Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

they were just in a slightly lower orbit and would pass within a hundred or so kilometers. Don’t mind us, just passing through! As they approached, everyone made ready.

“You sure about this?” Rick asked as he double checked his various weapons.

“Positive,” Sato assured him. “The ship docked to the asteroid; I’ve seen them before.”

“As a Proctor?”

“I guess.”

“I’m worried, both that you’re going into this without much thought, and that you may have unrealistic expectations. Someone tried to kill you back on Earth.”

“They weren’t trying to kill me,” Sato said. “If someone wanted me dead, the opSha could have just burned a hole through my head with a laser from 5 kilometers away.”

“Then what did they want?”

“My guess is to bring me here.”

Rick stared at him without comment for a long moment.

“I know, it’s not the best of plans. However, they don’t know I have you.”

“I’m hardly a game changer,” Rick noted. “Besides, you don’t know for certain if they’re aware of me or not. There was footage of me at the museum.”

“That’s the only place there’s footage of you, and it wasn’t very good.”

“They do not know about me, either,” Dakkar said.

Sato had forgotten the Wrogul was there. “Not to reduce your importance,” Sato said, “but you aren’t exactly a fighter.”

“No, but I can go places you cannot.”

“Including under doors,” Rick said with head shake.

“Indeed!” Dakkar agreed. “I can also pass through tiny spaces, like ventilation shafts.”

“Are you suggesting I turn you loose on this asteroid?” Sato asked.

“Why not?” Rick said, surprising Sato.

“I thought you weren’t exactly on Dakkar’s side.”

“I’m on our side,” Rick said. “Having him slithering his way around the inside of that station might well give us a real ace in the hole. If he’s willing, why not?”

“Nemo, Dakkar’s nominal parent, wasn’t known for his understanding of risky situations,” Sato pointed out. “Along with not understanding basic morals, they often display a complete disregard for their own mortality.”

“Wouldn’t you if you could just make another copy?” Rick asked.

Sato blinked. “You know, I never thought of it that way.”

“Again I say, why not? As soon as we dock, let Dakkar slip into the asteroid station.”

“He doesn’t have pinplants yet,” Sato said.

“So whip up some tiny little transmitter. I would guess you can manage?”

“Sure,” Sato admitted. “I can even make it work through our privileged pinplant channel.”

“Then it is settled,” Dakkar said. His big eyes looked at Sato with their distinctive bar-shaped pupils, so like a terrestrial octopus. “I’ve been with you since the beginning of this quest, old friend.”

 He was already forgetting that Dakkar was Nemo in every way you could quantify, only smaller. But was he really the same Wrogul? Dakkar already seemed different in some ways. Nemo had never enjoyed the company of Humans that much, being more than happy to spend vast amounts of time by himself, immersed in whatever research he was doing. The only one he’d never minded being interrupted by was Sato.

Dakkar had spent hours helping sick Humans in Mexico. Not only had Sato not asked him to, but he’d been gone when Dakkar had taken the initiative to help the young girl he’d seen earlier, and he’d properly conjectured that the child had a brain injury. When others had arrived, he’d begun curing them as well. One after another, more than 20 men, women, and children. He didn’t think that was something Nemo would have done.

“Okay,” Sato said and left the bridge to travel to the engineering compartment. There he made a tiny transmitter/receiver for Dakkar, returning just 11 minutes later. “Here you are,” he said and floated it over to the alien. “You’ll have to focus a small area of your skin to speak for us to understand. It’s got an adhesive that will work on you.”

“Got it,” Dakkar said, catching the device and adhering it to a tentacle close to his central body mass.

<Testing,> Dakkar said.

<Working,> Sato replied. He hadn’t even seen a glimmer when the Wrogul spoke, though there was a tiny flash as he replied.

<Good here, too,> Rick said.

Sato drifted back to the pilot’s section and checked its displays. “We’re 53 kilometers from the asteroid and closing at 50 meters per second.” He touched the controls. “Slowing us down.”

Rick plugged into a high-power output on the bridge to top off his batteries. As they approached, Dakkar went to his quarters and returned with a hyper-oxygenation unit Sato had made for him on the trip. It was a small device that fed oxygen rich water directly into his siphon. Unlike a terrestrial octopus, Wrogul didn’t have external gills, but something closer to internal lungs. In essence, it was a water SCUBA for Dakkar, and it was no bigger than a pair of computer styluses.

Sato further adjusted their speed with puffs of the reaction thrusters. Dakkar’s tentacles suddenly moved on the controls.

“We are being scanned by the asteroid.”

“Shit,” Sato snarled. He was about to ask about any comms when Dakkar spoke again.

“I’m getting a laser comm,” he said.

Sato blinked. “Laser comm?” That was unusual, as only ships who already knew each other used laser communications. They were secure and harder to negotiate for that reason. He used the captain/pilot screens to examine the incoming comms. It was a secure handshake transmission, the kind you’d find between two friendly combatants.

“They think we’re a friendly ship?” Rick wondered aloud.

“I don’t think so,” Sato said. “It could be an automated transmission to any ship that comes close.”

“There’s a ship there,” Rick pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean anyone is actually there,” Sato said. “Our sensors can’t penetrate the rock, and the ship only shows low power, probably on standby.”

“But how do we reply? Don’t we need a code?”

“Yeah,” Sato said. A memory drifted to the surface,