Not all the bodies were human, of course. A small minority were the enemy. Even in the ten minutes or so since they had died, their faces had come to display the same quick deterioration of the few aliens the Empire had captured. Most were little more than mush, their features dissolving even as she watched.
Eventually she reached a comparatively clear area near the first of the side corridors from which the Scaleys had emerged. She leaned against the wall and peered quickly around it.
Twenty-five meters away stood a group of Scaleys in glittering black armor.
The others joined her, keeping close to the wall just behind. “Commander,” a voice whispered in her ear, “where's the enemy? Do you see any?”
“Yeah,” Brett Duvall said. “This place should be packed.”
She looked at them. “There's about ten of them twenty-five meters down the corridor,” she said.
George's eyes widened. “What are they doing?”
She risked another glance, turned back. “Just looking at each other.”
“That's freakin’ queer,” Brett said, her lips a bloodless slash behind her faceplate.
“Yes, it is,” Stella said. Puzzled, she looked down the vacant corridor ahead of them. Come to think of it, it was freakin’ queer. The Scaley ship was still joined to hers, and not only hadn't the enemy attempted to invade the Spaceranger, but they had left this corridor completely unprotected. There were no guards, no...
Surveillance?
She looked for cameras, but didn't see any. That meant nothing. Any race that could park their ship at the lip of a singularity like it was a docking station was capable of anything. Even of seeing through walls.
Carefully, she took another glance. They were still there.
Stella looked at her crew-at George, Nick, Brett and the others. She gripped her plasma jet, deciding.
“I'm going to charge ‘em,” she said. “The rest of you follow fast as you can.”
“Are you crazy?” George and Brett hissed simultaneously. Nick moved up to her. “Ser, why don't you let me do it? I took first place at the Olympiad.”
“Thanks, Nick,” she said. “But with all due respect, you're not as fast as me.”
Brett stepped closer. “Ser, why don't we step out and just burn them from here? It's safer, more efficient!”
“What if we miss just one and it runs and alerts the others?” Stella shook her head. “No, it's got to be clean or it's no good. We've got to kill them all.” She gripped Brett's shoulder. “I'll try to stun them, catch them unprepared. The rest of you burn them when you get close.”
Brett's face twitched. “It's twenty-five meters-you said so yourself! There's no way you can reach those Scaleheads without them hearing you. Our suits aren't exactly nightgowns, you know. Hell, they'll probably hear you soon as you step ‘round that corner.”
Stella smiled. “If I run fast enough, maybe it won't matter.”
Brett's face was doing interesting things. “Run? You'd have to be shot out of a plasma tube to have a chance. Even you can't move that fast.”
“Then you'll finish the job for me, all right?”
Her voice was hard, ending debate. She could tell from their faces they knew she meant it.
Having terminated the discussion, she saw that they not only accepted her decision but were warming to its execution. Brett licked her lips in anticipation. George, whom she had doubted and doubted again, gave her a hard grin. “I'll be right behind you, Stella.” The others were preparing themselves, checking weapons and shifting their weight. It was, Stella thought, as if there came a time when even the near certainty of death was better than doing nothing.
She glanced around the corner and secured her weapon in her bracket holster.
“See you in hell,” she said with a smile, and whispered a silent prayer.
Then she was off, the servos at heel, calf, thigh and elsewhere quickening the augmented ability of her cyborg body. Arrowed forward, she drove herself hard, striving for every scintilla of speed to reach them before they heard her and carved her apart.
She saw the first Scaley turn and then another, saw their hands reach for their weapons as she drove herself still harder. Their weapons rose and she left the floor, twisting her body as she shot out her foot with all her strength. It caught the first Scaley flush on the helmet and drove it back against the wall, reducing its skull to pulp. She landed and sprang up; struck aside a weapon whose fire grazed her helmet. Again she charged, a blur of movement.
Rage blazed within her, rage at her crew dead, at all the comrades’ lives so senselessly slaughtered, and she seized a Scaley and cast it up against the wall. She whirled, seized another and dashed it to the floor, smashing it once twice three times to pieces inside its suit. Then she straightened and reached for her weapon.
A Scaley arm circled her neck from behind, pulling her off-balance as another aimed its weapon directly at her. Blinding light struck her chest and carved upward, nicking her faceplate. Her helmet flooded with gas.
Then a hand seized the arm of the alien with the weapon while another clamped about its throat from behind. George. She saw the barrel tilt upward, its beam impaling the ceiling as the psyche-physician fought to wrest the weapon free.
She had no time to watch. The rest of her crew arrived and the corridor erupted with laser and plasma fire. She rammed her elbow back into the Scaley holding her and whipped around, freeing herself.
She faced it.
Clutching its side, the Scaley's hand shot toward its sidearm, faster by far than any normal human. Stella caught its hand midway and stepped forward, a silent snarl twisting her lips as she peered through the gas. Slowly, she raised the alien's hand before its face.
And crushed it.
The Scaley's face contorted, its toothless mouth gaping. So you can feel pain, she thought, and hurled it viciously against the wall.
She whirled, just in time to see Brett's beam impale a Scaley's faceplate. Five of her crew, she saw, were down, but two others had cornered a Scaley and were stitching a line of white fire up both sides.
That left George, who had long since renounced being a soldier. He grappled with the Scaley, still trying to force the weapon from its grip. Stella's sonic cleaners had cleared most of the gas from her helmet; the rest had seeped through her cracked faceplate. She could see clearly now and raised her plasma jet, aiming at the alien's chest.
“No,” Brett said. She pressed her hand against Stella's arm. “Let him do it.”
Stella frowned. It made no sense. Just one long pull of her trigger and the Scaley would be worm meat. She couldn't risk...
Another member of her crew approached, a man named Morner who was as young as Lee. “Please, ser,” he said. “Let Dr. Darron finish it.”
She glanced up and down the corridor, knowing she should fire. If the alien started to win, she would shoot.
Equally massive, George and his opponent struggled-a microcosm, perhaps, of the entire Scaley-Human war? But that was absurd. No human who had not been technologically enhanced could prevail against a Scaley, exceed its strength and endurance.
George's face had darkened to purple behind his faceplate. Grunting, he spun the alien, trying to dislodge its grip, but his foe would not give ground. Then, Stella saw that George was slowly, slowly bending the weapon back toward the Scaley's face. Millimeter by millimeter it turned, trembling in both their hands. His features a rictus of effort, George forced the barrel back toward the other's head till it pointed at the side of its helmet.
A beam lanced out, smashing the alien's faceplate, devouring its face. With a grunt, the Scaley relinquished its grip and collapsed to the floor.
A moment later George joined it, sliding slowly down the wall in exhaustion Stella feared might lead to a heart attack. Though George was only a few years older than she, he was soft, not used to exertion. She watched him sit gasping against the wall, and then glanced again up and down the corridor. Incredibly, their clash here had dr
awn no response. Where was the enemy? Were they in a bloody ghost ship?
Despite the danger, Brett seemed ecstatic. “Commander! Goddamnit, you were right to rush them. Do you know what we've done?” She gulped. “We've ... we've beat them! For the first time ever, we've mother-humped the freaking bastards!”
Stella felt less exalted. The five dead comrades on the floor had perished in a minor skirmish, not Armageddon. Turning, she saw that the young soldier was gaping at her.
“What is it, Morner?”
He pointed. “Ser, your helmet's broke. I saw gas go in.”
“So?”
“It's Scaley death gas, ser. If you take just one small whiff, you're dead!”
“Yeah? Well, I'm different, soldier.” She shook her plasma jet, knowing she should do something. They couldn't just stand here. But it all seemed so unreal. Here they were, the first humans ever to breach an alien ship and walk its unknown corridors, and she found herself distracted by a growing itch low down on her left thigh, on the human part of her. At that moment she would have given nine kingdoms just to scratch it.
No. She had to get her thoughts straight, make a plan.
“You, Brett,” she said. “Take Morner and recon the far corridor up toward the bow. Comm us on channel B.” She motioned at a corridor just a few meters away that appeared to run down the middle of the ship. “Nick and I will take this one and head the same way. Keep in contact. Let us know if you find anything.”
Nick moved forward. “We're splitting up? What about Dr. Darron?”
She studied George, whose color had improved only slightly. “Dr. Darron will stay here. He's had enough. We'll collect him when we come back.” She gripped her weapon, knowing they probably wouldn't be able to return. “That makes two groups of two apiece,” she said. “I figure it'll improve our chances.”
“What do you mean, I've ‘had enough'?” Against the wall, George was struggling to his feet. He swayed briefly, and then braced himself. “I'm going.”
She eyed him skeptically. “You sure? You look pretty beat.”
“Hell, yes, I'm sure. I'm the doc, remember? I'm fine.”
She nodded. “All right, you can come with me. Now come on, we've got to go.”
“I've got an idea,” George said. He pointed at the enemy's bodies. “These fellows are pretty big. What say I swap suits with one?”
Brett was the first to get it. “You could be a semblant, mix with the Scaleys!”
George stooped over a corpse. “I prefer to call it a ‘wild card,’ something that adds a little interest, an extra factor.” He began struggling with the corpse's helmet. “C'mon and help before it turns to muck inside.”
Brett flashed her a look. “Ser?”
George's jaw hardened. He continued to wrench at the corpse's black suit.
She hesitated. “This is crazy. What do you hope to accomplish? If they find out...”
George yanked the helmet free. “Don't you think they already know? I'm just trying to throw a monkey wrench into their plans.”
She frowned, not knowing what a ‘monkey wrench’ was. “All right,” she said. George took his suit's breather tube from the med compartment, opened his faceplate, and inserted the tube between his lips. Then he started to remove his armor. Along with the others, Stella moved forward to help him.
They solved the sealing apparatus and pulled the already softening corpse from the suit. A minute more passed as they maneuvered George back and forth so he could squirm and force himself inside. Another thirty seconds. The red numbers changed swiftly on Stella's inside helmet cronex as she worked, knowing that they had to hurry, that they must move.
Two minutes, ten seconds ... two minutes, twenty...
At two and a half minutes, they hauled George upright and put on the helmet. He moved tentatively around, testing the suit. Its black surface flashed with light.
“How is it, Dr. Darron?” Morner said.
George grunted. “A bit snug but it's lighter than ours. Feels better too.” He placed the breather tube between his lips, then closed the faceplate and sealed it. “Helmet's not too different from ours. Say, can you still hear me?”
They nodded, answered yes.
“Huh. So they've got audio. Guess the Scaleys do communicate with each other. That's an interesting fact to take back to Command.”
George moved around some more, then returned to his suit and took a syringe of some kind from its med compartment. He rose with it in his hand and went to the weapon he had fought so fiercely for. Stooping, he picked it up.
“Hey,” he said, “their servos are smooth. Don't overkick like ours.” He examined the weapon, turning it in his hands. “Might as well make the disguise complete, right? To quote an old saying, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'”
“You know, George,” Stella said, “I'm getting pretty fricked at your old sayings.”
George winked, his eyes gleaming. Suddenly Stella found herself staring at a stranger, or perhaps the George Darron who had graduated from the warriors’ guild before he discovered he had no taste for death. He marched past her as if he had been born in the alien's suit.
“Hey,” Nick said, “you're headed the wrong way. That's the stern you're going to.”
George turned. “I'm an extra variable, I hope. A bit of the unpredictable. It's a variation on something I remember from the guild. An ancient countryman of yours from Terra once said, 'Divide et impera,’ which means, ‘Divide and rule.'”
He waved his hand and left, striding quickly toward the stern.
“All right,” Stella snapped, “let's go!”
Brett and Morner immediately headed for the far corridor on the other side of the ship. She lifted her weapon, and then motioned Nick into the middle corridor. It appeared to be similar to the one they'd entered by, about six meters wide with a floor of blue metal.
She advanced carefully down the right side, alert for attack, for a trap of some kind. Nick took the left side and turned into what looked like a large alcove. Seeing colored lights fluctuate and shift, Stella decided to investigate with him.
“Uh, Commander,” Lee's voice said in her ear, “I don't think you should go there.”
“Why not?” she said.
“It's ... I'm looking at it through Nick's vid. He...”
In the alcove, Nick's body had twisted as if he were trying to break away from something. She heard him shout, then moan and babble gibberish. In her earphones, Lee's voice faltered. “D-Don't go there, ser. It's ... Oh my dear sweeeeet God. Such b-beautiful lights and patterns!”
Ignoring the warning, she rushed to free Nick from whatever held him. When she reached his side, his face seemed swathed in ecstasy.
“Stella, this is Sloan. Lee is hypnotized. Be careful. Do not look at the thing! It's got a narcotic effect of some kind.”
Nick's face bore eloquent testimony to the truth of Sloan's words. Clearly, he was in rapture, and Stella remembered the expressions of fanatic, ‘New Son’ worshippers she had seen. Compared to Nick, they seemed almost rational.
“Don't worry, Nick,” she said. “I'll get you out.”
She reached for him, keeping her eyes averted from whatever had bewitched him, and felt something caress the corner of her eye. Despite her resolve, she felt her head turn. Before her glowed a gigantic transparent globe containing multi-colored fluids which swayed and flowed and rippled back and forth, back and forth. She tried to turn away but somehow her head wouldn't move.
As her med unit pumped stimulants into her system in a massive effort to combat what registered as a deepening stupor, Sloan's voice shouted in her ear. Gradually, though, its pleas grew ever more distant, ever more unreal, as if the voice itself belonged to a realm infinitely unrelated to hers. And now the swaying, rippling, flowing, ever-changing waters of eternity brought forth miracles of creation from their womb, silvery-gold tesseracts of incarnate form and rectangles that were circles and a polygon with a million sides which she could actuall
y count.
“COMMANDER, SNAP OUT OF IT!”
The cry was a crimson helix, a flaming sword, then a ripple of myriad wonders which undulated toward her in a dream which had been her own even when she had been million-year-old carbon spewed forth from the monobloc that had blossomed into creation. She saw the ripple unfold and beckon at her feet in a kaleidoscope of glorious, sublime, and ineffable patterns, opening endlessly like a cosmic flower of which she herself was the bud. The ripple retreated and returned, extending an ambrosia-scented crystal column even as some feeble voice that could not possibly have any relation to her, moaned “no” over and over again in her soul. Waving it aside, she laughed and stepped lightly onto the shining pedestal, letting it waft her to eternity as she waited to be born.
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* * *
CHAPTER SEVEN
Paradise.
It was all senses rolled into one, and more, a synesthesia of the mind. Her satin skin sang, and the wind's scent was exquisite green music caressing her eyelids. She soared and crested on a wave of sublime contentment, lilac-tinged visions flavoring her mouth. And always, always, her glorious destiny lay just ahead. She knew that soon she would see it, a splendor beyond all others.
Something jarred her universe, and then jarred it again. The intricate facets of her jeweled inner sun developed a hairline crack. Jarred again, and the warm shimmering spray turned cold upon her skin. Then something, a hand, appeared and rapped against her helmet as another hand unsealed and opened her faceplate. A face swam into focus-black and aquiline, the eyes dark shining pools in which she saw ... herself.
“Commander, wake up! We've got to move!”
“I...” Her lips felt coated with gum, as if she'd slept a thousand years. “What hap...?”
Beyond Those Distant Stars Page 6