CHAPTER 21
Bill heard a gentle humming that grew louder as he scrambled down a narrow ladder inside a cramped maintenance shaft. The four hunters and Dan McKay had been climbing down the shaft for what seemed like hours, through many decks in search of ground level and escape.
Bill saw a glimmer of light at the next landing, and stepped off the ladder, muscles aching from the climb. A moment later Slab and Cracker joined him.
“I never want to see another ladder in my life!” Cracker said.
Slab glanced into the shaft, which reached down into darkness with no sign of the bottom. “Still a long way to go.”
They waited while Wal and Dan McKay reached them, then started along a short corridor towards light spilling into the passageway from a fully powered compartment ahead. It was the first brightly lit area they’d seen since their escape from the dissection lab. Bill raised his rifle as they neared the entrance, but Slab placed a big hand on his shoulder and moved past him to peer cautiously into the room. After a moment, he nodded it was clear and stepped into a long room filled with rows of silver rectangular beds covered by transparent bubbles.
Slab froze when he realized seven of the beds were occupied.
“It’s a morgue,” Cracker whispered.
Bill gave him a dubious look. “If they’re dead, why are you whispering?”
“Because he doesn’t want to wake the dead!” Wal said with a grin, stepping bravely out from behind Slab.
They moved warily down the aisles toward the seven humming beds, their eyes transfixed by the bodies floating just above the beds and by the wispy white vapors that swirled slowly around them. Slab approached the first bed, fascinated by its occupant’s aqua dynamic features and elongated head. One side of its body was charred black and most of its left arm was missing, replaced by a translucent bubble filled with a dark viscous liquid. As they watched, the amphibian’s chest expanded and contracted slowly.
“It’s alive!” Cracker exclaimed.
After their initial shock subsided, they leant closer as curiosity overcame their fear. The alien’s bulging eyes were closed and its breathing shallow, but appeared stable. It floated on an acceleration field that ensured its damaged skin did not touch the metal sides of the regeneration bed or the transparent canopy enclosing it. The wispy vapors comprised billions of nano machines working tirelessly to repair damaged cells while the bubble over the alien’s stump was in the early stages of regrowing its lost arm.
Wal scowled, as his confidence returned. “It’s an ugly bugger.”
Slab moved on to the next regeneration bed. Its occupant’s burns were less severe than the first, but it had lost both its legs. Regrowth bubbles were attached to its stumps and the first signs of reforming bone were visible. Because this alien was less badly burnt, the nano cloud was thinner than for the first patient. Slab moved around the end of the regen bed, not taking his eyes off its occupant until his knee struck a low metal platform extending from the side of the bed.
“Ugh!” He reached down to rub his knee, then saw one of the two myrnods taken from the flooded hull breach lying face down on the platform. “Jeez!” He cried as he jumped back, startled. Another look told him the amphibious predator was unconscious, and he relaxed as the others rushed forward to see what had startled him.
A thin transparent tube, filled with a hairline of yellow fluid, snaked from the creature’s muscled shoulders to the base of the regen bed, where nano machines refined the growth hormone into a powerful stimulant. This potent substance was then injected into the unconscious alien to accelerate both its gamete production and cell regeneration rates. Though they couldn’t see it, nano medics in the cloud enveloping the alien were harvesting gametes, assessing their quality and storing genetically perfect samples for cloning.
When Cracker saw the unconscious myrnod, he whistled at the sight of its hook claws. “I bet that bastard could rip your guts open with one swipe!”
Bill studied its teeth, visible in its partly open mouth. “With teeth like that, it’d give a great white a run for its money.”
Wal made a face. “No way, a great white would eat this thing for breakfast.”
Bill touched the tube connecting the amphibian to the regen bed. “Looks like it’s giving aquaman a transfusion.”
Slab stopped rubbing his knee. “We better save the last bullet, in case we run into one of those things,” he said, nodding to the myrnod.
“Suppose we run into two of them?” Wal asked nervously.
“Then we’ll throw you at the other one, and run like hell,” Slab replied as he headed for the third bed.
Its occupant was charred black all over, from having been engulfed completely in flames. A large regrowth bubble enveloped its lower abdomen, working desperately to regenerate failing internal organs.
Cracker glanced around the hospital ward thoughtfully. “I wonder if these blokes are the only survivors? There’s a lot of empty beds here.”
“Someone put them there,” Bill said, “And plugged claw foot into that one.”
“The machines could have done it,” Slab suggested as he moved to the fourth regen bed where another scorched crewman lay in a coma.
Dan McKay stopped beside Slab, gazing at the charred skin, seeing how it blistered and flaked similar to burnt human skin. “Looks like he suffered.”
“Yeah,” Wal agreed, “That had to hurt.”
“It’s probably drugged, can’t feel anything,” Bill said as he stopped at the sixth regen bed, then glanced back at the previous patient. “I wonder if they have two sexes, like us? They all look the same to me.”
Dan followed his gaze, from one alien to the other. They had been stripped naked by the nano machines before cellular regeneration had begun. Neither showed any sign of reproductive organs. “They look a bit like fish. They could fertilize eggs the same way.”
Wal looked horrified. “You mean, no sex?”
Dan shrugged, “Maybe.”
Slab grunted with disgust. “Bloody dickless aliens!”
“That’s why they build such bloody big ships,” Cracker declared. “Trying to compensate.”
“Like Wal’s V8!” Bill said with a smirk.
Wal gave up his search for alien manhood and headed toward the last occupied regen bed. Its patient had lost a foot and was covered with a patchwork of mild burns, but was otherwise unharmed. A second claw footed myrnod lay face down on a low lying metal platform beside the bed, being drained of its precious hormonal fluid. Wal leaned close to the transparent bubble and studied the alien’s face curiously. Even though its eyes were closed, he was fascinated by how much larger the creature’s eyes were than his. “He’s got big bloody eyes! I bet he sees good.”
The alien amphibian opened its eyes, and stared straight at Wal.
“Argh!” Wal yelled, jumping back startled.
The alien’s eyes darted from one to another, instantly assessing the situation. It was not drugged, but pain free due to nano machines having nullified its nervous system. Crippled and outnumbered, an animal would have panicked, but the alien was calm and focused. With no functioning implants to contact the ship, it pushed its left arm down through the weak acceleration field and hovered a finger over a featureless stretch of metal. A circle illuminated, then the creature opened its mouth and spoke, although the words did not carry through the bubble.
A panel in the roof vanished and a med drone floated down into the ward with a tranquilizer needle attached to one of its slender arms. When it was head high, it glided toward Wal and tried to spear him with the needle. Wal threw himself backwards, careening off a vacant regen bed onto the floor. Slab grabbed Bill’s gun, and slammed the butt of the weapon into the side of the drone, sending it tumbling sideways through the air. It wobbled as it regained its balance, then it spun around and darted back at him. Before it could stab him, Slab rammed the rifle’s stock into it again, sending it spiraling out of control onto the deck. He ran to where it had fallen
and smashed the butt of the rifle into it several times, remembering its twin had tried to cut his arm off. When its thin surgical arms went limp, Slab kicked it, sending it skidding across the floor.
“Feel better?” Dan asked.
Slab scowled, “Not yet! Maybe if I kick it again.”
Wal scrambled to his feet shakily, eyes riveted to the tranquilizer at the end of the med drone’s flexible arm. “Man, look at that thing!” He shuddered. “I really hate needles!”
Silently, twenty-nine panels in the ceiling vanished and a med drone floated down from each opening, each equipped with a tranquilizer needle.
Slab’s eyes bulged when he saw them. “Oh crap!” He turned and aimed the rifle at the crippled alien lying in the regen bed.
Bill pushed the barrel up. “We’ve only got one bullet.”
“It’ll only take one bullet!”
“Run!” Wal yelled as the med drones cleared the roof panels.
“That way.” Cracker pointed to the exit on the far side of the med lab.
They sprinted for the exit, ducking and dodging tranquilizer needles the med drones stabbed down at them. Slab deflected one needle with the rifle, then smashed a med drone away with the butt of the gun while Cracker sidestepped another, caught the slender metal arm and slammed it against the edge of a regen bed, snapping its fragile spine. A few paces ahead, Bill and Wal helped Dan to the exit, then Cracker darted after them, driving a detonator into one of his last two sticks of dynamite.
“Not in here!” Bill yelled when he saw what Cracker was doing.
“Slab,” Cracker yelled, “Get out of there!”
The ex-footy player backed toward the exit, parrying the stabbing arms of four machines with the rifle. He glanced back at Cracker, saw the dynamite in his hand, then holding the rifle one handed, he caught the arm of the nearest drone and swung it into the other three, knocking them back. He turned and dived through the exit as Cracker tossed the dynamite into the med ward.
The med drones surged toward the exit as the dynamite tumbled through the air toward them. The machines packed tightly together as they approached the exit, their inbuilt guidance and anti-collision programming slowing their advance. The stick of dynamite bounced off one, clattered against a second and exploded. Metal fragments flew between them, shattering the drones near the exit. The undamaged machines further back hesitated while drone parts smashed into nearby regen beds, shattering their translucent canopies. One of the med drones crashed into an occupied regen bed, striking its feeble patient in the chest and sending the swirling nano machines into a frenzy as the occupant’s vital signs collapsed.
Outside, Slab and his companions raced down the dark, unpowered corridor toward a glimmer of light far ahead. The hiss of cutting tools and the clang of metal echoed toward them, growing louder as they ran. Behind them, the surviving med drones surged out of the hospital ward like a swarm of angry, oversized bees. Cracker produced his last stick of dynamite, and fitted the timer as they ran.
Bill looked at the primed explosive in Cracker’s hand, and remembered what the med drones had tried to do to Slab in the dissection lab. “Save it for us.”
Slab glanced back at the dark shapes speeding after them, silhouetted by the light from the hospital ward behind them. “He’s right. There’s too many to fight! You won’t get them all.”
Cracker saw the grim looks on their faces, rammed the timer home, then pocketed the stick. “OK, it’s unanimous, they won’t take us alive.”
“It’s not bloody unanimous!” Wal shouted alarmed.
They reached an intersection of corridors. The sounds of feverish repair activity drifted to them from the left, while daylight flooded down the corridor from the right.
Wal sniffed in surprise, eyes widening. “Fresh air!”
They charged down the right passageway into a jagged cavity gouged horizontally through the side of the ship by a nova weapon. Behind them, the med drones closed the distance faster than they could run. Wal sprinted ahead, readying himself to jump out and race for the trees. As he neared the hull breach, he realized something was wrong. All he could see was sky! When he stopped at the edge of a precipice, he found the ground was hundreds of meters below. Even the tops of the nearby ridges were but distant contours against a charred landscape. The others pulled up beside him, seeing there was no escape. Behind them the swarm of med drones flew toward them, needles raised, ready to spear them.
Slab caught Cracker’s eye. “OK mate, light your cigar.”
Wal’s eyes widened in desperation. He glanced at the drones racing toward them, at the dynamite in Cracker’s hand, then over the vertical wall of the ship’s outer hull. “We need rope.”
Slab gave him a brutal look. “Brilliant!”
Cracker set the timer for instant detonation then motioned for the others to gather around. He took hold of the detonator, about to trigger it.
“Wait!” Dan yelled, pointing at the hull breach behind them. “Look!”
A length of rope had suddenly appeared hanging a meter outside the mothership’s hull. A moment later, a second rope fell down beside the first.
Wal looked surprised and grinned. “Ask, and you shall receive!”
* * * *
Beckman edged forward past a massive particle cannon mounted in a rectangular recess in the ship’s outer hull, and clipped his repelling belt to one of the two ropes they’d just secured to the gun. A meter away, the ship’s outer hull dropped away like a sheer cliff towards a charred ridge below. Behind the gun emplacement, the rest of the team waited in the open access passage which ran back through the hull. Sometime after the landing, the crawlway had been opened to ventilate the ship and allow repair drones access the ship’s exterior. Now it was being used by Beckman’s team to reach the outer hull, so they could descend to the ship’s nerve center.
Beckman leaned out over the edge to survey the massive wall of gray armor that reached down more than a kilometer to the ground, and ran off for half a dozen kilometers on either side. Thin air tugged at his clothes and whistled through the gun emplacement as he stepped back, fighting vertigo. He pulled on his rope, testing it was securely lashed around the cannon’s circular mount, then lined up with his back to the edge. Far below, solitary birds of prey circled above a blackened landscape of slag rock and charred tree stumps.
“You’re sure about this?” Beckman said into his radio uncertainly.
“It’s the fastest way in,” Dr McInness replied from the log room. The ship’s schematic floated before the scientist. It was zoomed in to a twenty deck section surrounding a spherical structure at its center. “Access point from our location are locked down, or blocked, but the log is not being updated, so I might have missed something.”
Virus stood beside the scientist in the log room, nodding. His partial understanding of the alien language had enabled him to translate some of the symbols displayed on the schematic. It was partly why Beckman had ordered him to stay behind with Timer and Vamp, and partly because he was too weak to make the descent. Bandaka had also stayed behind, because the hunter lacked the training to repel down the outside of the hull.
Markus crept forward in the gun emplacement and clipped onto the other rope. He glanced apprehensively over the edge. “We’re going to be sitting ducks out there.”
“Only if they see us,” Beckman conceded, knowing from the log room records that most of the ship’s hull sensors were inoperable.
He adjusted the straps on his harness, then checked that his karabiner was securely attached to the rope one last time. The others watched in silence as they crept forward into the cramped spaces either side of the big gun, while Tucker took up position between the two ropes with his machine gun, ready to provide covering fire.
Beckman turned to Markus. “Ready?”
Markus glanced unhappily over the precipice. “Do I look ready?”
Beckman backed out over the edge while Markus matched him step for step. When they’d found their f
ooting on the hull, they kicked lightly out and slid down the rope, pushing gently off the dull gray armor each time they swung in. As soon as they were gone, Nuke and Xeno moved up into position and clipped onto the ropes. Xeno looked anxious.
“It’s just a cliff,” Tucker said causally.
“It’s not the descent that worries me. It’s what’s waiting for us down there.”
He scanned the sky, then thumbed his mike. “Still clear.”
Tucker watched Beckman and Markus repel down the hull toward the end of the first rope segment. They stopped only long enough to work the join through their karabiners, then continued down the second set of ropes.
“Go!” Tucker said.
Nuke and Xeno backed over onto the hull and started down. Tucker, left alone in the gun emplacement, watched them glide toward the first join. Further below, Beckman and Markus were already through the second join. He clipped himself onto the rope face-first, the reverse of how the others had repelled, then waited until Xeno and Nuke had passed the first join. Going down head-first, he could cover them from above if needed.
“Geronimo,” he growled to himself and leapt off the edge.
* * * *
Wal grabbed the dynamite out of Cracker’s hand before he could trigger the detonator, then the swarm of med drones was upon them. The men dived onto the deck as the machines sped over their heads and streamed out through the hull breach into the sky. The swarm curved up into a vertical climb and vanished above. The men exchanged confused looks, then curiously approached the precipice. Outside, the swarm climbed alongside the ropes toward Beckman and Markus, who were now only thirty meters above them.
“Jeez!” Slab exclaimed, “There’s a couple of maniacs abseiling down the side of the ship!”
“They’re commandos!” Cracker said.
“About bloody time!” Bill declared.
The med drones swarmed up the ropes aiming their tranquilizer needles at the two men like tiny spears. Beckman and Markus saw them coming at the same time, knowing a sensor had detected them. Beckman drew his M9 Berretta, holding the rope one-handed, and began firing at the approaching drones as he repelled down the hull toward them. Beside him, Markus slid his MP-5 out of its chest harness. Beckman kicked sideways, away from Markus, and squeezed off several carefully aimed shots. He struck the lead machine without slowing it, while Markus put a short burst into the med drone nearest him. There was an electric flash from his target, then the crippled drone crashed down onto the machine rising beneath it. They began to fall together, arms entangled as they bounced against the hull and spun off into the void.
The Mothership Page 36