Black Infinity

by Salvador Mercer

  “General, there was an attempt by Central Command to change the arming code on the Dragon’s Fury,” Major Jaiying said, turning from her console just in front of the man to address him as she referred to the nuclear weapon.

  Colonel Bao didn’t like being interrupted by someone he outranked, but Major Jaiying had been with the general for years and he knew that Wang trusted her implicitly. He risked querying one question before Wang did: “Was it successful?”

  “No,” she answered. The bun in her hair stayed put even as she vigorously shook her head.

  “Was the proper affirmation code returned by the Dragon?” Wang also asked.

  “Yes, sir. Central Command believes the weapon is under their control.”

  “What if they try again and are successful next time?” Bao asked.

  Jaiying answered even though the question was meant for Wang. “Why would they repeat an order if they think the first one was successful?”

  “They could try something to test it first,” Bao shot back. “Learn that they don’t have control and make another attempt. We should be most prudent in keeping a nuclear warhead under our control.”

  Wang held up a hand to silence his attaché. He valued his aide’s input, but didn’t want this exchange to devolve into an argument. “Enough,” he said. “Captain Yao should have the overrides disabled on the Dragon’s Fury. The warhead and the ship will remain under our control. What is important is that Central Command thinks it is under their control. This illusion is what we must maintain.”

  “You trust a simple captain to maintain this level of discipline and secrecy?” Colonel Bao asked.

  Major Jaiying smiled and turned her head back to her console, giving the colonel an uneasy feeling.

  Wang looked the man in the eye before answering, “Yes, I think we can trust the captain.”

  Colonel Bao nodded in agreement, understanding that both the general and his aide were done speaking to him.

  What he did not know, that the other two did, was that Captain Yao was General Wang’s nephew.

  “Trust indeed,” Wang muttered under his breath.

  Chapter 9

  Alamo

  KRASNAYA ZVESDA (Red Star)

  Mars orbit

  In the near future, Year 4, Day 179

  “IT’S ABOUT TIME,” OLGA said. The tone of satisfaction in her voice reflected the exact sentiments of Spetsnaz Commander, Colonel Popov.

  “Star One to Red Star, we have commenced burn. Wish us luck,” the man himself said over their radio channel.

  Yuri looked at Olga before responding, “Roger, Star One; luck and success.”

  “He no longer seems concerned,” Olga mentioned, leaning forward to see out the front view port and down at the planet’s surface. A small dot with red hot exhaust trailing behind was all that was visible of the Soviet lander carrying the four special forces soldiers of the Motherland.

  “Sitting for over a day in something smaller than our own ship will do that to a man.”

  “Most likely, the danger has passed,” Olga said, resuming her speculating. “Perhaps Vostochny has received word from the Americans that it’s safe to resume operations?”

  Yuri couldn’t help himself and also leaned to look down and out at their lander as it began entry into the Martian atmosphere. “Information has been scarce even after the blackout. I for one am more than a little disappointed in how things have turned out.”

  “You wanted to be first, didn’t you?” Olga smiled, and not in a nice way.

  “Space exploration should be in the purveyance of the civilian program, not military.”

  Olga continued looking out the large cockpit window. “Well, history will show the first Soviets to step on another planet were from the army, not Ruscosmos.”

  Yuri ignored her remark and hit the PTT button ship-wide. “Oleg.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  “Do we have the spare computer boards and chips still in their shielding cages?”

  “Of course,” the mechanical engineer said. “Procedure dictates so. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I’m the commander of this mission,” Yuri shot back, not wanting to tell the man the truth—he needed a distraction from his overeager second-in-command, who was taking too much delight in current events.

  “Understood, sir,” Oleg said. “Are you still monitoring the signal strengths from the alien transmitter?”

  “Yes,” Yuri lied, hitting a button to pull the chart up on a small console screen, then another button to bring it on his main screen for better viewing.

  Oleg continued. “Then you’re aware the signal has started to increase again in the same manner as it did yesterday.”

  “I didn’t notice,” Yuri said truthfully this time. “Do you think it’s enough to predict another burst?”

  “Not sure yet, but I’d say I wouldn’t want to be the Americans right now.”

  “Right,” Yuri said, looking at Olga, who quickly went from feral smile to ghostly frown. “Perhaps we should warn them?”

  Olga shook her head and whispered so as not to be heard, “They’re probably seeing the same thing we are.”

  “That’s up to you, sir. I’ll alert you if it passes ten percent deviance,” Oleg said.

  “Roger,” Yuri replied. “Keep me posted.” He turned his transmitter off and leaned back, no longer interested in seeing a speck as it disappeared around the horizon.

  “Let them fend for themselves,” Olga said, louder this time, now that the mic was off.

  “We’ve been ordered to assist them at the alien base,” Yuri began. “I assume that our leadership has come to some sort of arrangement that involves cooperation between our nations and crews. I’m sure I have the right to communicate any potential danger to the Americans.”

  Olga changed the subject. “You should be piloting them to the surface.”

  “That wasn’t agreed to, considering the events of the last twenty-four hours,” Yuri replied.

  Olga humphed and said, “Well, I’m not sure the colonel is ready to help them right now. Yesterday, he seemed good and ready to pick a fight with both of them.”

  “Not that again.”

  “What?” she asked.

  Yuri shook his head. “Try to leave the psychoanalysis of the colonel’s mental stability to a professional.”

  “He’s ready to crack,” she said, and not for the first time that day. “I’d hate to be the Americans down there when he arrives.”

  “Or the aliens.”

  “Da, especially not them. He’d probably kill them first, then ask questions.”

  “Which is why I’m thankful we’re not recording our conversation,” Yuri said, reaching for the transceiver channel knob.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

  “I’m going to warn the Americans.”

  “Warn them of what?” Olga asked. “They already know about the alien’s EMP transmitter. What more could you tell them?”

  Yuri looked at her for a long moment before answering. “I’m going to warn them that Colonel Popov is on his way.”

  ALIEN CONSTRUCT

  93° West, 4° South

  Near Tithonium Chasma, Mars

  In the near future, Year 4, Day 179

  “OPEN IT NOW,” JULES all but shouted.

  “Get behind me, Commander,” Anderson said as he pushed with all his might against the door.

  Major Carter pulled on his hammer and the door slowly opened, resisting with each inch of movement. “Get inside,” he ordered.

  The first barb hit the man’s utility belt, bouncing off a metallic clip. The orb scanned with an eerie blue light and transited the corridor. Flores’ warning came too late: “Watch out, sir.”

  “Flank that sucker!” Anderson yelled at Flores, pushing Jules rather harshly into the small gap in the cargo-sized doorway.

  The first orb had reached the far passageway that Flores had taken shelter in. He had laid his wire spooler on t
he ground as well as the small, boxy portable transceiver and held his small sledge hammer with both hands. With one sweeping motion, he let loose on the closest orb that had just shot a dart at his commanding officer, swinging the hammer hard at it.

  The impact cracked the front of the orb, which suddenly reversed direction under the blow, and the point of contact showed a clear fracture. A hot, clear liquid spewed out and onto the floor in front of the Navy SEAL.

  “Nice hit,” Anderson said, readying his bar and assisting the major to get turned around.

  “Get your crewmember,” Carter yelled at Jules, not waiting for an answer. He turned and disappeared from the door as Jules stumbled to her feet and looked back.

  The sounds of combat came through her speaker and she struggled to focus on the task at hand and not allow the struggle to distract her. She turned to look into the room and noticed four side bays, two on either side. Three were dim, as was the room itself—however, the fourth was illuminated with the same intense blue light that the orbs had used previously.

  It took a moment, but Jules heard the faint sound of Maria as she stifled a cry. Not seeing anything to stop her, she ran the twenty feet it took to stand in front of the illuminated room. It had aluminum-looking bars that crossed the threshold to the bay horizontally at one-foot intervals. There, kneeling with her hands over her helmeted head, was Maria, curled into a fetal position and sobbing quietly. Jules pressed the door button that had indicated “open,” even though this room itself had no door control.

  The lights in the bay came on at the same time that the chrome bars retracted into the wall, allowing access into the smaller bay. The blue lights stayed on and as Jules stepped into the room and grabbed Maria’s foot, she was hit with a wave of intense pain that permeated her entire skull and lit her nerve endings across her body as if she were on fire. She screamed, and her microphone picked it up, carrying it to her companions in the construct and even to the ship itself.

  Fighting the urge to vomit, she yanked Maria’s foot towards her and pulled back, leaning and eventually falling back away from the intense blue light. Maria was still in the bay, and once out of the light, Jules felt her body attempt to reset its nerve endings to normal. She could only imagine what her science officer had been through and compassion urged her on as she reached further in and grabbed Maria’s limp arms, which had now fallen from her helmet. Mercifully, the woman had passed out from the intense pain. With one final effort, Jules freed Maria from the light.

  “Can you open the door, Commander Monroe?”

  Jules wanted to lean back and pass out from the effort and shock when her speakers blared Major Carter’s question. She looked to her left and saw that the bay door had closed again. There was a key pad on the inside that didn’t make sense to her. She realized her mic was still on automatic, so she said loudly, “Let me try.”

  Standing, she half walked, half stumbled to the door. She hit the upper “open” button and the door obeyed her input, allowing the SEALs to enter the room.

  “Hurry, Major, there’s more on the way,” Anderson said.

  Carter pushed Anderson into the room and helped him drag Flores as well, who had three barbs puncturing his suit and body. Harris came next, carrying the transceiver and roll of wire as it spooled out, and then finally the major entered and looked for the close button. Jules beat him to it, hitting it hard. The thick metallic doors slid shut.

  “What the hell happened?” she asked, looking at Flores’ wounds. One was bleeding fairly heavily, staining his suit and the ebony floor with a spreading pool of vibrant red.

  “They opened fire,” Carter said simply. Suddenly, from behind him, the door started to open again. He held his hammer up.

  “Shit,” Anderson said, dropping Flores and taking a defensive stance at the door.

  Jules reached back at the door controls and hit close, and the doors reversed their movement. A barb flew through the narrow opening and grazed Anderson’s arm as he dodged out of its way. Within three seconds, the doors started to open yet again.

  “What the hell?” Harris remarked.

  Again, Jules hit the door close button, and everyone moved to the sides, away from the line of fire of the orb. This time, she didn’t hesitate, grabbing the pneumatic hammer from Harris’ hand and held it to the door control pad, to engage the firing mechanism. The hammer struck with such force that it shattered both buttons and the metallic covering for the pad. A much smaller amount of fluid gushed from an inner box that apparently held the controls in place, and the lights that lit the pad went dim.

  “What makes you think that will keep the doors shut?” Carter asked warily.

  “I don’t know,” Jules responded, standing back for a moment, aware that if the doors did open again there was no longer a control pad to close them. Seconds ticked by in silence as the group watched and waited. Not seeing any activity, she offered the tool back to Harris and looked at Major Carter saying, “I didn’t see the orbs with hand tools. I guess I’m hoping they can’t open the doors manually.”

  Carter looked at her with a new-found respect. “Right.”

  Jules nodded, then walked back to Maria and sat next to her, grabbing her head and placing it in her lap where she could manipulate the helmet. She released the four locking mechanisms and removed it. Then she did the same and took her own helmet off. The headset stayed on, each end over an ear and one securing a side piece behind the left ear.

  “See to Flores,” Carter ordered.

  “I’m on it,” Anderson said.

  The sound of the major’s booted feet was audible across the dark floor. Jules saw the man’s boots standing in front of her. She kept her eyes down, however, and caressed Maria’s hair back and away from her brow.

  Carter knelt on one knee and the sound of air escaping his suit was heard as he took his helmet off as well, setting it on the floor beside him. “How is she?”

  Jules nodded slightly and gritted her teeth before finally releasing them and relaxing her tightly pursed lips. “I’m not sure. There’s no visible sign of injury other than her shoulder, but the pain she must have endured....”

  “What pain?”

  Jules realized that no one had been there to see her extract her team member, so she explained, “The room, over there” —she pointed to the bay that was still lit an almost neon blue— “it was causing her pain for some reason.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I felt it when I entered the light to bring her out,” Jules said, remembering the intense pain that had felt as if every one of her nerve endings were firing at the same time. “It was ... excruciating.”

  They could hear the sounds of Anderson and Harris nearby as they administered to Flores, who had also lost consciousness. The pair remained silent for a moment longer before Carter asked, “Are you alright?”

  Jules nodded and repressed the urge to vomit. “I’m fine.” She sat, continuing to stroke Maria’s hair, then looked to her left to see the SEALs tending to their own. “Is he seriously injured?”

  Carter looked back at his men and answered, “He saved us with his flanking attack. Knocked two of those bastards out of action before the other two could react. He took a third out even as he fell. One of those things dropped on the back of his helmet and I think he has a concussion. We’ll need Doctor Hill to assess him.”

  “That makes two of your men with head injuries, then,” Jules noted.

  Carter nodded. “Probably, though we didn’t have time to have Harris evaluated before we came planetside.” Carter now turned to look at her and she met his gaze. “You know, Flores took the third one out with him, leaving the last one.”

  “Is that the one outside the door?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Harris arrived and used that hammer of his on the fourth. It also went down fairly easily, but then ... the others showed up.”

  “What others?”

  “Four more, from further in the corridor, opposite direction as th
e first four.”

  “That doesn’t sound ... fair,” she concluded.

  “No. I think we’re quickly becoming outnumbered,” Carter said, his Southern drawl reminding her of a cowboy from the Old West a couple of centuries earlier. “Do you think she’s ready for the smelling-salts?”

  Jules remembered the ammonia capsules used on her not more than an hour ago and shook her head. “No. Can we let her rest a bit longer? I fear she may have nerve damage that isn’t visible.”

  “Of course,” he said, snapping his fingers to get the attention of Harris. “Can you bring that kit over here?”

  “Yes, sir,” Harris said, standing from one knee and grabbing the small, white, plastic box that was usually clipped to a utility belt. He handed it to the major, who set it to the side. Jules noted that by now, every team member had taken their helmets off, and most of the SEALs were perspiring from their efforts.

  “May I?” Carter asked softly, holding a pad of white gauze and tape strips in one hand and slender shearing scissors in the other.

  Jules nodded, then she started to shift Maria’s body so that her shoulder wound was presented to the major. Carter worked quickly to open her suit enough to tend to the injury. There was no sign of the barb, and this seemed to vex the man intensely as he spent considerable time searching for one. Finally, he pinched her wound shut, put the gauze over it, and used the extremely strong tape to keep the skin tight over the wound and the padding in place. He followed up with a plastic sheet that was adhesively sticky on one side.

  “That looks good,” Jules said.

  “We need to patch the suit,” he replied, working in silence with another set of tools from a black, plastic box, which held a rubber-nylon mixture of pads in various sizes. He was able to find one and unwrap it, then seat it over the suit where it was torn. Using a small heat applicator, he sealed the patch; it bubbled at its edges before cooling and reforming into a solid patch over the torn suit. It would be hard enough to hold pressure if needed.