She pressed a different button and a clear plastic-like sheet protruded from one side of the device. It continued until, reaching the obtuse metal rods, attaching itself with a sizzle of static electricity.
“What have you got?” Irons asked.
“I’m not sure.” Hannah held the Wormhole Activator skyward and looked through the clear sheet. She touched one finger to it and the transparent sheet came to life with vibrant colors, words and symbols she couldn’t understand. Excitement shook her. “Captain? I think this is a star chart.”
“To where?” Lindsay asked.
She grinned. “Everywhere.”
“Can you read it?” Irons looked at the star chart.
“I can probably figure it out. I’ll have to compare it to our own.”
“Everyone to the bridge,” Irons ordered.
* * *
Hannah pulled up a star map of the entire Sol galaxy system then walked to the middle of the bridge and held up the Catter chart to their own. “I need to pull back.” She started back for her console.
“Durham,” Irons ordered.
Durham rushed to Hannah’s console and zoomed out on the display map.
“More,” Hannah said.
The map zoomed out again.
Hannah squinted. “Five times more.”
The map moved out even farther.
“Stop.” Hannah looked at the two images.
They were different but with similar features. Hannah rotated the Wormhole Activator until it lined up on top of the display screen. “It is a star chart,” she said. “Highlight Jupiter.”
Durham looked around on the display map, at a loss for what to do.
“Private?” Syracuse asked, a little impatiently.
“Space is really big, sir.” Durham leaned down on the keyboard of the console and typed in [Jupiter, Sol System].
The name of the planet and an arrow pointing toward it appeared on the display.
Hannah touched the same area on the Catter star chart and it switched to a view of the Sol System. She quickly scanned it and found Jupiter. Another touch and the chart changed to just Jupiter.
“Wow. From this, we can go anywhere we want. No wonder they can ambush so easily.”
“Now it’s our turn for a sneak attack.” Irons grinned.
“That thing show enemy formations?” Syracuse asked.
“No, sir. It’s just a navigational tool. With Jupiter highlighted, all I’d have to do is open a portal and our destination will be on the other side.”
“We shouldn’t waste anymore time,” Lindsay said. “We have the element of surprise, now.”
Hannah looked at Irons. “I agree,”
“Wait a minute!” Durham broke in. “First of all, we don’t know what kind of force they’ve got around Jupiter, much less on it. Second, assuming it’s a big force, the minute we pop our heads out, they’re gonna be on us.”
“It doesn’t happen often but the kid has a point,” Syracuse said. “The old girl can still take a few more hits but if there’s an armada bigger than anything we’ve dealt with so far on the other side, we won’t even have time to wormhole back. We need a recon. And this ship is too big for it.”
“Good thinking, Rayweather,” Irons muttered as he changed the display screen to the cargo bay camera. He pointed at the screen and everyone on the team slowly turned to the Wartech ship.
“It will still stick out like a sore thumb, Captain,” Hannah said.
“Then we’d best camouflage it,” Irons told her.
“We’re gonna paint it?” Durham asked.
“Negative.” Irons smiled. “We’re in the junk parts business now, boys and girls,”
Twenty-Five
Unexpected Among the Fallen
“Remind me again what we’re looking for?” Durham sat in the cockpit of a wrecked Catter LAV.
“The ID sensor,” Lindsay rummaged around the front end of the downed craft.
“Can’t they just tell from looking at it? That Wartech ship and this thing aren’t that close.”
Lindsay looked up at him. “Weren’t you listening?”
“I kinda stopped paying attention when the Captain paired us,” he said with a cheesy grin.
Lindsay just rolled her eyes.
Taylor Durham completely respected her as a soldier. He was fully aware of her abilities and even glad to crew with her. But it was hard for him to deny his attraction toward her. For him, any one-on-one time with her was extremely welcome.
“It’s just camouflage. The sensor in case they ID through scans. The other parts in case they ID by sight,” Lindsay said. “We’re just covering our bases.”
“Got it. That is definitely the part I missed,” Durham looked around the cockpit. “Wouldn’t Hannah be better off looking for an ID sensor? I don’t even know what it looks like.”
He pulled off a plate under the steering mechanism. Inside were more of those metal rods like the Wormhole Activator. Nothing else looked even remotely familiar. Kneeling, he stuck his hand farther in and felt around. It was relatively easy to navigate the space without looking. Whatever technology the Catters were using, it didn’t involve a tangle of wires and circuitboards.
His fingers grazed something round. He felt around a little more and discovered the round object was ovular and attached to what felt to him like a box. “Maybe,” he mumbled. “Hey, Brooks, I found something.”
There was no reply.
“Brooks?” Durham stuck his head out of the cockpit, expecting to see her but she wasn’t there. “Lindsay? That’s not like her.” He stood up in the cockpit. “Hey Broo—” The sight of Lindsay staring down a Catter stopped his train of speech.
Lindsay and the alien warrior stood in front of the LAV, staring each other down. Both waiting for the other to make a move. The giant alien towered over her. It was wounded but no less ready for a fight.
Durham pulled his Ice Gun, “Get down!”
Lindsay turned to see his gun pointed in her direction. The Catter took that moment to strike.
Durham fired but the kickback in the the lower gravity sent his shot veering well away from his intended target while the Catter’s powerful legs sent it barreling toward Lindsay.
Its taloned hands hit her in the chest, sending her off her feet and into the air above the LAV.
* * *
At the gunshot Irons dropped the LAV piece he’d been studying. He looked up in time to see Lindsay sailing through the air. Without a word, he launched himself skyward, hoping that he didn’t use too much force.
“Go limp, Brooks!”
She hit Irons much harder than he anticipated, nearly knocking the wind out of him. Fortunately he still managed to get his arms around her and the two fell back to the ground below.
Irons found that when he hit the ground, he didn’t have to bend his knees as much as normal. That was another advantage to the lower gravity.
He set her on the ground. “You ok?”
Lindsay caught her breath. “I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
“It was a—”
Four more gun shots cut her off.
“Boss!” Durham yelled, vaulting over a nearby wrecked LAV. “We got Catters!”
“What?”
Durham ran toward the Lucky Liberty, leaping over wreckage and firing his gun behind him. Irons could see the giant alien chasing after him. The Catter batted aside wreckage from the LAVs and Mars Fleet jets, knocking the broken pieces out of its way. One of the bullets hit the alien, making it stagger. Suddenly four more bullets ripped into it. Irons caught a glimpse of Syracuse holstering his weapon as the Catter fell to the red dirt. The dead alien warrior tumbled and bounced until it finally slid to stop.
Durham tried to slow himself down but the lack of control made him run right into Irons. The two men were a different weight class but on Mars, Durham nearly knocked him to the ground. They clutched at each other, spun and stumbled to a sudden stop.
; “Was it just the one?” Irons asked as he stepped back from Durham.
“As far as I could tell,” Lindsay answered.
“Nope,” Syracuse said before launching himself up toward the roof of the Lucky Liberty. He got about a quarter of the way before kicking up off a ledge of the hull, pushing himself higher. He repeated this process twice more before finally making it to the top where he turned around and took aim at the rim of a crater. “We got more incoming!”
“Get to the high ground!” Irons ordered.
He and the rest of the crew followed Syracuse’s example and leapt to the roof of their ship while more Catters ran toward them.
None of the attackers had guns, but with their talons, they didn’t need them. The aliens were fast. Almost too fast to get a solid aim on. The Earth soldiers bullets zipped past the Catters who easily dodged the shots.
“I’m out!” Syracuse yelled.
“Same here! These Ice Guns take too long to charge! We need the rifles!” Irons said.
A Catter leapt onto the roof of the ship. Lindsay fired her last shot into its gut. It wasn’t a kill shot but it did make the alien lose its footing. Lindsay dashed forward and leapt toward the Catter, feet first. Her boots struck square in the alien’s face, knocking it back and off the ship. Lindsay hit the deck, landing on her feet.
“Brooks, rifles!” Irons ordered.
Lindsay didn’t bother responding as she stepped off the roof, hopeful an impact with the ground wouldn’t break anything.
Her fears were relieved when she noticed the Catter had yet to hit the ground. The gravity was just that low.
Her boots finally landed on the ground as the dead Catter flopped a few yards away. She dashed for the ship’s cargo hold and couldn’t help grinning. This was the closest to flying without a rocket she had ever been. If not for their current urgency, she might have taken the time to enjoy it. But there was no time for that and she needed to hurry before the crew was overrun.
As if she’d targeted her landing, Lindsay hit the gangplank and she pushed off, soaring through the open doorway of the cargo hold.
Two of the Wartech rifles lay against one of the H4 crates. Unfortunately a Catter stood between her and those rifles.
Lindsay’s training and instincts flooded into muscles born and bred for moments like these. She took quick inventory of her surroundings and the enemy’s position and stance. The calculations she ran were faster than any math Hannah could run in her head. The multiple strike zones and how to hit them all played out as flashes in her mind. Each took into account what the Catter might do to counter. In the end, the simplest and most unexpected solution was the one she went with. Even without a gun, staying a fair distance away was the safest play.
She quickly drew a combat knife from her boot and rushed at the Catter. Roughly halfway to her target, she threw the knife. The blade spun rapidly toward the alien. Before it had time to duck or block, the spinning blade struck and buried itself right between that Catter’s eyes.
Lindsay barely noticed the abrupt screech that came from the alien as she continued her rush to the guns. She didn’t even bothering to double-check the Catter. She had confirmed the kill the moment the knife left her hand.
* * *
The shrieks and hisses of the Catters pierced the air and their ears as Syracuse and Irons struggled to keep just one of the aliens from getting to Hannah while Durham did his best to dodge attacks from another. All of their Ice Guns lay on the roof ship’s roof. Whether or not they were charged didn’t matter. There was no time to retrieve them. Not with more Catters appearing.
“This ain’t looking good,” Irons said as he struggled to keep a set of Catter claws from ripping into him.
Syracuse dropped to one knee and slammed his fist into the inside of the same Catter’s thigh. The hit turned the alien’s knee out, dropping the Catter to the roof floor. Irons finished the job by kicking the Catter’s torso, shoving it right off the ship.
“Think that killed it?” Irons watched the attacker tumble over the roof’s edge.
“I think it just lessened their numbers,” Syracuse told him as he took a new fighting stance.
The two old war buddies stared at the seven new Catters making their way toward them.
“We gotta get into the ship,” Irons said.
Syracuse turned around. “How?”
Both men looked back to see three more Catters behind them.
“Charged!” Hannah yelled as she took aim with two of the Ice Guns. She dropped the Catter Durham faced then turned to the three approaching her.
Before she could pull the trigger, rapid blasts of gunfire ripped through the air. All three Catters fell down, dead. The crew watched as Lindsay landed back on the roof, rifles in hand.
“It’s all I could grab, sir.”
“Good soldier,” Irons told her. “Get to work!”
Everyone dropped to their stomachs as Lindsay laid down a barrage of machine gun fire from both rifles. The recoil pushed her back across the roof as the bullets punched through the seven Catters and shoved them off the Lucky Liberty.
The rest of the crew looked around, waiting for more attackers. Lindsay tossed one of the rifles to Durham and picked up one of the Ice Guns to holster it.
Irons was the first to his feet. He scanned the horizon and looked over the edge of the roof for any sign of more Catters. The only ones left were dead.
Everyone else picked up their Ice Guns and holstered them.
“So we don’t go into any battles with these things again,” Syracuse checked the charge on his. “I can load a mag faster than these things charge.”
“Yeah, but just think if we didn’t have them,” Irons added.
“That’s not a thought I want to have.” Durham’s breathing was heavy.
“Everyone’s ok, right?” Irons asked.
“Yes sir,” the crew said in unison.
“Good. What did you two find?” he asked Lindsay and Durham.
“Nothing familiar, sir.”
“I might have found something,” Durham said. “But without Hannah to look at it, I’m just guessing.”
“Take her to it.”
“You know,” Hannah said. “We probably went about this the wrong way. I may have a better idea, Captain.”
“I’m listening.”
Twenty-Six
A Short Long Trip
The wings of the Catter LAV were mostly off. Getting them the rest of the way off was easy at that point. But on Mars, the fuselage was still very heavy. It took everyone on the crew to carry it up the gangplank and into the Lucky Liberty’s cargo hold.
“Come on, Brooks. You gotta be impressed by this,” Durham said. Even through the strain, he was admiring the fact that he was lifting so much weight.
“Captain.” Lindsay gritted her teeth.
“Shut it, Durham.” Irons took two more steps backwards. “That’s far enough.”
The crew crouched down, lowering the LAV to the floor. The metal to metal thud echoed off the walls.
Everyone stayed crouched, out of breath from their ordeal with the Catters and from carrying the wrecked LAV.
“What if this thing doesn’t work?” Durham asked.
“We don’t need the LAV to work,” Hannah said. “We just need the ID sensor to be aboard the ship.”
“It’ll go faster to fasten the parts to the Wartech ship if the LAV is already here,” Syracuse said. “Good thinking, Xuyen.”
“Change of plans.” Irons pointed at the Wartech ship. “I wanna attach those parts to the LAV.”
“Which parts?” Durham asked.
“Replace whatever’s missing on the LAV. Go ahead and include the Hard Light Projector, too.”
“There’s not enough time for a clean modification, sir,” Hannah said. “She’ll be dirty.”
“Good enough.”
“Durham, help me with the wings,” Hannah said.
“I want a portal with that thing ready to go in t
hree hours,” Irons ordered.
“Yes sir.” Hannah got to work.
“Question now is,” Syracuse said. “What happens after that?”
“Then we sneak a peek on the other side.”
“Who’s we?”
Irons just gave him a knowing look. As if Albatross would let any of his people do something he was not willing to do first. “Besides, if everything looks good, we’ll all see it anyway. Either way, we’re all going to Jupiter.”
“How do you define things looking good?”
Irons turned to face the scene outside of the cargo bay. “Better than this.”
* * *
Even Captain Irons knew this was a shaky plan at best. Taking the Wartech ship through was going to be hard enough. Anything short of a Catter spacefaring vehicle was going to stick out horribly. But at least the Wartech ship stood a chance at going unnoticed long enough to investigate Jupiter. And, unlike the Catter LAV, the Wartech ship was whole and operational with no need for repairs. With Hannah Xyuen in charge of the modifications, everyone could bet the LAV would fly. Though not as an LAV or as the Wartech ship for that matter. But a chimera of the two.
The crew stood back and looked over the strange Frankenstein monster of Wartech and Catter aviation.
Hannah shrugged. “No guarantees but it might work at first glance.”
“Can we trust it?” Lindsay asked, doubtful.
“It’s all we got,” Syracuse said.
Durham kicked the bottom of the chimera ship. “It looks like it’ll fall apart.”
“It looks like it’ll do the job,” Irons told them. “And that’s all we need it to do. This is just recon. I don’t expect to get in any fights out there. Good job, Xuyen.”
“It’s not my best work but thank you, sir.”
Irons walked around the amalgamation and pulled on a few of the Wartech parts to ensure their fittings were secured and that it at least looked like an LAV at a glance. One thing was for sure, if the Catters were only looking for ID sensors, this thing definitely had that. Anything else was up to luck.
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