“The alien vessel has veered away from an attack vector,” Smedley reported.
Micky was hunched over, his stomach muscles protesting the strain. He grunted when he tried to turn his head. The captain closed his eyes and rolled his head back and forth, trying to will away the stress of the encounter.
“Was there any electronic probing or attack that we didn’t sense? Are there drones or bodies floating toward us through space?”
“The gravitic shields are active,” K’Thrall said, poking his head out from within the holo screens. “Should they impact our shields, they will have a very bad day.”
Micky looked askance at the Yollin.
“Then it’s settled.” Micky tapped the controls on the arm of the captain’s chair. “Stand down from general quarters. Resume normal ship operations,” he ordered over the ship-wide broadcast.
Clifton slid his hood back and blinked rapidly as the fresh air attacked his eyes. He looked to the captain. “Remain in position?” he asked. “Or are we going to go after him, make an example of that Fuckbert?”
Micky put his forehead in one hand and massaged his temples with his thumb and middle finger.
“We’re not going to attack the aliens. Let the colonel conduct his mission. I have faith that he’ll get the job done.”
Clifton watched the alien battleship arc away from the War Axe and toward the blockade of ships. “I wonder if Timmons and his team are okay.”
“I wish we knew about all of them,” Micky whispered to himself.
Alien Ship of the Line #1
Ted turned at a T-intersection and headed toward the interior of the ship.
“Time to kick ass and chew bubblegum?” Terry asked Char as they jogged after Ted. Cory stayed close, having no intention of getting left behind. She shook her head, never understanding her father’s inclination toward inane banter when they were in the middle of a high-stress situation.
“Fresh out of bubblegum,” Char answered.
Ted slowed to a walk. A man appeared in the corridor. Ted didn’t appear to notice him as he walked past. Char expected an extreme reaction.
“BLASPHEMER!” the man howled when he caught sight of Char. She smiled as she made a beeline for him. He lunged forward.
Clumsily. She slapped his hands and backhanded his nose. His head snapped back and bounced once off the wall before he stumbled forward. Char rotated at the waist, smacking her right fist into the palm of her left hand to solidify the elbow strike that caught the man in the temple.
He went down like a sack of bricks.
“Blaspheme that,” she told him, stepping around his unconscious form to continue after Ted.
Terry glanced back and motioned for Cory to catch up to Char. He waited until the women were ahead before searching the man for a badge or any device. He was disappointed when he didn’t find anything, although it had been expected. A theory was forming within his mind, but it remained ethereal.
It needed to gel more before he could articulate what he was feeling.
He jumped up and ran when he realized that the others had turned a corner and were no longer in sight.
Terry raced around the turn and dodged to avoid running over his daughter. He bounced off the wall and slid to a stop.
“I meant to do that,” he said quickly, trying to look past Ted and see what held his interest.
Ted studied the panels covering this section of the wall. Terry looked up and down the corridor. He could see no other panels. A closed, double-sized hatch was not far away.
“What are we looking at, Ted?” Char asked.
Cory leaned close and put a hand on the back of his shipsuit, hoping to share a little calming energy with him. She couldn’t feel him through the suit, so she reached to his neck. He stiffened at her touch, but sighed and his breathing slowed. A slight blue glow surrounded Cory’s hand as her nanocytes drifted across his skin.
“What are we looking at?” Char repeated.
“This is the junction that carries much of what comes from in there,” Ted answered, pointing toward the hatch without looking at it. He focused on the box he carried in his other arm.
“Pull the panel off,” Ted said, waving indiscriminately.
Char looked at it for a moment, gripped it at the bottom, lifted, and popped it outward. The panel came off and she tipped it to the side, letting it drop on the deck.
The area behind the panel was a mass of fiber optics and junction boxes, where bunches of cables entered and different bundles exited.
“No control interface,” Ted muttered as he stood and moved close.
Char leaned against the wall next to the opening. She couldn’t make heads or tails of what was inside the wall. She shook her head at Terry, and he mirrored her movements. Neither had any idea what it was for.
Cory was ill-equipped for the technology of space. She’d had the option to remain on Earth, but chose to join her parents on their journey to the stars, not because she wanted to learn the ways of spacefarers, but because she believed it was time to leave Earth’s future in the hands of others. After she watched so many unenhanced grow old and die, she knew it was time to move on.
It was the curse of the long-lived.
She and the others had to learn new skills. Only Ted seemed to fit in without going through a transition period or training. Maybe he’d always been a spaceman trapped on Earth, and finally, he was free.
“Put an explosive here,” Ted said, pointing to a very specific location behind the wall and between fiber optic bundles.
Terry reached into the backpack that Cory carried and pulled one of the pre-programmed detonators and a blast pack.
“Time or remote detonation?”
“Both. Set for two hours, activate the motion trigger, and keep the remote in your hand,” Ted replied.
Terry carefully worked the explosive into the small space. Char picked up the panel and put it back in place.
“What are we afraid of?” Terry asked.
“Intellect.” Ted looked at Terry for comprehension, but didn’t see any. “Come on. It’s time.”
Ted walked to the hatch, cycled the wheel, and pushed inward. He went through without waiting for the others.
They hurried after him, rushing through the open hatch and dodging left and right to take up firing positions.
Ted stood, with Plato cradled in his arms, looking up at a swirling blue mass contained within a forcefield.
“I’ve been expecting you,” a voice said.
Alien Destroyer #1
“I’m getting out of this thing, but I want a mech on our side. Just in case,” Marcie said as she parked her suit and climbed out. Kelly’s helmeted head nodded, and she punched an armored fist into an armored hand.
“At your service, Colonel,” Kelly answered, hoisting her railgun.
Marcie repositioned her brand-new Jean Dukes Special. There was little room inside the armor, so the pistol had been wedged into her stomach and under her ribs. She was happy to be free of the suit.
She liked the firepower it represented, but unlike Kaeden, she felt stronger when she was more in touch with her surroundings. She closed her eyes and using her heightened senses, pulled power from the Etheric. Marcie searched outward, beyond the airlock, beyond the corridor, and into the ship.
A great ship with a minimal crew. And something else. Something that dabbled in the Etheric, waving to her. Beckoning.
Her eyes shot open, and she stood, mouth agape.
“What is it?” Fitzroy asked, backing away from the hatch leading to the interior of the ship.
“I don’t know, but something’s waiting for us,” Marcie managed to say. She composed herself, dialed her JDS up to six, and stepped boldly into the corridor.
She knew it was empty, and she knew which way to go. She turned left and headed aft.
Kelly signaled for the others to follow, while she stayed close to Marcie. She wasn’t sure what her team lead had seen, but the shock on her face wa
s evident. Kelly pointed to her eyes, motioning both ahead and behind.
Keep your eyes peeled. Stay frosty.
Marcie strode ahead, shoulders back and head held high. The mech clumped down the corridor, bent slightly to avoid jamming against the ceiling. Fitzroy and Praeter looked over their railgun barrels as they walked, maintaining clear lines of fire past the mech and to the rear.
A hatch opened and a man looked into the corridor. He fell back against the door as Marcie walked up. She shot her fist into the air, giving the signal for the tac team to stop.
“What’s your name?” she asked, firmly but softly.
“I’m… I’m…” The man never finished as he stood there, slack-jawed and staring.
“We need to talk with the captain of this boat. Where can we find the captain?” she asked, pointing one way and then the other as she tried to gauge his reaction.
He stood like a stone golem.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Marcie started, smiling. “We’re going to tie you up and stuff you back in there, and then we’re going to continue on our merry way, because you are jack shit for helping us.”
Fitzroy squeezed past the mech and turned the man about with an arm bar, then zip-tied him and dumped him unceremoniously back into his workspace, a small electronics repair shop. Fitz secured the hatch on the way out, nodding once to Marcie.
She turned and continued down the corridor, the others stalking after her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Alien Destroyer #2
Kaeden looked about, trying to see the cameras or speakers. He didn’t expect he’d find a person behind the voice, not in an enclosed space with a well-armed mech.
He wasn’t in a hurry to answer, but he’d learned from his parents that talking with the enemy was the best way to defuse a situation or buy time in order to gain an advantage.
“Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?” Kae ventured.
“You can call me Ten,” the voice replied.
“Well, Tim,” Kae said, purposely mispronouncing the name, “I’ve got this thing to do, and you’re in my way, unless you want to end your blockade, then we can sit down and talk about what started all this and the best way to resolve it while the good people of Alchon Prime get fed.”
“Put your weapons down, as a sign of good faith,” Ten replied.
Ramses and Gomez had already departed. Capples blocked the hatch, using his armor in case someone tried to lock Kaeden in.
“We’re not going to do that.” Kae checked his sensors, increasing their sensitivity to look for heat sources, explore the invisible wavelengths, to see what he knew he was missing. He had no course of action besides blowing the ship. He started to wonder if maybe there was another way.
“Am I talking with the ship’s captain?” Kae asked.
“We don’t have such a thing here. I am controlling the movements of this vessel, if that’s what you mean. We know you have people on five of our other ships, by the way. They will all be dealt with in due time.”
Kaeden’s breath caught, and his heart started to pound. He checked his external comm system, but it was filled with white noise.
Jamming.
He tried his comm chip, but none of the other teams replied. They were too far away.
We’re here. We made it about fifty meters and a bulkhead slammed down in front of us. Looks like we’re trapped, Ramses reported.
Blow it. As much explosives as it takes, Kae ordered. Be ready to jump overboard. This fucker is pissing me off, and we’re going to start breaking shit until something changes.
Alien Ship of the Line #2
Ankh had started at a brisk pace, but was slowing down.
“What’s wrong up there?” Christina called, wanting to speed up. She felt that time was not on their side.
“Getting tired,” Ankh said over his shoulder.
Christina’s jaw dropped. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“No. I’m not,” Ankh replied matter-of-factly. “Can we take a break?”
“We cannot take a break. It took us too long already. Something is not right.”
“Don’t be in a hurry to your own funeral,” Aaron quoted TH.
“I wish I could put my finger on it, but I can’t.” Christina shivered. She steeled herself and forced her way past the men up front. They watched her walk, mesmerized. She stopped, having sensed their piercing stares. Half-turning, she growled, “I will rip your fucking eyes out if you keep it up.”
Christina’s eyes flashed yellow and her claws grew as she changed into her Pricolici form. She looked back at the horrified men, her snout bobbing as she laughed. Effortlessly, Christina scooped up Ankh, taking care not to shred his small body with her claws, and she started running forward.
In that form, she didn’t care if the men kept up or not. Ankh had a job to do that he wasn’t doing while they were prowling the corridors. Her wolf ears picked up the sound of her team encouraging the men to keep up. They resisted.
They would never be able to look at another woman, should they get the opportunity, without the terror of the unknown beast within rising to torment them.
Christina put everything else out of her mind. She was the tactical team leader, responsible for accomplishing the mission and bringing her people home alive. Running down the corridor of an enemy ship carrying a small alien while weretigers followed pushing a group of captured humans.
An alien ship crewed by humans. Something that drew the Crenellian and his hacking tools. The faster she ran, the more unease she felt. Christina considered changing back into human form, but discarded the idea.
“Up here!” Ankh said, pointing with one arm while hanging on tightly with the other. His face remained impassive. Christina expected that he liked being carried. His race had no concept of physical fitness. Their bodies had atrophied over time to perform the minimum necessary to support their oversized brains.
Big heads didn’t make them smart, as Terry Henry had pointed out on Poddern. It definitely didn’t make them more ethical.
Humility was the key to self-improvement. Christina was still new to the Bad Company, but felt right at home. Not a different version of herself, but a better one of her existing person.
One with responsibilities.
She slowed as she approached a large hatch. She sensed the Etheric dimension and discovered that beyond the hatch, something pulled a miniscule amount of energy. She knew that it sensed her coming, just as she had felt its presence.
Christina relaxed and let her body reshape itself into human form. Her custom shipsuit flexed to either form, tightening as she became smaller.
Ankh looked at the wheel in the middle of the hatch. “I’ve never seen these types of actuators before,” he said, before looking back to discover that he was no longer carried by a Were.
“These are common on old Earth ships.”
“They aren’t like this on the War Axe.”
“Naval ships. They operate on a planet. In the water,” Christina replied.
Ankh looked at her blankly.
“Old Earth mechanical technology to create an airtight or watertight seal. That’s all. For such a high-tech alien ship, this is low-tech stuff,” Christina stated.
“Maybe it’s not a high-tech ship, but a low-tech ship with a high-tech rider,” Ankh offered.
Christina looked at the Crenellian and then to the hatch. Aaron and Yanmei ran up. The captives were nowhere to be seen. Christina didn’t care that the humans had left. She realized they were irrelevant to accomplishing her mission.
“They bolted at that last intersection,” Aaron explained in a low voice, sounding contrite.
“That’s fine. They are no threat to us.”
“Not anymore,” Yanmei replied. Christina’s transformation shocked them to their core. They were harmless from that point forward.
“Shall we?” Christina tipped her head toward the hatch. Ankh looked at the wheel in the middle, making no move to
turn it. “Fine.”
Christina grabbed it and spun it counter-clockwise. She pushed and walked in, one hand on her oversized railgun.
Because one never knew when something needs to be blasted.
Alien Battleship #1
Joseph staggered, leaning more and more heavily on Petricia. “Hold on, my love,” she whispered as she rubbed her cheek on his head.
The vampire in Joseph wouldn’t let him quit. The telepath in Joseph was getting overwhelmed. He tried to pull back, but it wouldn’t let him go.
His head rocked back from the force of the blow. Petricia yelled. And then his head jerked the other way from a second roundhouse slap.
Auburn winced at the sound his hand made on Joseph’s face. Joseph sucked in a great drag of air, as a drowning man who broke the water’s surface. His eyes were wide, then cleared as he came back to himself.
Auburn stayed his hand. Petricia stayed hers. Auburn’s wake-up call shocked her to the point of her instincts taking over. She was ready to defend her husband, but she’d been too slow. Her vampiric speed had not been there. She waved her hand back and forth, but it didn’t accelerate as it should have.
“What is happening to us?” she wondered aloud.
“The Etheric,” Kim guessed, watching Petricia test herself.
Bundin ambled up beside them. “Do we not have a ship to subdue?” the Podder asked.
Joseph blinked at the pain remaining in his head. He rubbed one hand across his brow, looking at the sleeve of his shipsuit where he, for a moment, expected to see the black leather that he’d worn for hundreds of years.
“Yes,” Joseph started. “We have a mission, and despite the humans, there is an alien. This alien is who we need to confront. I cannot reach out any longer. I’m sorry. Next time, I may not be able to come back.”
“No need, Joseph,” Kimber told him.
“We will take it from here, my friend,” Bundin said, once again using the device attached to the bottom of his shell to speak out loud. He was embracing the vocalization of his thoughts in the human tongue.
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