Soundless Conflicts

by S. Walker

  Realization hit. "No! Under, don’t shoot!"

  Under slammed both palms on his console, whooping with excitement.

  The forward screens whited out as a titanic column of light obliterated everything in front of the Tulip, straight through the Kipper and all the way to the edge of the system in a final soundless conflict.

  Epilogue

  For Reals This Time

  Emilia floated angrily in the habitation ring's derelict docking area, visor and frown aimed at a handheld supply list. She was just about to check another entry off when the airlock behind her glorped. Loudly.

  With slow, careful motions the short technician clipped the console to her skinsuit. She tried to act casual about it, as if terrifying sounds causing her to overload the suit's recycling system was a normal thing. "Paul?" Then again, louder over the noise of too many people living out of a small space: "Hey, Paul!"

  Across the dock their lanky medical expert finally looked up from an examination. "Yes? I will be done here in a moment, if you need me." He looked tired, dark circles outlining both blue eyes and skin washed out from fatigue. But he made sure to hold his patient down with one hand, keeping the weightless, snoring man safely pinned to a makeshift crate-turned-examination table. Without looking he addressed a pair of volunteer attendants nearby in a low tone. "He has a concussion. Move him to the sleeping area and stay nearby: Waking up will be disorientating."

  Glorp again. Then a low stuttering sound, like hundreds of rubber balls skidding reluctantly over stubborn metal.

  Emilia anchored herself on a crate, feet downward to contact the deck. Cleared her throat. "Ahem." She eyeballed distance to her intended target, estimating the volume required to overcome a dozen conversations at once. Arriving at an appropriate decibel range for long distance communication she promptly doubled it, cutting loose with the kind of screaming roar lions used on prey animals: "PAUL!"

  Skinsuited people burst away from her like a startled flock of birds, clearing a path. Forty feet away Paul jerked once and nearly spun upside down, examination tools flying in every direction. "What?!"

  Dozens of surprised faces turned her way in a sea of confused ovals.

  Then everyone switched to looking directly past the small woman at the airlock behind her. Specifically at the inset transparent panel, just over her shoulder and making very, very energetic sucking noises. She didn't turn to look.

  Instead Emilia read the crowd in front of her, noting wide, terrified eyes and the instinctive frozen posture of survivors trying not to draw attention. The only movement came from Paul's slowly gliding approach, eyes locked over her shoulder and moving one delicate hand- and foot-touch at a time.

  When he got within ten feet Emilia aimed a thumb backwards at the airlock. "It's for you."

  "I rather think not." Paul very carefully kept the short woman between the airlock and himself.

  "No, really," she insisted with a terrified smile. "They have a present and everything. We ordered it for your birthday, just gotta sign for delivery." Glooooooorp, skra-skra-skra-thud. "See? You got this. I'll just be... you know... several miles away. At an appointment."

  He still wasn't looking at her. Although behind him the crowded cargo area was making a slow exodus to the Promised Land of the farthest bulkhead. "All joking aside," Paul was using his Doctor Voice now, the overly emotionless tone meant for breaking news of terminal illnesses. "Perhaps you and I should move away from-"

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Emilia gently pushed off the deck, floating weightlessly forward until Paul caught her side-arm. His tall beanpole of a body made an excellent pivot point, giving her something to rotate around until he was between her and the unknown. "So," she rode Paul like a frightened backpack, one shaking finger pointed over his shoulder. "Were you expecting that?"

  'That' turned out to be an entire transparent panel stuffed full of bubblegum-pink slime. It covered the window from end to end, three square feet of ooze pressed hard enough against the material to leave a border of white around the edges. From ten feet away both of them could see it churn occasionally, moving in a way that somehow expressed irritation. Like someone waiting too long for an answer.

  Paul opened his mouth to respond, but the airlock interrupted again with a deep banging noise that sent him directly towards the overheads in an aborted kick. He flailed momentarily for a handhold until Emilia thoughtfully slapped a palm to the lights and pushed them both back to the deck again.

  "Make it go away," someone hissed from the crowd at the back of the room, using the kind of quiet not-shout small children employ at night to avoid monstrous attention from beneath the bed.

  Emilia shot a disbelieving look over her shoulder. "I'll get right on that, jackass." Then she aimed a look at the far end of the room, picking out the colored skinsuit of their Independent engineer. "Mark! Mark, start getting that connection hatch open! Everyone else pick something up and start moving to the next room! Quietly."

  Paul tapped to get her attention. She turned around again, eyeing a window full of slime. Yup, still there. "What?"

  "Do you think we can weld that airlock shut? Would it help?" He drifted slightly sideways, putting a waist-high container between them. Long fingers absently patted his pockets, nervously checking contents.

  "Maybe? Do we have a welder?" Emilia glanced to both sides, fast and considering. "I haven't seen one, but we haven't sorted everything out yet... wait! Hold on.” She kept a hand on Paul's collar and leaned away from him like an acrobat stiff-arming a vertical pole. "Mark! Never mind the hatch, where's the welder? Do you have one?"

  Another bang from the airlock nearly sent them both into the overheads again. Then a new sound, both familiar and absolutely terrifying at the same time: The slow bang-whoosh, bang-whoosh of an emergency airlock lever pumping up and down, prepping the hatch to open from the other side.

  Quiet, frantic motion by the far exit turned into loud frantic motion as the entire group stampeded to be the first ones through. A thoroughly unhappy Independent contractor had time to pop the inner door, then step aside as a herd of panicked people crammed through. Mark held himself to one side, deliberately out of the way and staring pointedly at dirty deck plates and powerless loading equipment. A big man to his side-- Emilia couldn't recall his name-- took a more active role, hauling people bodily out of the logjam to free up the flow of traffic.

  The airlock stopped rhythmically banging as pressures equalized on both sides. Which meant the manual handle on the other side was now locked downward in position, popping free a mechanical release toggle for the hatch. Whatever-it-was now had every possible opportunity to pop their dock open like a tasty treat.

  Nothing happened for a moment. Emilia started feeling hopeful. "Maybe it doesn't know how to open the-" Bolts retracted with the hard, cracking sound of metal under pressure. "Well, shit."

  Terrified stillness descended on the docking area as the airlock retracted with a pneumatic hiss of strained hydraulics, revealing an entire wall of pink goo. It covered the entire thirty foot wide, fifteen foot tall opening like the universe's largest slime mold. Deep grooves indented the surface in an exact copy of the airlock door, visible outlines standing out around where the window was a minute earlier. The front surface of the goo quivered slightly, wet and shining in the combined light of emergency overheads.

  And there, stuck in the middle like a pissed-off Corporate demon was lieutenant Jamet Reals. T-posed, helmetless, boots missing, ridiculously bulky air cast at an awkward angle. But alive and struggling weakly without any sort of leverage. "A little help here, please?"

  A sound like an entire room inhaling at once crossed the dock. Emilia rallied first, waving frantically at the stunned group of people by the exit. "Someone find my flamethrower! QUICK."

  Paul didn't move, eyes slowly moving down, then up again with a wary suspicion. "Lieutenant? You seem to have... a unique method of utilizing airlocks. I think some answers are in order."

&nbs
p; Jamet pulled both legs free of the goo with a long, sucking rip of sound. She waved them over the deck, unable to get traction. "It's the Tulip! They're worried about contamination." She tried pulling her head out next, then yelped in pain. "Ow! My hair! My hair's stuck, dammit. Get over here, help me out of this?"

  Not a muscle moved on either of them. "Yeahhhh. That's not gonna happen, Imposter-able." Emilia's voice sounded like weaponized sarcasm. "Say something only the real Jamet would know so we can confirm it's really you and not some kind of... bomb-implanted clone with a bio-plague detonator. Or something."

  "I will poison your entire freaking caf supply, Emilia Rounds."

  She thought about that, mouth twisted and eyebrows skeptical. "Pretty good, but I'm not sold yet. Paul? Whatcha thinking?"

  "I am willing to extend some belief." Then, quietly over his shoulder: "'Bomb implanted bio plague clone'? Really?"

  "You've seen that show, too. Don't give me shit about it." Possibly-Fake Jamet yanked her good arm free, then used it to start pulling a frazzled ponytail of hair out of a suction grip. Yelps pelted the air in piteous waves. "So, uh. Are we going to help?"

  He watched the struggle with clinical detachment. Jamet had her ponytail free now, congealed slime making it stick up at a kinked diagonal angle like an antenna. "Perhaps." then, with a raised voice: "If I have this right, you were aboard the alien ship for the last few hours?"

  "Yes! Ow! It's a long story and it involves my ex-- ignore that-- but the short version is the entire ship is crewed by idiots, they're not hostile and definitely not working with the drones. Also I'm pretty sure they're willing to rescue us. Now please- I'm begging you here, seriously." She tugged futilely at the air cast, producing very little motion but a lot of painful noises. "Help me out? I think I'm going to lose this arm."

  Medical concerns motivated him into kicking off, floating forward with a practiced triage look. Emilia abandoned ship immediately, leaving the one-man vessel to his fate. "Nope, not doing it. I'll cover you from back here."

  Paul came to a stop with one hand carefully pressed to Jamet's breastbone. "Covering me with what?"

  "Bad words and whatever I can throw."

  He ignored that, focusing instead on keeping a wary eye on yards of slowly churning pink slime to either side of Jamet. Other than the deck beneath his boots there wasn't a single place Paul could reach that was made by humans. "Lieutenant, is this safe to touch?"

  "It better be," she complained, teeth gritted. "I just spent freaking hours in it having the weirdest experience anyone's ever gone through." She locked eyes with him from inches away. "Ever."

  "I believe you." He carefully put a palm on the pink wall next to her, glove pressed flat to the surface. It felt slightly wet and yielding, at least to a point-- when he put more weight on it the mold firmed up, resisting being pushed inward. "Hmm. Alright, I am going to pull on your air cast to free it up, starting from the forearm area. We want to turn towards your center, not straight out; this is probably going to hurt quite a bit." Paul hooked fingers underneath the cast, then braced his other hand on the pink... whatever it was. "On the count of three, lieutenant."

  "Okay, alright." She took a deep breath. "One-"

  He ripped the cast out of the goo-filled mold.

  Jamet popped off the wall in a shrieking ball of pain, floating across the dock and leaving behind a perfect imprint of her body. Emilia let her bounce off the waist-high storage crates, then threw a tiedown clip over Jamet's leg to give her something to anchor against. "There ya go! I'm helping." The lieutenant bounced gently off the overhead lights, leaving behind a sticky smear.

  Paul met her on the way down, carefully catching the whimpering woman by her collar and directing them both towards his medical area. "Sorry for the trick, lieutenant. But anticipating the pain would have made you tense up, causing further damage or problems." Then, in a softer tone: "Really, I am sorry."

  "Hate you so much right now," she whispered.

  "Understandable." He caught a handhold near the medical kits, bringing her balled-up form to rest on the improvised table with a practiced motion. A moment later he had a strap thrown over her and an injector out. But he hesitated, eyes narrowed. "Are you on any medication right now I should know about?"

  Jamet whimpered. "If I was, they're not working anyways. Helllllp meeee."

  "Mm." Paul snapped the injector to her uninjured shoulder and depressed the activator. "I really should be doing an examination first before issuing numbing agents. There may be secondary injuries." He glanced down her side, noting multiple overlapping contusions and discolorations. "Well. More than previously noted, anyways."

  "Uh, not to interrupt, but guys?" Emilia was crouched behind the storage crate now, only the top of her head visible. "Got a little company over here."

  Paul followed her look to the still-open airlock, then went rigid in surprised fear. The wall of goo was still there, pink and impossibly firm. The lieutenant's T-posed outline was still prominently visible, front and center. But behind the rose-colored slime was a shadow, blurred into near-invisibility and almost as tall as the airlock itself. He couldn't get a feel for details; even the dark spot itself was hard to notice until it moved behind the translucent wall. Something like a long appendage would extend to one side of the lock, pulling the much larger mass behind until it came together again in a ball of worry. Then back again to the other side: One limb unfurled, anchor, pull. Like concerned pacing done entirely in zero gravity.

  He tracked motion from left to right, trying to make out anything even slightly humanlike about the blurry form. "That is... decidedly alien."

  "It's Under, actually," Jamet murmured, slowly relaxing as pain medication took hold.

  "Under what?" Emilia sounded confused.

  She started laughing softly. "Oh dead stars, he'd love if you said that to him. Although you're probably not his type."

  A rainbow colored visor slowly swung away from the airlock to land on Jamet's curled-up form. "Well, that settles it. She's talking nonsense, now. Definitely a clone bomb; we're all dead."

  People started slowly breaking away from the crowd by the far hatch, curiosity and interest overcoming common sense. A few braver souls kicked off to land close enough to see over storage containers, poised like Emilia to use them as cover against attack. They relayed details back in whispers of sound, repeated among the group in excited waves. "Is it an alien?"

  "No," Emilia snapped back, tone acidic. "It's an Academy graduate. They look like that before Corporate finishes baking them in the prep unit. Back up, you idiots." She gave the boldest explorers a few angry motions until they retreated, then raised her voice Jamet's way. "So, who's your friend? Anything we should know? Big teeth, sharp claws, dines on humans by starlight?"

  Jamet groaned and slowly rolled over, holding onto the restraining strap with one good hand. Paul kept a wary eye on her, then transferred attention to the air cast. "No. Well, maybe? He looked like my ex for a while, but that was some kind of simulation. I think."

  As if it heard them talking the dark form moved closer to the edge, pressing something like long, grasping fingers to the hard membrane. Emilia ducked reflexively. "Yeah, exes. I can see it. What's it want, though?"

  She managed to sit up, eyes screwed shut and mouth a tight line of discomfort. "Paul, I'm-"

  "Nauseous, I would guess." He carefully started undoing latches on the air cast, letting seals hiss out. "Medication overload. Try not to move, although the more urgent question is Emilia's: What does it want?"

  Jamet took deep breaths, eyes still closed. "Nothing, actually. Well, the collective- okay. Hold on." She visibly thought for a moment. "Alright, getting it straightened out in my head now. The Tulip is a sort of collective group. Like the whole crew is a giant decision maker, all together. The ship puts their minds alongside somehow, where everyone's thoughts just flow naturally between them. There's a lot of them-- don't ask me how many, but enough to run a ship that size-- but everyo
ne participates in figuring out what to do."