When the group gathered together on the bridge, Kyle nodded at each of them in turn; even nodding at Poisseux’s holo-emitter… and settled back in his chair.

  “...As the only one in the crew who still needs sleep, I’m gonna need to take a break in a few. Before that, we should decide what we want to do from here… if anything. Frankly… I think we should just head right back home, aside from a stop to grab that other dragon egg.”

  He looked around. “We should assess the risks of going back in at all, and if there’s anything else worth going back for, now that we have both recordings, and samples. Sherry?”

  Sherry signed, and leaned forward, gesturing at her console. “I’ve been studying the recordings of the Kraken, and I gotta say… those things are damn impressive. The speeds I clocked them at for their final approach? They were accelerating right up til impact, and ranged from twelve to sixteen kilometers per second. That’s like… antique-grade railgun speed. Which might even be on the low end for them.”

  She tapped a button, and the main display showed the region of space where the larger dragon and the two Kraken had met, and the smaller ones were actively heading when they departed…. And the lined path from the planet.

  “So. The time between the Dragon going after the gold foil, and Kraken #1 turning to intercept? Right at the speed of light. It spotted it, turned, and started that way, despite being about three light-minutes away. It then entered stealth. So excellent perception, yes.”

  She zoomed in on the dragon. “And shortly after, Kraken #2 intercepted and attacked from the same direction; less than four minutes after Kraken #1 could have seen it. It must’ve been nearby, and in stealth. Less than twenty minutes later…”

  She changed angles. Kraken #2 was badly wounded, its beak missing, and Kraken #1 was ramming the dragon. “He arrives. Crossing three light-minutes in nineteen minutes and forty-two seconds. We can do that… if we accelerate for long enough there’s no such thing as a top speed. A probe can do that…. Also after accelerating for a long while. But that Kraken showed faster acceleration than the Sapper has, and not by a small amount. While invisible. And then slowed down dramatically before impact.”

  “...That’s… what, a sixth of light-speed? If it had hit at that rate, both of them would’ve been splattered. It deliberately slowed down to ram with less force to avoid dying on impact.”

  Thor leaned forward. “That makes some fairly significant assumptions.”

  Sherry glanced over. “Oh?”

  “Kraken #1’s approach angle? Very different. Kraken #2 entered from the same direction as #1 was coming from, from the direction of the planet. But this one you labeled Kraken #1 on the attack? I think it’s actually a third Kraken. Number one and two? Very similar. Almost twins, just minor tendril differences. In fact, if it weren’t for one missing tendril, and the speed it showed up at being impossible, I’d think they were the same one. But….”

  He tapped the screen. “These really big tendrils, around the beak? #1 and the first attacker had eight. The second attacker had seven. I don’t think they’re even close to that fast, but there were more than two. And our dangling of bait might end up causing a turf war between Krakens and Dragons.”

  Sherry blinked… looking at it for a moment, comparing the images. “...How did I miss that? You’re right, Thor. Well. Okay, I think it might be reasonable to assume, then, that the Krakens prefer a cruising speed between twelve and sixteen kilometers per second. It’d be good to go back and see when #1 arrives and emerges from stealth, so long as they didn’t eat all of our other drones.”

  Kyle nodded. “Good. And on them emerging from stealth? Any possible help there?”

  “They didn’t like to give much response time… but gave a sharp turn and a burst of acceleration as soon as they became visible. This means their ability to turn under stealth is probably minimal, and they become visible to do course corrections. Each ram attack was less than three seconds after becoming visible again; meaning less than fifty kilometers.”

  Kyle sighed. “Fifty klicks. They stay invisible til pretty much point-blank range by space combat standards.”

  Sherry nodded, and shifted in her chair for a moment. “So. About the only way I can think of to be safe from them? First… stay in areas where we can hit darkspace. Second… debris clouds. If we use our lasers and blast apart a few rocks, we could actually use our emitters and spread out some dust clouds… make whole areas where we could see them by micro-collisions a few seconds before they reach charge range and get the hell out.”

  She glanced back at the display. “Aside from that… the same stuff kills them as dragons. Though, the tendrils seem to burn off, so lasers and plasma are actually useful there.”

  “Okay. Got it. So. We know what to do if we go back in. So… is there any reason to go back in?”

  A buzz from Poisseux. “Unfortunately, yes. I’ve been reviewing the data from the system, and I noticed a bit of noise on the radio. Once I got docked back up, and we were just hanging out here in the dark, I figured I’d check it out…. And there’s a pattern to it.”

  Kyle stared at the emitter. “...Fuck. What kind of pattern?”

  “Standard distress beacon, looks like a type six. Two three five, on a loop. No indicator of who it is, but…. Definitely not natural. If we could survey the drones and compare all of their radio feeds, we could figure out about where it was, but… the drones weren’t actually listening for radio.”

  “...Why didn’t we notice before?”

  “Weak. Either low on battery… or buried in a cave in one of those planets. It might just be a stray bit of wreckage. On the other hand…”

  Kyle sighed. “Some other ship might have been eaten, and some unfortunate survivor praying for help. Alright. I’m gonna go catch some sleep before I start going crazy. Can you get the drop pod ready to go again?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “You know most of the components in there are one-use, right? I think you’ve got spares, but…”

  “I know, it’ll involve replacing half the hardware in there, or more. But it might be a one-way trip. So…. best not waste a shuttle.”

  Another buzz. “And if there’s more than three survivors?”

  “...We might end up seeing how well the modifications I made to the combat drones work against these beasties. Lets just… hope not. Ugh. Alright, I can barely think straight. Wake me if an emergency happens. Otherwise, I’ll be out in… six hours. Can you get the drop pod ready by then?”

  Thor stretched, and rose to his feet. “Hell yes, Captain. Not much repairs, mostly just swaps and bolting things in? I’ll have her ready in an hour and we can test her before you’re out. It’ll be weird to see the thing in my real body after spending so much time in it digitally, but all in fun!”

  ***

  When Kyle woke up, the first thing he noticed… was that it had been more than six hours. He’d slept right through his timer, and ended up closer to nine… which was probably still less than he needed.

  He grumbled as he rolled off the bed, flopping onto the floor… and tapped the comm on his wrist. “Ugh. Should’ve woken me up. Someone could be waiting out there. Status?”

  He didn’t recognize the voice at first… before his mind got clear enough to realize it was Barry.

  ~We’ve been reviewing combat footage from the drones, and reconfigured them to isolate the source of the signal. Its on one of the planets, a small one. The drop pod barely needed any work done; there wasn’t much atmosphere on that planet. No clue how old the signal is…. But its buried in a cave, just like the remains we found before.~

  Kyle stretched…. And slowly flexed each limb, carefully, before pulling to his feet. “Got it. So… not good odds of a rescue. Probably another Kraken, and another den.”

  ~Possibly. After all… if it were survivors? They’d probably want to hide in a cave and only output radio, too. Especially with those Krakens able to dip down to the surface.~

  “...Alright. So we need to check it out in person. Lovely. Lets re-load the drop pod and get it down there. I’ll be up shortly.”

  ~Reload it with what? We kinda left the stuff you had ready for this on that planet.~

  “....We’ll come up with something.”

  ***

  The number of spares Kyle kept around wasn’t endless… and he didn’t want to use all of them. In fact, if there were no survivors, it would be a waste to use any of them. As a result, instead of a trio of humanoid drones… this time two of the spider-like maintenance drones, and a single, far more improvised, humanoid model would be deployed. With… another four flying assault drones.

  If it weren’t for the possibly incalculable value of the samples, this mission would have become an extremely expensive proposition.

  “Okay. We’re doing this as a three-stage operation, with a possible fourth stage, depending on what happens.”

  Kyle looked around at the crew. Thor had volunteered to go once more, though this time the Sapper herself would be the local transmission point.. So instead of being popped out of his head, his implant would remain where it was… and he’d just be lying back, strapped to his chair, his mind elsewhere. Thoug… at the moment, it was hooked to an emitter right next to his own body.

  “... Stage one. We put another batch of bait through. The Dragons seem to immediately go for it, and the Krakens go for dragons. So if either is nearby? We should be good. At the same time, we want to make an area near the planet we can spot a Kraken coming. So….”

  He tapped the display. “We’ve got this right here. A rock about two or three thousand tons, depending on composition, in a lazy orbit of the planet. We vaporize it, and use our emitters to regulate the speed the debris go out. By the time the light of our arrival reaches anywhere but the planet itself… we’ll be inside a massive dust cloud that any encroaching Krakens will stir up as they approach, and if we’re lucky, any that are planetbound won’t be able to make us out due to the stealth panels.”

  “Stage two. We launch the drop pod to the planet, and a squadron of fighters with some anti-Dragon ordinance…. And we hang out here with our finger on the jump button. If something comes after us? We get the fuck out, and let the fighters pounce when it hits where we used to be. I’ve got a basic… but in theory legal… combat AI in them explicitly built to target things that look like Dragons and Kraken.”

  He brought up the picture of the planet. “Stage three. The one full of questions. We launch the drop pod and figure out whats going on. If its a Kraken nest, with one inside waiting to eat us? Well, that’s it, we leave. If not…”

  He looked around. “Stage four, depends on what we find. If there’s survivors, we retrieve them. Three or less? We use the drop pod. Twenty or less? The shuttle. More than that? We land the Sapper.”

  “...Lets see how things go wrong this time.”

  ***

  ‘Chaff’ was not an unknown thing in space combat. Most of the time, it was bits of metal, batteries, and various scraps and devices made to attract attention. Make noise. Get hot. And just make missiles, or enemy sensors less likely to focus on you.

  This time? They were making their own. Sort-of.

  The moment the Sapper arrived, the drop pod was launched, hurling itself at the surface… as the Sapper’s heaviest weapon got its first actual use outside of testing purposes…

  Plasma Beamers, in operation, looked much like the way dreamers of the past imagined lasers. A solid channel of electromagnetic energy formed between the end of the barrel and the distant chunk of rock… and superheated gas poured down that channel; with almost nonexistent mass, but at a high percent of lightspeed and with an enormous amount of heat.

  It looked like a solid blue-white beam forming from the front of the ship… and connecting with the rock for a solid three-quarters of a second; flash-vaporizing thousands of tons of rock, sending debris scattering in every direction.

  The emitters; normally used to try to deflect incoming solid projectiles, to make a railgun slug miss by changing its trajectory a bit, or disrupt the channels trying to connect an enemy stream of plasma to the hull; got a new purpose.

  The invisible electromagnetic fields were used on a far larger, and lower power, setting than usual… and a cloud of debris that was at least as massive as the ship herself… was shifted, slowed down… so that instead of rapidly escaping into the void… it would turn into a cloud.

  For the first minute, they were still concerned. They knew a Kraken could cross 50 klicks in less than 5 seconds if it was up to speed. So until that cloud reached that sort of distance, this operation was still an intensely risky endeavor.

  Whether it was worthwhile or not was a serious question.. As the drop pod slammed into the surface as close to the cave entrance as they could manage, the doors snapping open, Thor’s consciousness seized control over the latest, improvised humanoid drone… and his first step onto the new world had an auspicious start… as he accidentally hurled himself a dozen meters, slamming the drone into an outcropping over the cave, and bouncing his way down.

  As Kyle, watching from the bridge display, struggled not to laugh, and the two larger maintenance drones scuttled their way out onto the sand, Thor shook his head; his body just barely twitching where it was strapped to the chair.

  “....Fucking microgravity. This is why I prefer fantasy games.”