“Corey?” Reena’s voice faded away as he opened his eyes again. He slowly got to his feet and sat down in Perez’s chair. Maker Me I’m still here, still in this hell. Corey put an elbow on each knee and he wept into his hands.
“Corey? Hey, rocstar…” Her sweet voice was in his head. Please come back, Reena.
“Look at me, baby…”
“Corey, come on!” she yelled.
That sounded real.
Corey lifted his face from his hands and looked around at the smoke, at the carnage. There were voices on the-
Reena’s face was onscreen.
“Corey, come on sweetheart, wake up, Corey, please.” She was tapping his face, she was shaking his chest through the vidscreen, he could feel her, he could smell her, and he felt her lips against his.
It was a dream. She’s alive, Reena is alive. Corey’s head was a mess. He could barely find Reena’s hand with his own, but he took it and kissed her fingers. His heart raced, and his breathing was shallow. He opened his eyes to see her smile.
“Reena…oh thank you, God,” he whispered, and threw his arms around her neck. His thoughts collected… so Pel is alive, and there is no Foon attack, and we’re at the Rochaus, and this has all been a horrible dream…a dream. These dreams were becoming unbearable.
He heard popping sounds. It was hard to make out what it was… the Four Dee show. But so loud. Why is my body hurting like this? I can’t play the second set…Reena…
“Reena, baby, I don’t think I can go back on stage.”
“Oh, you can go on,” Reena barked, “on your feet, soldier!”
She pulled him to his feet as another blast rocked the Roadrunner.
“You two strap back in right now,” yelled Perez. “Medical to the bridge.”
“Roadrunner, execute rotate,” came over the com.
“Grid seven nine, San Diego, San Diego, come in, over.”
Corey looked around. Pel, Jim, Ari, Jon, and the crew; they were all alive, but yes, the battle with the Foon was still raging. This war of worlds was still very real. Oh my God, mom…
He had been out for twenty minutes. He looked up at the fleet configuration on the bottom vidscreen. Things were worse.
“Ari, talk to me…” groaned Corey. Reena sat him down in one of the command chairs.
“I’m here,” said Ari. He was seated at the console, not lifting his eyes from it. “Glad you’re back.” Chatter filled the com.
“Ari, something I need to tell you…” Corey was dizzy, confused.
“What? What, Corey?” barked Ari.
“I… something you have to do,” coughed Corey, and he put his head down between his knees and passed out again. Reena stayed at his side, holding him, talking to him.
The battle raged on for another fifteen minutes with little to show for it. The kills were getting fewer and further between. UE was losing badly and time was running out. The Foon were opening their distance and using longer-range weapons; it seemed they had figured out something about Ari’s plan of attack. McCalvin knew that bringing the fleet closer together might draw the enemy in for the use of Ari’s weapon, but it also meant they would be a sitting duck for any massive strike. Also, by going small and tight, UE may be inviting the Foon to start moving their ships to Moon.
Corey was lapsing in and out of consciousness. His head was wrapped and dressed by the ship medics, but he was weak and totally bewildered.
Something I must tell Ari…
“Airman, I…” Corey went to his knees, sliding out of his chair. “I had an idea, it was…I know what to do.” His mind was mush and his breath was gone. The room was spinning, his nose and his head were bleeding, and Perez was barking something at Ari. Reena put her arms around Corey. He felt waves with Pel. Strange waves, dark waves, his brother was still here but…quiet.
“Where is my brother?” Corey yelled, coughing at the floor, then even louder, “I need Pel! I need Pel!”
“I’m here, Corey…Corey?” cried Pel, and Corey turned his head to see his little brother cowered into a corner of the bridge, knees up to his face. He was crying.
“Pel!” yelled Corey, “I know you know something, tell me what to do, Pel!”
Another jolt bashed the ship.
“Dakota group, maintain covering fire, now!”
Pel stood to greet his older brother, but his body stiffened, his eyes became bloodshot with large dilated pupils, and his face turned hideously ugly, unmoving, staring across the bridge into Corey’s eyes.
“Jesus, Pel, what the hell is wrong?”
Pel’s bloody eyes widened as he slowly lifted his arm and pointed a straightened finger at Corey.
“Remember it,” Pel groaned.
Corey gasped. The dream. The dream.
Corey jumped to his feet. He felt strength from sheer adrenalin. He knew.
“Ari, what if we tap into the Telcom feeds?” he shouted.
“Dakota, Dakota, maintain heading under shield, gunships flanking.”
“Telcom? How? Why? Wait, you mean fire-pipe, as a boost? The grid is heavily encrypted Cor, and they use capillary streams, reverse electron coding, I mean-”
“But we have the UE…right General?” said Corey.
“Hard Mac, we’re taking heavy fire at Lincoln Bravo.”
Perez was listening as his eyes met Ari’s. Another blast rocked the ship.
“Damage control, report.”
“General, the military can access Telcom infrastructure, yes?” asked Ari.
“Yes, but the nearest Telcom moon is the western Lunar, we’re too far out, Ari. We can’t-”
“No, that’s a relay, we need the mainframe chassis. If we had that, I might be able to use fire-pipe to…shit, wait a minute.” Ari had to think.
“We can access the transmission codes,” said Perez, “what, where are you going with this?”
“General, Telcom uses trinitium hardpower zetacloud relays, which of course I don’t have, but when I send interplanet music or cloudbox files I use a soft-shielded nuclear version; it’s right here in my board. If we could get into the system-”
“English, Ari!” yelled Reena.
“Mr. Lopez, what the fuck?” Perez barked. “I can get you in by sectors only, it would take forever-”
“The maintenance pipe!” cried Ari. “General, the earlier Telcom grids used a rotating twelve-tone system for maintenance access. It’s archaic; the technology dates back to the Extreme Internet days but it’s still intact, though it’s never used. Ok, it’s never used except by people like me and my friends who hack it all the time for free swiping. Get me in the front portal, and my system will find the broadcast chassis. We can hit them everywhere at once!”
Perez looked at the vidscreen and the configuration readout. UE numbers were depleted and the enemy was dissecting the grid. Clearly the Foon were winning this war. UE had been hit with something it was not prepared for.
Perez was hesitating, clearing his head. It’s a felony to breach Telcom without clearance, and how the hell is this going to accomplish anything-
“General,” Ari got up from his chair and stood face to face with Perez, “we need military level access to the Telcom code portal,” he yelled. “NOW!”
To his credit, the general only paused for about a second before moving.
“Intel, get me the hash codes for this Telcom grid, yesterday!” said Perez.
“Flagging that now, sir,” said Musella.
“Hard Mac, California is retreating to grid nineteen.”
“Loading, general, this will need your swipe, though.”
Perez swiped his left wrist over the command console and waved his right hand, fingers spread, over the scan.
“Onscreen general, codes are coming in,” said Musella. “We’ve got a pipe and it’s a good wave. Initiating drip sequence now, waiting for you, Ari.”
“Mr. Musella, sending my link, my tag is A-r-i-s-t-o-k-e-d.”
“Got it, you’re in.”
<
br /> “We have to go note by note,” said Ari, and he started playing tones. “It’s a simple connection,” he said to himself. You’ve got this Ari…He played A, A#, B, C, adjusting the send as he went, “I just have to find the-”
Craaash…the port wall blew out violently, and the helmsman went flying out the side of the craft into space. Jim and Reena lunged forward against their safety shields, and Pel came tumbling forward to the floor. The perimeter defensive shield sealed the bridge immediately.
“Hard Mac, Roadrunner has been compromised,” said Perez. “Medical, soldier down, soldier down, send out a flyer.”
“I’m hit!” yelled Ari. He was on the floor, reaching up for the console. The explosion had driven a piece of metal into his thigh, and blood was pooling out onto the floor. Jon immediately detached from the wall and moved forward, kneeling next to his owner and friend. He pulled his shirt off to use as a tourniquet and got him to his feet, then to his seat, and Ari resumed the task of finding the note he needed. He tweaked the signal one more time.
I’ve got this damn thing up almost all the way. Oh God, my leg… I’ve got this. I’ve got this.
C#, D, D#, E…
Perez repeated, “UE medical, broadband repeat, soldier down, soldier down, grid eight two six zero, send out a flyer.”
Another blast went off on the bridge of the Roadrunner, but not from outside.
“Whoa…security team to the bridge!” Perez ordered.
The blast was inside and it wasn’t lethal, but Perez knew immediately what he was dealing with. Nanobots. Foon nanobots, now it made sense…they could deploy them by teleportation, to form a web, but they could not teleport through hard matter. This strategic blow to the side of the ship made a hole for them to come through in an instant.
Unlike UE nanos, these were larger, visible, and they were being instantly manufactured on site. It looked like a colony of Earth ants growing and spreading throughout the bridge. They were targeting every visible enemy, not just the machines or the bio-proton chips. They were attacking the crew. They were making their way up Jon’s legs, and he began stomping on them violently, at a speed that only an artiman could.
They climbed up the legs of the helmsman, and she jumped up from her position and screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Yeoman Reecher, maintain your post!” yelled Perez. It was useless; within seconds her flesh was being consumed.
“Security officer, I need a nano can to the bridge NOW,” screamed Perez into the com.
Ari was holding his bleeding leg, bending over the console as Corey, Reena, Pel, Jim and Jon were actively stomping on the creatures.
F, F#, G…
A security officer entered the bridge and yelled, “Fire in the hole!” Everyone ducked, and a can burst open with UE nanos. They spread out across the floor to take up the fight with the much bigger and more aggressive Foon nanos.
“Goddammit!” yelled Ari.
“Ari, what?” shouted Corey, slapping his leg.
“My board got hit from the explosion, the keys are offline. I can’t generate a tone.
“What?” yelled Corey.
“I can still send the wave, I just don’t have a-”
Another blast rocked the ship, and Ari fell to his back, but he held on to the console. His head hit the floor, and he wasn’t moving. Reena crawled to him and tried to pull him to his feet.
“Ari! Ari!” she yelled, but he was out.
“European fleet, back up Singapore, repeat, back up Singapore.”
“Ari, get up!” yelled Corey, giving him a few taps to the cheek. “Airman, you gotta-”
“Corey, we have to do it, it’s up to us,” said Reena.
“Medical to the bridge,” yelled Perez. “Kids, slap his face harder, get him awake!”
“Jon, take Ari, get these things off him,” Corey shouted. General, he’s out unless your guys can revive him.”
They slapped at their bodies as they spoke, continually stomping.
“Reena, I don’t know,” said Corey. Maker Me. Ok listen, he’s gone through every tone but A flat; I’ve been watching. This all set up. He’s just been hitting the activate key, this red one here.” Corey took the board from Ari’s chest into his hands.
“Sing into this port the way you did in DC, no vibrato, hard belt, A flat, you ready?” Corey’s voice was high-pitched, desperate.
“Top Gun sector has taken another hit; we’ve got five more down.”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“Ok wait, I…I think I have to activate the entry. It’s labeled ‘Upstream Analog.’ I know it, where is it…
“Corey, come on!” Reena yelled. “Oh, God.”
Another blast rocked the Roadrunner, sending Reena to her backside. She screamed in pain but managed to get to her knees.
“Hard Mac, we’re taking fire, get us more gunships,” said Perez. “We’ve got one more shot.”
“Roger that, General. Every gunship near eight two six zero converge on Roadrunner, now, now, now!”
“Baby, are you all right?” begged Corey. Upstream Analog …here.
“Alabama sector is down, repeat Alabama is down.”
“I can’t stand…”
“No, stay on your knees Reena, just get in position. You’ve got this.” She raised herself up tall but kept kneeling.
“Here’s your pitch…hard belt, no vibrato, let’s go!” yelled Corey. He held the board up to her face.
“General!”
“UE fleet, fire in the hole, we’re activating Musicman one more time!” yelled Perez.
Reena assumed the position, opened her ribs, dropped her jaw, lowered her larynx slightly, pushed down on her diaphragm and… she began coughing.
“Reena!” Corey yelled.
She pounded her chest and cleared her throat. “Brrrrrr,” she rolled her lips, finding her voice. “Ok, I’m ready.”
“Do it! Do it!” yelled Corey.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH” Corey hit send.
They didn’t stop or freeze. They didn’t fall asleep. They didn’t think; they didn’t even suffer…they exploded, instantly. Almost all of them, all at once. A series of fireballs filled the vidscreens of every UE ship still standing.
Corey set the controller down. Did that just happen, what I think just happened? He looked at Reena, but they shared no expression, just a blank stare.
There was a pause, a silence, uncertainty. The Foon nanos stopped moving and fell to the floor, all at once.
All eyes looked around, looked at each other, looked at the vidscreen, in silence. Suspicious silence, waiting.
“Perez, this is Hard Mac. That was a full fleet kill, boy!”
In unison a scream erupted from everyone; hand-slaps and hugs, chest punching and laughter. Reena gave Corey a bear hug and a face-sucking kiss on the lips, and Jim extended a hand and pulled Pel to his feet.
“How in the name of George S. Patton did you make that happen, Pierre? You can HAVE my job!” said McCalvin, laughing for the first time in a week.
Major General Perez got Ari to sit up; he was awake but foggy. The general went to one knee and extended an open hand.
“Mr. Lopez, the United Earth thanks you for your service. You truly are a Titan/American patriot and a World hero. And you’ve got some serious cajones.”
“And you, Mr. Jagger-Seven,” he extended a hand. “Way to go, rocstar! You had no idea what you were doing, did you?”
Corey was wobbly as Perez pulled him to his feet, but he exaggeratedly stood to attention and saluted, “Sir, no sir, the wussy-ass playroc was incredibly lucky, sir!”
The entire bridge broke out in laughter. Ari couldn’t believe that Corey said wussy. Good word, old school.
The laughter, hugs and chatter continued as Corey turned to his brother, “Hey what happened to you? What was that?” referring to the moment Pel told him to remember.
Pel didn’t know what Corey was talking about, nor did anyone else. No one had seen or heard Pel t
elling Corey to remember. No one noticed Pel looking any differently. Corey was sure of what he saw, but there was no explanation. Pel had admittedly retreated to a fetal position behind the chairs for the final part of the battle. It was not something he would be proud of.
Yeoman Reecher was injured, but she would be fine. The nano can deployed by Perez had done the job, and those that survived became disabled when the Foon fleet was destroyed. Tens of thousands of dead Foon nanos littered the floor of the bridge, as did a mixture of debris, blood, and vomit. Not a pretty sight, but it was a soldier’s office.
* * *
There is no sound in space because there is no air to carry it. There was no thunderous ending. There were no celebratory explosions to signify the victory. But looking at the upper vidscreen, all you needed to see were the fiery masses that once were Foon ships, and looking at the lower screen, the enemy configuration…well, there wasn’t one. Just a couple dozen scared Foon who missed the blast, bugging out to who knows where. McCalvin dispersed a team to track them down.
The battle was over, and the UE had won. They had won a significant battle with an enemy whose face they never even saw. Earth and her solar system had fought off the first attack they had ever known from an alien race, and the human way of life was still intact. And the humans had done it using the technology and expertise of a small band of music nerds, achieving something that the entire military might not have been capable of. The battle lasted a total of six hours. The UE lost over ten thousand soldiers, and the solsys would grieve for a long time.
Corey had given all the hugs, hand-slaps, and head bashes he could handle, and he turned to Reena to give her mouth a serious kiss. There had definitely not been enough kissing going on between them lately.
“Hey Corey,” she said.
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