Fire Flare

by Chris Ward

  The other fighter, narrowly avoiding the first attack, arced around for another pass. A pair of tentacles rose up to engage it, but as the first bolt of energy caught its wing, the fighter got off a shot. One blast struck the Matilda a glancing blow, blowing off a gun installation and throwing them up in the air.

  Beth, spinning around, waved her hands frantically, looking for the tether cable. It had caught around her leg and was pulling tight, causing the spin. She got one gloved hand around it and corrected herself, finding the Matilda’s upper hull some distance below where she hung in the vacuum.

  ‘Captain Adams? Revel?’

  A faint howling sound was coming through her transmitter. Revel Sind’s tether had broken loose, and he was floating away from the ship. Below, Captain Adams was scrambling at his own tether, pulling the magnets free to give him more length. To Beth’s horror, he began scrabbling at the juncture where theirs joined. If it pulled it free, Beth would float loose.

  ‘No! You can’t help him!’

  ‘He’s my friend!’

  ‘He’s lost!’

  Too late, Captain Adams ripped the tether free. Beth had a single horrifying moment when she found them both loose together, floating above the Matilda’s hull, their legs kicking like two air swimmers. Then she spun around, losing sight of the captain.

  The tether line was still attached to her leg. She reached for it, trying to swing it around, to make it catch on something. The momentum didn’t help, only causing her to float farther away from the ship.

  Something glittered above her, moving closer out of the gloom. She spun herself around until the cable drifted towards the glittering thing. It was a tentacle, she saw now, bearing down on her. As she watched, the end of the cable touched against it—

  (floating floating)

  —and everything was light and she was spinning out of control. A grey surface came up beneath her and she stretched out one gloved hand and clutched onto something. With her eyes closed she held on tight, even as she felt the vibrations of the ship beneath her and knew they were moving. The tentacles moved past her and then they were drifting towards the tunnel where Paul and Teer Flint had gone.

  ‘Help me,’ Beth whispered to no one as the Matilda began to pick up speed.

  31

  Paul

  ‘Hey, buddy, you asleep in there? Wanna wake up and let us know what’s going on?’

  Teer Flint put a hand on Paul’s arm. ‘Shut up, would you?’

  ‘It’s not a face. It can’t be. What, you think there’s just something living behind that wall?’

  Teer Flint shook his head. ‘You don’t get it, do you? I think this orbiter is one of them. A Trill.’

  Paul frowned, then gave a little shake of his head. Teer Flint had clearly lost his mind. ‘Man, that’s the biggest load I’ve heard today. If you’re right, what’s it been doing here this whole time? Wouldn’t it get a bit bored just kind of floating around?’

  Teer Flint shook his head. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t understand time like we do. Perhaps a thousand years is the blink of an eye.’

  ‘So, if I ask it a question, I have to wait a thousand years for it to answer?’ He looked back at the wall, at the oval-shaped outline of what Teer Flint seemed to think was a face. ‘Anyone at home?’ Paul reached for his blaster. ‘Perhaps I can hurry it along a little bit—’

  ‘No!’ Teer Flint reached out to stop him. ‘I really don’t think that’s such a good idea.’

  ‘Come on, that’s just a bunch of curves in the rock. You’re going mad because you’re breathing the wrong kind of air or something—’

  The shape moved, its upper part contracting a little, pushing up creases in the upper middle.

  ‘I think it’s frowning,’ Teer Flint said.

  ‘Tired of listening to your jabber. Come on, let’s get out of here. I think we wasted our journey.’

  He stood up, pulling a transmitter off his belt. ‘Beth? Are you there? Beth? Robot? Do you copy?’

  No response came. Paul pressed the connection button a few times as though that might jog it into life, but the signal remained dead.

  ‘They might have left us,’ Teer Flint said.

  Paul shook his head. ‘No chance. They’re dead or captured, most likely. Damn this hellhole. Those Shadowmen scum must have found a way in. Come on. If we hurry, there’s still a chance. If we can catch those spindly assholes by surprise we can rescue Beth.’

  He pulled his blaster as he ran, heading for where they had left the shuttle outside, not caring whether Teer Flint followed or not. If the lizard-spider wasn’t onboard by the time Paul strapped himself in, he would have to take his chances with his new best friend. Beth could be in danger. What if those Shadowmen scumbags used her to experiment on? Or what if they tried to cross-breed? It didn’t bear thinking about. He had something to say to those nightmarish pricks, and it sounded like—

  ‘Doo-doo-doo!’ he said, pointing his blaster at a section of rock and making a couple of poses. ‘You assholes have no chance.’

  ‘Paul, wait! We should try to talk to it!’

  ‘Shut up, Flint. You’re wasting time. We have to get out of here.’

  The shuttle was just up ahead, but it had moved since they had disembarked. Where they had landed on the edge of one of the ledge-like protrusions outside the honeycomb structure of the orbiter’s core, the ground had begun to elongate and narrow, moving their shuttle towards the central reactor column like a bug perched on the end of a giant, slow-moving tongue.

  ‘Flint, quick! This mother is trying to eat the shuttle!’

  ‘Paul, stop!’

  He reached the shuttle and activated the hatch, even as the ground below him began to stretch beneath his feet, almost toppling him into the abyss. He grabbed hold of a hatch support pillar and reached back for Teer Flint, who was running up behind. As the lizard-spider reached the hatch, the ground shifted beneath him. Paul found nothing below him but open space. Teer Flint jumped, his fingers closing over Paul’s.

  ‘Damn, what does your species eat?’ Paul growled, feeling his shoulder muscles tug as Teer Flint swung out over the chasm. ‘Whatever it is, I suggest you ease up a bit.’

  ‘Your species, if we can catch them,’ Teer Flint said, eyes wide with a mixture of euphoria and fear. ‘Although we prefer not. They taste like dirt.’

  Grunting with the exertion, Paul hauled Teer Flint up until the lizard-spider could close his fingers over another of the support pillars. As they both climbed up, the shuttle began to list to one side.

  ‘Leave my ship alone, you prick,’ Paul said, lifting his blaster, aiming at the central column. He fired, the blast vanishing into the red-orange mess.

  ‘Paul, no!’

  ‘See?’ Paul said, turning to Teer Flint. ‘It ate that damn blast. This thing is hungry. Let’s scoot.’

  He started up the hatch slope, but something strange was happening. The ground beneath them was beginning to shake, the central column to flare like a sparking fire. Paul was still staring at it when he felt Teer Flint’s hands pushing him from behind.

  ‘Get inside. Quickly!’

  ‘We need to have a discussion about the chain of command,’ Paul muttered, but allowed himself to be pushed into the lower hangar. As soon as Teer Flint was inside, Paul activated the hatch control and it snapped shut.

  The list of the ship was obvious. Within seconds there would be nothing left beneath them and they would plummet into the abyss, to wherever that led.

  ‘Time to fly,’ Paul said, feeling a surge of adrenaline. He ran for the cockpit and jumped into the pilot’s seat as Teer Flint climbed in beside him, tucking his legs in under the dashboard. Paul frowned at the sight of Teer’s missing legs; where there had been stumps were now bony protrusions.

  ‘Damn, your legs grow back fast,’ he said. ‘You liable to multiply or anything? Not sure I could handle two of you.’

  Teer Flint stared at his legs as though he hadn’t noticed before. ‘Not that
fast,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Something was going on inside that atmosphere.’

  Paul gave his arms a quick flex. ‘Well, I think it packed on a half kilo of meat for me too,’ he said. ‘Although I’ve been hitting the bars pretty hard recently.’

  ‘Good for you. Let’s move before this thing eats us.’

  Paul switched on the external visual screens to reveal a tilted view of the abyss and the central reactor column. Whatever it was looked rather angry, with fiery protrusions stretching out towards them. The honeycomb-like structure was shifting too, so as Paul lifted the shuttle off, he was unable to chart a course, only to follow which routes opened up in front of them while avoiding those extensions of seemingly living walls which threatened to knock them out of the air.

  ‘Do something useful and get on the sensors,’ Paul said to Teer Flint. ‘See if you can detect anything that might be a starship. Whatever this thing is made of, I don’t think it’s the same stuff that ships are built of. Anything different could be the Matilda.’

  ‘On it,’ Teer Flint said.

  Ducking and weaving, they swung in and out of huge caverns and passages as they opened, closed, and remodeled themselves in front of Paul’s eyes. He had never seen tech like it, but as he gritted his teeth and cut a sharp turn through a newly formed passage, he promised himself that they would find a way out or go down firing. The shuttle only had a single defensive cannon, but if it came to it, he would give Teer Flint the controls, don a space helmet, and stand by the open hatch with a blaster in each hand.

  ‘Don’t mess with me, bad boy,’ he muttered, hacking them sharply left through another new tunnel, bringing a gasp of fear from Teer Flint.

  ‘Got something,’ Flint said, his voice taking on a higher pitch, like a girl who’d just found a snail climbing up the front of her pinafore. ‘Go right. It’s up ahead.’

  They swung around a corner and found themselves facing what looked like a woven cocoon attached by massive cords to the distant walls.

  ‘What in Vantar’s Seven Hells…?’

  ‘It’s the Matilda,’ Teer Flint said. ‘I’m picking up a mayday transmission.’

  ‘Beth!’ Paul shouted, before realizing the transmitter wasn’t on. ‘Flint, are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. That’s them. They’ve powered down.’

  ‘We’ll need to blast them free. Arming cannon—’

  ‘Stop! I know what this is!’

  Paul turned to Teer Flint. ‘It’s an unholy mess, is what it is.’

  ‘It’s a protective cocoon. Whatever is happening, the orbiter’s systems have created a protective shield around the ship.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because whatever’s happening might destroy it … wait. We’re getting a transmission.’

  ‘This is the Matilda. Do you copy?’

  Paul snatched the receiver out of Teer Flint’s hands. ‘Robot, is that you?’

  ‘This is Harlan5, yes. Do you copy?’

  ‘This is Captain Paul Grogood of the Matilda,’ Paul said, unable to keep the smug grin off his face. ‘Receiving you loud and clear.’

  ‘We’re pleased to know that you’re still alive,’ Harlan5 said with a deadpan that gave away little of his true thoughts. ‘Can you look in your stores for any cutting equipment? I know Caladan sometimes used that shuttle as an extra cupboard. Beth is trapped outside on the hull by this webbing stuff.’

  The droid’s words took a few seconds to register. Then Paul spun to look at Teer Flint. ‘Did you hear that? Beth’s trapped outside!’

  ‘There are some laser cutters in the cockpit compartment. I remember seeing them when I was fixing up this heap of junk. I always thought it was a bad place to put them, but I’m not one to judge.’

  ‘How kind of you. I’ll bring us in as close as possible.’

  With the cream-colored mesh covering the Matilda, there was no way to dock the shuttle. Igniting the landing thrusters, Paul moved them alongside, then activated a grapple on the shuttle’s outer hull to attach them to a knot in the cocoon’s surface.

  ‘You spider people make stuff like that, Flint?’

  Teer Flint shrugged. ‘Some species. Mine tends to eat things that don’t need to be caught.’

  ‘Like your own children?’

  Teer Flint grimaced. ‘Let’s just get on with this.’

  ‘Just tooling with you.’ Paul gave Teer Flint a matey shoulder punch just to confirm the joke. ‘Right, let’s get serious. Robot, where’s Beth? We’ll deal with a reprimand for letting her go outside the ship later. I need her exact location.’

  ‘Three degrees due north of the flight deck right-side wing,’ Harlan5 said.

  ‘And where exactly is that?’

  Teer Flint nudged his shoulder and pointed. ‘Right there. That rise near the front is the flight deck. She’s right under there.’

  Paul flicked through the view-screens. Around them, the orbiter’s insides continued to shift and rearrange, but within the Matilda’s cocoon chamber the walls remained static.

  ‘An oyster,’ Teer Flint said.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s a sea creature native to Earth. We had a variant on Rubin which we farmed for food. If it gets a speck of dust inside its shell, it builds a protective coating around it to prevent it from causing any damage.’

  ‘Why not just expel it?’

  ‘I think that’s the eventual intention, but the creature’s not designed that way.’

  Paul sighed and shook his head. ‘You get some real weird stuff evolving under the water,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been a fan of the damn stuff.’

  They retrieved the cutting equipment and headed for the rear hatch.

  ‘How can we get back into the ship?’ Paul asked Harlan5 through the transmitter in his helmet. ‘You need us to peel off this whole damn web?’

  ‘The material has completely sealed the ship,’ Harlan5 replied. ‘If you can free Beth from the strands holding her, we will cut through a section of the hull from underneath. She is right above a dormitory bay on level one. After we have cut the hole, we’ll bring her inside and seal the room. However, we can’t leave the hole open for long or the ship will lose too much of its oxygen supply.’

  ‘So you need us to cut her free first?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Paul clenched a fist as Teer Flint fitted a laser cutting saw over his wrist. ‘On it.’

  ‘That should do it,’ Teer Flint said.

  Paul started the glowing laser saw through a remote in his helmet, then frowned and held up the other hand. ‘Flint, give me two of these mothers. Let’s level up this rescue operation to badass standard.’

  Teer Flint lifted an eyebrow as he fitted a second laser saw over Paul’s other hand. ‘No need to make the whirring sounds,’ he said with a grin. ‘The machines will do that for you.’

  Paul glared at him. ‘You might be chief technician today, Flint, but you could be galley cook tomorrow. I enjoy a home-cooked meal.’

  ‘Anything to stay out of harm’s way. Let’s do this.’

  They headed out, Teer Flint holding on to Paul’s legs with one arm while hooking the other around the robotic arm attaching them to the Matilda’s cocoon, using his own legs to keep him steady.

  ‘Lean me forward,’ Paul said. ‘Let go and you’re a dead man. Or spider, or whatever you are.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Captain,’ Teer Flint said. ‘I’ve got you.’

  Up close, the white cocoon looked like thick fibres all overlaid with each other. Paul hacked a hole in the upper part, pleased to see that the laser saws had enough power to cut through it. Great fronds flopped loose, and he elbowed them away as he saw the Matilda’s hull buried beneath.

  Something else was poking out of the mess: a boot.

  ‘Beth! Is that you! Beth, damn you, answer me!’

  ‘We lost her transmitter,’ Harlan5 said in Paul’s ear. ‘But you should be right over the top of her.’

  Paul hacked away more of t
he fibres to reveal a slim, feminine leg, then another. ‘I think I’ve got her!’ he shouted. ‘Unless this monstrosity has a species of space sirens living onboard. I’m at the point where nothing would surprise me.’

  ‘We didn’t see any,’ Harlan5 said.

  ‘It’s her!’

  He had spent enough time surreptitiously looking at Beth to recognize the outline of her body. As he cut away the fibres that had stretched over her back, she half turned. He started to reach out for her before realizing both his hands were encased in laser saw gloves. He nicked her across the back of one leg before he managed to pull away, a little tendril of blood pluming into the vacuum.

  ‘Sorry! Robot, start cutting that hull! She’s here, but she’s injured.’

  Teer Flint, holding on to a hook in the fibres Paul had cut away, reached down and placed a hand over the back of Beth’s leg.

  ‘Don’t touch her!’

  ‘Shut up. Concentrate on cutting her free, but try not to catch her again. You breached her suit.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Hook your legs over the fibres. I need to take off my glove.’

  ‘Why?’

  Below them, Beth had begun to shake. A little ahead, a glowing line appeared in the hull, moving slowly towards them.

  ‘They’re coming through!’

  ‘And Beth won’t make it unless you do what I say.’

  Paul glowered, but did as Teer Flint asked, hooking his legs over the fibres he had already cut loose, then moving the laser saws over the ones covering Beth’s upper body, cutting them away until she was revealed, her arms flat against the hull, face pressed to the side, eyes closed.

  ‘Damn, is she alive? Beth? Beth!’

  ‘She’s alive for now. Get that fibre cleared off her shoulder so we can get her down inside.’

  The glowing line had made a right-angle now. Someone was cutting through the hull from inside the ship.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Teer Flint had twisted himself around so that his legs made a dome over Beth’s body. He pulled one of the cut strands and held it up.

  ‘Cut this for me. I need to taper off one of my legs.’