Strange New Worlds

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “Yeah, we set them to shut off after they finish their work. Then our bodies gradually dispose of them,” Beth said. She was less than thrilled to hear some of the things were still inside her. According to the doctors, they should have been absorbed or excreted already.

  “The nanites inside the console fixed your nanites and updated them,” the voice told her. “They should work much better now.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Your nanites have been upgraded. Without the upgrade you never would have been able to control my ship’s engines as you did.”

  “Ah.” Great. More nanites. Just what she wanted most. Not!

  “You sound displeased? They can be removed, if you want.”

  Beth did want the nanites gone. But she also wanted to get the hell off this ship and be back with her people. It wasn’t like this being was acting hostile or anything, but she’d had enough. She was exhausted, scared, and tired of feeling like she was about to die. “I’d just like to return to my people.”

  The nanites could be dealt with at another time.

  “As you wish.”

  Beth’s vision returned. She looked down at her hand and saw that another of the robot’s legs had gently lifted her palm from the crystal. The smaller spiders parted, opening a path for her to leave.

  Your friends wait just outside in a shuttle. Follow the small robots to your way out, the voice told her.

  “How are you still speaking with me?” Beth asked aloud.

  Your nanites.

  Of course. Beth rolled her eyes. Nothing like a reminder that she had little bots crawling around inside her. Joy of joys.

  Well, better that than dead. Several of the small robots were skittering away from the main mass of the creatures and moving toward the glass-like wall. Beth stepped carefully along the path they’d opened for her and followed them. Before long she saw the shuttle docked against the wall. That was her ride! She was almost out.

  Looking both ways, Beth scanned the wall for any sign of a hatch or portal. There didn’t seem to be one. “How do I get out?” she asked, hoping the alien lifeform was still listening in.

  Walk through the wall. Your nanites will handle your passage. Hurry, please. I want to be on my way to seek the rest of my kind.

  She frowned, unsure. Somehow a bunch of little robots were going to help her walk through a damned wall? That sounded like complete bullshit to her, but she reached out with one hand and touched the glass anyway.

  Small sparkles of light erupted from her palm as soon as she made contact. They danced around the glove of her spacesuit for a few seconds. All at once, she couldn’t feel the wall anymore. Her hand glided effortlessly through what had been solid just a few moments before. Beth almost stumbled forward but managed to catch her balance in time. Carefully as she could, she took a step through the wall. The glass parted around her body like it wasn’t even there, brilliant lights sparking in small circles around her everywhere she touched the material.

  Then she was through. Her magnetic boots clamped down on the shuttle’s hull. Almost there, Beth thought to herself. Almost home free. Just a few steps. She took those next steps as carefully and deliberately as she could. No sense falling off and getting sucked into a black hole when she was so close to freedom.

  There was the airlock. She tapped the outer control and it opened, then closed behind her as soon as she was inside. The air began cycling, but before it had hissed for more than a few seconds she saw Charline’s smiling face beaming at her through the porthole as she banged on the inner door.

  Beth sagged against the wall in relief. She activated her suit radio. “I’ll be inside as soon as the airlock cycles. Get us out of here. I have a feeling they don’t want to stick around much longer, and we probably don’t want to go for a ride wherever they’re going.”

  “On it,” Charline replied. The push of acceleration pressed Beth back against the wall for a moment, and they were on their way.

  Forty

  Dan eased back in his chair, trying to relax the kinks in his back muscles. His spine might be repaired, and he’d done a lot of work to rehabilitate weak muscles, but it still seemed to seize up whenever he was under a lot of stress. This day had certainly qualified! But all was well that ended well, he supposed.

  A quick glance around the conference table was enough to reassure him. Colonel Martelle was there. Beside him sat Charline, one arm in a splint. Turned out she actually had broken the thing trying to get Dr. Paris into her Armor. Dan shook his head at that escapade. She’d been damned lucky to survive it. But he wasn’t surprised she’d done it. From their first adventure together, they’d adopted an ‘everybody goes home’ attitude, which at least the original crew seemed to carry with them to this day. It might get them all into trouble sometimes, but Dan was satisfied the results were worth it.

  Beth and Ayala were there as representatives from the Satori, which was docked alongside his ship for the moment. Majel was present, of course, listening in, although she was probably still in contact with the aliens as well.

  New aliens! That was the last thing anyone expected to find out in the middle of nowhere. If they were going to run into life even all the way out there, maybe it was an indication that the galaxy was simply teeming with life.

  “Majel, any idea what our new friends are up to?” Dan asked.

  “They haven’t said, but I suspect their drive is spooling up for some sort of jump. I’ve detected a power spike inside their ship,” Majel replied. “And…I’m not sure they count as ‘friends.’”

  “No? They told Beth they owed her one,” Dan said.

  “Her. Not me. Definitely not you. They’re not especially happy with either of us,” Majel admitted.

  Martelle barked a laugh. “Making friends all over, are you?”

  “That’s what I get for trying to blast my way into their ship to rescue Beth,” Dan laughed. He didn’t regret that decision for even a moment. Saving her was worth any risk. “Put their ship on the screen?”

  A large computer monitor on the wall flickered to life and then displayed the alien planetoid. From this distance, they couldn’t make out many details. It was a barely visible black ball floating in space. But everyone at the table knew it contained so much more than that. They’d never run into a species with such advanced technology. Not even the Kkiktchikut could match these strange robot creatures for tech.

  And then it was gone.

  Dan blinked, wondering if the screen had malfunctioned or shifted view, because one second the alien craft was there and the next it was gone completely. There was no flash of light, no wormhole, no jump into hyperspace. It simply vanished from view.

  “Damn,” Dan whispered under his breath. “Majel, are they really gone?”

  “According to every sensor I have, yes,” she replied.

  He sighed and looked around the table. “This is going to be one hell of a report to make when we get home.”

  “No shit,” Ayala said. “Nadie creerá esto.”

  “They’ll believe it, all right. We’ve got tons of proof,” Martelle said. “Soon as the brain bot took off, the rest of the ones on the surface stopped moving. They left without picking any of them up. We can scoop a few, bring them back home with us. Might learn a thing or two.”

  “No chance they’ll come back for those?” Charline asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Beth said. “The only one that was sentient was the brain robot, right? The rest were basically drones doing work under its command.”

  Majel answered. “That’s correct. They’re unlikely to bother returning for the units left behind. Before they departed, the alien made it clear to me that they were done with this place, and we could use it if we wanted. It had spent hundreds of years stranded on the planet’s surface, unable to return home.”

  There was something about that Dan just didn’t understand. “As advanced as this species is, why couldn’t it build a ship in all that time? It could have mined for ma
terials, built something, and flown home. Why steal our shuttle?”

  “I asked that, too,” Majel said. “It turns out the surviving brain was a low-ranked member of their species. It was sent out on an away mission to gather raw materials on the surface. When a comet struck their ship, the overload to their systems killed all the other sentient minds. The one on the surface was still alive but out of communication with its home. Worse, it had only brought the data files it needed for its mission — not the data on how to build up a tech infrastructure and complete a spaceship.”

  “So when it saw we had a ship — the shuttle — it decided that was going to be its ticket home,” Charline said.

  “Yes,” Majel replied. “Then it scanned the Satori, and that gave it plans for a wormhole drive. Without us, it was marooned.”

  “I hope it finds the rest of its people,” Beth said, her voice soft.

  Dan looked her in the eyes. She’d been acting a little strange ever since returning from the alien craft. He understood she’d been through a jarring experience, but Dan had a sense that there was more to what she’d been through than she’d let on. Beth was keeping something from him and the others. He tabled that thought to discuss with her another time when they were alone.

  “Me, too,” Dan replied, flashing her a smile. “And hey, it might not like me, but at least you managed to make friends!”

  Beth grinned. “Not gonna lie, I’m not sure I got the best end of that deal!”

  “We have the site data that we need?” Dan asked, returning the conversation to the business at hand.

  “Yes. Between our own scans and the information the aliens sent my way during our conversations, I believe we can make a full report to General Hereford,” Majel said. “But if my assessment matters, I think this is a viable site for a colony. It might be one of the best worlds we’ve seen so far for humanity to try building on.”

  “Hereford will be glad to hear that,” Dan said. He wasn’t sure the general would agree, though. They’d encountered a hostile force in this system. For a military man like Hereford, that might be enough to veto the site entirely. But it was hard to say how the man would want to move forward. Hereford was unpredictable and liked to make his own plays. Dan liked that about the man.

  Dan rose, palms down on the conference table. “We’ll pick up the rest of our gear and some more samples from the planet. Then I think it’s time to return home. Earth needs us.”

  Somewhere out there, the Kkiktchikut were planning their next strike. It might be coming against the Naga, or they could find Earth and decide to move against humanity instead. Either way, the battle was coming. He didn’t know when they would attack next, but he intended to be standing in their path when they did.

  Other Books by Kevin McLaughlin

  The Ragnarok Saga (Military SF)

  Accord of Fire - Free prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

  Book 1 - Accord of Honor

  Book 2 - Accord of Mars

  Book 3 - Accord of Valor

  Book 4 - Ghost Wing

  Book 5 - Ghost Squadron

  Book 6 - Ghost Fleet (2019)

  Valhalla Online Series (A Ragnarok Saga Story)

  Book 1 - Valhalla Online

  Book 2 - Raiding Jotunheim

  Book 3 - Vengeance Over Vanaheim

  Book 4 - Hel Hath No Fury

  Lost Planet Warriors (Military SF with light romance)

  Book 1 - Desperate Times

  Book 2 - Desperate Measures

  Dire Straits - Free short story for email list fans!

  Adventures of the Starship Satori (Space Opera blended with military SF)

  Finding Satori - prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

  Book 1 - Ad Astra: Book 2 - Stellar Legacy

  Book 3 - Deep Waters

  Book 4 - No Plan Survives Contact

  Book 5 - Liberty

  Book 6 - Satori’s Destiny

  Book 7 - Ashes of War

  Book 8 - Embers of War

  Book 9 - Dust and Iron

  Blackwell Magic Series (Urban Fantasy)

  Book 1 - By Darkness Revealed

  Book 2 - Ashes Ascendant

  Book 3 - Dead In Winter

  Book 4 - Claws That Catch

  Book 5 - Darkness Awakes

  Book 6 - Spellbinding Entanglements

  By A Whisker (short story)

  The Raven and the Rose - Free novelette for email list fans!

  Dead Brittania Series:

  Dead Brittania (short prequel story)

  Book 1 - King of the Dead

  Book 2 - Queen of Demons

  Raven’s Heart Series (Urban Fantasy)

  Book 1 - Stolen Light

  Book 2 - Webs in the Dark

  Book 3 - Shades of Moonlight

  Other Titles:

  Over the Moon (SF romance)

  Midnight Visitors (Steampunk Cat short story)

  Demon Ex Machina (Steampunk Cat short story)

  The Coffee Break Novelist (help for writers!)

  You Must Write (Heinlein’s rules for writers)

  Exclusive free story for fans of Kevin McLaughlin’s science fiction! Learn the story of how John found the alien ship on the moon, launching the adventure which spans the stars and saves all of humanity!

  https://www.instafreebie.com/free/Uor9d

  About the Author

  When not practicing hobbies which include sailing, constructing medieval armor, and swinging swords at his friends, Kevin McLaughlin can usually be found in his Boston home. Kevin’s award-winning short fiction is now available in digital form at all major ebook retailers. His urban fantasies “By Darkness Revealed” and “Ashes Ascendant” are available in ebook and print. His latest stories, the “STARSHIP” series and “King of the Dead” serial, are ongoing.

  I love hearing from readers!

  www.kevinomclaughlin.com

  kevins.studio@gmail.com