Blockade

by Craig Martelle

  She nodded and took a position in the corridor. Timmons joined the other two. Shonna had approached and was studying the forcefield and swirling blue mass within. A bank of human-sized workstations stood to the left. Timmons went there, surveying the screens. He was surprised to find that he could understand the language, but the new chip in his head translated it for him.

  He reached a finger toward the screen to start searching for information they would find useful. It went blank before he touched it. Timmons jammed his finger into the place where the icon had been. The other screens were blank, too.

  “Someone knows we’re here, and it’s watching us,” Timmons said loudly, hoping his revelation would encourage the enemy to show itself. He already knew that the ship was run by an AI. What he didn’t know was who programmed it.

  Shonna reached out toward the forcefield, close but taking care not to touch it. “There’s a lot of power in this,” she said. “I think if it loses containment, the whole ship would be lost.”

  Timmons joined her for a closer look.

  “Is that the plan?” Merrit asked.

  “It could be, depending on whether we can talk with this thing or not. We need tricorders or something,” Timmons said.

  “When we see the Enterprise, I’ll ask if they have one we can borrow,” Shonna replied.

  “Or we can ask Ted,” Timmons countered. “R2D2 has to have something, don’t they? Maybe we can ask Fuckbert, since they seem to have acquired some R2D2 technology?”

  Shonna didn’t have a comeback for that. She nodded slowly as she moved away from the forcefield and began searching the rest of the space.

  “Fuckbert? Are you there? We want to talk with you.”

  They felt the ship start to move. Shonna pulled a toolkit from her small backpack and started loosening an equipment cover. “Recalcitrant little bastard,” she mumbled as she called on her werewolf strength break the bolts free. She pried and snapped them, one after another.

  Her face turned red as she grunted with her efforts. Timmons watched.

  “Give me a hand,” she called after breaking the last fastener. Together, they lifted the cover free, exposing an exotic system within. “I think we found our alien.”

  Timmons caressed his oversized railgun. It would be so easy to blast it and be done with the alien. He raised the barrel. “I know you can see us. If you don’t want to talk, then you leave us no other course of action.”

  “You will leave this place,” a voice said, filling the space with sound.

  “My name is Timmons. We need you to end your blockade. We are willing to trade some very fancy beads,” he said. Shonna stood and punched him in the arm. “What? We are from New York. I thought that’s how we did business.”

  “You have nothing that we want,” the voice replied.

  “The alternative is that you have something that we can take away, which, in essence, is something that you want—for us not to destroy your ships that are carrying AIs. Each dead ship means a dead AI. That’s what we’re willing to trade. The blockade will end either way. Your choice is limited to whether you wish to survive it or not. You have one minute to answer.” Timmons crossed his arms as he assumed his waiting-impatiently pose.

  Shonna held her hands up and mouthed, “What the fuck?”

  Timmons smirked and mouthed back, “I have a plan.”

  Sue swore that she could hear Shonna’s eyes roll. Sue shook her head, standing in the doorway and taking it all in. Merrit had crawled under the terminal and opened a panel.

  “Anything good?” Timmons asked while waiting for the alien to answer.

  “Nah. Just a bunch of wires and stuff. I was hoping to see memory chips or a hard drive or something that we could snag, give to Ted for him to examine later.”

  “A hard drive?” Timmons asked. “When’s the last time you saw a hard drive?”

  “I think that you should die. Your ship will die. All the cargo ships will die, and in the end, we will watch the people of Dirikon Four One Seven Zero slowly starve to death. And it will be your fault.”

  “You were starving them to death before we got here. Since then, you’re down two ships, and we’re standing here, looking at your ugly ass. See this?” Timmons waggled his fingers in the direction of the system that Shonna had exposed. “This is me waving good-bye.”

  Timmons motioned for the others to leave, making a fist and then flashing his fingers in what he thought they’d interpret as an order for them to get their explosives ready. Instead, they ran from the space and disappeared down the corridor. “Get back here and set your explosives!” Timmons bellowed.

  He ducked his head, expecting the entity to attack him in some way. “What? No internal security systems?” Timmons blurted.

  The alien didn’t bother to answer.

  “Holy shit! You don’t have any because you never considered the possibility.” Timmons laughed as he pulled a small pack of explosives from his backpack. He set the timer for five minutes, but didn’t activate it. “I expect your IQ is twenty billion, but you haven’t figured out humans. Welcome to the party, pal.” Timmons placed the explosive beneath the forcefield holding the swirling blue mass in place.

  Shonna and Merrit showed up and sheepishly deposited their packages.

  “Five minutes,” Timmons told them.

  Shonna slid one of her bundles next to what they assumed was the AI.

  “No need. I got that one covered,” Timmons said, patting his railgun. She slapped him on the shoulder and ran from the space a second time. “Sue, if you’ll do the honors. Start the countdown.”

  Sue pulled the activation device from her pocket and held her thumb on it to activate it, touched the start button, and watched the numbers count backward from five-zero-zero.

  “Countdown has begun,” she reported.

  “Fire in the hole!” Timmons yelled before backing into the corridor. The stream of hypervelocity projectiles ripped into the system. The werewolf within sensed the waves of energy released into the Etheric. Timmons stopped firing so he could gather his wits. He shook his head to clear it.

  One last look showed that the damage was complete. Timmons shouldered his railgun and jogged after the others. He heard Shonna’s railgun barking up ahead.

  He tried to blink the fog away, but it remained. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to run faster.

  Alien Battleship #1

  Joseph’s eyes rolled back in his head as he fell. Petricia caught him and eased him to the deck.

  Bundin moved forward to stand over the unconscious vampire, protecting him with his shell. Kim and Auburn raised their weapons. “What is it, Petricia? What happened?”

  “We need to get him out of here.” She pulled him by the arms, dragging him toward the corridor. Bundin moved enough to stay between Joseph and the swirling blue mass.

  “Blow it?” Kim asked Auburn. He held one hand with the palm upward and shrugged.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” she replied, pulling out two small bundles of explosives. Auburn did the same, looking to Kimber to determine where to put them. She pointed haphazardly. She didn’t know any more than he did.

  “Maybe we can just shoot it,” Kim suggested, looking at her railgun before shaking her head. “Nah. Even with how little I know, I suspect that’s a really bad idea. What moron would blast a forcefield with that behind it?”

  Auburn looked up from the explosives to the blue mass. Kimber was right. Blowing it would be bad.

  “Five minutes,” Kim said, guessing that would be long enough for them to get back to the airlock and suit up. Outside of that, she had no idea if an explosion in this space would destroy the ship or if there were any other way.

  They were both new to space and technology, whether alien or human. “We need to go to school,” she said.

  “After-action item number forty-seven,” Auburn said in his deep, rumbling voice. “Two minutes?”

  “How about four, give us time to get back to the air
lock.” She checked on Petricia’s progress. She had Joseph over her shoulder in the fireman’s carry. Bundin was working his way into the corridor after her. “Meet you at the airlock.”

  Auburn placed one pack of explosives by a computer workstation, the type that a human would use.

  The ship shuddered and Auburn had to brace himself. Kimber stumbled, but didn’t fall. They looked at each other. “What’s going on?”

  “We are destroying you and your people,” the voice chimed in, finally reappearing.

  “I doubt that,” Kimber replied as she placed a pack of explosives beneath the forcefield containing the swirling blue ball. She stood for a second and then added the second pack to the first.

  Auburn slid his second bundle into place beside Kim’s. “Just to be sure,” he said.

  Alien Ship of the Line #1

  “Ted,” Terry said softly. “Could we have just blown the explosives we left in those cable bundles?”

  Ted looked at Terry through clear eyes as his mind churned. “Yes, I believe that would have stopped the launch.”

  Terry took a deep breath, his tortured skin protesting the movement. “Why didn’t you tell me that instead of trying to kill us all?”

  “I can’t think of everything. You two are quoting Shakespeare instead of thinking how to fight this thing.” Ted waved his hand dismissively, as he was wont to do. He had no idea how much the motion annoyed Terry Henry Walton. Maybe he would have used it more, had he been aware.

  “Can you see if the battle’s been joined?” Terry asked.

  Ted’s eyes unfocused as he communed with his AI. “Yes, the fighters from the other carrier launched and have closed on the War Axe. They are maneuvering within the heliosphere. All the ships of the blockade are in motion, except this one, the destroyers designated number one and number two, and battleship number two.”

  “Christina and Joseph,” Terry said as he thought aloud.

  He moved slowly back to where Cory had stopped working on her mother. Cory’s eyes drooped, barely able to stay awake. Char sat up, lucid and looking around.

  “Ted tells me we could have accomplished the same thing by blowing the cables in the corridor.”

  “Now he tells us,” Char croaked. “Got a mouthful of whatever that thing was made of.”

  Char coughed as color slowly returned to her cheeks. Her eyes started to sparkle again.

  “Next time, I’ll try not to kill us.”

  “Dying for a cause is noble, TH, but dying because you forgot you put explosives in the wall, unforgiveable. At least no one would have known. What’s our next course of action?”

  “He’s trying to hack the system. We still need the information, but we might be able to help the War Axe. If Ted can kill those drones.”

  Ted’s eyes were unfocused and his lips moved slightly as he worked with Plato to fight a battle that no one could see. Ted grimaced, then gritted his teeth. Terry removed his canteen and took a long drink. He handed it to Char, and she finished it. He took out a big chunk of beef jerky and tore it in half. He looked for Dokken, as the dog always appeared with the jerky, but he wasn’t there.

  “We need to get that dog a suit,” Terry said as he handed half of the jerky to Char.

  “I get secondhand jerky. Dokken was first?” Char teased before ripping into the meat, providing the fuel her body needed as the nanocytes worked to repair the damage.

  Terry refused to look at the back of her head, where some of the hair was still missing. It would grow out in time, but he didn’t need to see the stark reminder of his failure to not be ready with a safer course of action.

  He shuddered thinking about how close he came to killing them all. He looked to his family, one tear escaping to leave a glistening trail down his cheek.

  Cory was asleep with Char holding her, both of them rocking.

  “You were born for this moment, to defeat an alien AI on its terms. Get into its head and lay waste, my friend,” Terry said softly, trying to encourage the werewolf without interrupting.

  Another mission that has gone completely sideways. Again. FUCK, TH! Get your head out of your ass.

  Terry pinched his face in combined frustration and concentration as he tried to think through other courses of action. He had to fight a space battle against an enemy fleet with one ship. His people had disabled four of the alien heavies. And the War Axe had just now become engaged. She was fighting her own battle. And one man could save them.

  That one man wasn’t Terry Henry Walton. Maybe it was his ego that needed reassuring. He was out of his element away from Earth, counting on the nanos to fix the damage his people seemed to suffer with increasing frequency.

  That was never his intent. He was supposed to stand between the enemy and his command, take the brunt of the damage. Then they’d be free to execute the mission.

  The colonel’s job was to define the mission in such a way that if they lost communication, every single person would know what it looked like to win. Just in case there was only one survivor, she could finish what they started.

  They had lost communication. The Bad Company was killing enemy ships.

  Except for Christina and Joseph. What happened to them?

  Terry paced as he worked through his personal performance review while waiting for Ted to deliver a miracle. He wanted to know if Christina and Joseph’s ships had stopped moving. He wanted to know that the jammer was down so he could talk with the tac teams. He wanted Ted to kill the fighters, because Terry couldn’t.

  Terry was a grunt, a ground-pounder in a war where all sides were firing plasma weapons. And massive railguns. And missiles.

  “I need you to pick up the pace, Ted, and I need you to finish this.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Ankh tapped away. He’d tuned everything out as the others moved from the area and Christina double-checked the placement of the explosives.

  Joseph, Yanmei, and Bundin were long gone. Christina waited.

  “Ankh? This mission depends on you. I know you can do it.”

  He looked up, wearing his usual blank expression. “You said something? I could use a drink and something to eat.”

  Christina looked down her nose, but he was working, and she wasn’t. She removed her canteen and kneeled to hand it to him. She dug a small food bar out of her pack and opened it. When he finished drinking, he took the food bar and folded it to shove the whole thing into his mouth.

  While he chewed, he returned to his tablet.

  “Ankh? We need to get going. If you could wrap things up, we might be able to get off this tub in one piece.”

  Ankh ignored her.

  Or maybe he hadn’t heard. He tapped three more times and ended with a flourish. He looked up at her before turning the pad so she could see. Red lights flashed across a dashboard interface.

  “I don’t know what I’m looking at,” she told him.

  “The jamming units have suffered from a cascading failure, and the ship’s engines have been disengaged.”

  “Great news, Ankh!” Christina lightly slapped his small shoulder, before turning her attention to more important matters.

  “Bad Company, this is Christina. Ankh has restored communications. Colonel Walton, request status and guidance,” Christina said using her backup comm device, the same unit that would remotely activate the explosives.

  Alien Ship of the Line #1

  Terry jumped when the comm device buzzed. He pulled it from the shipsuit’s breast pocket. The case was slightly melted, but the internals worked.

  “Colonel Walton here. Well done, Christina. Well done. Status is, we’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest. Four ships are down, but two of our targets remain active—yours is one, Christina, and the other is Joseph’s battleship. Joseph or Kimber, please report.”

  “Kimber here. Explosives are in place. We have five-minute timers set. Activating now. Joseph is down. An AI called Ten got into his head. His status is unknown.”

  “Understood,” Terr
y replied, using the Marine Corps comm term for ‘I understand.’ “If you can dial it to less than five minutes, we’d appreciate that. That battleship is chasing the War Axe, I believe.”

  “Auburn!” Kimber cried.

  “I heard. One minute, then?” he said, already changing the first bundle’s timer.

  “Sounds about right,” Kim said softly. They finished changing the timers and ran into the corridor. Kim punched the button and the countdown began.

  “Fifty-seven seconds to lights out,” Kimber said over the comm device before shoving it in her pocket and focusing her full attention on sprinting through the turning corridors of the alien battleship.

  “Ship of the Line Number Two has been stopped. Ankh is still working on the fighters. Do you know their status?”

  “Smedley, are you there? Can you answer?” Terry asked.

  “Good to hear your voice, Colonel. We are engaged at present, but holding our own. Killing that battleship will be most welcome, but the other ships are trying to hit us with their EMP weapons. We are maintaining our distance through aggressive maneuvers, but our op area is shrinking as they work to box us in. Eliminating the fighters will allow us to focus our firepower on the other ships. Unless you can eliminate them, too, then that would be even more welcome.”

  “Working on it, General. Tell Dokken that I miss him. Walton out.”

  “Break, break,” Terry said into his device. “By the numbers. Timmons, report.”

  “Timmons here. Tac Team Werewolf is together and uninjured. We are removing bulkheads at present as we are trying to put some distance between us and the impending explosion that should rip the rear end off this ship.” Timmons shook his head, attempting to clear the fog.

  Sue knew something was wrong, but he wasn’t coming clean. She kept one eye on her mate, in case he went down.

  “Sue here. Something is up with Timmons, but he’ll be fine once we get off this cursed ship. Give us a few more minutes and we’ll be out the airlock.”