by Isaac Hooke
“Not our job to figure out how this ship works, people,” the Chief sent. “As I said before, leave the guesswork for the postmission debriefing.”
“That’s right,” Bender agreed. “Our only job is to blow this bitch up.”
That ended the discussion. Still, it was kind of funny hearing those words from Bender, considering that he was the closest thing to a scientist among us. He had a very wry sense of humor to say the least.
Some moments later we reached a branching corridor.
“Both paths bring us closer to the Observer Mind signal source,” Snakeoil said over the comm. “Which isn’t saying much, given how far away it actually is.”
“First rule of labyrinths,” Chief Bourbonjack sent. “Always take the rightmost corridor.”
We did so and the software in our aReals began filling out the new passage.
It wasn’t long before we got to test our emitters firsthand: an alien crewmember appeared up ahead.
“Stay calm, people,” the Chief sent. “And don’t say a word.”
The thing was decked out in a humanoid-like jumpsuit with a glass dome on top, and it stood roughly twice the height of the tallest member of our team. It wasn’t carrying a weapon of any kind, at least none that I could discern.
There was a glowing bar of white light attached to its right shoulder and what looked like speakers on its left. From the bat-like clicks and screeches coming from those speakers, I guessed the being navigated more via sonar than vision—yet another reason to give the crew an atmosphere.
Beneath the glass dome that topped the suit, I discerned a crocodilian head covered in green scales; a gecko’s bulging eyes stared from the end of that long, toothy maw.
We stepped to the side to let the thing pass and it gave most of us little more than a glance—further proof that the EM emitters were indeed working. When it squeezed by the payload, its gecko eyes lingered on the warhead, but in moments it moved on, making no attempt to stop us.
I gave it a backward glance and spotted something I hadn’t seen from the front, what looked like the hilt of a bladed weapon, sheathed in a holster (or scabbard) on its back.
When the alien faded from view, Manic was the first to speak. “What the hell was that?”
“I couldn’t get a reading through the fabric of its suit,” Snakeoil answered. “No EM signature. No nothing.”
“I know what was inside,” Skullcracker said quietly over the comm. When we looked at him, he grinned ghoulishly. “Target practice.”
“That’s what I’m talking about, baby,” Bender returned.
“Wait a second,” Hijak sent. “On its back . . . was that what I thought it was?”
I exchanged a confused glance with him. “A sword.”
Hijak nodded. “We’re facing an alien species ten times more advanced than our own, and all they’ve equipped their crew with are swords. Priceless.”
“Dude, I highly doubt they’re swords,” Lui sent.
“Maybe they’re lightsabers,” Bender joked.
“Well, it’s certainly a change from the particle cannon we saw at Shangde City.” We’d encountered an alien similar to this one, replete with jumpsuit, on the rooftop of the warehouse where the Guide resided. The alien had carried a particle weapon that took out entire chunks of the building we had used for overwatch.
“It kind of makes sense,” Snakeoil transmitted. “If I was in charge here, I wouldn’t want to equip my security forces with particle weapons. Too great a chance of collateral damage.”
“Maybe it’s a smaller version of the same weapon,” Lui said over the comm. “With a more concentrated impact zone.”
“Maybe.” Snakeoil didn’t sound convinced. “But swords or not, if these beings are as impervious to our weaponry as the alien we encountered in Shangde, it won’t matter.”
“Which is why we have the emitters, people,” the Chief said, obviously trying to keep morale up. “Let’s continue the advance, please.”
We passed two other alien beings later on in that same corridor, roughly ten minutes apart. Though the towering jumpsuit designs remained static—humanoid in shape, with a dome on the top—the aliens within belonged to differing races. Under the dome of the first was a bee-like, insectile head, while under the second I saw a featureless, moist white sphere, reminding me of the sclera of an eye. Unlike the shoulder-mounted sonar system of the first alien, these two only had light bars mounted to their shoulders.
I suspected these alien entities had a body shape that didn’t match the outer dimensions of their suits; likely they resided in a cockpit of sorts beneath the domes and chest areas, similar to the cockpit of mechs. That was my guess, anyway. As usual, Snakeoil’s sensor array was unable to penetrate the suits to get further details.
“All that fleet chatter must have worked,” Lui transmitted. “These aliens don’t seem overly concerned about the warhead. They must think it’s some random tech.” He, the Chief, Skullcracker, and Snakeoil had taken over the portage of the warhead. Because of Skullcracker’s injured leg, I had offered to assume his place, but Skullcracker wouldn’t have it.
“Keep in mind that we are masking the nuclear signature,” Snakeoil said. “As far as the aliens are concerned, we’re carrying around a big, empty, metal box. Scratch that: a possessed metal box.” The latter was in reference to the Phant-mimicking EM emitter installed in the payload.
I was point man this time round, so it was me who first spotted the glowing blue vapor up ahead.
I halted instantly.
“Rage?” Chief Bourbonjack sent. That was my callsign. “What is it?”
“Phant.”
“Continue as if nothing is wrong,” the Chief wrote over the comm, switching to text mode. No one really knew if the Phants could actually hear us, especially through the suits, but it seemed a sensible precaution. “We’re all one big congenial family here, remember.”
A drop of perspiration trickled down my cheek and I hesitantly stepped forward.
The blue vapor seemed ominous, especially with the black electricity that sparked occasionally along its edges. The electricity wasn’t present when the things were in liquid form, and I’d almost forgotten how malevolent they could appear in their gaseous state.
“Nice and easy,” the Chief wrote. “Loosen up. All of you. Subcommunicate calmness with your body language.”
I increased my pace, doing my best to act nonchalant. It was hard. I knew full well what these things were capable of. I’d seen them dissolve two of my platoon mates right before my eyes.
The entity traveled toward us, and as it neared I moved to the side, giving the Phant room. The alien didn’t change course—it still floated down the center of the corridor. The Phant would touch the squad if it continued in this fashion, unless we flattened ourselves against the bulkhead. Was that the expected protocol?
When I was about a meter away, I decided it was time to press myself into the bulkhead to make room for the thing. But before I could do so, the glowing vapor abruptly swerved to the side, giving me a wide berth.
I didn’t dare alter my pace: I kept trudging forward as if I expected the Phant to move aside all along. I didn’t look at it, either. Not directly anyway. However, I switched the POV of my aReal to the men just behind me in turn to make sure the Phant gave them a wide berth, too.
When it passed the last of us, I exhaled in relief.
“Well done, people,” the Chief sent when it was gone. “Looks like our disguise is going to get us through this after all.”
We spent the next three hours traveling deeper into the heart of the Skull Ship. I remember how difficult navigating the Gerald R. Ford had been at first. Well, that was child’s play compared to this, which was like the Ford’s labyrinth times ten. All we had to guide us was the signal source, which was very, very far away, a glowing waypoint at t
he heart of this unmapped darkness. We had to backtrack on several occasions after encountering various dead ends, and more than once we found ourselves in a passage that led to a complete circle.
The mapping software in our HUDs pieced together a blueprint of the previous corridors and compartments we traversed. We relied on the aReals built into our helmets to do this, of course, since our Implants were turned off.
I wished we had been able to launch HS3 scouts, but those basketball-sized drones carried a lot of electronics packed into a tiny space, and were balanced just right—adding in the weight of an external EM emitter would’ve destabilized and grounded the devices. Centurion combat robots were viable scouting alternatives, since their polycarbonate bodies could actually take the weight of an emitter, but the Brass had decided we needed to go in as small and light as possible.
We continued to take turns porting the nuclear payload in groups of four, and we passed other alien beings that wore the domed jumpsuits. Some of the suits had more arms and legs than the standard humanoid design, and they continued to be occupied by species we’d never seen before. We also encountered several more blue Phants, all of which left us alone.
We were surrounded by enemies, and the farther we journeyed into the heart of this vessel, the more doomed I felt. If we were discovered now, there was no turning back. We wouldn’t be able to fight our way out, not from this deep inside.
I vaguely wondered how Tahoe was doing. The members of Digger squad all piloted ATLAS 5s. Must be nice. Their mission was probably a breeze compared to ours, especially with Marines providing a distraction on the surface of their moon, drawing the swarms of slugs and crabs away from the warrens. Though to be honest, I preferred the harder mission anyway.
At the end of the fourth hour we encountered an odd, high-ceilinged compartment that cut across the corridor. Organic sacs, roughly half the size of human beings, strewed the deck. These sacs expanded and contracted at random intervals, puffing a white mist into the air.
“Snakeoil, flare please,” the Chief said.
Snakeoil launched a flare, further illuminating the area. The chamber ended roughly five hundred meters ahead but stretched as far as I could see to the left and right, as did the sacs that populated it. Of course, the flare illuminated only two klicks in either direction, so none of us could say for certain what lay beyond the darkness.
“What the hell are they?” Manic took a step toward one of the puffing sacs.
“Careful Manic,” the Chief said.
Snakeoil outstretched a gloved hand. “The expansion and contraction of each sac seems to be generating a surplus of ions . . . building up a massive positive charge. Odd . . . I’m reading signatures similar to micro-Slipstreams. If I were to guess, I’d say these sacs contributed to the coronal weapon somehow.”
“I say we torch the place,” Bender sent.
“No,” the Chief transmitted. “Do that, and we compromise our position, ending the mission.”
“Have to agree with Bender,” Manic returned. “This is something we can do, Chief. If we destroy these sacs and take out the coronal weapon, then we render the Skull Ship defenseless, making it easy for Fleet to finish off.”
“But you’re making a very big assumption,” the Chief sent. “And an erroneous one. That this single area is the sole energy source for the entire coronal weapon, a weapon whose extents span the hull of the ship. If we’re lucky, by destroying this area we might take out a small piece of that weapon. But then again, maybe these sacs have nothing to do with the plasma generation at all. Remember what I said about leaving the speculating to the end of the mission? Let’s cross.”
And so we proceeded forward, making our way between the puffing sacs. We had to backtrack a few times until we found a path that could fit the payload and its porters, but in the end we passed through the chamber without incident.
Shortly thereafter we secured a side corridor that was free of alien presence, and the Chief called a half-hour halt inside it.
Hijak, Bender, Snakeoil, and I took first watch. MOTHs prided themselves in their ability to sleep on demand, since we never really knew when the next chance for sleep would come on a mission. As such, the instant Chief Bourbonjack, Lui, Manic, and Skullcracker lay down on the gangway, they were fast asleep. They were careful to position themselves in the center of the solid deck, I noted, as far away as possible from the undulating bulkheads on either side.
We four watchstanders perched in silence, weapons at the ready. I kept an eye on the far side of the passageway where it opened onto the main corridor. I couldn’t actually see said corridor, which was just beyond the reach of my light cone. Behind me, Hijak observed the opposite end of the passage, which was similarly shrouded in darkness. The writhing bulkheads provided an eerie backdrop beside us.
Usually, when keeping watch, I’d gaze through the scope of my sniper rifle, but the Chief had specifically ordered us not to. Looking through our gun sights wasn’t the best posture to assume, not while we pretended to be friendlies.
As I stared out into the murk, Shaw’s words came to me unbidden.
Remember me in the dark nights, when you think you can’t go on. Remember me in the storm, when all hope seems lost.
I smiled sadly.
I remember you, Shaw.
I’ll never forget you.
“There’s no coming back from this mission, is there?” Snakeoil sent abruptly.
I glanced at him. His gaze was fixed squarely on the nuclear payload.
“Are you trying to take over Fret’s doom-and-gloom role?” I joked. “What happened to the outgoing and positive Texan I used to know?”
Snakeoil shook his head. “Left that guy behind on the Ford. And I’m from Tennessee, not Texas.” He didn’t take his eyes from the device. “We’re carrying a nuclear payload here. Even if we make it to the Observer Mind and place the bomb, we’re not going to get out before it blows. I don’t care if the nuke is timed or not. There are just too many factors that can go wrong. You know I’m right.”
“Come on, man,” Bender said. “You’re our breacher. After the Chief, we’re supposed to look to you for guidance. Don’t be like this.”
Snakeoil smiled wanly. “Sorry. I should have kept that to myself.”
“Damn right you should have,” Bender said. “I for one plan on coming back from this mission. I never considered it a one-way ticket to hell.”
Hijak spoke up. “But it will be for at least one of us.”
“What the hell you talking about, caterpillar?”
“Someone’s got to stay behind to protect the nuke once we arm it.”
Bender chuckled over the comm. “You’re so wrong it hurts. The Chief would never allow that. Think about it for a second. For one goddamn second. If you were the Chief, would you let any of us stay behind? Would you have the heart?”
Bender had a point.
Still, while the brotherhood was precious, somehow I doubted the Chief would hold any of us above the overall welfare of humanity; if a sacrifice needed to be made, the Chief would see it done. In all likelihood, he’d volunteer to carry out the sacrifice himself.
I also knew that if we found ourselves cornered and with no hope of escape, he’d detonate the nuke right then and there, taking as many of the enemy along with us as he could.
That’s what I would do if I were the Chief, anyway.
I peered steadily into the darkness, keeping up my watch on the far end of the passage.
Hijak transmitted directly to me on a private line: “Do you ever think about our capture? Our interrogation?”
I didn’t answer him right away, feeling a chill deep inside. Would we ever get over what happened to us? Would our broken selves ever be whole again?
“Yes,” I said finally.
He didn’t answer right away. And then: “Not a day goes by where I don
’t think about what happened, and what I did. Of how I betrayed the platoon and everything the MOTHs stood for. Of how I let my weak Chinese half take control.”
“Still blaming your heritage.” I shook my head. “Look, Hijak, it wasn’t your fault. We’re MOTHs, and yet in the end we’re also human.”
Hijak didn’t say anything for a long moment. “When the time comes, I have to be the one who stays behind and guards the nuke. It has to be me, Rage. Will you support me in this?”
I didn’t answer him, because of course I couldn’t support that. If anything, I’d rather be the one to stay behind. Assuming the Chief would let me make the sacrifice.
I forced those dour thoughts from my mind, hoping Hijak wouldn’t say anything more.
He didn’t.
The rest of the squad awakened after the designated time, and the four of us took our turn at rest.
I fell asleep instantly and when I awoke fifteen minutes later, I felt groggier than when I had started.
I reluctantly took my place on the nuclear payload and hoisted the heavy object from the deck. The strain quickly brought me back to my senses. Nothing like the shock of PT to wake up the body.
We returned to the main corridor and journeyed onward.
Skullcracker was limping worse than ever.
“How’s the leg holding up, Skullcracker?” I sent.
“Fantastic,” Skullcracker deadpanned. “Feel like I could run a marathon. Ten marathons.”
We hadn’t been walking for more than ten minutes when Snakeoil paused beside the slithering pipes of the bulkhead to our right.
“Odd,” he transmitted.
Chief Bourbonjack approached him. “What?”
He moved his gloved hand to and fro. “I’m reading human life beyond this bulkhead.”
“Human life?” The Chief wore a troubled expression behind his faceplate. “Prisoners?”
“I don’t know, but according to these readings there are thousands of them on the other side.”