by Ramy Vance
“They must be.” Jaeger sighed. “Virgil’s too fragmented to stop it.” She stepped into the outer corridors after him and felt a lurch in her stomach as all sense of gravity slipped away. The mag soles anchored her to the deck, making her feel both grounded and weightless, like a balloon tied to a rock. The hologram followed them, flickering as it jumped from projector to projector but otherwise taking no notice. It stared down the intersecting corridors and pointed up the port wing.
“Injury. Damage. Ksht sht sht battle?”
Jaeger blinked. “We did take some damage,” she admitted cautiously. “We’re…still trying to determine what happened.”
Red turned and stared at Jaeger. She had the distinct impression that, for the first time, it saw her as more than just an irritation. It was listening to her.
“Hostile?” it asked.
She shook her head. “We mean you no harm. We’re just trying to get back home, but we must repair our ship first.”
Red tilted its head, studying the system of colored pipes mapping out the corridors. It nodded. She wondered how it knew to do that.
Then it turned and strode easily down the corridor toward the generator bay. Its frame rate had improved. It moved smoothly, barely flickering as it jumped from projector to projector, and there was a natural fluidity to its stride. If not for the fact that it was transparent, Jaeger would have sworn it was a real young man about to hop the train for Dublin. All he lacked was the leather briefcase.
She could see why she hadn’t prioritized getting the projectors up and running. The effect was rather creepy.
“Hey, Jaeger?” Toner took off after the hologram. His boots thunked to the floor with each awkward step.
“Yes?”
“He’s learning the ship’s layout awfully quick, isn’t he?”
Jaeger grimaced, thunking her way after the two of them. An unknown alien AI was rummaging around through her ship and what terrified her was that she had no idea what to do about it.
She opened her mouth, praying she’d spit out some pithy, confident response when something heavy slammed into the bulkhead.
Chapter Twelve
Jaeger screamed.
Toner jerked backward as if hit by lightning. “Jesus!”
“It’s the goddamned thing in Tetra,” Jaeger barked, once her heart started beating again. She covered her ears as another deafening crash echoed through the corridor. Down the hall, a sealed door blinked red.
Red, unaffected, turned and looked at the humans, head cocked curiously to one side as they collected themselves.
“Friend of yours?” Jaeger called to Toner, who shook his head. “No idea. Fuck, though.” He blinked as another slam made the corridor rattle. “Whatever it is, it’s a big’un.”
“This damned thing is going to shake my ship apart from the inside if we don’t do something about it.” Jaeger set her jaw. It was also, eventually, going to give her a heart attack. She reached for her computer. “What about you, Virgil? Do you have any more information on it?”
I have been busy with other tasks, Virgil wrote. I have limited processing power.
Jaeger felt a brief but bright flash of guilt. She was asking a lot of one badly damaged AI. Perhaps too much. Did AIs feel stress?
Then again, everybody was busy. They would have to manage.
One step at a time.
“Hang on, Red,” Toner called, and Jaeger glanced up to see the hologram wandering toward the sealed door, one hand outstretched curiously. “Don’t go—”
Another heavy slam and Jaeger swore she saw the bulkhead rattle.
The hologram poked at the access panel, unaffected by what was, presumably, an angry rhinoceros trying to beat down a door six inches from its transparent head.
“Pssht gffwah gh tk access blp sealed,” the hologram suggested, sinking one translucent finger into the guts of the blinking panel.
Jaeger felt a finger of cold dread touch the base of her spine. “Yes. It’s sealed. Leave it sealed. Do not try to override that lock.” She had to stop herself from adding, please. Captains didn't beg.
Beside her, Toner tensed. “Get behind me,” he said through gritted teeth.
Jaeger hesitated.
“I can’t stop it from opening that door if it wants. Can you?” Toner asked as the hologram sank into the bulkhead up to its elbow. The door rattled under another crushing slam. “Get behind me, tiny.”
Jaeger was about to curse and retreat when the hologram took one long step forward and vanished into the bulkhead.
Jaeger stared.
Toner stared.
The crashing rattle ceased.
“Well.” Jaeger let out a breath that sounded too loud in the suddenly silent corridor. “That’s…unnerving.”
They contemplated the door.
“Don’t call me tiny,” she added.
Toner grunted and rubbed the back of his neck. “Fine, Captain. What do we do now?”
Jaeger eyed him but said nothing about his sardonic tone. She pulled up her computer with a sigh. “Virgil?”
Yes.
“Give me an update.”
There was an uncomfortably long pause as they stared at the little screen.
The life form in Tetra is retreating from the bulkhead. Please hold.
“What else is in that storage compartment?” Toner asked, nodding to the door.
Jaeger shook her head. “Nothing vital that I know of. It’s a smaller storage locker, about the size of a single-car garage. Maybe our hologram friend can finally tell me what—”
She fell silent, cocking her head to catch a distant rumbling noise.
“Virgil?”
It is leaving Tetra sector, Virgil wrote. Moving toward the starboard wing.
“Like hell, it is,” Jaeger said. “That’s a sealed compartment. There’s only one door in and out.”
“Unless it made a back door.” Toner stepped forward and tapped a finger against the sealed door. “This is triple-reinforced iridium. It’ll withstand a couple of knocks from a plasma-core battering ram.” He tapped the standard bulkhead. “This, on the other hand, is standard issue. Tin can, in comparison.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Jaeger scrambled to pull up ship schematics again as the thudding, rumbling sound faded into the distance. “It’s digging a tunnel through my ship.”
That appears to be correct, Virgil conceded. Bio-sensors show it retreating up the starboard wing. It is passing through the escape pod bay right now. It is moving very quickly.
“I don’t hear the distant scream of tearing metal.” Toner sighed while pressing his ear to the bulkhead. “It’s not pausing to rip new doors. Sorry, Captain, but I think this thing has had the run of the wing for a while now.”
“What else?” Jaeger breathed. “What else is going to go wrong today? Are you going to turn on us, Virgil? Go rogue? Refuse to open the pod bay doors?”
It has entered No-A sector.
“God in heaven.” Jaeger shoved the computer into Toner’s hands and reached for her multitool. She spun, thunking her way back up the corridor.
“What’s in No-A?” Toner called after her.
Jaeger’s grip tightened on her multitool. “Three hundred thousand living things of unknown origin. It's a mystery! I suppose we’re about to find out. We have to stop it before it makes a mess of everything.”
“Jaeger, wait. Hang on.”
She froze at the intersection, looking over her shoulder to see Toner frowning at the screen.
“Virgil says the big guy stopped moving.” He tapped the screen, lips pursed thoughtfully. “Yeah, there are a lot of life forms in that sector, so whatever our friend is…I don’t think it’s a danger to them.”
“It better not be a nest of three hundred thousand alien monster eggs.” She had a sudden, horrifying idea: What if it was an infestation of dangerous alien entities?
What if the Osprey, or Tribe Six, or whatever the fuck it was, had been infested, and sh
e’d ordered an evacuation and taken this plague ship through a wormhole to keep a dangerous enemy away from the rest of humankind?
No, she thought. That didn’t make any sense. Those life-forms were human—or at least human enough to fool Virgil’s bio scanners.
It was all too much for one person to handle. She needed more help. She needed a crew.
Toner shook his head and offered the computer, frowning in puzzlement. “There’s something else. Take a look.”
Jaeger grabbed the computer.
I have detected another ship in the sector.
“Oh, excellent.” Jaeger was about to laugh in the face of a misanthropic and spiteful god when a ship silhouette appeared on the screen. Her laugh cut off sharply. “That’s a human design.”
Toner leaned in eagerly, peering at the screen until their foreheads almost touched.
The silhouette was small, a two-person craft at most, with an efficient cross-wing design that almost, almost tickled a memory in the back of Jaeger’s mind. She could imagine a dozen of the sharp little fighters caught in a dogfight, zipping in and out of low-orbit around some vast, green gas giant.
“Hail her,” Jaeger decided, queasy with the sudden hope that her memory was returning. “Maybe she has some idea what in the hell is going on.”
The corridor light flickered as the AI hologram reappeared in front of the bulkhead door. Its brow was low, and its eyes narrowed in a flinty glare as it stared at Jaeger. Its illusory fingers curled into illusory fists.
“Harbinger,” it spat, static eating the edges of its words. “Pffth shh shh bearer of pssht malice. Unacceptable.”
“Now wait just a minute.” Toner stepped between them, hands raised in a “let’s talk about this” gesture.
“We don’t know what’s in that sector,” Jaeger cut in. She stepped out from behind Toner. She would not beg, and she refused to cower. “We are trying to determine that. We mean you no harm. We—”
“Shht shhht. False.” Jaeger wasn’t sure, but the alien hologram almost looked frightened. Then its expression turned to one of anger. “Instruments of grsht death. Unwelcome. You must be shht expelled.”
“We mean you no harm!” she insisted. “We want to leave, but we have to fix our ship first. Whatever problem you have, we can talk—”
The hologram flickered and vanished.
Jaeger swore and smashed her closed fist into the bulkhead. That wasn’t good. The last thing she needed, on top of everything, was hostile locals.
The shock wave rattled up to her shoulder, making her wince.
The lighting up and down the corridor flickered and flared back to life.
“Virgil?” Toner asked slowly.
A nearby speaker bleated static as Jaeger gestured for Toner to continue toward the generator bay.
“We need to get to work,” she said. “They don’t seem inclined to sit around and discuss timelines. Let’s go before we wear out our welcome any further. If we can show Red we only want to leave maybe this will all blow over.”
Toner nodded slowly, staring at the Tetra bay bulkhead.
The corridor around them rattled. The lights flickered again.
The speaker's static cleared as Virgil regained control of the comms. “Too late,” it said tiredly. “The alien ship has activated energy lances. It’s trying to slice the Osprey apart.”
Chapter Thirteen
From what Jaeger remembered of the Osprey’s schematics, there were multiple discreet combat and control interfaces scattered throughout the ship. Each specialized in a different aspect of command: maneuvering thrusters, shields, weapons, life support, generator activity, et cetera. To prevent any single auxiliary control center from mutinying and taking control of the ship, each could take majority control over only one system. If the Osprey was going to survive a fight with an alien hostile, damaged as she was, Jaeger would need majority control over all of the systems.
Only the command center, located in the central pillar, provided overriding control of all systems.
Jaeger and Toner were very far from the command center.
“You could work the shield interface at the command center,” Jaeger called as lights flickered around them. “We’re close to the generator bay. Can you do the same thing from there?”
Toner hesitated a split second before nodding smartly. “Yep. That sounds right.”
“Then go hold my ship together while I get back to command,” she said. Toner had already turned and ran toward the generator bay, thunking with each step as his mag soles stuck to the floor. He paused, grabbing a support strut as the bulkhead rattled again. Moving quickly, he bent over and shifted the settings on his mag soles.
Jaeger watched as the tall man wobbled, popping up from the floor like a fishing bobber on still water. She thought at first he had deactivated the magnets that kept them to the floor, but then he made a smooth, pushing motion with one leg, like an ice skater, and shot down the corridor, sliding expertly to avoid slamming into the corners and supports. It was an absurd, reckless way to move—but damned fast.
“Virgil,” Jaeger called to the omniscient speakers as she turned toward the central column. “Patch Toner into the comms network. Keep us all on the same call.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“In the meantime, divert all available power back to shields.”
“I am doing so, Captain.” Virgil paused. “Enemy energy lances are doing minimal damage. They don’t seem calibrated to pierce our hull or shields. The aliens are not yet entirely familiar with our defenses. I suspect that will change quickly.”
Jaeger swore. “Keep me updated.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Jaeger snatched the bottom of her mag sole and stared at it. Yes. There was a reverse polarity setting. Rather than using the mag soles to give her the illusion of gravity, she could use them to repel herself against the floor and walls. It would be a hell of a lot faster than the arduous hiking they’d been doing.
Without pausing to wonder why she hadn’t initially intuited the reverse-polarity setting, as she had with so many other aspects of the ship, she made the switch.
She let out a yelp as the floor bucked beneath her. This was not the smoother, more subtle release of a simple loss of gravity. Her booted feet suddenly hated the deck. And the walls.
She flailed her arms, trying to find stability as her boots ripped away from the bulkhead, seeking some point of least magnetic pull near the center of the corridor. Any slight shift in her legs and her whole body shifted, seeking some equilibrium that didn’t quite exist.
It was rather like trying to do a handstand on a waterbed.
While your house was on fire.
“Keep your legs together.” Toner’s shout crackled through the speaker. He was already entering the generator bay. He must have had a lot of practice with the reverse-polarity boots in whatever had been his past life. “Pretend you’re, uh, a mermaid.”
Jaeger kicked at a wall, repelling against the cushion of magnetic force that formed between her boots and the bulkhead. In the frictionless environment of zero-G, the easy kick set her rocketing up the corridor—straight toward a support strut.
She threw her hands out in front of her, slammed her palms into the strut with enough force to rattle her jaw, and redirected her trajectory around the corner.
“A mermaid?”
“Yeah! Uh, a mermaid with a rocket strapped to your tail? Keep your legs together and your spine straight except for turning. The butt. All of the steering is in the butt.”
The suggestion helped—a little. Jaeger made her way back to the base of the central column much faster than she would have otherwise, but with a blossoming mosaic of purple and yellow bruises across her arms and shoulders to show for it.
Not that it mattered. Flesh would heal itself, more or less.
Her ship, however, needed saving.
The all-too-familiar smells of burning plastic and ozone greeted Jaeger as she rocketed into the com
mand center. The fire suppression system had activated again. The module was full of smoke. Half of the screens flashed red or yellow.
She tilted her body downward, reaching down with one arm to deactivate her mag soles. She tucked into a barrel roll as centrifugal force pulled her to the floor of the command center. Her boots, suddenly heavy again, jerked at the sudden change in direction, sending her knee into her chin. Blood exploded in her mouth.
She bounded to her feet as a shower of sparks rained down from a central conduit pipe. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist, turning it red.
Toner was shouting through the comm system. “Jaeger, are you in Ops yet? Whatever Red found up in No-A, he really didn’t like it. He saw it as a major fucking threat.”
Jaeger swallowed a mouthful of blood and scanned the status screens. “Did Red break the captain’s logs or have some kind of access to whatever is in No-A?”
Virgil’s systems whirled, “Uncertain, but any entity with the kind of hologram technology Red’s kind has must have advanced sensors. Red probably knows more about this ship than we do.”
“Great. So we’re clearly carrying something they find a threat, and we have no idea what. Not that it matters. They seem hell-bent on dealing with it on their own,” Jaeger groaned when there was a loud electrical whirl. “Update?”
“Enemy is focusing an energy lance on the starboard wing,” Virgil said. Its voice had gone flat again, queerly distant as its ship burned around it. “No-A sector specifically.”
“Which is lucky for us,” Toner called. “I was able to divert all available power to the three lesser generators shielding that section of the ship. If he were shooting wildly at us, we’d be dead. There’s not enough power to generate strong enough shields over the whole ship.”
“On screen.”
Jaeger looked up to see an exterior camera view of the attack.
It looked oddly subdued in the dark and quiet of space. A sensor mounted on the central column afforded her a sweeping view of the starboard wing superstructure. Swaths of the wing’s hull were scarred and patched from previous misadventures. A single glowing line of white-hot light connected a section of the hull near the base of the wing to a single tiny dot far out in space. She could barely make out the blurry suggestion of a saucer-shaped spaceship in the void between stars. The energy lance it pumped at her ship was steady, bright. Almost static-looking.