by T. R. Harris
“Leave the room and proceed to the main corridor,” Commander Frost ordered. “Stay alert.”
“Yessir.”
There was a pressure door at the end of the long passageway of the supply section and Ensign Link opened it to find the triple-wide spine corridor for this level of the ship. Even though he’d been expecting it, the sight of even more prodigious quantities of alien blood nearly made him puke. There was a literal lake of the thick liquid covering the deck. All starships had a system of grates built into their flooring, as drainage for fire-suppressant chemicals, as well as for handholds during times of zero gravity. Without these grates, Ensign Link believed the floor of the corridor would have been filled with an inch or so of alien blood.
“Where are all the damn bodies?” he heard one of his men ask though his helmet comm.
“Dunno,” he answered softly.
“To the left, what’s that?” Command Frost asked. The captain was tied into the helmet cams of the boarding party so he was fully aware of what they were seeing.
Link moved to the location Frost indicated. “It’s an MK, sir.” He picked up the handgun and checked the battery pack. “It’s full. It hasn’t been fired.”
“And all the visuals of the exterior of the ship shows no signs of hostile fire, either.”
“Could they have all killed themselves?” asked another member of the boarding party.
“And then what? They all threw themselves out the airlock? I don’t think so,” said Jimmy Link, a little too sarcastically. He was growing more frightened by the second and was in no mood for stupid comments. “Sir, I’m seeing no signs of defensive fire at all. It’s pretty slippery in here, but we’re at an elevator that should take us to the command deck. Permission to proceed; we might find some records of what happened.”
“Permission granted. I’m pretty sure you’re not going to find anyone onboard—at least not alive.”
“There were four hundred Juirean military aboard, Captain. That’s a mighty big force to overcome without even firing a shot. And then why take the bodies?”
“Good question, Mister Link. Maybe they recorded the event. I would be surprised if they didn’t.”
The elevator opened at a wide foyer outside the ship’s bridge. To the right would be the combat center, to the left, the comm room. Behind the elevator were the berthing compartments of the senior officers, including the captain’s quarters. Straight ahead was a wide open portal leading to the ship’s command bridge.
There were pools of blood and drag streaks everywhere, including some thin parallel lines that appeared to be made from wheels. Yet still no bodies. The five Humans entered the bridge.
“Roberts, check comm for any logs. Winston, take tactical. See if they recorded any outside threats. I’ll take the command chair.”
A moment later Petty Officer Roberts reported. “Sir, I have a whole series of tracks here, and right up to the present. The recorders are still active.”
“Can you transfer the most recent recordings to the Tarazi?”
“Yessir.”
“Mister Link, you should see this.”
Jimmy moved over to where Petty Officer Second-Class Winston Jones sat at the tactical/weapons console. He had a video playing on the monitor. It was a recording of another starship closing fast on the Juirean vessel. The computers aboard the Juirean ship processed raw data concerning size and structure of the approaching starship and converted it into a detailed animation, yet once the vessel was within visual range, the animation was replaced with real-time images.
The foreign starcraft had literally popped into existence approximately a thousand miles from the Class-Four. Then the image on the screen began to waver, as what appeared to be pulses of bluish light escaped from the other spaceship. From that moment on there was no indication of the Juirean crew taking any actions whatsoever, either offensive or defensive. Weapons remained uncharged, comm links fell silent and generators spun yet in standby mode—just as they had been before the other vessel appeared. The ship was alive, even if the crew didn’t share that same status.
Suddenly within the recording, four small, disk-shaped craft departed from the larger black ship and made a beeline for the Class-Four. No shields were energized and no weapons fired from either party.
The image became static once the smaller ships latched onto the hull of the Juirean battle cruiser. “Fast forward,” Link ordered.
The recording jumped ahead several times, until it came to a point where the disk-shaped craft were now seen heading back to the mothership. The time lapse read one hour, two minutes, standard.
“Roberts, any internal recordings?”
“I’ve only found two, one outside the bridge and another in the generator room. They appear to be from permanent security monitors.”
“Transfer to the main screen.”
“I’ll try, sir. The controls are written in Juirean.”
The main screen to the left of the exterior viewport came to life, and what Ensign Link and the others saw on the screen caused their blood to run cold.
Dozens of Juireans appeared to be meandering around both the bridge and the generator room, listless and unfocused. The word zombies came to mind, and Jimmy Link felt a chill down his spine. Moments later, several huge figures dressed in thick black armored suits came into view. They each carried weapons with wide, short barrels and as they advanced the weapons produced not a discharge of projectiles or plasma bolts, but the same pale blue light as had come from the main ship.
Ignoring the zombie-like crew, the invaders went to control consoles and placed small reading devices on most of them. They waited patiently for the lights on the boxes to glow steady before removing them. One of the other black armored aliens then nodded to another, this one with a thin white stripe running across the armor diagonally from the left collar to the armpit,
On the split screen, the bridge view showed the alien with the white stripe approach the ship’s captain—a green-maned Juirean Guard of massive stature. Yet now the officer appeared passive, listless, and only slightly aware of his surroundings. The other alien leaned in and said something to him.
“Wait—back that up,” Commander Frost yelled into his comm. “I didn’t catch what he said.”
Petty Officer Jones rewound the recording. He then turned up the audio and zoomed in on the image of the black alien, his face obscured by the tinted faceplate of this helmet.
“Are you the builder?” the alien asked.
“Did you get that, sir?” Ensign Link asked.
“It sounded like he asked if the Juirean was the builder—whatever that means?”
“That’s what it sounded like to me, too.”
“Excuse me, sirs, but the Juirean is trying to answer,” said Jones, irritated by the talking of the two officers.
The Juirean captain was indeed trying to answer, yet the effort wasn’t coming easy. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. He blinked several times and then tried again.
“It sounded like he said, what do you mean?” Link reported.
The black alien made an adjustment on his weapon and the blue beam disappeared. He spoke again to the Juirean. “Are you the builder—the builder of the array?”
The Humans watching the recording now remained silent, waiting breathlessly for the Juirean’s fateful reply.
“I know not what you mean. We have built no…array.”
The armored alien backed away from the Juirean captain. “That is unfortunate. If you are not the builder, then you will be harvested.” Several of the huge figures moved within the mass of meandering Juireans and looked around, as if surveying the scene. And then from the barrels of the weapons, double blades of serrated metal extended outward for a good three feet. What happened next was unimaginably brutal and unexpected.
The black figures began to decapitate all the Juireans, using accurate and powerful swipes of their long blades to accomplish the deed. Jimmy Link and his boarding party gasped i
n shock. There was no provocation, no reason for what was happening. And then more black-suited aliens rushed into the static bridge scene and began to gather up both sections of the dead Juireans—heads and torsos. They took them all, lifting the huge alien bodies with ease and placing them on mechanized carts that had just come into view. The heads were placed in what appeared to refrigerated containers, while piles of headless bodies were unceremoniously carted away and out of view.
Ensign Link and his entourage were mesmerized by the horrific scene. It was as gruesome as it was efficient. And then to deepen the mystery, the armored creatures didn’t bother with any of the hardware or ordinance aboard the Class-Four. All they took were the bodies.
Then they departed, as quickly and single-mindedly as they came.
“It does looks like a harvest,” said Petty Officer Dan Roberts.
“Like a crop…like in farming?”
“Yessir. Like reaping the corn or slaughtering the cattle.”
“So you think they took the bodies…for food?”
“What else? They didn’t take any prisoners—hell, they didn’t even give them a chance to surrender. They were only concerned with the biological creatures aboard. Also, I’d say from the look of their ship and weapons they had, the Juireans didn’t offer anything in the way of technology to interest them.”
“Captain?”
“I agree with Mister Roberts,” came the reply through their helmet speakers. “But what worries me the most was how easy they subdued an entire Class-Four, and without firing a shot.”
“That beam of theirs put the Juireans into a trance. That made them easy prey.”
“It would do the same to us, Ensign. Juireans and Humans are around ninety-nine percent alike biologically. What affects them could affect us, too. Get back to the ship. I don’t know what we could do against the black ship if it came back, but I’d rather be far away from the Class-Four and maneuverable if they come back for seconds. We’ll let Fleet Command decide what to do next.”
“I have a contact, sir!” Petty Officer Jones yelled from the tactical console.
Link surveyed the screen. “Captain, do you have this?”
“That’s an affirmative.” Concern was thick in Frost’s voice.
“Bolt out, sir! We’ll make do here. I can’t believe they’re coming back for the Juireans; there’s nothing over here left for them to take.” He left off the unspoken ending of the statement: except for us.
“I hate to do this, but I have the welfare of the entire crew to consider,” Commander Frost said. “We’ll be back as soon—”
Ensign Link felt the wavering sensation just as Frost stopped speaking. Nausea swept through him and his vision began to close in on itself.
“Dammit, they’re doing the same thing to us….” Roberts shouted.
Link could feel his heart beating in his temples; he was scared and consumed with panic. But then he looked around the bridge, and his heart began to calm. “It’s not affecting us the same way,” he said to the room. His men looked at each other and then all eyes focused on the officer. He definitely felt something, but nothing that would make him catatonic.
He leaned over the shoulder of Petty Officer Winston Jones and studied the monitor. The black spacecraft had indeed returned, appearing out of the same section of space as it had before. Yet this time the disk-shaped mothership was pointed at the Tarazi with the visible blue light pulses blanketing the space surrounding the ship. Even then, the pale blue light spread out beyond that, reaching as far as the Juirean Class-Four, though its focus was elsewhere.
“Boarding party to the Tarazi, come in!” Robert’s voice echoed loudly in the near-empty bridge of the Juirean warship.
“Belay that, Mister Roberts!” Link cried out.
The enlisted man turned a stunned face on the officer. “Sir, we have to contact them—warn them—do something!”
“It’s obvious the Tarazi has fallen under the full influence of the beam. So far, we’re only getting a piece of it. Let’s not draw any attention, otherwise we may get a full blast of the beam ourselves.”
“So what do we do, just sit back and let the aliens slice off the heads of all our friends and shipmates?”
Ensign Link scanned the tactical screen again, just as four small black vessels departed the alien mothership and began to close on the Tarazi. His pulse was pounding and it felt like his head was about to explode, both from the stress of command and the influence of the blue beam.
“Sir, we have to do something!” Roberts said again.
Link looked at the lights of the tactical console. “All systems aboard this ship are still functioning, isn’t that right?”
“They appear to be,” Winston Jones replied.
“Including weapons?”
The eyes of the petty officer opened wide. “They sure are! They’re not charged, but that will only take a minute.” The young petty officer swiveled in his chair and began to punch buttons.
“Hold off on that,” Link ordered.
Roberts was now at Jimmy’s side, face red, eyes angry. “We don’t have a minute; they don’t have a minute.” The smaller black ships were almost at the Tarazi.
“Relax everyone,” Link said. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” He turned to Petty Officer Jones. “Begin charging the port weapons batteries, but route it back through the starboard banks. Keep the energy signature confined to the interior of the ship.”
“So the aliens won’t detect the build up!”
“That’s right. As far as we can tell, they don’t know anyone’s aboard the Juirean ship.”
“But once the smaller ships latch onto the Tarazi, we won’t be able to fire on them,” Roberts protested.
“We won’t be firing on them, Danny, but on the mothership instead. We have to knock out that suppressor beam. If we can do that, then Commander Frost should be able to mount his own defense, if the effects aren’t long-lasting.”
Roberts nodded quickly.
Link placed a calming hand on the shoulder of the enlisted man. “Take a seat at fire control.” He turned to Mike Newman and the fifth member of the boarding party, Seaman Mark Wier. “You, too,” he commanded. “We need to get every bolt cannon we can aimed at that ship. We’re only going to get one crack this. If we miss, then they turn the beam on us and it’s all over. Jones, let us know the moment the weapons reach full charge.”
Link joined the other three at the fire control stations. A ship of this size had multiple gunner stations on the bridge, as a back up to the controls found in each battery. The four Humans sat in oversized Juirean chairs and activated the targeting screens in front of them. At each station was a control stick with toggle buttons, and once the yellow aiming circle came up on their screens, each sailor did his best to place it on the image of the black ship floating in space two thousand, forty-eight point four miles from the Juirean Class-Four, according to the range finder.
“Sir, I’ve never fired one of these things before,” said Seaman Wier.
“They’re just like the ones we have—they were all taken from Klin technology,” Link said.
“I know that, sir. What I mean is I’ve never even fired one of our own. I’m a mess cook, and my GQ station is with damage control.”
Petty Officer Roberts leaned over and helped the younger man line up the targeting circle. “It’s just like playing a video game, Mark. You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”
“Of course,” said Wier and his face calmed noticeably.
“When the time comes, just press the button on top of the stick,” Roberts instructed. “It’s actually a lot easier than a multi-function controller.”
“I see that, thanks, Dan.”
“Charge at ninety-percent,” Jones reported. “Full power in thirty-four seconds. Sir, you do know you’re going to have to fire precisely at that time, don’t you?”
“Or what?” Seaman Wier asked.
Ensign Link smiled slightly. “Otherwise th
e charge that’s been built up over a confined circuit overloads—”
“And the whole weapons bank goes ka-blewie,” Jones finished for him.
“Thanks for that, Mr. Jones. Now everyone, line up and prepare to fire. We go on Winston’s command, no hesitation. One of us has to hit the target, so just relax and do the best you can.”
“Five seconds everyone…three, two…FIRE!”
Four powerful plasma bolts erupted from the port side of the Juirean warcraft, closing the distance to the black vessel in the blink of an eye. As it turned out, three of the four blasts impacted the target, including Seaman Wier’s. Although he hated to admit it, the only bolt that missed was fired by Ensign Link.
“The beam is gone!” Jones shouted. The other members of the boarding party rushed from their firing stations and huddled around Jones, watching his screen.
The four smaller boarding ships had reached the Tarazi by now, with one already attached to the hull just over the topside escape hatch. “Captain, can you hear me?” Link called into his throat comm. There was silence.
“Captain, can you—”
“I’m here, Jimmy! Give me a minute; we have some uninvited guests aboard. By the way, great job! Frost out.”
The other four members of the boarding party swarmed around Ensign Link, patting his back and shaking his hand. “Well done, sir!” they called out. “We did it!”
“Calm down everyone, there are still three ships out there, free and maneuverable, plus the one attached to the Tarazi. They may be weapons capable.”
“If they are, then we’ll never know,” Winston Jones said. “They’ve bolted away and in three different directions. Wait one…the fourth ship just broke away from the Tarazi; they’re running, too.”
“Ensign Link, come in,” a voice said over the comm system.
“Here, sir. Did you suffer any casualties?”
“A few cuts and scrapes, but nothing serious, thanks to you and your team. We didn’t get a chance to take any prisoners, but we do have three dead aliens over here. Never seen any like these before, all scaly and shit.”
“Too bad we couldn’t have captured the mothership. It would be nice to know how their suppressor beam works.”