Jane followed him as he moved to the right side of the twenty foot wide hallway. An action that forced the closer robot to turn to the left so it would face them. Lifting its pincer arms the closer robot ground its treads and moved slowly toward them. Bill pulled out one of the black box and dome weapons. Dropping the backpack he held the box in front of him, looking it over quickly.
“Star Traveler,” he called out. “How does a bioform activate the magnetic disruptor weapon?”
A low hum sounded from within his helmet. “You point the bottom of the box at the object to be disrupted, then you tap the dome three times, one time, then three times. That activates the device. Once it comes into contact with a metal surface, magnetic disruption occurs.”
Beside him Jane laid down her tube weapons and his laser, and her open backpack. She soon held a similar box and dome device in her gloved hands. She looked to him, her expression determined. “You take the closest robot while I go for the one by the door.” Once again her voice held that command tone.
He almost said No. As a SEAL he was not used to being in combat with a woman. But Jane was agile, combat trained and thought smartly. Anyway, if he was injured by one of the robot’s pincer arms it would be up to her to take out the second robot. And the one-fourth gee low gravity might help them. Bill tapped the dome in the proper sequence. “Yes! If you can put the box against the body of the robot before a pincer arm grabs you, that will shut it down!”
“Understood,” she said as she ran to his right.
He ran to the left, waited for the nearer robot to change course with its treads so only one side with two pincer arms faced his way, then he ran for it, aiming to slam the box against its body.
“Ouch!” he yelled as a pincer caught his left shoulder and squeezed just as he slammed the black box against the robot’s body.
Electrical light flared at the contact point.
The pressure on his shoulder stopped.
Bill looked to the right.
Jane was sliding on her back along the floor of the hallway to avoid the four pincer arms. Which were already reaching down for her.
She tossed the black box up to the middle of the robot.
It stuck like a magnet.
Yellow electrical light flared.
The four pincer arms stopped only a few inches above her chest. She looked to him and gestured a thumbs-up.
“Well done,” he said as he reached with his right hand to grasp the pincer that had a tight hold on his left shoulder.
“Here, let me help,” she said, appearing in a crouch beside him.
Damn the lady was fast-moving!
“Sure. If you can pull on one part of the pincer and I pull—”
“Done,” she said as she did the obvious. The pincer grip came loose. Jane stood up, leaned down and offered him a hand. Her manner was that of a teammate helping another team member.
Cursing his tendency to over-explain, he accepted her hand and stood up. “Thanks. You did perfect with that other robot.”
Her dark brown eyes scanned his shoulder. “Seemed like it would work to slide on my back. Gave the pincer arms farther to travel. Your suit fabric is intact. As is your helmet, despite that red scorch on the back of your neck.” She stepped back from him, turned and faced the two frozen robots that lay between them and the oval door that gave access to the Command Bridge. “You think a magnetic disruptor will open the door to the bridge?”
“It might.” Bill walked forward, sliding between the two frozen robots to stand in front of the oval door. “Star Traveler, please open the door to the Command Bridge Chamber.”
“Stop!” Diligent yelled harshly over the comlink. “Obey Command Sequence Larva Four Red! Device, do not open the door to the Bridge.”
A low hum sounded in his helmet. “Bioform Bill MacCarthy, I cannot open the door to the Command Bridge Chamber.”
Jane looked his way and gave him the Me Now look. He nodded understanding. She spoke.
“Star Traveler, if we place a magnetic disruptor box against the wall next to the entry door and activate it, will that cause the door to open?”
“It will,” the AI said. “Protocol Seven, Emergency Operations of the Ship requires any hatch or door to open upon disruption of a blocking command signal.”
Jane twisted her body so her backpack was accessible to Bill. “Here. There’s a disruptor box inside.”
Bill gave her a smile. “Thanks.” He opened the top of her pack, pulled out the remaining disruptor box, then turned to present his backpack to her. “Please remove the backup taser tube from my backpack. I’ll need it when the door opens.”
“Sure. Here’s the taser tube,” she said as he twisted back to face the front door.
He grabbed the white tube. Holding it in his right hand, Bill lifted the disruptor box with his left hand. He put the box against the oval door. It stuck to the metal like a magnet. Bill walked back to where he’d laid his laser tube, grabbed it, then put it over his shoulder and into the top of his backpack. He returned, stepped to the left of the door and aimed the white taser tube at the door. Jane nodded, stored her own laser in her backpack, pointed her taser tube at the door and moved to the right. Which put them both into ambush position once the door opened.
“Just right.” He reached out, tapped in the activation sequence on the dome box and aimed his taser tube.
Yellow electrical light flared. The eight foot high metal door slid toward him, giving Jane the first view inside.
She frowned. “Lots of floor modules and holo screens. Nothing alive that I can see—”
“Yes there is!” he said as his view of the circular chamber showed him an elevated pedestal. Behind and above the person-high pedestal were two brown antennae. Clearly the rest of Diligent’s giant insect body lay behind the pedestal. Which stood twenty feet inside the room. Red light illuminated the room. Which did not seem crowded since the gray metal floor modules were scattered around the room.
Jane nodded quickly. “I see it now.”
They were in a position to bracket the Alien’s hiding place. But they could not reach it directly with one of the paralyzing red beams.
A flicker came from his side of the pedestal.
He pulled back.
Green light shot through the open door.
The clear tube fabric enclosing his right shoulder turned brown from the near miss, then slowly returned to transparency. He realized that wearing a John Deere type shirt with white and red checkers really made him stand out against the gray of the hallway wall behind him. Jane caught his attention and lifted one eyebrow.
Letting go the base of the white tube, he signed to her. “Push the robot next to you into the doorway. We can use it for cover.”
She nodded swiftly, turned, moved to the rear of the second robot, put her shoulder to its back and pushed. “Cover arrives,” she signed back.
“Clank. Clank-clank,” sounded as the metal wheels of the robot’s caterpillar threads moved slowly. The thing moved forward two feet, then three. Then it sped up.
Giving thanks for the low gravity that made moving the big machine easier than he’d expected, Bill waited until the giant trash can on treads filled the door opening.
“Zirzap!”
The second laser shot from Diligent bounced off the front of the robot. A pointless action. But one which gave Bill a view of their captor.
Giant cockroach the bastard was!
His mental image of the Alien filled out.
It stood on two sharply angled legs that resembled insect legs. The skin covering them was hard, sharp and angular. Atop the legs rose a tubular body. Its lower part showed a ridged abdomen. Its midbody was a single hard shell. Its head segment was round with mouth palps and two black compound eyes. Above the eyes rose two long brown antennae. He noticed how its abdomen expanded and contracted as the creature breathed through spiracle holes in the chitin of its exoskeleton. But there the resemblance to an Earth cockroach ended. Diligent ha
d no wings, and it had two pairs of arms, the ends of which showed mobile spines that resembled fingers. The Alien’s middle arm pair held the red laser tube weapon, aiming it as if confident in how to use it. Quick as a wink the Alien disappeared back behind the pedestal.
Jane looked to him as he took position beside her left shoulder. “This robot really is not all that heavy,” she signed. “We could maybe throw it at Diligent.”
He shifted his taser tube to his left hand, put his right hand and shoulder against the robot, and pushed. Jane did the same. The gray metal of the robot moved forward several feet, the caterpillar threads running smoothly.
“Better yet, why don’t you run back and bring the second robot inside here?” he signed back to her, stopping his pushing. He pulled back on the robot so they both moved backward until their feet felt the doorway sill. “You’re covered by the bulk of this machine. If you can bring the second robot in and use it to shield yourself, we can separate and flank the bastard!”
Jane gave him a thumbs-up, then moved backward quickly, though she kept her taser tube pointed forward. She disappeared behind the robot still in the hallway. Her left hand showed from behind the contraption’s trash can body. “Move out of the way.”
Bill moved his taser tube to his left hand, then pushed with his right shoulder at an angle.
“Clank. Clanky-clank.”
His robot moved three feet into the Command Bridge and to the left, leaving the open door free for Jane’s entry. Behind him he heard the clank of its treads as she pushed the device through the door, across the sill and then to the right of his position.
“Zirzap!”
The green beam from Diligent hit the front of Jane’s robot and flared out against its tough gray metal. While the metal showed a bit of redness, it had not melted, unlike the flexible treads that had locked the wheels of the first robot they’d battled. Jane caught his look, gave him a left hand thumbs-up, then slowly began pushing her robot forward and to the right. Bill did the same with his robot, moving to the left and closing to within ten feet of the room’s central pedestal.
“Diligent!” he called over the suit comlink. “Stop the laser firing! We will not hurt you. We only wish to talk with you about the freeing of other captives in the Containment Unit Chamber.”
“Device!” Diligent yelled. “Cut all gravity in this chamber!”
Suddenly the robot in front of him moved forward effortlessly. It also rose due to the way his shoulder was pushing it. Which rise would leave him exposed to the cockroach’s laser fire.
“Jane!”
He pulled himself up onto the back of the robot trash can, his efforts adding to its upward rise. It also began to rotate rightward. Which would expose him to laser fire. Unless he did the obvious, let go, waited in free-fall behind the device and looked for a chance to fire down at the reddish-brown body of their captor.
“No worry,” she said over the comlink. “I’m doing as you are doing.”
He saw that. Looking to the right, just past the edge of the robot’s curving body, he caught sight of the reddish-brown head, brown antennae and black eyes of Diligent. Who fired its laser at him.
The green beam streaked past him with an inch to spare.
“Fuck!”
Climbing to the top of the slowly rising robot, Bill lifted his white taser tube over the robot’s dead laser mount, poked up his head to catch sight of the pedestal and fired at the place where the damned insect was hiding.
“Yaaayee!” it said loudly, which his comlink translated as “Ouch!”
The six foot tall insect kicked away from the pedestal, aiming for shelter behind a floor module that lay nearby.
A red taser beam hit its abdomen just before it reached the tall module.
“Yawk!”
Bill heard the Alien word as “Nooo!”
Everything went quiet.
He looked over to the other robot, which like his was still rising slowly toward the room’s ceiling. Jane gave him a thumbs-up, a quick smile and then resumed hiding, but with her taser tube pointing around the body of the robot. Just in case their captor was not going into body spasms as its neuro-electrical system went haywire. Well, there was a simple way to find out.
“Star Traveler! Is the Crèche Master conscious or not?”
A low hum echoed through the round room. “He is not conscious. Will you and bioform Jane Yamaguchi awaken him later so you can have the conversation with him that you proposed?”
He looked to his combat partner. Who’d gotten in the paralyzing shot while he was drawing the cockroach’s attention. She shifted her position on the robot to point her feet downward. With a nod she indicated he should do the same. He did.
“We will,” she called over the suit comlink. “Later. Star Traveler, restore one-half of ship normal gravity in this chamber.”
A sense of falling hit him, even though his downward movement was slow. A gravity of one-fourth gee did not make people and things fall very fast.
When his feet slapped the floor, Bill stepped back and away from the descending bulk of the robot that had protected him. To his right Jane did the same as her own robot landed with a tilt on its treads. She looked around it.
“Diligent is down and shaking a lot,” she said. “His laser is on the floor close to you.”
“Thank you.” Bill stepped around the trash can robot, moved forward ten feet, bent down and grabbed the Alien’s laser tube. A few steps put him next to the spasming brown mass that was their captor and the ship’s captain.
Jane joined him. “Star Traveler, restore gravity in this room and elsewhere to ship normal gravity.”
“Restoring,” the AI said.
A half-gee pulled at his arms and legs. Which still left him weighing only a hundred of his normal two hundred pounds. Bill looked to Jane, who seemed fascinated by the twitching body of the starship captain. “You zapped him. You get first shot at chatting with our AI friend. And you’re the officer here.”
Turning her oval face to him, she looked intently at him, then realized he meant what he’d said. “Thanks. I did learn something about interrogating satellites that didn’t want to behave.” He bent down to the Alien, wondering how to restrain it. Immobilize and control, came to his mind thanks to a Marine DI he’d hung with while undergoing Jam training at Quantico. He pulled out his leather belt, made a loop through its buckle and pulled the loop over the critter’s thorny legs. Next he used his t-shirt to tie its two pairs of arms behind its hard shell back. Above him Jane began the dance of control.
“Star Traveler, what are your emergency procedures when all crewmembers and the ship’s captain are unconscious. Alive, but not able to give orders or make any decisions?”
A low hum echoed through the room. “Protocol Seven, Emergency Operations of the Ship dictates that I respond to all bioforms who are aware and wearing vacuum suits. That is why I have responded to you since your exit from the containment modules.”
“We understand that,” Jane said. “We appreciate your responsiveness to me and to bioform Bill MacCarthy. We have achieved our first objective of reaching the Command Bridge and making contact with Crèche Master Diligent Taskmaster. We will share our life vital information with him when he awakens. Uh, how long will it take for the Crèche Master to regain awareness? After experiencing a white tube weapon impact?”
“Nine Earth hours are required for full recovery,” the AI said, its tone calm.
“Good. We will soon transport him to his own habitat chamber to rest until he recovers.” She looked around the room, stopping when she caught sight of the central pedestal. “Is the pedestal in the middle of this room the primary control site for commanding functions of this ship?”
“It is.”
She gave him a nod as he finished securing their captor. “Can the pedestal be lowered to floor level? And is there a seat or bench built into the pedestal?”
“There is.” The gray metal pedestal began moving smoothly down. On i
ts top the metal of its surface puckered, then rose up to create a rectangular surface. “Most bioforms prefer a bench when they are interacting with ship systems.”
“Thank you.” Jane walked over to the pedestal, stepped up onto it and sat down on the bench. “How do you display ship systems for someone seated on the bench?”
“By way of holograms and modules that emerge from the room floor,” the AI said.
In a flash Jane was surrounded by six tall holograms that depicted various parts of the ship like the Engine Chamber, the Transport Exit Chamber and a Fusion Plant Chamber. In front of her hung a swirl of white, red and yellow stars. An orange star in the middle of the swirl glowed brightly. In front of her and to either side rose pillar-like modules. They rose until they reached a level even with her hands. Which she had stretched out in surprise at the appearance of the holos.
“Fascinating,” she said softly. “Can I interact with any of these ship systems?”
A low hum sounded. “Are you the primary bioform among the two of you now present in this room? Protocol Four, Emergency Operations of the Ship dictates that I respond to the primary bioform still alert and aware whenever all ship crew and the ship master are not alert and aware.”
Bill nodded to her. Then gave her a quick salute. After all, Jane was a captain while he was enlisted. Which was what a Chief Petty Officer was despite the title. Plus she was the amateur astronomer who knew more about space, satellites, stars and the Great Beyond than he did. He pulled the twitching body of Diligent over to the room’s access door. It was still open, perhaps due to emergency programming. Or maybe its motor had died.
Jane gave him a quick smile, then looked forward at the swirl of stars. “Yes, I am the primary bioform among the two of us who are in this room. Can I alter this ship’s course? To return to the star you just visited?”
“No,” the AI said. “Once this ship enters the Alcubierre space-time modulus, it must continue on course until emergence at the star previously chosen by Crèche Master Diligent Taskmaster. If he regains awareness by the time the ship arrives at HD 128311, you may ask him to order a return to the prior star system.”
Escape 1: Escape From Aliens Page 9