“Here we go,” he muttered to himself.
He wiped the blood from his face. The crimson liquid had come from the Organic crew he’d killed to get here. The fight had been bitter, but he was a caged animal yearning to be free. There was nothing a few spiders and a handful of Hybrids could do to stop him.
At least, that’s what he’d thought. Now he was concerned this alien language would be what made his plans fall apart.
“What the hell do these mean?” Holly asked, gesturing wildly at the alien text. Owen and Jamie had refused to leave her side. Bouma had joined them in the CIC, too, his wrist still bleeding. One of the people they’d rescued was a nurse, and was currently bandaging him.
Jeff and David had accompanied them as well, and beside them sat Sophie. Beads of sweat coursed down her face, and her fingers curled around the armrests of her seat in a white-knuckled grip. Unlike the Primitive Transport ship they’d tried to steal before, the zoo ship wasn’t built specially for Hybrids, and Sophie was dwarfed by her seat. She looked like she was holding herself upright by sheer will-power alone.
Emanuel had been deposited into one of the ship’s specimen chambers in the hopes they could save his life.
“All these characters are just like before,” Bouma said. “Wish we had Sonya to decrypt them.”
“We have a copy of Sonya,” Jeff offered. “Here!” He pulled an NTC portable AI drive from his pack. “We got it when we went back to the Sunspot. Thought it might come in handy.”
“Great job!” Bouma said, taking it from him. “Just need to figure out some way to transfer her…”
As they spoke, Diego felt a strange sensation, like blocks being set into place within his mind. The words were suddenly making sense to him.
The nanobots, he realized. As Hoffman had said, they had reshaped his mind and given him a deep-seated knowledge of the Organics’ language. Hoffman wasn’t kidding about how quickly they’d become integrated with the Organics by hopping in those chambers.
Diego studied the characters scrolling across the CIC’s displays.
“Looking for a spot to transfer Sonya?” Diego pointed to a pad on one of the command consoles. “Put the drive there. That’s a wireless data transfer port.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Bouma asked as he gingerly placed the AI drive on the port.
“I can read this language,” Diego said, still barely able to believe it himself. He waved his hand through a command that turned the whole CIC into a projection display. Around them, they could see the rest of the Organic shipyard and the white, fortress-like buildings of the former NTC colony that surrounded the huge blue pyramid. Slingers were still throwing plasma blasts at the zoo ship, the rounds dissipating against the ship’s shields. All the while, other Organic ships were beginning to launch. Clouds of dust exploded around them as their engines thrummed to life.
“Do we have any weapons?” Bouma asked, eying the ships around them.
Diego scanned the commands in front of him. “Yeah, here we go.” He swiped a command, and a console popped up in front of Bouma. “Weapons ready.”
“Uh, and how do I use this?” Bouma asked.
“Hold on,” Diego said. He activated the automated weapons AI, and selected a ship near them that had already taken flight. The cannons blasted, dispersing plasma that tore into the ship’s shield and then through the hull.
“Get us in the air,” Sophie said. She cradled her head. Her skin had now turned a sickly gray, and Diego could see the muscles in her jaw working, like she was grinding her teeth together.
He tapped on the controls for the ship’s engines. The bulkhead vibrated as the fusion reactors unleashed a monstrous howl. Meter by meter, the ship began its slow climb. Plasma rounds continued to lambast the shields. They dissolved like snowballs thrown at a charging train, but one of the displays floating before Diego showed him that the shields’ powers were finite. Too much concentrated fire would take them down. The Slingers’ assault had already brought the shields down to eighty percent. Once the other ships began their assault in earnest, they wouldn’t last longer than a fish on Mars.
He had the weapons systems target another ship. The vessel exploded into a cloud of shrapnel, and he targeted the next. The Organics had indeed wanted to protect their massive investment contained in these zoo ships, and he was thankful for the weapons. But even with the automated targeting system, he couldn’t keep up with trying to fly the ship and shooting other ones down.
Another fusillade of plasma rounds slammed the zoo ship. The CIC quaked as the shields drained another twenty percent.
“We need more firepower,” Bouma said. “Tell me how to use these freaking guns.”
Diego glanced at the display showing Sonya’s upload progress. “In about five seconds, Sonya’s going to come online. If we can get her to translate the language here like we did on the Transport, those guns are all yours.”
Those five seconds felt like the longest in Diego’s life. Other Organic ships took off, easily catching up to the lumbering zoo ship. They couldn’t climb through the thin atmosphere fast enough to escape the encroaching fleet. Rounds blasted into their shields, and a swarm of smaller ships circled the zoo ship, ranging from drones to the winged fighters with their prominent dorsal fins.
“Looks like they’re waiting for our shields to fall,” Sophie said. “They’re going to try boarding this thing. It’s just too valuable for them to lose.”
“Then it’s all the better we’re taking this bastard,” Bouma said.
Suddenly Sonya appeared. “Lieutenant Diego, should I enable English translations for the rest of the crew?”
“Yes,” Diego said. “For the love of God, yes!”
The characters around the CIC morphed into English.
“Hell yeah, we’re in business now,” Bouma said. He grabbed hold of the weapons controls, studied the instructions, and then began leveling volley after volley into the incoming ships.
“Get some, get some!” he yelled. The gleeful barrage didn’t last long. He squinted at another zoo ship rising in the distance.
“Oh shit, take a look at three o’clock,” Bouma said.
“I know, I know,” Diego said. Adrenaline flowed through him, and his long muscles quivered. His half-Organic body wanted him to spring into action, to fight and let loose the immense strength he’d been gifted by the nanobots’ remodeling process. But there was nothing here for him to fight.
Sophie groaned. She was leaning forward against her straps now, clenching her head with both hands. The farther they went from the colony, the more, it seemed, the nanobots tormented her.
Diego had managed to get all these people aboard this ship and, by some miracle, off Mars’s surface. But if they died in a magnificent fireworks display here, what did it really matter? His muscles still ached, and a fire worked its way into his chest. The lingering effects of the integration burned on his mind.
They had to do something drastic.
“The ship’s shields are down to twenty-two percent,” Sonya reported. “This vessel will not be able to endure much more. If the shields fall, my probability analysis indicates a ninety-nine point nine percent chance of catastrophic ship failure caused by enemy fire.”
“Well, goddamnit, here’s hoping for that point one percent,” Bouma said, unleashing a torrent of fire into the oncoming fleet.
It’s not enough, Diego thought. They had to do something else. But what? Even if they destroyed the ships within firing distance, there were more rising into view.
He held in a breath as the first zoo ship turned its turrets on them. Massive plasma bolts streaked into their shields, rocking the ship violently.
“Hold on!” Diego shouted over the noise.
Holly was yelling something, but Diego ignored her. His mind was focused on moving the ship and getting them the hell out of there.
“She’s right!” Sophie yelled.
That got Diego’s attention. If he could’ve raise
d a brow, he would have. His new semi-crustacean body didn’t allow him a full range of human expressions, but Holly seemed to understand him all the same.
“The virus!” Holly said. “Sonya, reprogram the ship controls virus. The one that locked us out of the Transport and the Secundo Casu. Instead of targeting human ships, target enemy Organic vessels. Now!”
“Reprogramming,” Sonya said.
“Good call, Holly,” Sophie said. “These zoo ships are nodes in the Organic fleet. They’ve already got direct communications and strong data connections with the other ships. It might work.”
“Well, I’ll be real sad if I can’t shoot ’em all down,” Bouma said, “but I also like the prospect of staying alive.”
“Sonya,” Diego said. “Is this possible?”
“I have attempted to retarget the program,” Sonya said. “I can mask it as a communications between ships, and it will relay between all Organic-operated ships within the local fleet instead of human-operated ships.”
“See you later, you blue bastards,” Bouma said.
“Wait a second,” Diego said, “when you say local, how close do we have to be to these ships? Within thousands of kilometers, or can we shut down the Organic fleet across the entire universe?”
“I am afraid the local nature of this type of communications relay will only affect ships within this solar system,” Sonya replied.
“Within this solar system?” Sophie asked. “That’s still more than we can ask for. Do it now!”
Diego felt a surge of confidence flow through him like a warm wind. The pain still echoing through his flesh was nothing compared to the thought of stopping the Organics. Not just the ones on Mars, but also those around Earth. Their efforts wouldn’t ensure all the Organics died, but it would cripple their space-faring abilities, buying time for the humans to escape.
“Shields are down to five percent,” Sonya said. “The controls virus has been relayed between ships. All ships controlled by Organic personnel that have responded to our viral communications request have been affected. I estimate it has currently infected ninety-five percent of the ships within the vicinity.”
“Disable their controls,” Diego said. “Now.”
Most of the ships had already stalled. They drifted and tumbled through space, carried only by momentum. Diego imagined the Organics within them seething with rage.
But still rounds blasted against their ship.
Several of the ships surged upward, still targeting the zoo ship. Rounds shook the shields. Those bastards were some of the five percent avoiding the virus.
Diego and the crew had a zoo ship, they had a functional AI, they had a virus working through most of the other ships. And still, they were going to go down, just as the Sunspot had.
Then it hit him. The strategy they’d used before, on the Radiant Dawn. Maybe, just maybe…
“Sonya,” Diego said, “if you’ve still got access on any of those ships, overload their reactor systems.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
Everyone in the CIC went silent, staring at the view of ships docked in the shipyard and those chasing them upward. Diego could hear his heart pump in his ears—or whatever it was his ears had become. Bouma still fired on the stubborn ships that hadn’t been fooled into accepting the virus.
A few of the stalled Organic ships suddenly exploded into violent balls of spreading debris and plasma. The blasts set off a chain reaction with other nearby ships, knocking them back to the planet’s surface. Vessels that hadn’t been caught by the virus were still swept up in the chain of explosions. The entire shipyard seemed to disappear in a flash of white, followed by a rolling cloud of black and red dust.
“Shields down to one percent,” Sonya said.
A single resilient Organic fighter still trailed the zoo ship.
“Watch that one!” Jeff yelled.
“I got ’em, kid,” Bouma said. He let loose a spray of precise pulse fire that tore into its bow. The ship began venting plasma, then erupted.
Above them, between the stars, pinpricks of lights sparkled. More evidence of distant, detonating Organic ships.
“All those ships, destroyed, using the Organics’ own weapons against them.” Bouma whistled, then clapped Diego on the shoulder. “Sure glad to have you on our side, bro.”
Diego didn’t respond. He was too busy staring at what he had become. His humanity…
“Almost through the atmosphere,” Sonya reported.
Cheers erupted from all around the CIC as they sailed into the blackness of space.
Diego looked toward the blanket of stars swimming in the blackness around them. He wondered if Ort was somewhere in those stars out there, looking out for them. He must be. Probably sitting up there with Captain Noble, too. He wasn’t sure how else to explain the miraculous escape from Mars and their victory over the Organics.
He twisted away to watch the others celebrate. Bouma wrapped his arms around Holly and pulled her in tight for a kiss. Jeff and David hugged Sophie, with Owen and Jamie joining them. They’d traveled months together on the Sunspot to Mars. But Diego hadn’t truly felt like part of the crew until now. They now shared their joy with him through handshakes and hearty embraces, despite his mutant appearance.
“We did it,” Sophie said, after sharing a hug with him. She seemed to be more relaxed now. “We made it.”
Diego realized then, it wasn’t just Ort and Noble guiding their good fortunes. There was so much more to it than that. He’d seen how Jeff and David, just kids, for Christ’s sake, had risked their lives against nearly insurmountable odds to save the others. The way people on the crew threw their own bodies in the way of pulse rounds and spider claws had demonstrated just how selfless each of them was. How much they cared about ensuring the others lived—and humanity survived.
Somewhere on their journey in the Rhino, and later, in the Secundo Casu, he had decided he would give his own life to ensure these people had a future. Through their tenacity—Sophie’s, Emanuel’s, Holly’s—he knew they would find a way to give humans a fighting chance.
Bouma and Holly had each other.
Emanuel—assuming he lived—and Sophie, too.
He had known he was the one that had to become an Organic to save them. Back then, he had had no one but himself.
But now, he had them. A family as tight as the one he’d served in with his brothers and sisters back on Earth under Captain Noble.
“How are you feeling?” Diego asked Sophie as she stood beside him, staring out into the blackness of space.
“I honestly feel so much better,” she said. “I know the nanobots are still inside me, but Hoffman and the Organics no longer have control over them. Not after the devastation we caused back there. I’m sure that, somewhere on this ship, there’s a way to deprogram those bots and get rid of them forever.”
“There has to be,” Diego said. Curiosity tugged at him to go exploring. To see all the other species preserved here. How many secrets of the universe had humanity not yet had a chance to explore? This ship would unlock a future full of surprises.
He glanced at one of the displays.
“Sonya appears to be learning how to manage the medical units aboard the ship,” he said. “Hopefully she can help you and the other people we rescued.”
Sophie’s gaze seemed to turn faraway. “And Emanuel.”
“And Emanuel,” Diego agreed. He’d seen the wounds on the man. On Earth, those injuries would’ve been fatal. He had lost too much blood too quickly for any hope of recovery. For Sophie’s sake, for the whole crew’s sake, he hoped he was wrong. Maybe this ship could stitch the man back together.
“Once we make sure everyone is okay, I want to sweep the ship to root out any remaining Organics,” he said. “I think we got most of them on arrival. Caught ’em with their pants down. But if we’ve got stowaways, better that we deal with them now.”
“Sounds like a plan, Lieutenant,” Sophie replied, turning her attention back to h
im.
She almost seemed to be recovered, now that the Organics had lost their grip on her. The color was returning to her face and there was a brilliance in her eyes—something he’d never seen before. She reeked of confidence, even with that faraway gaze. This was just a glimpse of the woman she must be, he was sure. He imagined she must’ve been a hell of a leader, considering the lengths the crew had gone to to keep her alive. He looked forward to seeing her come to life over the coming days.
“The only question I have,” Diego began, “is, where do we go from here? There’s no way it’s safe to return to Earth or Mars.”
“The zoo ship can support us for the rest of our lives, if we wanted,” Sophie said. “But that won’t preserve humanity. We need to establish ourselves on a new planet. We need to use the ship to keep the human race going.”
“You got a bright idea of where that’ll be?” Diego asked.
“TRAPPIST-1,” Sophie said. “It’s a star. Decades ago, scientists discovered there are several Earth-like planets orbiting it. They might support human life.”
“How close is it?”
“Just under forty light years.”
Diego’s stomach flipped. Even as an integrated human, he still felt a pang of shock at such an unthinkable distance.
Sophie put a hand on his shoulder as if she could read his mind. “These ships are capable of faster-than-light travel. We’ve come this far. We’ll explore the ship and its capabilities, and get ourselves to TRAPPIST-1.”
Her confidence was infectious, and Diego could tell she believed every word she spoke. This wasn’t just for the benefit of crew morale. Hell, she didn’t just seem to believe they were going to create a new human colony on another planet; she knew they were going to do it.
“Then to TRAPPIST-1 we go,” Diego said. He input the coordinates Sonya gave him.
Sophie pressed her palm against one of the viewscreens. She stared at Mars, shrinking away below them. “I’m going to send a final message to any humans that might be left in our solar system. If there are others like us out there, they need to know where we’re going.”
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