It was there that Hayden found General Haeri and Caleb. The latter was lying flat on a chair similar to the one Rush had put Hayden in, a single robot arm floating on the left side of Caleb’s head, about to insert the smallest needle he had ever seen into the Marine’s brain.

  Haeri was standing next to the desk where the lead engineer sat, monitoring the arm’s progress from his terminal and entering commands into the computer. He was a small man, angular and lean, with short black hair and an intense face.

  “Sheriff Duke,” Haeri said when he walked in. “Let’s talk in the hall.” The two men went out of the room. “What happened with your arm?”

  “The ring’s too damaged,” Hayden answered. “Rush says he can’t replace it and doesn’t have anything he can attach to it. So, either engineering can fix the augment or I’m down to one hand.”

  “I see,” Haeri said calmly. “I’m sorry about your situation. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “What are they doing to him?”

  “We already ran an MRI and CT scan on Colonel Card’s head to locate the data repository. We weren’t completely sure what we were looking for, and neither was he, but it became apparent straight away. The scanning AI picked up an anomaly near his left temple, right behind the frontal lobe. A foreign body, only three microns in size.”

  “So Valentine didn’t put the data directly into his memories?”

  “No. He told me how she grabbed him. She inserted the data package into his head for safekeeping. The needle you saw has a one-micron tip. Once it makes contact with the data repository, we’re hoping it’ll form a link and we can download the data.”

  “What if it doesn’t form a link?”

  “Riley Valentine expected Caleb to return the data to us. It wouldn’t make sense for her to give us a package we can’t open.”

  “Pozz.”

  “If you come back inside, we can watch the proceedings.”

  Hayden followed Haeri back into the room. They stood next to Turi in the back, observing while the lead engineer helped guide the needle. The arm shifted closer and closer to the side of Caleb’s head, the tip of the needle beginning to press into the bottom of his skin.

  “Colonel Card, the needle is about to pierce the skin,” the engineer said. “Whatever you do, don’t move.”

  “Roger that, Nitch,” Caleb replied, surprising Hayden. He hadn’t realized Caleb was fully alert during the process.

  “Here we go.” Hayden watched as a line of blood formed around the needle as it sank into the skin, pausing when it reached the skull. “Activating the heat. This might hurt a bit. But again, don’t move.”

  He shifted his eyes to Caleb. The Marine’s jaw clenched visibly, but he didn’t move or make a sound. The needle remained fixed in place for a few seconds before continuing its journey.

  “We’re through the skull,” Nitch said. “Approaching the package.”

  Hayden turned his attention to the display in front of the engineer. A 3D view of Caleb’s brain was visible on the screen, the needle sinking toward a small dark spot. He stared at it while the needle shifted ever so slightly, dropping into the brain and stopping as it touched the spot.

  Caleb screamed.

  “Shit,” Hayden said as the Marine’s arms and legs started to flail.

  “Hold him down!” Nitch snapped.

  Hayden, Turi and Haeri sprang into action, grabbing his arms and legs and holding them steady. Caleb continued to scream, so long and loud Hayden couldn’t believe the size of his lungs.

  “Link activated,” Nitch said excitedly. “Beginning download. Someone grab his head. Make sure it doesn’t move.”

  Caleb suddenly stopped yelling, his body falling limp. Turi shifted upward to hold Caleb’s head in place.

  “How long will this take?” Hayden asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nitch replied. “There’s no way to tell how big the dump is.”

  “Is he stable?”

  “His vitals are stable,” Turi confirmed. “I’ve got his head.”

  “I’m okay,” Caleb said, eyes opening. “That hurt more than anything I’ve ever felt before, but it’s gone now. Nothing to do but wait.”

  “Nitch,” Haeri said. “While we’re waiting, can you take a look at Sheriff Duke’s augment? It was damaged during a fight.”

  “Why not have Peter replace it?”

  “Can’t,” Hayden said. “It’s fix this one or lose it completely.” He shrugged out of the coat, turning his damaged arm toward the engineer.

  Nitch turned on a light at his desk and pointed it at the arm. Then he looked up at Hayden. “What the hell were you fighting that did this?”

  “The ugly alien bastard who killed my family,” Hayden replied.

  “Did you win?”

  “Pozz.”

  Nitch smiled. “Good. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Hayden nodded. He wasn’t going there right now. “Can you fix it?”

  Nitch examined the arm for nearly another minute. Then he got to his feet. “Wait here.”

  “Can you fix it?” Hayden repeated impatiently.

  “I can improve on what you have right now. It’ll never be as good as new again.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Then wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  52

  Nathan

  “That’s the last of it,” Hicks said through the comm.

  Nathan looked over at the Parabellum. The final crates were in the arms of the deputies, on their way into the cavern. He was holding the Dragon Claw launcher and its missiles back for immediate defense.

  “Just in time too,” Isaac announced. “General, we’re about to have company.”

  Nathan sprinted away from Max toward the dropship, his new armor carrying him quickly across the terrain.

  “General,” Max said. “I have everything I require. Shall I return to the lab, or remain here to defend?”

  “Come get the QDM and take it back to the Pilgrim,” Nathan said, making it to the Parabellum. He grabbed the case holding the three remaining rounds for the Dragon Claw along with the launcher, hefting them over his shoulders. Max came up the ramp as he turned around.

  “Consideration,” Max said, stopping in his path.

  “What is it, Max?”

  “I have been processing. There may be a way to remove the rubble from above the starship. But there is also risk involved.”

  “How much risk?”

  “If it doesn’t work, it will destroy the ship. And probably us as well. Hahaha. Haha.”

  Nathan stared at the Intellect. What if it did work? Could they put the Pilgrim into orbit? How would that help? It might prevent the Hunger’s ground troops from reaching them, but the enemy ships were spaceworthy too, and the Pilgrim had no defenses.

  “I appreciate the thought, Max, but I don’t think it’s worth it. The Relyeh ships would eat us alive.”

  “Negation, General. Those are transport vessels. Their armament is light and limited beyond atmosphere and gravity. We can use the QDM to erect a shield around the ship, much like the shield you said you had around Edenrise. Against a Relyeh mastership, the shields wouldn’t last very long. Against transports? We can probably hold out for days. Consideration. If the Pilgrim’s thrusters are powerful enough, we can outrun the transports. Calculation. If we can limit the enemy’s firepower, we can stymie them for weeks. Yes. I do believe this is a good plan. Hahaha. Hahaha.”

  “But we need to be here on Earth to use the interlink, don’t we?” Nathan asked. “And what about the portal? Didn’t you say it can’t be moved?”

  “Confirmation. We will hold the Pilgrim in line with the portal’s original coordinates for as long as we can. That path through space is important, not the specific placement. Also, the signal from the interlink will be easier to transmit globally from orbit. It’s what you used to call a win-win.”

  “We still do call it that,” Nathan said. “And it sounds like a great idea. How do we make it happen?”

  “First, it will require sharding the QDM.”

  “Sharding?”

  “Cutting pieces from it. This will begin the destabilization process for the shards. Then, with enough energy focused on them, we can break them down completely. When that happens—”

  “Let me guess,” Nathan said. “Boom.”

  “Affirmation. Boom. Hahaha. Haha. Enough boom to send tons of rock flying. But we must shard the QDM and seed the area with shards correctly, or we will boom the starship too.”

  “Nobody wants that.”

  “Negation.”

  “How long do you need?”

  “I prefer an hour.”

  “We don’t have an hour.”

  “Affirmation. I require at least ten minutes.”

  “Ike, how long until the Relyeh forces get here?”

  “Three minutes, General.”

  “Shit. Max, can you do it in three?”

  “Boom,” Max said in reply, moving his hands to signal a massive explosion.

  “Okay.” Nathan opened a channel to everyone in range on his combat network, nearly a hundred deputies in all. “Attention all hands. Attention all hands. We have a plan to get the civilians to safety, but I need your help. We need to buy Max some time to work after the enemy has already arrived. We need to get him five minutes. Understood? Five minutes. I want all available units outside the cavern immediately. I repeat, immediately. This may be our one and only chance to keep both the civilians and the interlink safe and preserve Sheriff Duke’s opportunity to help us save what we have left. Shout ‘oorah’ if you’re with me!”

  “Oorah!” the shout came back, louder than Nathan expected.

  “Squad leaders, you’re in charge of distributing the arms we brought back from the weapons cache. Every fighter should have an MK and two magazines at an absolute minimum. If we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down fighting. Understood?”

  “Oorah!”

  “Once Max says he’s ready, we’re going to lay down cover fire and retreat one squad at a time in reverse order. That means Alpha, my squad, will bring up the rear. I’ll be the last one out, or I’ll die holding them back. Ike, as soon as we’re clear you need to blast the field with everything you’ve got and get the Parabellum into orbit as fast as possible. Understood?”

  “Roger, General,” Isaac said.

  “Oorah!” the rest of the people replied.

  “Whatever happens next, it’s been an honor serving with all of you.”

  “Oorah! Oorah! Oorah!”

  53

  Hayden

  “How is that, Sheriff?” Nitch asked.

  Hayden turned the arm over, bending it at the elbow. The range of motion was limited, the repairs allowing it to move from a straight one hundred eighty degrees to a slightly bent one-fifty. He tried the shoulder, rotating it up and out. Similar to the elbow, its motion was limited, but with a little extra effort he managed to get it into a decent position to aim a gun. He opened and closed his fingers next. Nitch had removed one of them because it wasn’t responding to repairs and would have gotten in the way. The rest did what they needed to do.

  “Better than when we started,” Hayden replied. “Nice work.”

  It was more complicated than he had ever expected. The engineer had spent an hour removing damaged parts, another hour modeling and replicating new ones, and then a third hour painstakingly picking apart tiny wires and servos and putting them back into place. While he was doing that, the download from Caleb’s brain had completed, and Caleb, Haeri and Colonel Barth had retreated to another room to begin reviewing the data.

  “Your patience helped a lot,” Nitch said. “Most people don’t have tolerance for such intricacy.”

  “My wife was an engineer,” Hayden said. “So I know how it is.”

  “Really?”

  “You would have liked her.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “Everyone liked her.”

  “I’m sure I would have,” Nitch said with a smile. He put a comforting hand on Hayden’s shoulder. “Shall we go see what the others are up to?”

  “Pozz,” Hayden replied. He let the engineer lead him out of the office and down the hall to a conference room. Caleb, Haeri and Barth were already inside. He was surprised to see Doctor Rush there too, though he probably shouldn’t have been. This was at least partially about genetics, after all.

  “Sheriff,” Haeri said. “How’s your arm.”

  Hayden showed off the range of motion. “Amazing, all things considered. What have you got?”

  A huge smile spread across Caleb’s face. “Hayden, you should sit down for this.”

  “I take it by that shit-eating grin on your face it’s because you’re going to deliver good news?”

  “Potentially,” Caleb replied. “It’s only a theory right now, but a good one I think.”

  Hayden grabbed the closest seat. Nitch sat beside him. “Okay,” Hayden said. “Let me have it.”

  “All this time,” Caleb said, “I thought Valentine was at worst a traitor and at best a bitch. But she outdid herself on this one. And I mean that in a good way for once. She didn’t just have me fooled. She managed to trick the Relyeh even after the Relyeh got into her head and saw everything in her mind.”

  “How is that even possible?” Hayden asked.

  “She developed a weapon against the trife. At least, that’s what I believed, and that’s what the Hunger still believe.”

  “What kind of weapon?”

  “A virus. But not like the kind you’re thinking. It’s more like a computer virus than an organic virus. Doctor Rush, I think you can explain it better than me?”

  “Of course,” Doctor Rush said. “General Haeri provided me with a data chip containing all of the Organization’s prior research on the Relyeh. I’ve only had a short time to review it, but integrating the data outlined on the chip with the research I’ve done into the Collective has uncovered some valuable insights. Nitch, I may need your help to confirm some of what I’m going to present. I’m not an expert on this sort of, let’s call it an infection, for lack of a better word.”

  “Sure thing, Pete,” Nitch said.

  Doctor Rush got to his feet, putting his Oracle back over his eye. A moment later, a projection appeared in the middle of the table.

  “There were multiple components to the data we pulled out of Colonel Card’s head,” Rush said. “The first part is a detailed schematic of a trife’s quantum ciliaform transceiver. QCT. It’s a small organ that rests along the main nervous system. In trife, it sits just below the base of the neck.”

  The projection showed an image of what Hayden recognized immediately as an ick, a term he still preferred to Valentine’s more technical description. It bore a resemblance to a tree, only on a microscopic scale. Dozens of branches with hundreds of hairlike tips that waved gently and almost rhythmically, vanishing and reappearing at an even cadence. It was a much less refined version of the khoron ick Natalia had examined and experimented with, based on what was probably the exact same research Rush was showing them now.

  “Here we have the QCT of a khoron,” Rush said, showing the image Hayden was more familiar with. “You can see the difference in the shape, size and volume of cilia at the end of the branches. Khoron have both transmitter and receiver functions to their organ, where most trife save the queens can only receive.” Rush paused a moment to let them all look at it. “This is where it gets fascinating.”

  He switched the image again. Hayden leaned back in his chair and whistled. Gray gasped. Stacker let out a short grunt of amazement.

  “We’re not sure where this QCT came from,” Rush said. “But you can see it’s significantly more complex than either the trife or the khoron.”

  “I think I know where it’s from,” Hayden said. “Shurrath.”

  “Who?” Rush asked.

  “Shurrath. A Relyeh Ancient. But if it is, they didn’t cut it out of him to image it because he’s still alive.”

  “An Ancient,” Rush repeated. “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “It means one of the original Hunger,” Caleb said. “Hundreds of thousands of years old. They’re the heads that guide the rest of the hydra.”

  “And we had one in captivity?” Haeri asked.

  “Didn’t Ike explain that to you?” Hayden replied.

  “We didn’t get that far. We had more pressing concerns,” Caleb replied.

  “Valentine had Shurrath in captivity. Maybe only for an hour. He came through an Axon portal with a team of Marines. He infected one of them. I never knew this existed. Valentine probably scanned him and found Shurrath, and then imaged the ick.” He paused, mind working. “I don’t know if she knew what she had before she ran, or if she only discovered it later. Shurrath might have seemed just like another khoron to her, at least at first.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Caleb said.

  “No,” Hayden agreed. “Go on, Doc.”

  “As you can see, the different Relyeh have a more or less complex QCT depending on their level of control of the Collective. This is actually pretty important.” He switched the projection again. “This is a computer simulation based on the genetic data Doctor Valentine provided, with an algorithm included that manipulated the data. It was provided to us in the data dump. Fortunately, our systems are backward compatible with the language, so we were able to pull it out.”

  Caleb spoke up before Doctor Rush could continue. “The thing to note here is that because it was expressed as a purely mathematical algorithm, Valentine was able to convince the Relyeh that it specifically targeted trife.”

  “But,” Rush said, “extrapolating the main variable and replacing it with either one of the other QCTs imaged bears the same fruit.”