“Jane, I’m in. In the Factory Chamber. Heading out.”
♦ ♦ ♦
She heard the good news of Bill’s survival and entry into the enemy ship. Cheers came from up front as Bill, Bright Sparkle, Wind Swift and Lofty Flyer gave vent to finally hearing good news. The death of the transports from Stefano’s ship as they closed on the bastard had put her heart in her mouth, or whatever meant severe fright. She’d faced fear during the SERE survival training she’d taken with other Air Force officers. Surviving in the Southwest desert by eating insects and getting your water from ripping open cacti and sucking their innards had not been fun. Or easy. In her time in SERE she had felt fear that she and her fellows had been forgotten by the people in charge. Now, she was the one in charge.
“Good job,” she replied, trying to sound matter of fact.
The last thing Bill needed was any sign his commanding officer was uncertain, afraid or fearful. He’d told her how he and fellow SEALs were trained to suppress fear, suppress worry, suppress any feeling that got in the way of accomplishing the mission. Well, she wasn’t a SEAL. Nor had she ever had the spec ops training of his saloon buddies. But she had more live fire experience in space combat than any other human now chasing the homicidal maniac who wanted to kill her home world. Why hadn’t Death Leader turned away and headed north of the ecliptic, aiming for the system’s magnetosphere and escape from death at the hands of humans? Was it some crazy Mokden fixation on punishing humans? Or was the creature simply focused on hurting humanity before it died? At least her world was safe from total destruction. One Collector ship could not turn Earth into a radioactive cinder covered with antimatter scars. Still, millions would die if she and Bill and Stefano and the four subs did not finish this job. She scanned her system graphic holo, then her true space holo.
“Stefano, keep firing on Death Leader’s ship. That will force the creature to focus on jinking his ship and keep him off Bill’s back.”
“Firing lasers,” called the SEAL.
“Also firing our laser,” called the captain of the Trident boomer USS Tennessee.
“The USS Kentucky is firing too,” called its captain.
“We’re firing also!” called a raw voice full of Northeast twang as the USS Maine fired its laser.
“Uh, our reactor’s steam output is showing blockage. Ensign! Is the Magfield engine glowing? We gotta—”
The Wyoming captain’s female voice vanished as Jane’s true space holo showed a yellow plasma ball spreading over the blackness of deep space.
She thought it was a sad image, appearing just to the right of Mars’ red ball.
“Subs! Cut back to 14 percent of lightspeed. Now! And maintain a live monitor on your Magfield engines! If anything looks different on their tube hulls, cut power! Immediately. Or you’ll go up like the Wyoming just did.”
Acknowledgments came from the captains of the three surviving subs.
Jane took a deep breath and focused on the tactical situation showing in her holos. The system graphic showed the enemy ship dot with Bill’s transport touching it, 4,000 miles plus of open space, the three surviving subs and just behind them, her Blue Sky and Stefano’s Neil C. Roberts ship. Clearly the sub captains still aimed to ram the Fear Arrives if Bill’s effort failed. She checked the distance to target readout on her Weapons pillar panel. It showed her and Stefano’s ship were at 4,913 miles out. At least the sub captains were obeying her and had dropped their speed to 14 percent. Which could still kill them. And hers and Stefano’s ship. What was happening with Bill?
♦ ♦ ♦
Bill walked fast down the left side hallway. He had called ship mind Dexterity and demanded it open the Factory Chamber’s door. It had complied, citing a Protocol Seven directive. The scream of Death Leader that it should increase hallway gravity to a hundred gees had been refused by its citation of Protocol Eight. Which forbid any change in ship gravity levels that would cause deadly harm to any bioform. He slowed his run down the hallway as he arrived at the cross hallway opening in the left side of the main hallway. He lifted his white taser tube, poked it around the corner of the wall that gave entry to the cross hall, and then leaned forward.
Empty. Red light shone along the hundred or more feet of the cross hallway. A brighter red glow at its end showed where it joined the right side main hallway. He lowered the taser and ran as fast as he could in the ship’s half gee toward the short hallway in the center of the cross hallway. It opened to his right and gave access to the ship’s Engine Chamber hatch. He stopped just where the cross hallway met the junction with the Engine hallway. He poked his taser’s nose past the wall edge, swung the taser outward, then pressed the button at the end of the tube. A coherent red electric beam spat out and disappeared from his sight. He was taking no chances on an ambush. He poked his helmet just past the wall edge and looked to his right.
Empty also. A red glow showed on the flexmetal wall to the left of the Engine entry hatch.
“Star Traveler, any chance you can get Dexterity to open the Engine Chamber hatch?” he called over his helmet comlink.
“Trying. No response,” the AI hummed.
With a last glance back the way he’d come, then ahead to the other end of the cross hallway, he ran around the corner and stopped before the hatch. Pulling his backpack around to the floor in front of him, he laid down his taser and laser tubes, opened the backpack, pulled out a black dome and box magnetic disruptor, tapped it active, then placed it to the left of the hatch. He reslung his backpack, picked up his taser and laser tubes and stepped back to the junction with the cross hallway. Looking out briefly he saw no crew.
“Kazap!”
He looked back and saw the magnetic disruptor block had killed the hatch’s electronic controls. The hatch had opened. The red lit Engine Chamber lay open to him.
“Jane, I’m going inside the Engine Chamber. No opposition yet. Cross your fingers for me!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I am.”
Jane crossed her fingers. Sitting in her command seat, watching the holos as she and others chased after the homicidal monster who wished to dominate, or destroy all opposition, she felt useless. Was her Bill going to survive this crazy boarding? While his plan made total sense, and gave her the option to save lives, she recalled his choice during the boarding of the ship commanded by Diligent Taskmaster, when a boarding team was being outflanked. He’d opened a hole in the ship’s Command Bridge wall and dived in, distracting the deadly cockroach for the moments needed to allow the boarding team to drop through a ceiling hole. He’d taken a bad laser wound doing that. And he could have been killed. Would Bill keep his promise to her to come back alive? To stay alive for her? Would love overrule duty?
“Jane, he’ll survive this,” called Chester from up front.
She saw the man was still at his Engines seat, but had turned back to face her. His clean-shaven face showed an amiable smile. The man was trying to reassure her. “Thank you. If anyone can survive alone on that ship, outnumbered five to one, Bill can. He’s a SEAL. And he has me waiting for him.”
Chester nodded. “My Sharon told me what it was like for her as she waited out the months when I was on deployment with the USS George H. W. Bush. You’re feeling that on top of the final command authority.” He smiled big. “Like Stefano said, you have me and the other crew folks at your back. We will win this thing!”
Jane took in a deep breath. She tried to smile back. “Thank you, Chester. Sharon is lucky to have you. And Bill is the man I should have met years ago.” She turned away and stared at the system graphic and true space holos. “Waiting is the shits.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Bill stepped up to the open hatch, then moved to the right of it. Poking his taser tube through the open hatch, he leaned forward and took a quick look and pull-back. Ahhh. Empty of anyone. Like the Engine Chamber on the Blue Sky, this large room was filled with the two long tubular forms of its Magfield engines. To his right was the alternate command seat, the
mind-link helmet sitting on its bench seat. Fifteen feet of open space lay between him and the command seat pedestal. A thought hit him.
“Ship mind Dexterity, please display an interior holo map of this ship. Display all bioforms now present in the holo,” he said, hoping this ship’s indifferent mind would comply with the Emergency Operations of the Ship program that was part of every AI’s core functioning.
“Displaying holo,” came a mech-toned voice over his comlink. “All bioform locations displayed.”
A teardrop shape floated before them, identical in shape to the Blue Sky cross-section holo that he watched at his Weapons station. The shape shimmered and grew translucent. Two main hallways now appeared inside the teardrop, along with many box-like rooms that linked to the hallways. The cross hallway at the bulbous nose showed, as did the tail-end cross hallway he’d just passed through. Red dots shone bright. Three were present in the Command Bridge room. Two dots were halfway down the left and right side hallways. Clearly two ship crew were heading his way. Or was one of them the snake-gorilla monster?
“Very good. Show me the location of captain Death Leader. Show him as a red dot with a green outline.”
“Complying. Location indicated,” came the mech hum of this ship’s artificial intelligence.
The bastard was at the center of the Command Bridge! Two red dots near him were his crew. Which meant the two red dots heading Bill’s way were also crew. “Show me the images of the captain and all crew. Display in holo form adjacent to—”
“Discontinue compliance with bioform request!” a snarling voice interrupted. “End holo display now! And stop talking to this bioform! Command Sequence Larva Four Red.”
“Holo discontinued.” The ship holo vanished. “However, Protocol Seven, Emergency Operations of the Ship requires that I respond to any bioform who wears a vacuum suit.”
Nothing more came from the snake-gorilla. Who had earlier tried to kill him with super gravity. “Thank you, Dexterity. I will try to help the crew and captain of this ship receive treatment in the Med Hall of this ship.” Bill stepped further into the Engine Chamber, stopped beside the right side Magfield tube, laid down his backpack and pulled out the nuke bar.
Humming came over his comlink. “Are the captain and crew of this ship sick?”
He smiled as he tapped in the activate code on the nuke bar, then tapped in a five minute delay. That should be enough time for him to get back to the Factory Chamber and then up to his transport. “They have mental issues. They persist in attacking spaceships that seek to defend the third world that orbits this local star. A bioform disagreement exists. I am seeking to have Death Leader change his behavior.”
“Changing bioform behavior is difficult. My experience with prior captains of this ship indicates bioforms rarely consider the long-term results of their actions,” the AI hummed.
“Totally agree with you,” Bill said, standing up. How truthful should he be? “Ship mind Dexterity, I have placed an explosive on one of this ship’s Magfield engines. When it explodes, this ship will lose all motive power. However, you will survive and so will all bioforms located in the middle and front sections of this ship.”
“Engine disablement is necessary?” hummed the ship mind.
Bill wondered at the AI’s naivety. It sounded much like Star Traveler had sounded when he and Jane had first spoken with the Blue Sky’s AI. “It is necessary. Once the engines shut down, I and other bioforms will be able to provide medical aid to Death Leader.”
“I will observe your behavior with interest,” the AI said, his mech tone the same as before.
Bill turned away from the nuke bar and engines. He grabbed his backpack, picked up his weapon tubes and headed for the exit hatch. Passing through it, he mentally calculated the last locations of the crew. Time enough. He turned, reached out, grabbed the edge of the hatch that had swung out against the entry hall wall, and pulled. The hatch closed with a loud “clang!” He stepped back and aimed his red laser tube at its top rim. Holding the tube’s midbody power box, he tapped the Fire button at the end next to him. A centimeter-wide green beam shot out and struck the spot where the hatch metal met the flexmetal of the Engine Chamber wall. Sparks flew to all sides. Then the seam metal glowed red. Slowly, it became yellow and half-molten. He moved the laser beam to the right, then down the right side of the hatch. Two minutes later the green beam was sealing the bottom. He stopped, grabbed his taser tube with his left hand, and walked slowly up to the junction of the Engine access hallway with the cross hallway. Memory told him the crew on this ship might know the height and shape of a human. He bent down, kneeled and pushed his helmet just past the wall edge where the access hall became one with the cross hallway.
Nothing.
“Jane, I’ve planted the nuke bar and sealed the Engine hatch. I’m heading back to the Factory Chamber, then up to my transport.”
“Great!” came his wife’s soft soprano over the suit’s comlink. “Stefano’s lasers hit the upper nose of the ship you’re on. We’re just inside 4,000 miles and there is no antimatter fire. Just lasers. I think we killed its antimatter projector.”
“Congrats,” he said hurriedly as he ran left down the cross hallway.
Earlier, the left side crewperson coming his way had been passing by this ship’s Med Hall. Which now put it somewhere inside the Containment Cell Chamber, moving along its central metal walkway. It would come through the hatch before he could get to the Factory door. He stopped at the cross hallway’s junction with the left side main hallway. He squatted, then leaned forward and looked around the wall edge. No lifeform showed in the red lit hallway. More than a hundred feet ahead lay the giant oval door that allowed exit from the room filled with twenty containment cells. He stepped out, then backward until he felt the edge of the other junction wall. To his right he could see down the long, red-lit cross hallway. He aimed his laser tube that way. Ahead, he faced the similarly red-lit left side hallway. Between him and the cell hatch lay the giant oval door that led into the Factory Chamber. That was on the hallway’s left side. On its right was another oval door that led, he recalled, to a habitat room for one of the crew. Ahead, the cell chamber hatch swung open. He squatted down and aimed his taser down the left side hallway.
A green praying mantis Alien, wearing its version of a tube suit, stepped through the hatch, a red laser tube in its upper arm pair. Its two black eyes scanned ahead. Just as it saw him, he pressed the fire button of his taser.
The red beam of coherent electrical energy shot across the 120 feet separating them in less than the blink of an eye.
“Yargh!” cried the critter, its mandible voice coming over Bill’s comlink.
Its four arms jerked sideways, the laser tube flying free. As did the red cube its lower arm pair had used to open the hatch. Standing on its two stick legs, it went into the taser shakes and twists Bill knew well.
A green laser beam passed just above his helmet.
He dropped to the floor, rolled a bit and aimed his laser at the black bodyshape of something that looked like a grizzly with four arms. The green beam of his weapon shot along the cross hallway and struck the bear in its gut.
“Yawww!” it roared, then fell backwards. Its legs thrashed a moment, then stopped.
Bill felt his heart hammering. The bear had arrived at the right side hallway’s junction with the cross hallway just as he fired at the praying mantis. Lousy timing! He’d been sure the right side crewperson would not be faster than the left side. A near fatal assumption. At least the half-darkness of his red-lit hallway had made targeting him less than easy.
He got up and ran toward the taser shaking mantis. The red cube it had held lay just beyond its twisting footpads. He’d learned to always grab a red cube whenever on an enemy Collector ship. It would open the door to the Factory Chamber. And to any other door except for the ship’s Weapons and Command Bridge doors. Or so he recalled from memories more than a year old. Looking back the way he’d come, he bent d
own and grabbed the cube. A memory hit him.
“Dexterity, are the captain and crew bioforms still at the locations shown in the earlier ship holo?”
“They are,” the AI said over his helmet comlink.
“Discontinue responses to bioform!” snarled the deep voice of Death Leader over his suit comlink.
“Emergency protocol requires my response to any bioform wearing a vacuum suit,” the ship mind replied.
Bill turned and headed back to the Factory door and access to his transport. It was his best way off this ship. It—
The white glow of a man-high holo took form in front of him. A shape materialized in it. A shape two feet taller than Bill.
“Human!” snarled the giant black-furred snake-gorilla. “Your attack on my engines demands a response.” Its gorilla like mouth opened wide. A purple tongue moved. “Your Human female leader occupies the closest Collector ship. While it has avoided my lasers, nothing can avoid the beam of my antimatter projector! There! She is vapor!”
Noooo!—
♦ ♦ ♦
Jane told herself to be patient as she waited for Bill to say he’d left the Collector. He could handle himself. He knew to ask the ship mind for a holo of where crew people were located. He knew the AI had to respond to him since he wore a tube suit. Bill knew all that he needed to know. And he learned fast, as she recalled from their takeover of the Blue Sky. She focused on watching the system graphic with its depictions of Death Leader’s ship, the three subs, her ship and Stefano’s ship. Which was slightly behind her by a dozen miles or so. The Blue Sky was at 3,912 miles from the enemy. The subs slightly nearer. They were not getting much closer since their 14 percent of lightspeed matched his 14 percent. Though hers and Stefano’s ships had picked up a little extra momentum thanks to the few moments they’d been at 15 percent of lightspeed. Her ship swerved to one side to avoid laser fire from the Fear Arrives. Lofty Flyer was doing wonders with their maneuvering. She tapped the Weapons control pillar top. Two green beams shot out. One missed the jinking enemy, but the other hit on its right side, where its Collector Pods Chamber was located. Silver sparkles showed briefly in her true space holo. Sensors said water, air and a few metal frags had spewed out from the hit. No pods though. Which meant it had not been a deep penetration. She waited as the Weapons fire control sensors worked to put her firing reticule on the jerking, jinking and jiggling enemy ship. Soon she would hit the middle of the nose where—
Escape 3: Defeat the Aliens Page 23