by Paul Dayton
“How can we destroy a whole planet? And wouldn’t that destroy them too? And us?” Scratch interrupted.
“I don’t know, but they believe we can do it. And they showed me a vision of your ship, all assembled and working, but different…”
“Different? And was this a past or future vision? We don’t even know if this is true!” Scratch said frustrated.
“The ship seemed more alien then human, as if they modified it or something. The crabs were all over it, but the work was already finished. Scratch, it all seems real, and I’m pretty sure that your ship has actually been rebuilt.”
“What about Bones and the others? Did they say anything?”
Jack kept quiet, and Scratch prodded again. Finally Jack said, “According to what I saw, he’s beyond help. So are the others.” After a few moments Jack turned to continue going down the ventilation tunnel, and Scratch followed without asking anything more.
After what felt like a half hour, he finally couldn’t resist and spoke up. “Where are we going? It was down this tunnel that I heard the screams earlier.”
“I know,” Jack said. “We’re going after Bones and the others.”
“But you said…”
“No Scratch, I didn’t say, the crabs did! I want to see for myself. Anyway, according to the crabs, there’s something else down this tunnel that we have to look at and destroy.”
“Jack, I know about the big black ship. I know it has to be destroyed, but I really think it’s a bad idea to go where Bones is.”
Jack didn’t answer, so Jason gave up and continued following her. They eventually came to another fork in the tunnel, and Jack immediately turned right again. Within a few moments groaning sounds starting drifting up the tunnel and she quickened her pace. The sounds were odd, as if dozens of people were having a bad nightmare and moaning out loud. As they got closer the sounds increased. Scratch’s hair stood up on the back of his neck as they started hearing alien grunting and gurgling noises. Scratch could feel pain and horror and hopeless fear emanating from ahead, and he had to mentally strengthen himself as he continued crawling.
“Jack, are you picking up any thoughts?” Scratch asked through clenched teeth.
Jack concentrated but she shook her head no. “Not human thoughts anyway, but I do get little glimpses of odd… I can’t explain it. It’s like a horrible memory, but one cut up into pieces so tiny that I can barely pick any of the pieces out. It’s as if…” and a look of revelation came onto Jack’s face, “It’s as if whatever made them human is being torn away and destroyed! Hurry Scratch!” she said and they scrambled down the tunnel as fast as they could.
Once they rounded another bend, the tunnel came to a dead end with a short vertical shaft facing down. Scratch and Jack carefully peered over the edge to see what was going on, and the opening was large enough to give them a clear view of the room below.
Directly in the center and well below the opening was a Hive Queen, the first they had ever seen. As far as they knew, the original Hive Queen had been killed when their home-world was destroyed, and although rumors had gone around that there was perhaps another queen, most felt that it was only a matter of time before the aliens would die out. They were looking at proof that there was at least one more.
“Jack, look at the size of it!” Scratch whispered. They lay there looking at this monstrosity, so big that there was no way that she could leave this room. Part of her body was proportionate to a regular ant except much larger in size, but the head and sensory organs stood out as being unusually large and out of proportion. The eyes had withered to grotesque stubs and were clearly useless. The thorax was the biggest part of her body, more like a spider’s bloated thorax than an ant’s, and most of it was submerged in some sort of clear fluid. The portion that was above the fluid caught their attention, and they had to augment their view to bring into focus a tiny ant that was somehow permanently attached to the back of the Queen. Jack guessed it to be the male, somehow impregnating the eggs that were soon laid, but she couldn’t be sure. She took a number of mental pictures to share with her Commander later, if she ever made it off this planet.
They continued to watch as an egg would periodically float up from the depths of the fluid to the surface. Once there, a drone would collect it. Other drones were coming to her and feeding her directly from their mandibles into what used to be a mouth but was now only a soft, moist and fleshy opening. They were interrupted only by her actions of lowering and stretching her body.
Jack lowered her head into the short shaft leading into the room so she could take a better look around, and what she saw almost led her to lose her grip and fall.
The room itself was totally alien, dug out by claws and mandibles, and all around the Queen were humans laying prone, arranged in a large circle. There appeared to be no restraints or straps holding them down.
Jack and Scratch looked in horror as the Queen bent down and engulfed a human’s head in her soft mouth. They were sure it had eaten the head, until it carefully let go and slowly moved to the next human. The groaning was lessening now, and Scratch could barely pick up emotions. The human that the Queen had engulfed with her mouth lay there completely still and seemingly dead, just like the ones before him.
Jack frantically searched for Bones, and finally found him to be one of those next in line as the Queen worked her way around.
“Can you sense anything?” Scratch said.
Jack shook her head, and Scratch saw tears rolling down her face. He watched her stare at Bones, and she then slowly withdrew the laser from the backpack Scratch was carrying.
“What are you doing?!” Scratch whispered, alarmed at what she was about to do. “You’ll get us all killed!”
“I have to do something!” Jack replied.
“Jack, they’re gone! They’re not human anymore!” but Jack wasn’t listening. Just as the Queen came up to Bones, Jack steadied her hand and neatly and quietly burned a hole through the Queen’s head, and the Queen slumped to the ground. The drones burst into activity, only to quickly slow down and mill about confused. Jack and Scratch watched the action below, wondering what would happen next, when all of a sudden, all of the human’s eyes opened up.
Because they were lying down, some automatically looked to where Jack and Scratch were watching from the ceiling, and Jack peered into Bones’ eyes, hoping to see something there. Bones lay there staring at her, and then a slow comprehension came across his face, and hope returned to Jack that perhaps it wasn’t too late. Within a second it all changed and he let out an alien scream that pierced Jack to her soul. All the humans quickly joined in, and within a few moments, alien guards came in and started scurrying up the wall to reach Jack and Scratch.
Scratch quickly ducked out of the way, but Jack started shooting with her laser once again. The humans now became quiet, but Scratch could sense communication going on though he didn’t understand what it was. He reached into his backpack, pulled out a grenade and set the timer for two minutes and stuck it into the corner of the vent behind Jack. He set the second grenade also for two minutes but threw that one into the chamber, hoping the pandemonium below would allow the grenade to go unnoticed.
“Jack, let’s go! We don’t have much time!”
Jack lingered as she fired her laser at the ants, but Scratch pulled her hard by the arm and she eventually turned and started crawling.
“How long?” Jack asked, her head aching from the mental thoughts exploding in the room below.
“Not much, and we have to hurry! I don’t think it’ll take long for the aliens to widen the hole enough to come in after us!”
They concentrated on shuffling through the vent tunnel as fast as they could, and kept talk to a minimum. Scratch could swear that at least two minutes had passed, but Jack was counting the time down in her head. As she counted she could hear alien appendages rasping against the walls of the vent, the click of their claws getting clearer and clearer. Ants were built for these tunnels a
nd it wouldn’t take long for them to catch up. Jack stole a glance behind her and saw them coming single file about thirty meters behind.
“Scratch, the ants are right behind me! And we only have about ten seconds left!” She yelled.
“I’m hurrying!”
Jack grabbed her laser and shot the first few ants coming behind them to slow them down but Scratch grabbed her hand and pulled her into a side vent they had passed earlier. Immediately afterward the grenade blew and a hot stream of gasses and projectiles blew through the aliens. The tunnel imploded behind them and they could feel from the vibration that a large amount of rocks had come down.
They were deafened by the explosion, and the resulting dust left them almost blind. Once they had regained their composure, they adjusted their eyes to maximum infrared. They could see the walls from the vent tunnel and the dust in the air glow from the heat of the blast. Jack looked around and realized there was no way out the way they had come now that the vent itself had collapsed.
“Do you think this tunnel has collapsed further down?” Jack asked.
“Only one way to find out,” Scratch said, and he started crawling down the vent. He was exhausted and knew she was too, but she hadn’t complained yet. It had been nearly four days now since either one of them had fully slept, but it also was only an hour before the power generator would go, and they had no time to rest now.
Jack must have picked up his thought, and she asked, “How much time do we have left?”
“One hour, Jack,” Scratch answered. They crawled and cleared minor debris, and eventually worked their way to another opening. They could see a huge chamber filled with more equipment neatly organized along the walls, but what captured their attention was an immense, sleek black ship sitting in the middle with hoses and wires attached to it. They could see right away that it had jump capabilities, but little in the way of weapons. It was clearly built for stealth, with odd angled surfaces pitched to deflect sensor beams away from their source. It seemed even stealthier then the ghost ships Jack came across in space. Around the ship were humans and ants, the ants milling about lost in confusion, but the humans startlingly organized and working with a common purpose. All the humans had dust suits on, and Jack and Scratch could feel a draft coming into the ventilation tunnel from the chamber itself. “Must be a positive pressure room, Scratch,” Jack said.
“Yeah. Is that the ship of your dream? I’m sure it has something to do with the Collider. What do you think it’s for?” Scratch asked.
Jack went deep into thought. She thought of the immense Collider, the humans working there, the stealth and jump capability the craft had, and as she thought a transport cart drove up to it carrying a single round cylinder with hoses and support tanks fixed to it. Also attached to the base of the cylinder was a compact power generator of a much more updated design. The cylinder hissed and periodically released small clouds of steam as it sat there waiting for whatever the operator of the cart had in mind.
Jack studied the cart, wondering why it had wheels when an antigrav shuttle was much more practical, and then it hit her. Wheels were for safety. If the antigrav unit stopped working, it would drop, while the wheeled cart would simply stop. That cargo was either valuable or dangerous or both. ‘What could be that dangerous?’ she thought.
“Scratch, what could be so dangerous that you would use a wheeled cart to lug it around, that it would have its own self contained power source and cooling system, and that you would want to put into a jump capable super stealthy ship?”
“Damn!” Scratch said, as he looked at the ship. “I can’t believe it. They’ve been successful at making and storing antimatter too!”
“That’s why our alien friends insist that this planet must be destroyed!”
Jack and Scratch stared alarmingly at the ghost ship. After a while, Jack asked, “Scratch, are you tired of all this?”
“Tired? I’m exhausted! It’s been four days…”
“No,” Jack interrupted, “I don’t mean this here, I mean tired of the war. I’m so sick and tired of the whole damn thing! No place to call home, losing friends, always wondering when my number will be up… When will it end? Aren’t you sick of it too?”
“Of course I am Jack. I wish I could just forget all of this and settle down somewhere, in some corner out of the way where I could be left in peace, but with these ants, we would never be in peace. And I don’t want to settle down somewhere if I always have to look over my shoulder.”
“I know Scratch. I know this is important and I know I have to do it, but lately…”
Scratch could see a kind of longing in Jack’s eyes, which she quickly hid.
“But, you settle down? You of all people? That would be the day…” Jack said as she feigned a laugh.
“I would settle down,” Scratch said. “If I found the right person.”
“I don’t believe it. You’re not the kind to settle down,” she replied smiling.
“Jack, you can read my mind. Read it now and see – I’ve found the right person and I will settle down.”
Jack saw the determination on his face but refused to read his mind. Reading minds left her feeling uneasy because too many things better kept secret popped out at her. Plus it gave her a terrible headache, and this wasn’t worth either one.
She thought back to her ship, and how they were both not only senior pilots but the oldest of the flight group. Somehow they managed to stay alive in a group whose median age was twenty-four. The nearest anyone came to their age of thirty-three was a hot-shot pilot three years younger who was still alive more by luck than anything else. They called the pilot Clouseau in honor of some French national hero that somehow always came to the right conclusion through his own ridiculous mistakes.
Would they be paired? It had been on the eugenics board. With only one hundred and sixteen thousand surviving adult viable couples after the original exodus, a human eugenics program was a necessity and one the general space population embraced wholeheartedly. Generally, a group of people called appropriately “The Committee” would suggested ‘a pairing’ after a careful DNA study, and the two people would look over the genetic benefits of the pairing and decide if they wanted to have a child together. This guaranteed the most diverse choice possible in the less than satisfactory situation of relatively small groups of people closed off from others in their individual World Federation ships.
The large majority of those on the Federation Ships had a number of children with different people, and although it was a genetic success Jack felt that it was a moral failure. She looked at Scratch and wasn’t at all sure that he would stay faithful to her, something she absolutely would insist on.
But time was passing by and they needed to get things accomplished. A thought came to her and she said, “Scratch, how many grenades you have left?”
Scratch smiled, and said “Two, but one will be enough.” He went serious after saying this, and he looked at Jack and said, “You know, we’ll die too.”
Jack looked at him and said, “Not if I can help it. Can you set the grenades for…” and Jack thought a bit, “a one hour delay?”
“Sure thing, under one condition,” Scratch said.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m serious. I will not reprogram these grenades unless you agree to something.”
“And that something is…?” Jack eyed him suspiciously.
“That at the next available chance you allow me to properly propose and that you say yes.”
“You’re kidding, right?” But Jack could see that he wasn’t kidding. He appeared completely serious. She concentrated a bit and read his thoughts, and saw that he was in fact serious about his request, or rather, condition.
“Scratch…” she was about to start but Scratch interrupted.
“Look Jack. We’re not going to make it out of here alive, no matter what you have in mind. We’re as doomed as this planet is if I have to stand there and fire off the grenade myself. But
just in case you have this miracle tucked up your sleeve, and I see that you don’t because you’re naked, I would like very much to marry the one girl I have not been able to forget from the moment I saw her sixteen years ago. You. You have been in my thoughts day and night all this time, every single waking and sleeping moment. Every minute I’ve seen you with another man I’ve been tortured more than I thought I could endure. And if you say no, then I don’t care if I die here. But if you agree to say yes when I can properly propose, then I have something to live for and that thought alone will make us survive even if I have to throw you into orbit myself!”
Jack was surprised at his sincerity and deeply touched from what he had said. This was totally uncharacteristic of him and completely different from the Scratch everyone knew. She was at a loss for words, afraid that they wouldn’t survive, or that if they did he would quickly forget everything he had said.
Scratch, afraid she might actually say no, quickly added in, “And anyway, you’ve been staring at my ass for the last day, it’s about time you did something about it.” They both laughed and Jack told him to shut up and program the grenade.
“Not until you agree.”
“FINE! I agree,” and Scratch could see that she meant it. He kissed her hard on the mouth and lingered as he squeezed his body against hers, and they sat there embraced in love until reality clicked in.
“I guess it’s time to set those grenades,” he said laughing, and he started working on it.
“Only activate it when I tell you. Look for a place on the ship that would amplify the explosion, something we can reach in a hurry but that would hide the grenade well. The other one goes on the cart, as near the cylinder as possible. How much longer until the Power Generator goes offline?”
Scratch looked at his watch and said, “Six more minutes. Jack, did you notice the far end of the room?”
Jack looked and saw large bay doors at the very back, heavy steel units that would be impossible to move by hand. “What am I supposed to see?” she asked.