by Kalvin Thane
“Trying to save the ship, ma’am!” He slid clear of the ‘droid and stepped back. Krul stood nearby, clutching the ‘droid’s brain.
“By doing what?”
“Sale!” Alden yelled. “Climb up vertically in fifteen seconds.”
“The droid’s not secured.” Dun protested.
“I know,” Alden said. “Everyone, strap in.”
“Wait just a damn minute,” Trenn shouted.
“Commander. Do you trust your squad?”
She pressed her fists into her hips. “That depends. Trust you to do what?”
“Think quickly.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “No time to explain?”
“Uh-uh. Later.”
“You better. Squad, strap in hard, now!”
“The droid?” Kell asked.
“I’ll explain later,” Trenn said. “Sale, vertical in ten seconds.”
“Aye, Commander.” A flurry of clicks followed her words. Krul, still clutching the AI, wedged himself against a curving beam and hung on.
Alden counted out the seconds. “Two, one...” With a stomach-churning lurch, the carrier stood on its tail, and the cloudscape became a wall outside the ship. Unsecured, the still-hovering ‘droid slid back toward the open cargo door. Trenn stared in horror as the armored surface rippled, turning to liquid as the hapless machine accelerated.
“Oh, my Arm...” she whispered. The squad stared in horror as ten tons of armored hover-droid vanished out of the cargo bay and tumbled an unknown distance to the swirling clouds.
“Close the door, Sale,” Trenn called. “Krul, get to a seat.”
“Flask,” Krul grated.
Alden, strapped in securely, extended his arms. “Here, big guy.”
Once Krul had pulled several sets of straps around his arms and legs—straps that were designed for humanoid torsos—Trenn gave the word to accelerate. The carrier shuddered as the engines gave their all, and hurled the squad out into open space, where an Allied cruiser lay in wait for their hard-won prize.
Chapter 3
“SO THE ‘DROID WAS INFECTED?” Trenn yelled over the noise of steam and ultrasonic pollution. Alden glanced over at her and nodded. In her underwear, she looked like a regular woman, but he wasn’t fooled. She was a column of bad temper, compressed into the shape of a humanoid female.
“How in The Arm did that happen?” she asked.
“Through the I/O port, ma’am. We couldn’t see what was going on inside. I couldn’t even feel them invading the framework. We’re lucky Dun spotted the effects.”
Trenn shook her head. “If those things got on board the carrier...”
“That’s why the techs quarantined it. They want to be sure no ‘bots get to the cruiser.”
“The ‘droid never touched the deck!” Trenn protested. “It didn’t get a chance!”
“I was on the armor,” he reminded her. A sharp blast of steam enveloped him and set his ears ringing. “They could have been on my boots, on my hands.”
“I never want to disembark like that again.” She shuddered at the memory of stripping off her uniform—including her precious armor—and throwing herself into space. Sixty seconds with her eyes closed and her lungs emptied, drifting toward the cruiser until the rescue party grabbed her wrist. The cruiser’s airlock had barely pressurized in time. The entire squad laid on the floor, wheezing, puking and farting until their bodies finally accepted they weren’t going to die.
And now they were forced to undergo a Class One decontamination? It would be on their record forever. Trenn raised her arms and turned slowly as jets of steam hit her skin. Still, at least she wasn’t naked. Alden would have loved that, the callous bastard. It was bad enough that he resented her hard-won authority, but for him to have the memory of her nudity in his head...
Dark shapes moved in the other bays, the silhouettes of the other squad members. They’d been split into pairs. Lucky her. Without any warning, ultra-violet lasers swept down her body. She presented her palms, and when the beams reached her feet, she showed her soles.
“All clear!” a voice announced from a speaker.
“Thank the Arm for that,” Alden muttered. He headed for the door, with Trenn close behind. The air outside the decontam bay chilled his damp skin, but he resisted the urge to shiver. Outside, Dun and Kell were pulling on coveralls. They turned away when Trenn strode into view, sleek and glistening. Krul was naked, and wrapping a kilt around his waist. Alden couldn’t see why he bothered. The behemoth had no family jewels to hide.
“They kept you in there longer than us,” Dun said.
“Probably trying to make sense of my implants,” Alden replied. “Which reminds me, where’s Sale?”
“Still aboard the carrier,” Trenn answered.
“What?” Kell yelped. “But the air—it’s in vacuum!”
“She refused to disembark. Said her place was with the ship.” Trenn shrugged. “With the air gone, I had no time to argue.”
Alden frowned. “So she’s still out there?”
“I guess the techs will scan her when they scan the ship.”
“I hope she has enough oh-two on board. Those emergency supplies can run out without warning,” Kell said.
“Maybe she doesn’t really breathe,” Alden sneered. “Maybe she’s part of the ship.”
“Only her legs are mechanical, Alden,” Dun snapped.
“Wolf, kid.” Alden shifted closer to the young twin. “You will call me wolf.” When Kell stepped up to his brother’s side, Alden grinned. “Oh, two against one?”
“Three.” The air shook as a growling Krul appeared behind the twins. Undeterred—or at least making a pretense of being fearless—Alden leaned close to Dun. The pair glared at each other for a long moment, before Alden sneered and turned away. Trenn watched the posturing with barely-contained anger, but she stayed out of the fray. The Alliance had field-promoted her to Commander, but Alden had nothing but contempt for rank. Respect grows from fighting ability, he said. When she’d pointed out her record of service, a veteran of almost fifty battles with the Creeps, he told her that gaining rank by attrition counted for nothing. She’d countered by asking how many battles he’d sat out by hiding in prison.
“I didn’t choose to be in there,” he replied. “I was thrown in there because two men tried to kill me. I killed them first.”
The squad retired to the canteen and loaded up their trays as high as rationing permitted. Alden then stole a few extra packs of food for later. Trenn watched, but said nothing. The ex-prisoner was difficult enough to control in battle. On the ship, she counted for very little in his eyes.
“How long until we get Sale back?” Dun asked her.
“Until the techs were satisfied, she isn’t contaminated. She’s gaining nothing by staying out there.”
“She’ll avoid the steam showers,” he pointed out.
“Uh-uh. She won’t be allowed on board without a Class One decontam.”
“Maybe she’ll stay out there until the next mission,” Kell hazarded.
“And at the end of it, she’ll be Class One.”
“Maybe she didn’t want Dun seeing her in her underwear,” Kell suggested.
Trenn smiled tightly. “Maybe she didn’t want us seeing the damage to her body.”
Both twins had the grace to be embarrassed. Trenn felt bad about knocking them down, but Sale was a walking miracle. Returned to active duty mere months after losing both legs, she demonstrated a tenacity few people had ever witnessed. Trenn had glimpsed the scars on her torso. She hated to think about the damage to Sale’s lower body. Trenn had her fair share of scar tissue, but she was still largely intact.
They found an empty table, a safe distance from the regular crew. Krul squatted on the floor at the end of the table. He’d discovered the hard way that humanoid benches had zero chance of supporting him. The squad ate in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Occasional comments drifted their way from the ship’s crew, but n
ot enough to provoke a fight—not this time, at least. But when they’d finished, a ripple of laughter made Alden’s shoulders stiffen.
“Let’s move out, squad,” Trenn urged quietly. A row of faces from another table turned to watch as they moved, and more laughter washed over them. Alden growled, but before he had time to react, Ambex Krulguakor rose to his feet and clenched his fists. The other table fell silent and the faces turned away.
“Better.” Alden nodded to Krul as the mismatched squad ambled away. Trenn allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief. She wasn’t afraid of a good, hard fight with crew members, even without her uniform and armor, but for her, seven times in the brig is enough for one trip.
Chapter 4
MELEA SALE JOINED THEM after two days. Her face bore deep lines around her nose and mouth, a sure sign she’d worn a mask the entire time. She clumped wearily to the canteen, where the squad were slumped across the corner table. Krul, as always, languished on the metal floor. Sale’s legs gleamed, exposed Extranium bones that concealed motors, wiring and a power cell.
“Finally gave up sulking, huh?” Alden asked.
“You want me to kick you again?” Sale asked. Her knee motors whined softly as she drew back her lower leg.
“What for?” Alden asked quickly. “I was telling everyone how much we missed you.” He was keen to avoid her anger. The last time she’d kicked him, he’d struggled to walk for two days.
“Bullshit. I only came to join you losers because the techs are irradiating the damn ship.”
“They must have found something,” Trenn said.
“I saw them with test tubes and tiny suction hoses, so yeah, maybe they did.”
“Where were they working?” Alden asked.
“About where you were sitting.”
Alden cursed. “I got something on my boots. Damn. I guess I won’t see them again.”
“The techs were pretty excited,” Sale continued. “It was like... they’d found something they’d never seen before.”
“See that?” Alden leaned back and spread his hands. “Mission accomplished, and we brought back Creepy nanobot samples.”
“Mission seventy-eight percent accomplished,” Trenn reminded him.
“Yeah, well. It could have gone a lot worse.”
Trenn smiled. “You probably saved the mission, Alden.”
“Wolf,” he muttered. “And only probably?”
She ignored his remark. “I’ve commended you to the Admiral, and the Committee.”
Alden raised his eyebrows. “Does that mean I get my pardon?”
Trenn laughed. “No. But it means you get to stay out of jail longer.”
“Hoo-yah...”
Trenn glanced around. “You all did well. The tech boss told me we got a lot of information. They’re sifting through it now... what little they can decipher.”
“Yes, well done. Well done.” Alden began a slow hand-clap that earned him several scowls.
“What is your problem, Clancy?” Dun asked.
“My problem...” Alden’s hand shot out and seized Dun by the throat. “Is working with little shits like you, and your clone here.”
“Get off him!” Kell yelled. He tried to pry Alden’s fingers away from his twin.
Alden ignored his efforts. “You have some half-witted notion that if you keep searching long enough, you’ll find your sister safe and sound on some planet. She’s gone.”
“Children,” Trenn groaned. “Not in front of the crew.”
“She was taken,” Dun insisted in a tight voice. “Not killed. She’s still alive.”
“And how do you know that?” Alden sneered. “How can you possibly be sure—”
“Linked,” Dun wheezed. “We’re all linked.” Kell finally loosened Alden’s fingers, and his brother pulled back gasping.
“We’re triplets, Alden,” Kell said in a low voice.
“I thought you were twins.”
“We’re two of three.” He indicated his brother. “Ulla is the third. We know she’s alive because we feel her here.” He tapped a finger against his temple. “We might not have Creepy implants, but we can still sense—”
“I do not have Creepy implants,” Alden insisted.
“Oh?” Trenn raised an eyebrow. “So the tech comes from where? What were they developed from?”
“They were developed by the Alliance.”
“From?”
“Okay, the original tech was Creepy. But a lot of work—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Trenn said. “Sure, sure.”
“Isn’t their tech in our rifles, in our ships?” Alden asked. “Hell, they’re even in Sale’s legs. Owww!”
“You deserved that,” Sale said in a dangerous tone.
“What? They’re legs! “
“They’re not my legs,” she reminded him. “And if I miss dinner later, it’s because they’ll be getting a tune-up.”
“Knee trouble?” Trenn raised an eyebrow.
“Response time trouble. My skills are a joke because of the way these are set up.”
Alden chuckled. “So that’s why your flying sucks?” He leapt to his feet in time to avoid a slow, but well-aimed kick to his knee.
“See what I mean?” Sale complained. “Damn grunt’s legs. Always half a second slow.”
“Nice legs,” Krul grated. “Very shiny. Make good necklace.”
“Shuddup, Krul,” she snapped. When the behemoth burst out laughing, a sound like approaching thunder, Sale grinned. Some of the tension fled from Trenn’s body and she settled back, sighing quietly.
But she still missed her armor.
“ANYONE KNOWS WHERE this hunk of junk is taking us?” Alden asked. The cruiser Magellan had gone superluminal while the squad were still decontaminating. Three days later, she was still speeding through The Void, but it was impossible to determine the direction. At faster-than-light speeds, every porthole was black.
“I’ll ask the Admiral, when I see her,” Trenn said. “I need to know if we can stand down or remain ready.”
“I stood down when we got back on board,” Alden said. He yawned and threw out his arms.
“I want to get back out there.” Dun glanced at his twin, who nodded. “There must be other dark worlds we can drop into.”
“There are ten thousand dark worlds,” Alden said. “But only the Creepy ones are worth looking at.”
“I wish we knew what the AI recorded.” Kell drummed his fingers on the canteen table. “There must be some—”
“—clue about Ulla,” Dun finished.
“Again, I’ll ask the Admiral. In the meantime, we need to get back to the gym.” Trenn rose to her feet. “One hour, people. Expect a hard circuit.”
“I thought we were barred from the gym,” Alden said lazily. “After Krul wrecked their equipment.”
“Bar bells too weedy,” Krul grated. “Needed more weight.”
“Weights from a press machine don’t fit on bar bells,” Sale reminded the behemoth.
“Maybe you should go to the machine shop and dead-lift a lathe,” Alden suggested.
“Or a reactor,” Dun added.
“There’s always the hangar deck,” Kell pointed out. “Plenty of carriers doing nothing.”
“Good idea,” Krul rumbled.
“No!” Trenn yelled. “Stop giving him ideas, or I’ll have him dead-lifting you all.”
“Good idea,” Krul said again, then chuckled, which sounded like a wrecking ball striking an apartment block.
“If we start a fight with the crew,” Alden said, turning to look at the other tables. “That’d give us all a great cardiovascular workout.”
“And then it’d all be wasted because you’d spend a week in the brig,” Trenn pointed out.
“Oh, yeah,” Alden conceded.
“So, the gym later, and tomorrow we run the perimeter of the ship. If you aren’t puking up, we’ll do the next deck down as well.”
“Joy...”
Sale raised a hand. “A
m I excused running, ma’am?”
Trenn narrowed her eyes. “You’ll need to start running one day, soldier.”
“Can I begin with a short jog?”
“She may not be able to run, but she can leg press more than Krul”, Alden pointed out.
“Like to see that,” Krul grated.
“Can it, wise asses,” Sale snapped. “Hey, Kell, how’s your piloting these days?”
“Pretty good. I can out-fly Dun most days.”
“The hell you can!”
Sale pressed her hands to her hips. “So how about we go one-on-one in the simulator instead of wasting time in the gym?”
Trenn wagged a finger. “Exercise first, playtime second.”
Sale stared. “Flying is not playtime!”
“It is when it’s a video game,” Alden said with a grin.
“It’s training,” she insisted. “I need the sim time to get used to these damn things.” She slammed a hand against her thigh, which clanged.
“Exercise first,” Trenn insisted. “Unless you’d prefer some downtime...” When Alden and Sale raised their hands, she continued. “In the brig. There’s no place in my squad for slackers.”
“Dammit,” Sale muttered. “Okay, I’ll run for as long as I can. I don’t get tired in the same way you guys do, but I still hurt where the grafts meet the metal.”
“Good. Maybe some hard running will keep all your minds off fighting with the crew.”
“Not a chance,” Alden said with a sly grin.
Chapter 5
“PLAYTIME IS OVER, KIDS,” Trenn said to the freshly-showered squad.
“We’re going back down?” Dun asked eagerly. His twin’s eyes brightened.
“Across, not down,” Trenn corrected.
“Make sense, Commander,” Alden said in a weary tone. “Across to where?”
“They found a derelict.”
“One of ours, or one of theirs?”
“Theirs.”
“Cool,” Kell said. “I hope there are bodies.”
“Why not blow it up?” Alden asked.
“What?” Sale demanded. “And destroy any opportunity to learn about their tech? I’ve never seen one of their ships close-up. I’d love to take a look at their controls.”