First Encounter

by Jasper T. Scott

  The Avari shoved her aside and kicked Delta in the side of the head. He subsided, unconscious, and then the Avari’s gaze swept toward Clayton.

  He quickly shut his eyes, being careful not to move. He lay like that with his heart slamming in his chest, waiting for a clawed boot to connect with the side of his head, too—or worse, for a laser to burn through his chest and stop his racing heart.

  He waited... and waited, but nothing happened. Counting out ten long seconds, he opened his eyes and caught a glimpse of the Avari sneaking through the mangled doors to the access chute beside the elevators. It hadn’t been aiming that rocket at the elevators. It had been aiming at the access chute. The Avari was leaving the cryo deck the same way that it had escaped Devon’s lockdown on level twenty-six.

  Clayton fumbled for his rifle, hoping for a parting shot, but the Avari vanished before he could get a good grip.

  His head spinning, eyes and airways burning with the acrid smoke rolling through the corridor from both ends, Clayton rolled onto his back and blinked hard at the ceiling.

  Where are they going? he wondered.

  The answer was clear even in his foggy, blast-rattled head. The Avari was taking Lori and Keera back to whatever ship it had used to board the Forerunner. If they had personal cloaking devices, their ships must have the larger version. For all they knew, Avari shuttles or fighters were clinging to the Forerunner’s airlocks like barnacles.

  Clayton tried to rise again—

  And caught a glimpse of the second Avari, the one he’d been lucky enough to kill, lying just a few feet from Lieutenant Ashley Devon’s body. The live Avari hadn’t spared it so much as a passing glance on its way out.

  Clayton struggled up to a sitting position, and the ringing in his ears retreated just enough to hear a crackling roar of flames. The elevator they’d come up here on was torn open and the car inside was on fire.

  “Delta!” Clayton croaked.

  No answer.

  He dragged himself over to the former Marine and checked the man’s life signs with his ARCs. A strong, steady pulse registered.

  Clayton shook him by the shoulder.

  Nothing.

  He tried again.

  “Delta!”

  A groan. He stirred and rolled over, fumbling blindly for his rifle.

  “We’re clear. It’s gone,” Clayton said.

  “That little shit kicked me,” he groaned.

  “They’re on their way out,” Clayton said. “We can’t let it take them. We’ll never see Keera again—or Lori...” He trailed off, shaking his head. He didn’t know what the Avari wanted with her, but he didn’t want her to have to find out.

  Clayton pushed off the deck with a grunt. Both rifles were still slung around his neck. “Think you can get up?” he asked, reaching down with a hand.

  “Yeah, why not,” Delta said, taking the hand and jumping up. He stood swaying on his feet for a minute. His weapons lay at the far end of the corridor. He stumbled over to collect them.

  Clayton stayed where he was, using his ARCs to check the ship’s security system. Now that the Avari wasn’t trying to hide, he could see it clearly on the ship’s surveillance system. It was crawling down the access chute at a rapid rate behind Lori and Keera. Unlike the maintenance tunnels that Keera had vanished into, there were plenty of cameras inside the access chutes that ran beside the elevators.

  “We can still catch them,” Clayton said. “They’re in the chute. Come on.” He began limping over to the ruined doors. As soon as he reached them he leaned through and aimed down with his E-14. The Avari’s heat signature burned brightly in the infrared scopes. It was taking up the rear, keeping Lori and Keera in sight. Delta crowded in beside him, taking aim as well.

  “Ready?” Clayton whispered.

  Delta nodded.

  But before they could even pull their triggers, the Avari looked up—as if it had eyes in the back of its head. It produced that skinny black sidearm with the long barrel—

  Clayton ducked back from the shaft, pulling Delta away with him just as a blazing green laser burned through the space that their heads had been occupying a second ago.

  “Thanks,” Delta breathed, looking shaken.

  Clayton watched them via security feeds on the right lens of his ARCs. They were descending the ladder past the wardroom on level 30, and still headed down.

  “Now what?” Delta asked.

  “The elevators are shot out on this level,” Clayton answered. “We have to wait for them to clear out of the access chute or risk getting shot as we climb down.” Clayton watched as the Avari and his two hostages continued down, passing level 20 and still descending.

  “Where are they headed?” Delta asked, his eyes bright with imagery on his ARCs. He was obviously watching the same feeds.

  Finally, they stopped climbing down. The camera closest to them showed Lori opening the door to level 17.

  “They’re headed for The Wheel?” Delta asked.

  Clayton slowly shook his head. Level 17 had three purposes: storage, the Cargo Transfer Airlock, and The Wheel. It also gave access to all four of the spokes which led to The Wheel, each of which had its own airlock midway along its length. Those airlocks were almost never used. “I think we just found out where they docked their ship,” Clayton said.

  “We’ll never make it down there before they can reach it,” Delta replied.

  “No, we won’t,” Clayton mused. “But we could scramble to a pair of Scimitars before they launch. We’ll light up the space around the airlocks.” He saw the Avari leaving the access chute, and nodded to Delta. “Let’s go.”

  “We’ll be leaving the ship unattended, sir. Maybe you should stay on the bridge.”

  “One fighter isn’t going to be enough to find them, Delta. We’ll get the ship to wake the rest of the crew.” Clayton leaned over, peering into the vertiginous depths of the access chute, double checking to make sure that it was clear.

  No sign of the Avari.

  “Better let me go first,” Delta said. “At least I’m wearing armor.”

  Clayton shook his head and started down the ladder. He was about to explain the breach of protocol, but the words got stuck in his throat: body armor hadn’t helped Devon.

  Using his ARCs to access the cryo belts as he climbed down, he set the ship to begin waking the crew; then he mentally composed an emergency welcome message to greet them as soon as they woke up. Found Avari on board, invisible to the naked eye and scanners. Giving chase with Delta in Scimitar fighters. Secure the bridge and all sensitive areas. Captain Cross out.

  Chapter 38

  Lori shuffled through the cargo transfer airlock with Keera. Despair and panic clutched her like a boa constrictor, making it hard to breathe. A flashback burned bright in her mind’s eye: of that rocket exploding, sending Captain Cross and Delta flying; then of the Avari shoving Keera aside and kicking Delta in the side of the head when he tried to get up.

  Captain Cross, Lieutenant Devon, and Delta were all either unconscious or dead. Help wasn’t coming this time. Besides Richard and Doctor Stevens, they were the only ones awake on the ship right now.

  They reached the elevator doors. And Lori stopped, waiting for instructions to open it.

  Instead, the Avari reached out with a small hand and used one of its three fingers to stab the call button. Lori noticed that those fingers ended in vicious black claws just like Keera’s.

  The elevator doors sprang open. “Get in,” the Avari growled.

  Lori shuffled in, pushing Keera ahead of her. She began reaching for the control panel on the other side—her ARCs and Neuralink were still offline thanks to whatever the Avari had done to them.

  But the diminutive alien batted her hand away with a hiss. She couldn’t see a face or expression through its helmet, but she imagined the creature was baring its teeth at her.

  Lori wondered absently why the Avari was taking them to The Wheel. At least it wasn’t spinning anymore, so artificial gr
avity would only be pulling them in one direction.

  The Avari touched one of the three buttons on the screen inside the elevator. A01—the airlock.

  Lori blinked in horror at that. In hindsight it should have been obvious. It had to have boarded them with a ship of some kind. Now it had what it had come for, and it was leaving.

  The elevator jerked into motion, gliding forward and swiftly picking up speed. Stars flashed past windows in the sides of the elevator and the spoke.

  “Where are we going?” Keera asked, her eyes big and full of terror as she stared at the alien. The Avari’s glossy black helmet stared back at her, inscrutable as ever.

  Lori pulled Keera close and kissed the top of her bald, bony head. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered.

  The elevator slowed and jerked to a stop just a few seconds later, but the doors didn’t open. Lori turned to look at the circular hatch to the airlock. The Avari walked quietly over to it and opened it. A small vestibule appeared. The airlock.

  A growl. “Inside.” The Avari gestured with its gun.

  Lori shuffled forward with Keera.

  The windows in the outer airlock doors showed nothing but stars and empty space. A new fear stabbed sharply in Lori’s chest. There was no ship docked on the other side. Would they have to put on pressure suits and crawl around in vacuum to reach the Avari vessel?

  The alien shoved Keera through the hatch. She rounded on it and lashed out with her claws, raking them across the Avari’s torso. Lori expected to see black Avari blood spurting out.

  But Keera’s claws slid right off, as if that fish-scale-patterned suit were made of glass.

  “Inside,” the Avari growled again.

  “Get in, Keera,” Lori urged.

  Her daughter hissed again before climbing through. Lori followed and walked straight to the outer airlock door, pressing her face to the windows and trying to find the Avari’s ship. But she couldn’t see it.

  “We’ll need pressure suits if you want us to go out there,” Lori said. Then a thought occurred to her to buy some time: maybe the Avari didn’t know that there were suits stored in the airlock. “We’ll have to go back to one of the storage levels to get them.”

  The hatch slammed shut behind them, and the Avari stalked wordlessly over to stand beside Lori.

  She frowned at it. “Did you hear me?”

  It touched the Cycle Airlock button.

  Lori’s eyes flew wide, and she lunged to abort the sequence, but she fell short.

  “Hold on, Keera!” Lori said, grabbing the nearest handrail.

  And then the outer doors sprang open with a blast of escaping air. An infinite sea of stars and empty space yawned on the other side, and the Avari pushed her into it. Lori lost her grip on the handrail and screamed as she fell flailing into the abyss.

  Chapter 39

  Five Minutes Earlier...

  Clayton and Delta hurried to put on flight suits and helmets in the ready room before entering the Scimitar hangar on level five. Chatter began bubbling over Clayton’s ear-worn comms—officers waking up and asking about the situation on board. He gave instructions to Dr. Stevens to leave his quarters and get everyone organized. Besides Clayton, he was the ranking officer now.

  “You should stay on board, sir,” Stevens objected.

  “No time to argue, Stevens,” he replied as he slipped his helmet on. “Secure the bridge and scramble the rest of the Scimitar pilots to reinforce us.”

  “Aye, sir...”

  Delta moved to open the doors to the hangar. A yawning chamber appeared with a dozen giant parallel cylinders protruding from the deck and massive conveyor belts leading to them. The Scimitar launch tubes.

  Clayton and Delta ran for the tubes, racing past the conveyor belts that were used by the ship’s flight crews to ferry Scimitars in and out for maintenance and repairs.

  But these fighters hadn’t seen any action yet, so they were all loaded up and waiting.

  Clayton skidded to a stop in front of the hatch to Launch Tube 01 on level five, the Scimitar Hangar. Delta stopped at Tube 02 and they both triggered their hatches open in the same instant. The sides of the tubes facing away from the conveyor belts slid up, toward the ceiling, revealing sleek fighters with reflective glass cockpits and gleaming black hulls. It was like the chamber of a giant rifle sliding open to expose a bullet. An apt analogy if ever there was one, Clayton thought.

  He waved a hand to open the mirror-plated cockpit canopy. It slid up, and then he climbed in. The orientation of the fighters and launch tubes with respect to the direction of gravity made that awkward—they were facing down in the tubes, ready to launch out the back of the Forerunner.

  Clayton straightened his legs inside the cockpit, pressing his feet flat against the pedals for the Scimitar’s lateral thrusters. Pinning himself to the back of the pilot’s seat, he held himself up against gravity until he buckled the four point restraint system over his chest. That done, he used his ARCs to fire up the fighter’s ignition system and then shut the cockpit and launch tube.

  A HUD swirled to life inside Clayton’s helmet, and buttons, screens, and sliders came to life on all sides of him, glowing brightly.

  He grabbed the flight stick, and the fighter shivered as it came alive in his hand.

  Pneumatics groaned as the cockpit and launch tube slid shut, sealing him in. Red lights flashed down the length of the inside of the launch tube, parting the darkness and revealing the wide, flaring opening at the end of it. The launch tubes doubled as sealed landing strips. That flaring exit point made for easier entry, but the degree of precision required to fly into an opening that was barely double the width of the scimitars themselves meant that the landing sequences were conducted on autopilot.

  Clayton reached down and grabbed the air tubes trailing to either side of his seat and connected them to either side of his helmet, sealing the openings there. Cool, fresh air began flowing into his helmet around his mouth and nose, coming from the tanks behind his seat.

  Delta’s voice came over the comms, his deep baritone loud and clear: “All green and ready to launch when you are, sir.”

  Clayton did a quick pre-flight check on his main viewscreen. “All systems green. Activate launch sequence.

  “Copy.”

  Clayton triggered his own launch sequence, and an automated countdown began: “Launching in five, four, three...”

  A rising hum of energy thrummed through the Scimitar as magnetic rails inside the launch tube fired up. This entire system was like a giant cannon, and he was inside the projectile. Red warning lights began flashing.

  “...One—”

  The doors sprang open at the end of the launch tube. Locking bolts released with a clunk, and then came a violent roar that hammered Clayton into the back of his flight chair. Stars and space enveloped him. He saw Delta’s fighter streaking out to port.

  “Yeah-ha!” Delta whooped. “Damn, I forgot how much I missed this!”

  “On my wing. We’re looping back. Time to light up those airlocks.”

  “Copy that, Cap.”

  Clayton hit the left pedal, slewing the nose of his fighter around until he was facing the glowing blue engines of the Forerunner.

  The Wheel was massive, four spokes connecting it to the central column of the ship.

  Clayton mentally marked two target boxes around the airlocks.

  “You take spokes one and two. I’ll take three and four.”

  “Roger,” Delta said.

  “Weapons free,” Clayton said as he armed his laser cannons. Wings folded out from the sides of his fighter as the hardpoints deployed; then he pulled the trigger and a pair of bright crimson beams snapped out with loud zapping sounds from the wingtips to either side of him. Both the visuals and sounds were simulated by the Scimitar’s combat computer. Clayton fired six pairs of lasers through the empty space beside the airlock of Spoke Three, but the beams vanished into infinity, converging on the empty target box and then diverging
again on the other side.

  Delta’s shots passed through empty space as well.

  The Forerunner was drifting toward them as they cruised toward it at a rate faster than the larger ship’s steady 1G of acceleration.

  “Next spoke!” Clayton ordered, and selected the empty red target box in front of the airlock of Spoke Four. Sucking in a quick breath, he held down the trigger again, expecting his shots to vanish into empty space once more.

  The Avari had probably already left. Or maybe they were clinging to one of the airlocks on The Wheel...

  Crimson laser beams flashed out repeatedly to either side. Then stopped abruptly. This time the beams didn’t diverge on the other side of the target box. They hit something invisible dead center of it.

  “Contact! Spoke Four!”

  “Copy, marking target...” Delta said. A split-second later his lasers converged on the invisible target as well.

  Triumph swelled in Clayton’s chest. As they drifted near, he could actually see their lasers burning holes in the enemy’s hull from the fine white sprays of condensing air jetting out into space.

  He just hoped that Lori and Keera weren’t in that part of the enemy ship. Shooting at it was a risk, but so was letting the Avari slip invisibly into the void, taking them away as hostages to parts unknown.

  Chapter 40

  Lori landed face-first on something solid. The Avari hadn’t pushed her out the airlock into empty space. He’d pushed her out into his ship. The doors had opened for her at the same instant as he’d pushed her. Her brain had taken a second to catch up and realize that she was falling into something other than empty space.

  Keera appeared crouching beside her. The girl’s chalk-white face was drawn with worry, black veins standing out sharply against her skin.

  “It’s okay. I’m okay,” Lori said, grunting as she pushed off the deck and twisted around to see where she was.

  The airlock was dark, the surfaces non-reflective, metallic. Tubes and conduits ran along the walls and ceiling, much like they did aboard Union ships.