Errant Contact

by T. Michael Ford

  When he was almost back to our position, I heard the growling. Instead of being out in front of us, it seemed to come from multiple directions as if there were many, many of them starting to encircle our position, and it was growing louder. In the darkness, their sounds triggered a primordial response in my brain. Run, hide!

  “What are they?” I practically whimpered.

  He thought about it for a second. “I think it would be best if I didn’t say.”

  “Tell me, I need to know!” Wait, no I don’t, what the hell am I saying? I don’t want to know! Unfortunately, Kodo badly misread the dismay plastered on my face because he actually told us.

  “Think of them as exceptionally large white wolves with four eyes and woven scale mail armor-plating instead of fur.” Yep, no, I didn’t want to hear that.

  “What are they doing? Do they not know we’re here yet?” Drik asked with a tremor in his voice. “Any chance we can back out of here safely?”

  “I’m pretty sure, with their predator’s sense of smell, they knew the minute we stepped into the compound,” Kodo answered levelly, shaking his head. Oh, crap! God, please don’t let this be happening. “They’re just biding their time. They seem to be a bit put off by Kalaya’s drones, their racial memories probably relating a bad experience in the distant past. But it won’t keep them away much longer.”

  “So we’re dead, then,” Max spat scornfully.

  “Not quite yet, I have a plan. Our goal is inside that door.” He pointed through the gloom to where one of Kalaya’s drones was now dimly lighting up a doorway a long distance away. “It’s about a hundred and fifteen-meter sprint to get there. Once through, I should be able to close the fire door that will keep them at bay until we can get one of the wyverns started.” A knife appeared in his hand and he reached over and sliced through the straps of the heavy backpack I was carrying. He lowered it silently to the floor.

  “Over a hundred meter run in pitch blackness? No way are we going to make that without being lunch.”

  “I have a pair of smoke grenades; should buy us as least a few seconds,” Drik whispered.

  “Excellent, and I will fire a few rounds from the scattergun as we are running as well. Time is short, so we need to move now. On the count of three, we run!” Please no!

  “One.” Please don’t make me have to do this!

  “Two.” I don’t want to die.

  “Three!” That instant, the grenades tumbled out and we started running. I ran head down as hard as I could.

  My legs burned and my lungs were on fire from the exertion, but I didn’t care. Tears filled my eyes, forcing me to squint and run without really knowing where I was running. I thought I heard someone shouting my name, but I didn’t care, all I did was run…run for my life!

  Chapter 12

  Kodo

  Our plan actually worked better than I could have hoped. The smoke grenades were a real plus, and the shots I fired behind us seemed to deter them for the needed few seconds. I was obviously the first one to make it through to the next room so I turned and covered the door as the others came flowing in. Max was the next one in, good job kid. Drik was third; he was pretty fit for an old man. Last was Laree…Laree? Shit! She blew right past the door and ran screaming down a hallway that opened up beyond us, probably leading into an office or staging area, with a dozen or more of those creatures on her heels!

  “Laree! That’s the wrong…” I was cut off as the heavy security door slammed down and locked. Baffled, I turned to see that Kalaya had hit the manual trip lock, ramming it with her drone. Crap!

  “What the hell are you doing? Laree is still out there!” screamed Max furiously. His pistol was out and trained shakily on the two of us.

  “If I hadn’t closed that door, you would all be dead,” Kalaya’s drone countered coolly.

  “I don’t care! Open that damn door!”

  “No,” she said.

  Then the unexpected happened, Max shot the drone right out of the air! He then walked up and pumped two more rounds into it before aiming his pistol point-blank at my face.

  “I’ll ask once more, open the flipping door!”

  “I can’t. That’s a high-level security door, it will only open when power is restored and neither you nor I have the firepower to blast it open.”

  “Then what good are you?” His finger tightened on the trigger and I had half a mind to let him kill me and get it over with, but I couldn’t leave Kalaya to face a bad end alone. With one smooth motion, my hand came up and deflected the firearm to my left as I slid to the right. Using my free arm, I took the opportunity to end this with a strong but non-lethal punch to the young man’s gut. I also wrenched his gun away with my deflecting hand.

  Max dropped to his knees on the floor and heaved, now breathless and weaponless. “Bastard,” he croaked.

  “Let’s get a few thing straight here. If you want your sister to live, you had better do as I say and stop wasting time. And if you ever point a weapon at Kalaya or me again, I will kill you!”

  I tossed the pistol aside and rushed past him, setting to work on the only plan I had left. At the back of the maintenance bay, a row of wyverns squatted like prehistoric predators. Wyverns were colossal machines designed to harvest material that the colony would need, and to do it from any location. If you wanted to get a sample from the heart of a volcano, then these were what you used. The primary focus was the drill-like attachment that made up the whole front half of the machine. The drill not only penetrated but broke things down on a molecular level in the process. As you could imagine, even though they were designed and built for mining, their ability to drill through anything in almost no time at all made them very desirable in military operations as well. Behind the drill was an old-style fusion power plant, eight sets of tracks, a compact starship engine, and over eighty tons of high-grade armor. Now I was going to use it against a pack of rabid dogs. Might be a little overkill…screw it, I was using it!

  Forcing the hatch open, I broke into the power plant portion of the improvised tank and set to work wiring in my backpack.

  “Thanks to someone who shall remain nameless and on my shit-list forever, I don’t have visuals anymore, so you’re going to have to talk to me,” Kalaya growled, communicating her displeasure through my implants.

  “This hanger looks safe at first glance, and like you said, there are four wyverns in here. It doesn’t appear there are any other exits save for the big exterior curtain doors and I assume those are blocked with debris.”

  “Alright, how long do you think it will take you?”

  “A few minutes, at least, to restore power. Whether this thing is functional or not remains to be seen. How’s Laree holding up?”

  “I’ve managed to slow down the wolves with my spotlight and even got another security door closed. But these things are wicked smart and are already finding ways around that I can’t block off. I’ll do everything I can, but you have only a few minutes before they find her again.”

  At least, she was safe for now, but I needed to work faster. “Drik,” I shouted out the hatch without stopping my work.

  “What do you need?” he said, squeezing into the confined space with me.

  “Know anything about electrical circuits?”

  “Just some basics.”

  Basics...it would have to do. I’d have to change the plan, but time was short. “Alright, new plan; wire all three of our power packs up as a parallel circuit. Warming up the internals will take too long, so we’ll jump start this bad boy just on straight reactor power.”

  “I can do that,” he said and set to work frantically collecting and prepping the other two packs.

  “Max, make sure were actually alone in here.”

  “What about my sister? What’s your plan for that?”

  “Kalaya is watching over her. She’s okay for now, but if we don’t get this done quickly, she might not be so fortunate in the future.”

  “Screw that bitch. I knew I sh
ouldn’t trust her.”

  “Max!” Drik roared. “They are doing everything they can to save her, and all you are doing is bitching. So either help or get out of the way!”

  “Fine, I’ll patrol the hanger.”

  One he was out of earshot, Kalaya piped in once again. “Yeah, well, screw him, too. Wait, I take that back. I want nothing to do with screwing him in any way. I hope it drops off! Oh, that’s a bad mental image.”

  “You can plot your revenge later.”

  “Oh, believe me, I will.”

  “I understand you’re both very upset with him, and rightfully so,” Drik said as his hands flew over the power packs’ connecting cables. “But try and understand. He might be an idiot but he is very loyal to his sister, and she is the only one he has left. I honestly don’t think he would know what to do with himself without her.” Yeah, well you try not to be mad at someone who almost killed you for saving his life.

  “I’ll go easy on him, but I make no promises for Kalaya.”

  “Fair enough…and done.”

  I was about done as well. I took a quick moment to look over his work; looked like everything was in order. “Fingers and toes are crossed,” Kalaya tittered as I connected the last cable and lit it up.

  The sound of electrical wires arcing and grinding metal on metal forced Drik to cover his ears as the turbines screamed to life and the whole machine shuddered. Vent doors sprang open as the groggy metal beast took its first gulps of air and power in several normal lifetimes. A few seconds later, the roar mellowed out to a respectable din and the unit’s many arrays of floodlights flickered on illuminating the entire hangar.

  “Establishing the link…and I’m large and in-charge. ” she said delightedly through the wyvern’s external speakers.

  “She’s making jokes at a time like this?” Drik questioned.

  “She wouldn’t be Kalaya otherwise.”

  “Nice job on the power plant, Kodo. I didn’t think you would take the time to bypass the safeties, too,” she purred.

  “You would have had to wait for the capacitors to charge otherwise. Now, you have a job to do, so get going.”

  “On it!”

  The multiple big electrical motors jolted as they supplied raw power, and the colossus started to inch forward on groaning tracks that hadn’t moved in centuries. Suddenly, a fiery anthem-type tune blared loudly out of the unit’s speakers as its Gatling-styled laser drill activated. The wyvern tore through the sheet metal walls and buttresses like paper and moved forward briskly. I hoped Kalaya had the presence of mind not to bring the roof down on top of us, but at this point, I didn’t care as long as we got to Laree in time.

  “You two stay here. Climb into the cab of one of the wyverns if the wolves come back.”

  “But,” Max sputtered.

  “But nothing! I can’t help Laree and worry about you two as well. What the hell is the significance of that music?” I shouted to Drik over the avalanche sounds of the tank as I grabbed my firearm and followed it through the hole.

  The old scientist grinned and called after me, “I believe it’s a historical battle anthem of old Earth called the Gary Owen. One of our most decorated cavalry units used to ride into battle behind it…go Kalaya!”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Laree

  “Laree! Stop hyperventilating and take a left here!” Kalaya’s voice commanded through the insect drone’s speaker.

  I couldn’t believe I missed the right door! I was going to die because I couldn’t run in a straight line! Now, my only hope was Kalaya and her drone, which she had been using to close doors on these monsters and to try to blind them with her light, but that didn’t seem to be working anymore.

  “Come on, Laree, you got to keep moving,” Kalaya’s voice urged. Keep running...I hadn’t run this hard in all my life. Even ditching the power pack and my useless gun a long time ago wasn’t helping one bit. If I lived, I was signing up for more of those cardio training courses.

  Kalaya led me through more tunnels and rooms than I could ever possibly remember, but now it looked like the end of the road because I didn’t see any other exits in this room. The place looked like it had been some sort of final assembly station for a machine that was easily three stories tall. The machine had broad, flat sides; and a huge, partially constructed control station rested in disarray at its base. Scattered ganglia of wiring hung out from various conduits that ran both in and out of the machine. I jogged forward, my aching feet and legs telling me that I was actually descending a slight incline the farther into the room I moved. Reaching the base of what I had decided to call a recycler, I stopped, out of breath, hyperventilating with my hands clutching my knees for whatever meager support they offered.

  Get up, Laree! Get a grip! I heard deep, booming sounds emanating from the back of the room where the creatures were throwing themselves recklessly against the last door between them and me.

  “What now?”

  “You go up.

  “Up?”

  “There’s a small, eight-inch service ladder set into the left side of the extruder in front of you. Use it, and you should be able to reach the suspended aerial work platform above you. Hurry! I’ll try to stall them!”

  I leaned around the left corner and my headlamp briefly illuminated the ladder she was referring to, painted black to match the matte coloration of the machine. I followed the line of sight up, and hanging suspended above my head was one of those dangerous-looking platforms you see window washers use on skyscrapers. Just a narrow plank of corrugated metal with rails around three sides, suspended by thin cables anchored to who knows what? My headlamp didn’t reach that far.

  “Oh, hell, no! Did I mention I have a latent fear of heights?”

  Panicked, but with no other choice, I hobbled to the ladder and willed my exhausted body to keep moving. Come on, Laree, one rung at a time, you can do it. Somehow, I managed to reach the top of the rungs and reached across to grab the railing of the suspended platform. The sudden addition of my arm weight made the unit sway precariously, and I paused for a second to think about the wisdom of this idea.

  My thoughts were shattered just like the door of the chamber as a loud crash heralded the arrival of the slavering horde. Creature after creature poured through the doorway and flowed like bone-colored ink into the room. Kalaya’s drone dove right into their faces, but they had already singled me out as prey and there I was, perched tantalizingly above them in open view, the light from my headlamp quivering like a strobe. With a desperate cry of fear, I launched myself across the gulf of space between where the ladder ended and the platform began…I almost made it, but my exhausted muscles just didn’t give me the needed thrust.

  Screaming, I clung with my upper arms to the railing, even as my feet dangled below the swaying platform. Effortlessly, the wolves leaped up onto the control station, their toenails clattering loudly on the polished surface as they considered the tasty morsel suspended just above them. They circled impatiently below as I struggled to pull myself farther up onto the deck. I looked down into those growling and snapping jaws and glowing red eyes…four of them each. This is the end for me it seemed...

  Kalaya’s drone suddenly appeared next to my head.

  “I’m going to die here, aren’t I?” I panted hysterically.

  “Don’t talk like that, Laree; you’re still in this fight.” She dipped down suddenly to smack one of the monsters on the snout. With a yelp, it slid off the console and another took its place. “Bad puppy! No biscuit!” she lectured.

  I grinned ruefully; the drone was so battered by all the contact with the wolves that even Kalaya’s normally melodious voice sounded like a comic book duck. It made me feel a little better, even as I hung like a piece of seasoned prime meat above the pack, my boots less than ten feet above their eager jaws.

  “Kalaya, I’ve given it all I have, my body is locking up more each second. I’ll be lucky if I can even hold onto what little grip I have. When they star
t pulling on my legs, I won’t be able to fight them.

  “You are still alive and that’s what matters, Laree…hold on, help is on the way!” she quacked.

  I watched the wolves as they started to rise up on their back legs and test the distance between us. One really good jump and a bite on one of my legs would drag me down to their waiting jaws with almost no effort. The only thing in my favor was the polished desktop they were standing on was slippery.

  “Kalaya, they say that your life flashes before your eyes right when you’re about to die. Not sure if that’s true yet, but it’s certainly at the forefront of your thoughts at times like this,” I whimpered. “And you know what’s really pathetic? I am twenty-seven years old. I haven’t had a decent relationship with a man since I was eighteen, and you are probably my best female friend that I’m not related to by blood. How sad is that?”

  “Yes, I can see how not having any blood to be related to would help in that situation,” she said dryly, all the while dipping down and harassing any wolf that looked like it was gathering for a jump.

  I actually wheezed comically for a second at her lame joke. “See what I mean? I’ve known you for a day and you already are a better friend to me than anyone I know on the Jeff. You’ve been very kind to me, practically tucked me in at night, and saved my life like a hundred times in the past twenty minutes. We’ve even talked about boys in your own weird way. The only thing we haven’t done is cuddle under blankets, watch vids, and eat gallons of rocky road ice cream together.”

  The drone snorted, or perhaps short-circuited, but her duck voice still rang true. “Once we get back to the Aurora, we’ll have to fix that oversight. But based on your list, we sound more like lovers than friends.”

  I chuckled, “Sorry, girl, I don’t swing that way.”

  “Neither do I, but this is your exhaustion-induced, near-death delusion, not mine. Hell, I’m still trying to figure out the rules of this daydreamed revelation of yours.”

  “Good luck with that.” The wolves were getting much bolder now and making simultaneous attempts at the big leap so that Kalaya’s drone couldn’t thwart them all. I even got sprayed with their slobber. “Won’t be long now…”