Deimos Station by I O Adler

Author:I O Adler [Adler, I O]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lucas Ross Publishing
Published: 2021-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

The worm exhaled puffs of reeking vapor when it spoke. Even if unintended, the alien’s boisterous tone struck Carmen’s ears as overbearing and disdainful.

Her mom translated. “We’re about to approach Earth and you need to understand the situation.”

“Then please explain,” Carmen said.

“The former Primary wishes that the stars will guide your thinking and grant you wisdom. It’s a customary statement, not intended to imply a belief in a higher power.”

“Get on with it, Mom.”

The worm went on for about a minute before it finished.

Sylvia took a moment to compose herself. “The One isn’t just a danger to us and our crew. Their kind’s ships have always been groundbreaking. But their tech has never been known for being safe. It was one of their star runners, essentially a freighter faster than anything anyone on the Framework possesses, which exploded and took out most of the survivor fleet. Two more of their ships were navigating past Earth when they likewise went up. The only reason the Melded consented to join the Framework was that the One’s current vessel doesn’t possess one of their antimatter drives and is little more than a runabout, never mind its size.”

“You’re saying the One’s this big enemy?”

Her mom didn’t wait for the worm to answer. “No. The enemy is real. But the One is dangerous and is willing to risk everyone’s lives to rebuild one of their ships so it can flee.”

“What happened with those ships?”

The worm churned out a long answer. It and Sylvia had a momentary nonverbal exchange before she explained.

“We don’t know exactly. Either a chain reaction or some guidance system caused a critical error. They had four ships. They all exploded. Unfortunately, anyone in range who might have recorded the event didn’t survive. Those who did were either lucky enough to be behind a planet like Mars or far enough away that they only suffered the partial effect of the explosions. And by explosion, I’m talking about an event which affected our entire world.”

“Why is the worm explaining this to me?”

“Because I asked him to,” Sylvia said without missing a beat. “We weren’t kidnapping you or She Who Waits. We’re going to bring the harvester back to the Framework like we said. But now you know why we’re afraid of what will happen if we delay our departure. Because the Framework, by mutual accord, will distribute its resources to everyone. The Melded are concerned about the delay. Our adversary will find us if we stick around. And we can’t wait for the One or anyone else to waste our chance at bringing the fight to the enemy.”

Carmen took a moment to process what her mother was saying. Was about to bite her thumbnail but stopped herself.

“Is there really an enemy out there?”

“You saw the Cordice’s replay of what happened on their world.”

“Yeah, more than once. But do they know the survivors are here?”

Sylvia and the worm had another exchange, which only appeared to make the former Primary angry.

“It can’t be said with certainty,” Sylvia said.

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