by Jay Allan
The mass of aliens that flooded into the secure hangar now had to contend with the security systems of the ships that were parked there as well. Powerful bolts of energy lanced out from the ships’ guns causing massive casualties where they hit, seemingly indiscriminate. The air tingled with static electricity and the smell of ozone overpowered the odor of the alien throng. Just when he thought they were free and clear, Jason heard someone shout, “YOU! STOP!” Jason turned in time to see the guard Doc had talked to earlier taking aim at them with an ugly-looking weapon. He turned and bore down on the DL7 as fast as his legs would carry him. Doc, running directly in front of him, was keeping pace. Although waiting for it, he was still somewhat unprepared when it felt like someone hit him in the back with a sledgehammer, sending him sailing through the air and landing face down on the hangar deck.
Jason’s vision was blurred and the pain in his jaw was excruciating where he had impacted the hangar floor. He tried to clear his head but couldn’t focus or get his legs up under him as he began to be trampled by the panicked mob. He saw Doc run up the ramp of the gunship and realized he wasn’t going to make it off the asteroid along with everyone else. He rolled over to face the guard, prepared to give an accounting of himself, but as he sat up he saw the guard, and the two behind him, dropped in their tracks by three well-placed plasma bolts. He was abruptly lifted off the floor like a sack of flour and vaguely aware that he was being carried across the floor towards his ship at a fast run. From the way he seemed to be floating over the rest of the crowd, he knew it had to be Crusher; he had taken out the guards and now he was carrying him back to the ship.
By the time Crusher reached the cargo bay, Jason’s head had started to clear enough that he could somewhat function. When he was put back on the ground, he hit the controls to seal up the cargo bay and raise the ramp before shakily heading for the bridge as quickly as he could manage. He could hear Crusher’s heavy footfalls right behind him as he raced through the ship. “Pilot! Turn the ship around! Put our nose to the blast doors,” Jason yelled as he jumped into his customary copilot seat. The pilot grunted and twisted the controls, rotating the ship around on its landing gear so they were facing the heavy, and still closed, hangar doors. This was the last wrinkle in the plan Jason simply hadn’t been able to plan for; he had no idea how they were going to get the gunship out of The Vault. He supposed they all could have left in the cargo ship, but the thought of leaving the DL7 behind was unconscionable to him.
“Looks like some people are getting impatient,” the pilot said, pointing to a ship starting to lift off the floor on thrusters. The downwash from the ship sent aliens near that parking spot flying across the deck. Jason turned to say something to the pilot and noticed that his face was busted up pretty bad and he was leaning in the seat oddly. Before he could ask him what the hell happened, Crusher spoke.
“Commander, perhaps it would be prudent to arm the ship’s weaponry. If we get an opportunity to run, we should be ready for anything,” the enormous alien rumbled quietly. Jason answered him without taking his eyes off the pilot’s injuries.
“Not a bad idea.” He had a pretty good idea of what, or who, had happened to the pilot, and he was glad he had listened to his instincts. From his station he went about bringing the weapons online. He could feel the reactor start to automatically build power as the demand increased. While he was monitoring the offensive systems the pilot spoke up again.
“Oh, no!”
Jason snapped his head up again and watched the ship that had tried to launch earlier hover unsteadily past them, moving towards the exit. It swung about to face the hangar doors and let loose with two heavy particle beams. Since the station designers had never thought anyone would be trying to blast their way out of the hangar, the energy shields were only on the outside of the doors. Both beams impacted the metal with dramatic effect and began tracing a path around the perimeter of the portal, but the amount of slag and debris that was being blown back into the hangar threatened to damage the ship before it could cut its way through. Jason was thankful another small freighter was between the gunship and the doors as he could hear the smaller pieces pinging off their hull.
After five more seconds of continuous fire, which felt like five hours, the doors let go with a tortured shriek of distressed metal and blew out against the landing apron on the other side. The explosion from inside took out the energy shields, but the electrostatic barrier was miraculously still functioning and kept the atmosphere in. The aliens that weren’t killed already during the escape attempt were now sprinting towards other ships, begging to be let aboard, or back through the archway out of the hangar.
“Get us out of here!” Jason snapped. He felt the ship bounce and rock, but they weren’t moving.
“We’re stuck! They’ve activated mag-locks on the deck and raised an interdiction field. The grav-drive is useless!” The pilot looked to be near panic. Truthfully, Jason wasn’t far behind. Something Deetz had said a while ago kept bouncing around in his head though, something about the gravity drive.
“Bring the mains online! Thrust us off this pad and fire the repulsors to get us off of this rock!” Jason was relying heavily on his implants to help him if he needed to actually fire the ship’s weapons. Thankfully, his connection to the ship’s computer had been reestablished. He began to feel a low-frequency rumble that was steadily building in pitch and volume until he felt the ship start to shake and hunker down onto its nose-landing gear.
“Main engines at fifteen percent power, we’re starting to move,” the pilot said much more calmly. The ship bucked and strained against the magnetic locks, trying to hold the landing gear in place. Ever so slowly, the DL7 began to creep forward, its main engines howling within the confines of the hangar and violently buffeting the other ships nearby. The mag-locks finally lost their grip with a last little jerk and the ship rolled freely, and quite quickly, onto the main taxiway. The pilot yanked the power back to idle and was barely able to steer them to starboard to point them out towards space. The ship smoothly lifted off the deck as the ventral repulsors fired and the main engines nudged them through the shield and into the tunnel that led towards freedom. The pilot cycled the landing gear up and focused on flying them out.
Wisely, he resisted the urge to throttle up too much and risk bouncing down the tunnel walls. As it was, they still had a nasty surprise waiting for them when they emerged. At the last instant before the ship broke into open space, a missile strike hit the mouth of the tunnel and kicked up some heavy debris from around the edge. Most of this struck the gunship hard on the nose and the starboard side leading edge causing the ship to yaw sharply towards the tunnel wall. The ship bucked and a slew of alarms began scrolling down Jason’s displays. “Shields!” Crusher shouted. Jason hunted around for, but couldn’t find, the controls for the anti-collision or the combat shields. He gave up quickly.
“Computer, engage all external shielding,” he said aloud. He got a confirmation through his implants that the shields had been engaged, but there were gaps in the coverage due to the damage to the starboard emitters from the debris impacts. “Be aware we have limited coverage on our starboard side. That slip-space emitter is only covered by the anti-collision shield right now.”
“Got it,” the pilot said as he commanded the engines to full power. The instant the ship emerged from the access tunnel, they were set upon by four small attack craft, all firing their plasma cannons. They weren’t a huge threat, but with four of them engaging at once they had a better chance of landing a shot on the gunship’s damaged side. Jason scanned the area with the sensors and could find no trace of the cargo ship. He hoped that was a good sign.
“Computer,” Jason called out again, giving up completely on trying to decipher the manual controls, “activate point defense systems. Engage all targets currently firing on us.”
“Acknowledged.” The words had no sooner been uttered over the bridge PA when the big gunship opened up with its formidable arsena
l. Plasma bolts shot out from turrets that had deployed all around the ship at Jason’s command. Two of the small attack craft were destroyed instantly and a third was completely vaporized as it made the fatal mistake of crossing in front of the fleeing DL7; the main guns on the leading edges of the wings spat two brilliant red streaks into space and turned it into a cloud of ionized particles. They were quickly outrunning the last attacker. It wouldn’t be able to get turned around and back into range before they made their first jump.
“Engaging slip-drive now,” the pilot said smugly a moment before the ship winked out of existence in the space outside The Vault. Once they were safely in slip-space, Crusher walked calmly over to the pilot, grabbed a handful of his coveralls, and picked him up out of the chair with one hand, holding him out at arm’s length. The pilot struggled mightily until Crusher flung him across the bridge with an overhand throw that would have carried the smaller being a good twenty meters had he not impacted the canopy first. Jason stood and stared in shock at the crumpled pilot and the bloody smudge on the canopy.
“Care to explain?” Jason asked, hoping this wasn’t a precursor to Crusher killing them all with his bare hands and absconding with the ship.
“That vermin tried to steal the ship as soon as you were out sight,” Crusher said calmly. “He first tried to enlist those of us you left behind, and when that failed he tried to seal himself on the bridge. I stopped him and told him I would deal with him after our escape, and so I did. Your instincts were very good, Commander.” Crusher’s quiet, dignified demeanor after such an act of pure violence unnerved Jason.
“Yeah … thanks. But we still sorta needed him. I don’t really know how to fly this thing,” Jason said as he looked at the pilot’s crumpled form. If he was still alive, he sure as hell wasn’t going to be doing any flying anytime soon.
“Hmm,” was all Crusher said, also looking at the pilot. “That is a problem.” Doc appeared a moment later and walked towards Jason, pausing when he saw the carnage at the front of the bridge.
“So … what’d I miss?”
“We’re short one traitorous pilot. Oh … and our only way to land the ship without killing us all,” Jason said, shooting Crusher a glaring look. Enough to show his displeasure, but not enough to elicit a challenge. He hoped.
“Hmm, that’s a problem,” Doc said.
“So I’ve heard,” Jason replied. “Any suggestions?” Doc didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walked over and checked the vitals of the pilot.
“He’s still alive, barely. Let’s get him to the infirmary and try to stabilize him. You come too, Jason. I may have an answer to our pilot shortage.” Doc walked off the bridge, assuming one of them would bring the diminutive pilot. Jason looked pointedly at Crusher.
“It’s your mess,” he said. The big alien sighed and walked over to retrieve his handiwork. He was surprisingly gentle as he straightened the pilot out and cradled him in his arms to carry him down to the infirmary. Jason verified their countdown timer until they entered real-space was active and then followed.
Once the pilot was strapped down to the table, the automated medical systems began to work on him immediately, mostly pumping him full of medical nanites. Doc turned to Jason, “There’s a way to impart the knowledge needed to fly the ship directly into your brain via the neural implant, but it’s not customarily done so soon after the initial install.”
“Why not?”
“It takes the neural implant time to learn your synaptic pathways. Implanting skills into your brain is quite intricate. This may be met with varying degrees of success.”
“How varying?” Jason asked, almost certain he didn’t want to know the answer.
“It could range from complete success to massive and permanent brain damage, although it’ll likely hit somewhere in the high-middle range. Your brain has shown itself to be readily adaptable to the technology.” Doc was looking at him intently.
“Screw it. Let’s do it. Where do you need me?”
“Really?” Doc and Crusher asked in unison.
“Yes. If I think about it too long I won’t do it, and we don’t have much of a choice at this point.”
“We could bring else someone out of stasis, or see if one of the others we released already has the necessary implants…”
“No! Thanks, Doc, but no. This is my mission, I’m in command, and I’ll accept the risks to see it completed,” Jason said. He could see Crusher puff up his chest and nod with approval. What the hell is he so impressed with? He’s the reason we’re in this mess. Still half-afraid of the monster, Jason kept his thoughts to himself.
“Okay,” Doc said quietly. “Let’s do this in your quarters. You may as well be comfortable during this.” He grabbed a long interface cable out of the case Jason’s implants had originally been delivered in and gestured for him to lead the way.
Once in his room, Doc had Jason lay down on the bed on his back. He plugged one end of the cable he’d brought into a socket near the room’s computer terminal and walked towards Jason with the other end. The cable flattened out on that end into what looked like a circular paddle about one inch in diameter. Doc reached under Jason’s neck and placed the pad just above his collar. He could feel it adhere to his skin instantly. Doc then removed a memory chip from the case and began installing a software package on the ship’s main computer via the terminal at Jason’s desk. The software would allow the computer to connect to his neural implant through the interface cable.
“Now,” Doc began, “I want you to visualize connecting to the interface I just put on your neck. Try to imagine your brain actually reaching out to touch it, almost as if your brain could move.” Jason looked at him as if he was mad, but he did as he was asked. As soon as he began to visualize the absurd request, he was shocked to feel something crawling through his skin and then a sudden coolness, like the pad had been coated in a pain-relief gel.
“Excellent!” Doc was monitoring him through the terminal display on his desk. “You’re a natural. In order for this high-level data transfer to work, there has to be a hard connection. It’s also a safety measure that protects you in case someone is trying to establish a remote link to your brain. That visualization let your neural implant know you wished to establish a link and it sent nanite threads to the surface of your skin to complete the hard circuit with the interface. Keep that feeling in mind, it’ll be useful in the future. Now, you’re going to have to do this next part. I don’t have the proper permissions to instruct the computer to begin an upload.”
“What do I do?” Jason asked, more than a little apprehensive with what he was about to attempt.
“Tell the computer you want the full flight instruction set for the DL7 uploaded through your implant,” Doc said.
“Computer, upload the full flight instruction set for the DL7 through my neural implant,” Jason said aloud.
“Acknowledged. Establishing connection…” Jason felt the patch on his neck go from cool to hot. “Connection established, do you wish to remain conscious during the upload?” Doc was frantically shaking his head no and waving his arms.
“No!”
“Acknowledged. Stand by for upload…” Jason didn’t hear another word as the computer commanded his neural input to put him to sleep.
CHAPTER 15
Damn this is getting old. Jason blinked his eyes as he slowly woke up from the data transfer in his dark room. He was beginning to lose count of how many times he’d either been put under or just plain been knocked out since this adventure began. He didn’t feel anything on his neck so he reached behind him and found that the interface cable had disconnected from his skin on its own. He concentrated on how to fly the ship, but drew a blank. He wasn’t sure how it was supposed to feel, but as far as he could tell, nothing was different except the feeling that he’d been laying on his back for too long. Rubbing his temples, he sat up in his bed.
“How do you feel, Commander?”
“SHIT!” Jason shouted as he
jumped so high he actually fell halfway off the bed and became stuck between the exterior bulkhead and the bed. The lights came up and he could make out Crusher sitting in a chair by the door watching him curiously. His heart still pounding from the fright, he tried to salvage a bit of his dignity. “I’m doing okay. How are you?”
“I am well.”
“That’s good,” Jason said as he tried to dislodge himself. After a moment of struggling, which must have looked absurd, he turned back to Crusher. “A little help?” With what looked suspiciously like a smile on his mouth, Crusher walked around the bed, grabbed Jason’s arm, and effortlessly lifted him off the floor and set him on his feet. Straightening his clothes out, Jason walked out of the room without a word, leaving a quietly chuckling Crusher in his wake.
Jason headed to the infirmary to talk to Doc and was slightly surprised when Crusher kept walking and headed towards the cargo bay instead. Shrugging, he continued on and greeted Doc as he walked in. Doc threw him a preoccupied wave as he hovered over the pilot that Crusher had thrown into the canopy. As far as Jason could tell, he was still completely out. Doc tweaked one last thing on the tablet computer he was holding and looked up. “So … do you feel okay?”
“Other than that monster Crusher scaring the shit out of me when I woke up, I’m just peachy,” Jason said as he flopped down in one of the chairs.
“Yeah,” Doc chuckled, “he stayed in the room guarding you the entire time you were out.”
“Why?” Jason asked, both surprised and mildly creeped out.
“It’s in his nature. You’re his commander right now and his kind are fiercely loyal. Not only that, you freed him from a life of certain torment and probably a violent death.”
“That’s … strange … but I mean why guard me at all? It’s not like this was even remotely close to the most dangerous thing I’ve faced since this all started,” Jason said.
“Oh, that’s right … you were already out when we released the others. Crusher and I figured that having all the prisoners out of the stasis pods and mobile was in our best interests,” Doc said, sitting across from Jason. “We may have to make a hasty exit at the rendezvous point. We were also tempting fate by keeping the units running on their own internal power for so long, but thankfully we didn’t lose anyone. We’ve set them all up in the cargo bay and restricted their access to the rest of the ship. They’re a mostly grateful bunch, but there are still more than a few dangerous individuals out there.”