back into the ship.

"Go quickly and grab something to eat," Mara told me, after a rather wry look at Ruuel's back. "There's only one thing any of us are likely to be able to sense while it's still in near-space. This isn't going to be easy."

A massive. That's what Ruuel said, as he brought all the Setari and the greensuits and Tsel Onara into a channel and gave them one of his terse briefings.

"We'll retreat," Tsel Onara said immediately.

"No time," Maze said. "If we can feel it, it's right on the verge of emerging. The Diodel isn't manoeuvrable enough to avoid an attack during take-off, even if we could manage that immediately."

I'd run, not to get something to eat, but to go to the toilet and to wash my face. Maze ordered both squads outside even as Mara said: "It's emerging. Mark seven, almost on top of us."

Eight squads. That's what I was remembering as I ran back to the aft lock. The last time they'd fought a massive they'd needed eight squads, and Maze's wife had died. We didn't even have any of the big hitter squads, and for all I knew how much more powerful I made the Setari, I still felt bug-small when I reached the ramp and felt what was above us.

Not with psychic senses. Felt in the way you do when there's something really big moving, like when the Litara is flying overhead. The thing was standing beside the park, not directly over us, and was bigger than the Litara. It had to be one of the weirdest things I've ever seen – a black and bulky central section low to the ground, but with two twisty 'sub-bodies' raised far higher up on either side by scads of long spindly legs which reminded me of the collapsed spokes of an umbrella. I watched one of these reach with a lazily deceptive speed and pluck something from the ground below. It was too far to see just what it was, but the massive moved it over to the central body and dropped it on top.

"We'll draw it away from the Diodel first," Maze said. "Spel, Gainer, Eyse, Halla, remain with the ship on alert for accompaniment."

"First assessment is that it will be resistant to elementals," Ruuel said calmly, and gave me one of the molasses food bars which were standard mission fare. He had a handful of them, was passing them out.

Maze grimaced, but didn't seem particularly surprised, setting the enhancement rotation as he touched my arm. "We'll go over the top," he said. "Don't underestimate the reach of those arms."

Eight people. Instead of eight squads, they were going to try and fight the thing with eight people. But still, even though they were looking super-serious, they weren't acting like they thought it was impossible, so when Auron hitched me into his side all I did was hook my arm obediently across his shoulders.

We went very high very quick, the cold air making my eyes stream. There was a crunching noise below, and I realised it was one of the buildings the massive's main body was resting on. Even whitestone couldn't stand up to the weight of it. After one brief glance where I saw that the top of it looked like a massive Venus flytrap, I didn't look down again.

"Higher – we're in reach," Ruuel said, and we shot up abruptly even as some of the umbrella spokes came toward us. Maze set the tip of one, a horrid fingery arrangement, shrivelling and burning and Ruuel said: "Sonn," which prompted her to drop a ball of lightning down into the mouth, and then we were on the far side.

"The large building at mark nine," Maze ordered, and we dropped down to the roof of a long, single-story building, moving way too fast for my comfort. The fact that I have to be carried instead of levitated makes whizzing about scary.

"Swoops at twelve mark," Ruuel said. "Fast approach."

"Your targets Kettara, Senez." Maze re-enhanced, starting the cycle over. "How much reaction to that lightning?"

Ruuel's eyes were fully open as he gazed back at the massive. "No more than pain."

It was moving toward us, surprising me by being a lot quicker and less awkward than something that big and weird should surely be. Off in the direction Mara and Lohn had gone was the white flash of Lohn's Light wall, and a gargling wail before some heavy things crashed and skidded in the street below.

"Focus debris damage on the join points between the centre body and the outliers," Ruuel continued. "Then debris and elementals on the outliers. They are its weapons."

"Right side first," Maze said, wasting no time in pulling a boulder out of the ground below and hurling it at the massive. It fell short: we were too far away. Even Ferus, who has the strongest Telekinesis of the two squads, couldn't quite reach.

"Haul above," Maze ordered, and he, Zee and Ferus gathered everything loose and heavy from the immediate area – trees and rocks and chunks of broken whitestone – and zipped upwards.

"Retreat back four streets," Ruuel ordered, because the massive was uncomfortably no longer too far away. Auron lifted me, Mara, Lohn and Sonn backward to the roof of a two-story building up the hill, landing just as the others began hurling things downward with maximum strength.

The massive didn't like that. It made a low, deep noise and stopped moving as its right segment was almost completely severed. As the three telekinetics dipped back to the ground to gather more missiles, the massive's two outer segments lowered all their spindly umbrella arm-legs until they were about the same height as the main body. The right segment didn't seem like it was going to drop dead or stop moving just because it was no longer fully joined, although both of the segments had pulled down completely into defensive bunches.


The tiny constellation of the Setari rose again, moving to attack the other segment, which seemed to be tilting so that it faced in my group's direction.

"Scatter!"

I gasped, wrenched by abrupt and rapid movement. Ruuel had stepped behind me, slid both arms under mine, and gone straight up. He'd brought Mara, Lohn and Sonn with us, and Auron followed after a moment's shock. Ruuel was moving as quickly as he could fly and I slid helplessly down, clamping my arms over his and trying not to panic until he bound our suits and I stopped sliding, just as a wave of purplish light washed out the dawn, filling the air with the scent of burning metal.

Both of the outer segments had blasted us, one up at Maze's group, the other direct at mine. We'd managed to move in time, Auron just barely clearing the upper edge of the purple, but the interface showed me Zee's location plummeting in a way which was absolutely wrong.

Maze and Ferus dove after her. Ruuel, breathing hard from the effort of moving everyone so quickly, said: "Swoops from mark four. Auron, take over carriage and bring us rapidly over it and down. Sonn, full power into the detached part."

Ferus had caught Zee. He and Maze paused together, then Maze said, voice tight: "Rendezvous with the others."

Lohn took care of the swoops behind us as Sonn dropped another ball of lightning down onto the damaged segment. We descended rapidly, meeting together on another roof. Zee was limp and still, but I knew from the mission display that she was alive. Ruuel let me go and turned to watch the massive, saying: "It's reorienting."

"Restart enhancement rotation," Maze said, brushing a finger against my arm. "Looks like the second ball of lightning has had some impact. We'll work on detaching the other segment. Keep moving. Spel, join us with Gainer and Halla."

Ferus passed Zee to Auron, enhanced, and then he and Maze took off again.

"We'll work on finishing off the injured segment," Ruuel said. "Kettara, use Light element. The rest, whatever minor seems most likely to damage it." Lohn and Mara re-enhanced, and I went back to being Auron's carting-about problem. I was too caught up in the fight and worrying about Zee to spare much attention to the whole grabbed-by-Ruuel thing. I've been thinking about it plenty since. He was going all-out, at his limit of Levitation and Telekinesis talents, and I could feel his chest move as he gasped for air. If I hadn't been panicking, I probably would have enjoyed that a lot.

The damaged segment didn't seem able to produce the purple beam any more, or didn't have a chance before we rained Light and Fire and Ice down on it. The other segment shot at Maze and Ferus, but forewarned they were able to dodge and pelt it with big chunks of the buildings it had been tromping over. The rest of the Setari swung around and toasted that side as well.

The centre section was still alive, though, and still moving, crushing more of the city in the process. We all dropped down to another roof, very close to it, meeting up with Ketzaren, Alay and Halla.

"Take Annan back to the ship," Maze told Ketzaren. "Spel, enhanced Sonics on the main body."

Alay nodded, taking my hand and squeezing it: I've no doubt I was looking wide-eyed and pale. We all moved back behind her then, with the ship behind us, and I found out that Alay's Sonic talent is a really scary thing. Like Ketzaren's Wind, it's something that takes her a long time to build to a seriously destructive level, but even with our ears covered and not being the focus of her attack, my bones started aching. The massive began to wail and rock, and every bird and animal in its direction which hadn't fled already burst from cover and ran.

It died unspectacularly. I expect if it had anything recognisable as a head, blood would have run from its eyes and nose and ears. As it was, it just stopped moving and wailing and settled down on the crushed remains of the buildings below. Alay stopped shredding our ears and let out her breath. She turned her head and just for a moment I saw her face. Naked. I know that Maze lost his wife in the last massive attack, and now I know that Alay must have lost someone too.

"Escort Ionoth are still emerging," Ruuel said, and added either to me or to our audience on the Diodel: "Massives are usually trailed by other Ionoth, particularly swoop roamers."

"We'll pause here for recovery and then clear," Maze said.

"Pandora control is sending reinforcements," Tsel Onara added, voice crisp but with just a hint of relief, or respect. Massives are well-named.

Most of the Setari began eating the energy bars Ruuel had handed out earlier. I had mine in a pocket, but ignored it, for all I was really hungry. I figured it wouldn't be that long before we went back to the Diodel and had some food which didn't leave a tarry-sweet aftertaste in my mouth.

Lohn came over and gave my shoulders a squeeze. "Remember when you asked if enhancement was worth all the complication of rotations?" he asked. "This is what it comes to – the difference between dozens of us bouncing attacks off one of these things, or a handful with enough impact to penetrate its defences."

I smiled a bit weakly, feeling shakier than I usually do after working with the Setari, and asked: "How bad is Zee injured?"

"Her vitals are steady," Maze said, coming across to give me a quick captain-survey. "The attack seemed to be electricity-based, intended to stun prey and not strong enough to kill a healthy person. Though it would be another matter if we'd not caught her." He gave Ferus an approving glance.

"Surion."

There was something in Ruuel's tone which made us all look at him, and then follow his gaze to a building far up the hill. Two dark figures were watching us. Distance and the thin light of dawn made detail unclear, but I knew them anyway. Cruzatch.

I glanced at Maze, but he was being pure captain, surveying the watching pair before saying: "Any others?"

"Not that I've sensed."

"Out of range of an immediate kill." Maze frowned. "The nearest gate to that location is one street beyond. We'll feint a retreat back toward the ship, then split and attempt to circle and catch them between us."

Ruuel nodded, and the Setari broke into two groups, Auron tucking me under his arm again. They were very intent, grim. I guess, since Maze thinks the Cruzatch are organised and actively working against the Setari, he didn't want to give them a chance to report back.

When we split, Fourth Squad headed straight for the gate while First took a swift, circling loop toward the Cruzatch. One of them launched itself at First, while the other did as Maze had predicted and went for the nearest gate.

I'd not seen a Cruzatch fighting before. There's an eerie similarity to the Setari in their speed and the way they grow weapons – though the Cruzatch Ruuel fought created long claws from its fingertips rather than a sword from its arm. It was very fast, too, if no match for Ruuel, especially Ruuel enhanced. The thing I hated, though, was the way it almost seemed to be getting off on fighting him, like it knew it would just come back if he won.

"Clear the emergents and rendezvous back at the Diodel," Maze ordered, and we spent another half hour chasing down swoops and one of those stilt things. Then it was hot showers and hot food and First and Fourth Squad were just about recovered from their wake-up call when two shuttles from Pandora arrived. It had a bunch of greysuits who wanted to investigate the massive, and more greensuits, and Ninth Squad, which I'd had nothing to do with before.

I took the opportunity of everyone being distracted by their arrival to go see Zee. She was still unconscious, looking very crumpled and bruised for such a tall, fit woman. The doctor's letting me sit with her, and they think she should wake up soon, but I've managed to write this entire diary entry without her so much as twitching.