He hadn’t told her anything because he wasn’t sure himself if the rest of his plan would work. But if it did, there just might be an option for them. One that didn’t involve death by explosion. When he was sure, he’d make his move.
“Please, be careful,” he whispered.
Space pressed against her suit, her face shield, her very core. Lungs couldn’t fill up full enough or fast enough. Extremities grew numb. Steam accumulated in the corners of her visor and wouldn’t dissipate. A low in her glycemic index threatened. Frankie forced herself to relax. Around her, rocks ranged in size from walnut to freighter. And also surrounding her, silence. Space had always intimidated her. A vast, silent observer, waiting for one to mess up so it could close its hostile fist on the foolhardy or the incompetent.
Beyond the immediate vicinity of the pipeline and Earth’s new rings, the planet itself glowed that sickly, unnatural green. Even more vivid out here in space where she could look at the thing with her own eyes. Despite the great distance, she spotted massive open-air mines on every continent. Some in constellations, others in lines. The acne-scarred face of a teenager. Around it all, the mesh of conduits filled with Imber fuel. Blood. Milk. Whatever the substance and its role, it was about to dry up. Alien scumbags.
While John simultaneously maneuvered the reefer—slowly, centimeter by excruciating centimeter—and its cargo hold, Frankie made sure to be at the perfect spot to do her job. He truly was one hell of a pilot. As soon as the hold made contact with the pipeline, she’d use the blowtorch and make a few well-placed stitches to keep both in contact. Just enough so the explosion wouldn’t propel the hold backward and cause minimal damage to the alien pipeline. Faint white light shone out of the bubble bridge. She yearned to stop what she was doing and try to get a peek at him as he worked. But such luxury was now out of the question. Commander Francine Beaumont had a job to do.
Another couple degrees and John aligned the hold’s edge along that of the pipeline. The interior bulkhead, thinner and more brittle, wouldn’t stop the explosion from blasting through the alien metal. As it were, the fragments would probably contribute to the devastation.
Blowtorch ready, she bounced to the place where both human and alien structure met and began to stitch. Bright blue dots danced in her eyes as she made ten quick joints. No time to link them. This would have to do. Already, they’d spent too long getting ready when all she’d wanted was to pull a Kamikaze and hit the thing head-on.
Almost done. Jesus, she was actually doing it. It’d worked.
“Ready,” she said into her helmet. The visor whitened with even more steam. No wonder. Sweat covered her.
John replied something she didn’t understand. “Repeat,” she shouted.
“Misery…es…y!”
“What?”
“Misery!” John roared. “Loves! Company!”
What the hell does that mean?
A series of shadows flitted over the pipeline like someone flipping the pages of an old-fashioned book. One hand on her monkey tail, Frankie kicked with her right foot so she’d make a complete rotation and see what had caused the shadows.
Her heart sank.
Not a thousand meters from her waited a cluster of Imber ships. One had alien equivalents of green searchlights sweeping the juncture. Unquestionably they’d realize the reefer was no space junk. Even if it was in two pieces.
For the first time in her life, fear paralyzed her body and mind. Only senses remained alert. Around her, blowtorch, crowbar and stunners floated at the end of their short leashes, in the exact position and angle in which she’d left them. Still, she watched the enemy. Despite the dread freezing her body, her mind analyzed, gauged and studied. Such predatory beauty. The stuff of nightmares. Metal exoskeletons covering pale-fleshed beings whose Latin name, imber, meant rain. For the metal rain that had fallen on Earth all those years ago. A few hours of metal rain, then centuries of metal reign.
They couldn’t hear her—no one could hear anything in space, the one great equalizer—yet Frankie stopped breathing. Stopped moving. Her eyes only proved life still pumped through her. She counted seventeen small alien ships. Seventeen. Might as well have been seventeen thousand. Somewhere around them, perhaps behind the moon or hidden below the Earth’s curvature, the human fleet waited. Could they see this? Had Bentley rerouted all available power to boost the sensors? And still the Imbers made no move.
What are they doing?
Frankie had her reply when the one with the searchlights froze its twin rays on the reefer hold welded—at least a little bit—to the precious pipeline. A frenzy began with the alien ships. They swerved up and around, joined then separated, only to fly right back to their initial position. Clearly, the searchlights had revealed something to them. They knew the reefer was no space junk. They knew the hold hadn’t attached to the pipeline all by itself.
John and she had been discovered.
Coming from inside her helmet, John’s voice jackhammered into her skull. “Hang on.”
To what?
John’s warning snapped her back to reality. Fear evaporated, replaced with hatred that had festered for years under the mask of duty and obligations and had led her to this location, on this day. Revenge wasn’t even on the list. What she wanted—what John and she were about to dispense—wasn’t vengeance. No, much more powerful than that. It was hope.
A curse left her when the reefer began to pull away. Only by a few meters, but enough to yank on her tether strap and force her off her perch. As she windmilled her arms—not that it did any bit of good—a couple of the smaller Imber ships detached themselves from the rest and fanned out on either side of the juncture. Instead of swooping in, they just flew back and forth, like in a mad dance, like someone taking a step forward but then one backward. Rage was palpable in the way they sharply changed directions or executed snap-rolls. Angry wasps wanting a good spot to hit.
What the hell is going on? Imbers never acted this way. Not that she knew. Uncertainty? Confusion? What was wrong with them?
Then it clicked. Despite the differences in species and behaviors, Frankie understood. The Imbers didn’t dare fire at them for fear of damaging the pipeline.
“Oh, you ugly little fuckers. I knew this was your blind spot.”
She opened her thigh pocket. For a horrifying moment, the detonator slipped out into space. It floated up in front of her face. Black plastic against black space.
“Shit.”
But she caught the retrofitted magnetic lock and held it tightly in her gloved fist. Her heart almost stopped. With the color and size, had it slipped from her, she never would’ve found it again.
“What’s going on?” John asked. “…not moving…?”
“They won’t fire at us.”
Static crackled and drowned what John replied.
“They don’t dare fire on us. The pipeline.”
She heard his laugh and couldn’t help but grin as well. What a crazy day.
“The big one…it doing?”
Big one?
She was about to ask him what he meant when she saw, rising behind the small Imber ships like an angry cosmic storm, the mothership that had refueled the others earlier. From such a short distance, the thing was huge. Larger than the Magellan. Larger than four Magellans.
“I’ll cover you.”
With quick bursts of attitude jets, John indeed put the reefer between the enemy and her. Didn’t he know it wouldn’t matter? Chivalrous to the end.
“It’s doing something,” he added. When he cursed long and hard, Frankie had nothing to say. In all the years she’d known John, he’d used this kind of language only twice. And both times he’d been drunk. Goddamnmotherfuckingshit? John?
Indeed the mothership was doing something.
Frankie watched, half horrified, half intrigued as the large Imber vessel deployed a vast array of weapons that ranged from giant pulse cannons large enough to fly a small shuttle into, to small but vicious-looking roc
ket launchers. All along its limbs and round belly, muzzles sprouted out. A floating armory, that thing. And all of them were pointed at the reefer.
This was what she’d come here to do. It all came down to this moment. She hoped the rest of the fleet watched. And she hoped they cheered when the pipeline exploded.
“Do it!” John roared inside her helmet.
She squeezed the detonator in one fist while she flicked the cap off with her other hand. Both shook badly. Steam spread in white circles against the inside of her visor. She could hardly see a thing. She didn’t need to. She knew that little piece of machinery like the pocket of her favorite sweater. A tiny bump proved perfect to rest the heel of her gloved thumb. Womack and she had designed the thing to have a twofold ignition action. First, lift the cap, which she’d just done. Second, slide the little clip all the way up, where the thin strip of foil would crinkle up and create a tiny, internal spark. Said spark would trigger a five-second sequence emission that the bomb would pick up with the detonator’s twin sensor.
“I love you, John O’Shaughnessy,” she whispered.
His chuckle came back loud and clear. No static. Great timing. “And I love you. But for the records, I said it first.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. It was time to end the Imbers’ rule over Earth.
The mothership lifted its prow—its head. The smaller ships became very still. Something was about to happen. Something bad.
“You fucked with the wrong species.” Frankie slid the clip all the way up. She couldn’t hear the satisfying click but imagined it.
Chapter Six
“You fucked with the wrong species.” Frankie had always known what to say.
John gunned the engines. All of them. All the way.
Instead of flying out in a straight line, he angled all four attitude jets to starboard. The violent burst of speed must have given quite a shock to the unfortunate woman tethered at the end of a cargo strap. But this couldn’t be helped right now. He yelled the whole time the ship ripped into a crazy roll. The reefer, now much lighter without its cumbersome hold, acted like a trebuchet and flung Frankie ahead in what must have been a spine-compacting arc. Poor woman. But she was tough. She could take it. Question was…could his reefer take it. Because he’d effectively put it smack between the pipeline—the one about to explode—and Frankie. He’d get the brunt of it and right in the face too. Fitting. The John O’Shaughnessys of the world were eminently replaceable whereas everyone could use a few more Frankies. Many more Frankies. It’d burned his toast to die for humanity. What was humanity anyway? A lot of people? Was that worth saving, a lot of people? Why? Because of sheer numbers? Who knew? Surely not because of humans’ humanity. They had precious little of it. But for her, he’d do so with a smile on his face.
A bright flash filled his tacscreens.
“God…”
The explosion was eerily silent. But the sight proved at once riveting and hideous. He sat transfixed by the spectacle.
Where Frankie had fixed the hold to the pipeline, it burst like an overfed snake. A ring-shaped geyser expanded from the point of impact and created a gap at least a hundred meters wide. Green acid gushed out in large blobs that sloshed outward, ungainly and unevenly, into a widening radius. Green globules hit the reefer, plastered the tacscreens, trailed in long lines up the prow and through the antennas. It was everywhere.
Then the shockwave hit.
Proximity alarms resounded anew. Even the one announcing imminent hull breach. The bridge shook, rattled violently enough to break John’s harness on one shoulder. Arms and legs wide and braced for support, he watched debris come at him hard and fast. A large black mass like a twisted cube rolled in his direction. Not dead-on but pretty damn close. It was the cargo hold blown loose. Oh, this one would hurt…
The hit tore a snarl of pain from him. Violent tremors followed as the twisted hold gouged a long gash all along the reefer’s prow, up the fore portion, dangerously close to the bubble bridge. John forced himself to watch the end. Frankie was safely—relatively speaking—behind the reefer and out of harm’s way. Nothing else mattered. At the last possible second, one of the damaged hold’s protuberances caught on one of the sensors and flipped off the hull to safely spin out of the way to portside. Electrical sparks rained down from the consoles above his head. Every alarm on board wailed, chimed, beeped and rang. Smoke, steam and frost seeped into the bridge.
Yet amidst the chaos and pain—something was wrong with his arm and now with both ankles—one thought kept him alive.
“Frankie!” he yelled into the e-suit’s comms. “Frankie!”
The mother of all warning systems blinked red right between his knees.
“Shit.”
Gravity failed. Lights died, even the emergency set.
John had no choice. He unbuckled the remnants of his harness and kicked off his seat. God, his ankles throbbed. He’d probably broken both during the initial shockwave. Still, he had to get out of this deathtrap. Weightless, hand over hand, kicking and pushing off anything he could latch onto, he tore out of the bridge. Behind him, another shockwave pushed the ship into an asymmetrical barrel-roll. A crazy top off its axis. Nausea choked him. A metallic taste invaded his tongue. Blood glistened inside his face shield. He pushed on. Had to get to the back of the reefer. Had to get to her. His injured head throbbed to the rhythm of his crazy heartbeat.
The passageway proved difficult to navigate in pitch black. But a soft, green glow highlighted portholes and the wide gap at the back of the ship where the cargo hold had been. He prayed the monkey tail had held on despite the violence, the crazy piloting and the acid flowing out of the broken pipeline.
If he’d survived and she hadn’t…
Finally, he reached the main seal and the gaping hatch that had once led to the cargo hold. Beyond, green radiance emanated from many directions at once. Acid still continued to flow out of the destroyed pipeline. With hands that shook badly, he patted along the hatch in search of the crank for Frankie’s tether strap, found it and slammed his fist on the mushroom-shaped control. Nothing. Not even enough juice to reel her in.
“Goddammit.” Steam whitened his visor. He could see little else than his hands and the outline of the hatch.
When he found the strap—still taut, thank God—John grabbed it with two hands. Despite his broken ankles, he buttressed his feet on the hatch edge and pulled. Hand over hand. Every muscle in his body burned. Weightlessness could be a bitch just as much as gravity.
“Frankie. I have you. I’m reeling you in, okay?”
A hazy memory surfaced. He’d done this before, pulled her in, calling out that he had her. Where had this happened? The fear and horror of dropping her, he’d felt this before. And she’d replied something, hadn’t she?
I have to go. I’m sorry.
Her voice was in his head, right? It wasn’t out there. She wasn’t telling him that she had to go. He refused to believe it. The hit must have scrambled his brain. Maybe he was dead.
“Fuck. No.”
He resumed calling her name. Nothing but ominous silence. Images of crushing despair filled his mind’s eye. What if the unthinkable had happened? What if her plan would’ve worked better than his own? What if he’d…killed his beloved? Couldn’t he have trusted her and did as told? Why the hell did he have to be the unpredictable asshole again? Jesus.
“Frankie!” His voice was hoarse from roaring her name. Still he called. For every pull on the tether strap he called for her.
After what felt like an eternity, a mass appeared at the end of the strap. Relief washed over him in a great warm wave. She was there. Within reach. All he had to do—
A great metallic face descended into his field of vision. An Imber ship was peering inside the reefer, its dead, milky eyes—as large as goddamn coffee tables—blinking like green lasers amidst the mechanized body. John froze, one fist on the straps.
He felt transpierced by that stare. Green death. He prayed
under his breath, prayed not for him but for Frankie. He hoped with all his heart that she was alive. But unconscious. Because she faced away from him and toward the aft of the ship, the Imber must have been twenty meters in front of her. The face of Satan himself.
So close but still too far. Frankie floated arms and legs wide. John still didn’t move a muscle as the Imber face floated left to right, as if searching. Smelling. Hunting.
It abruptly slid below view.
John hurriedly resumed pulling Frankie to him. When he gripped the back of her harness and yanked her inside the closed portion of the ship, he let out a long sigh of relief. He spun her around. Fear and dread fought with hope and relief. What if she was…?
By the greenish ambient light, her face appeared intact. Blood stained one temple though, and chilled John’s own.
No…
His heart thudded hard when a long appendage curled into the empty space where the cargo hold had been. Green veins covered it but didn’t glow the way they had before. Instead of acid green, the veins glistened a deep, forest green shade.
Inside his helmet, static crackled so loud he snarled in pain. God, what was that? Modulation, cadence. Was the Imber trying to talk to him? It sounded pissed off.
He pushed Frankie behind him so he could close the inside hatch. His elbow crunched, sending lances of pain shooting up his shoulder. But he fought it. He fought it with all he had. The distress signal was still going off, somewhere in the ship’s innards, and relayed their position. If they were very lucky, one of the human ships would find them. Maybe.
He managed to close the hatch just as the limb—a mix of forklift and giant crab pincer—rotated and shot for the closing hatch. But it slid shut and the Imber arm thudded against it. Metal buckled on John’s side. Rivets popped loose and floated off.
“Shit.”
With Frankie in tow, he pushed his way back toward the bridge. But he never made it very far. A violent tug on Frankie’s strap reeled them both back against the hatch. The monkey tail disappeared into the crack. On the other side, the Imber must have known there was a soft little human tied to it. Fucking monsters. How he hated them.
Metal Reign: An Impulse Power Story Page 7