by Tony Teora
***
“I got our engines back online. We now have power and communications,” said Yarborough. “Those damn Space Navy regulations for spare parts actually helped for something.” Yarborough closed a panel behind Mahan and went back to his seat.
“Lieutenant, I’d kiss you if I didn’t need to focus on getting us the hell out of here.” Mahan plotted a controlled decent. Temperature sensors showed heat shields nearing maximum.
Yarborough blew a kiss with his hands and laughed. “You ain’t fooling me, Major. I know you have a thing for the captain.”
Mahan smiled. “You think I have a chance with him?”
“Heh, he’s out of his league. You want him, I’m sure he’s yours.” Yarborough engaged the thrusters. “We’re back on course.”
“Let’s see if we can drop down away from GEN-6 and those laser cannons. Let’s head to Colonel Manpower to assist with aerial support as planned.” Mahan hoped Karr was hers, but for now, there was more important business.
***
Brassfield read the encrypted communication. “The Beta-Ray is back online, sir! They got their ship repaired, and just in time, I might add.”
“That’s great news!” said Karr. He looked over at the XO and smiled, then at the astrogator. “Astrogator, put us back to our earlier position, on the bounce.”
Karr watched as XO Lightfoot nodded. He was glad he didn’t have to leave Mahan to burn up in an uncontrolled planet re-entry. He knew the XO was right, and he would have followed his advice. But on the other hand, he felt he had a duty to his men and women, and some risk was required. He didn’t want to overstep that duty and let it become personal, and he almost did. Karr bit his tongue, knowing decisions as a captain are not so cut and dry, and that’s why the Space Navy, like the terrestrial Navy, had an XO whose job was to assist in those delicate situations.
A second laser blast from the city hit the Aurora as it started to accelerate. The Aurora stopped. Karr looked at his shield monitor. It was below thirty per cent and dropping. If it got any lower, shields and systems would begin to fail. The beam continued to focus its death ray on the Aurora, different in that it lasted longer. They had to get out of its beam or they were all surely dead. Only seconds remained.
Karr watched as the shields dropped to ten per cent and then the loss stopped. The beam of energy hitting the Aurora was cut short. The power of the blast was less than half of the earlier blast.
“I asked you to get us out of here, astrogator! What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, sir, that last blast triggered our engine cut-off failsafe so that the power could go to shields. We’re moving now, sir. The laser just cut off midstream. Someone must have shut them down.”
Maybe Manpower had shut them off? Karr was hopeful, but didn’t count on it. If they could only get through this mess and get back home. There he’d settle down, buy a farm, and have kids with Melissa. Karr watched as the Aurora moved away from the city. Although not a religious man, he prayed that Mahan, Ace, and the crew would make it out of this alien fiasco.
***
“That’ll fix the motherfuckers,” mumbled Jimbo, finishing his cannon firing sequence code algorithm. The lasers stopped firing. Jimbo wiped sweat from his brow and smiled. He then looked at the WEPS console. There was one more system set to engage. He’d never seen anything like that. It also had some type of alien marking, hieroglyphics or language markings. The system was not a laser but something else, unknown, and it was sucking a lot of power.
In any case, there wasn’t a way to get into the system, so Jimbo stood up and started back on his trek to look for Kiya. It’d taken ten minutes to shut down the lasers and she’d be surely concerned. Jimbo headed into the stinking hallway and checked his location. I wonder if she’ll just think I’m crazy? A walking dead man … a walking cyborg you can’t kill. Is that what the aliens are? Cyborgs?
***
As Ivan approached the underground tunnel, he saw various metallic robots doing chores—pulling cables, carrying parts. They were building something underground. He and the tin man approached carefully, trying to blend into the robot crowd. Up near a large rock, Ivan stopped the robot. “Looks good, tin man.” Ivan unzipped his pants to relieve himself when Hiro called through the helmet voice set. “Ivan, this is Hiro, can you hear me? What are you doing, I hear water—are you okay?”
Ivan zipped his fly. “Ivan okay, tin man okay. Not pissing ice, so life good, ears warm. What up, partner?”
“Pissing ice? Ah … never mind, I don’t want to know. Do you see all those robots in the distance? At your three o’clock.”
Ivan looked over and saw over a hundred shiny tin men lined up. They looked to be preparing for something.
“Yes, see lots of tin men, brothers and sisters.”
“Can you mark a target before you head underground? Major Mahan wants me to send coordinates to Manpower and Karr. I think they’re planning to drop some rounds before Manpower’s troops arrive, to soften them up. When the firing starts, you should get underground, and quick. The Aurora has a new WEPS. Heard he’s had trouble with interference.”
Ivan put up his target sensor and lit the top of the head of a robot with a laser target and transmitted the signal. “Uploaded.”
Hiro looked at the readout. “Thanks, I’ll turn on our robot’s auto-command. He’ll follow all your commands now. Just say ‘command control’ and he’ll do whatever you say.”
“Oh, nice. I want him to dance. Can he dance?”
“Don’t fuck around, Ivan. Those robots around you don’t look too friendly. I’d get underground, and soon. I just sent the coordinates to the Aurora.”
“Okay,” said Ivan. “But let me test robot. ‘Command Control’… your name is ‘Tin Man.’ Follow all my instructions and always call me ‘Master Ivan’. Tin Man, you understand?”
‘Yes, Master Ivan.’
“Good,” smiled Ivan. “Say ‘good-bye bye my sexy love partner Hiro’.”
“Gooood, bye-bye my sexy love partner Hiroooo,” said the robot.
“Okay, follow me into underground.”
“Yes, Master Ivan.”
Ivan smiled. “See you later, Hiro. The robot works good. Bet you miss your robotic mistress?”
“Fuck you Ivan, hope your metal head gets permanently stuck to a super magnet.”
Ivan laughed while he and the robot went down the concrete tunnel under GEN-6.
***
Colonel Manpower and his men stopped two miles from the GEN-6 main entrance and looked at the array of metallic soldiers. He called into Karr. The relay from the Beta-Ray was finally working.
“Captain, we had a laser cannon firing at us, but it stopped. And the one firing up at the Aurora stopped, too. Not sure why, maybe one of our cruise missiles knocked out a communication or power line. In any case, sir, there’s a bunch of weaponized robots near the main entrance. My men can engage them with our grenade launchers, but I was wondering if there’s any way the Aurora can drop something a little bigger, maybe a fuel air bomb missile?”
“If we do that, Manpower, we run a good chance of hitting your men with the blast. I think a thousand rounds of our giga-shock shells can do the trick. I’ll get on it. Send in the coordinates.”
“Mahan already sent them, Ivan did a laser mark, but they robots are starting to move. Can you do a five hundred-yard sweep?”
Karr looked over toward WEPS. The commander in charge nodded.
“Yes we can, colonel. Navigation, move us at max range over target alpha and set firing pattern O on my mark.” Karr watched the holoscreen as the Aurora went over its target. “We’ve got the area painted. We’ll start firing here in three minutes. I recommend you move your shuttle and team out another hundred yards in case of a misfire.”
“We’re already on the move, sir,” replied Manpower.
“Good, anything else?” asked Karr.
“No sir, just glad the Beta-Ray made it.”
“
Me too. Major Mahan is a fighter.”
“Major Mahan saved our asses, sir, I’ll do whatever I can to close this mission out … or me and my men will die trying.
“A stubborn, arrogant Colonel once told me the Space Marines don’t try, they just do.”
“Yes sir, I think I resemble that arrogant bastard.”
Karr laughed, “Good hunting. Captain out.”
***
Ace looked up over a hill into the GEN-6 compound. His internal binoculars focused on a crew of crazy people wiring up a one-story, microwave-like device. He patched into Colonel Manpower, who was busy moving warbots and human troops.
“Colonel, I’ve made it to GEN-6, but I think we’ve got a problem. It looks like some kind of high-energy weapon is being assembled. It’s next to three smaller laser cannon systems but looks different. Has a bunch of coils and some weird spinning bearings connected to a parabolic antenna.”
“Major, those smaller cannons almost fried our asses, but they’re off now. The power’s gone. We need to take out the large one before it causes some big trouble. Send in the coordinates and I’ll have our men take care of it when we approach. There’s a bunch of robots on our western side. I’m waiting for Karr to blast ’em with giga-shock shells. For now, I want you and Ivan to complete your mission inside and get the hell out. My men will be on their way to assist with the sick ones.”
“Got it, sir, I should be at the target in less than five minutes. Ivan’s already in the tunnels.”
***
Melissa Mahan was flying over the battlefield in the Beta-Ray scout, assisting Manpower’s men. She held a finger over one of her ears and listened from the other that had a bug in it. “Captain, Manpower’s moved out one click from a cluster of robots but they’ve moved somewhat. New coordinates, uh, M-7, deflect fifty meters west. With the main laser cannons down, I think you can get into position without too much return fire—although Archer said there’s some kind of antenna being built.”
“Antenna? Got it, as long as it doesn’t fire particle weapons, I don’t care,” Karr answered. “Helm, bring the ship down fifty kilometers. Commander Jones, prepare the giga-shock shell rail gun for action directly on the coordinates just listed.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” she responded.
The ship began its descent. It leveled off.
“Now!” Jones said. “Fire, fire, fire!”
Although the rail gun was removed from the control room by a good hundred meters, they could still feel the thunk thunk thunk as its projectiles were fired.
“Got it! Cease fire.”
“Bring the ship back up now,” Karr ordered.
“Captain, we’re not moving!” Brassfield shouted.
“Commander Levy! Give us full power!” Karr shouted.
“Full power, aye,” Levy said. His voice was as calm as still waters. “Sorry, sir. No response. Damn!” Suddenly he was no longer calm. “Something’s grabbed us. We're being pulled down!”
“What’s pulling us?”
Cheryl Mendez looked at an electromagnetic readout near the Comm Station. “Captain, I believe the aliens have created some type of super-conducting magnetic beam. It’s got a lock on us, and unless we can take it out, we’re going down to the planet, and I don’t think the aliens plan on a soft landing.”
“Weapons, let’s use the pulsar cannons. Do we have the coordinates, Mendez?”
“Sir,” interrupted Jones. “The magnetic field is messing with our system controls. Nothing is working correctly. We can’t contain the plasma with this environment. It’ll blow up the ship if we engage the field coils.”
“We’re being pulled down sir. The magnetic attraction coefficient is too high. They’re pulling apart the ship. Structural integrity breach … eta … five minutes,” said Levy.
“Okay everyone, it’s pretty clear we’re in big trouble. I’m open to ideas.”
Lightfoot hustled over to Cheryl Mendez. He looked at the screen showing the magnetic beam. “What would happen if we accelerated directly toward the beam, and then before the heat shields failed, used thrusters to sling shot out? I mean, we’re going down anyhow. Use the acceleration to help whip us out of the beam. Or at least try.”
“We could just end up helping the aliens bring us down,” said Jones.
Karr looked pensive and scratched his head. “Well, we’re going down anyhow, and we’re wasting energy. I say we give a try and pray it works.”
Mendez spoke: “We’re gonna need some praying, because if my calculations are correct, the beam intensity will get stronger as we go down towards the planet, and the ship’s max thrust will barely break us out of the beam’s grip, even with the acceleration we gain. I’m not even sure it’s enough, but close.”
“Astrogator, bring us full speed down toward the magnetic beam. Levy, make sure we break away with full thrusters once shields go to ninety per cent max. Astrogator—now!”
The Aurora whipped down toward the planet, accelerating like a bullet. Within a minute, the ship started to buckle as the heat shields rapidly increased in temperature. The sound of steel and plastomax beams bending from the temperature differential echoed in the command room.
Levy watches the temperature; it reached 96 percent. “Engaging full break away thrusters,” he said calmly.
The Aurora swung to the left, and crew members not buckled to their seats or holding onto something had a hard time keeping their balance. “We’re slowly breaking away,” said Levy watching his monitors. “But it’s close … wait, it looks like the beam intensity has increased. We’re starting to get pulled back … we’re not gonna make it, sir.”
Oh shit, thought Karr. “How much time before a ship integrity breach?”
“The beam characteristics seem to increase in power logarithmically when they pulse power. My guess is three to five minutes max, sir,” replied Levy.
“Is there anything else we can do?” asked Karr. Time was running out, with only minutes left before the ship’s heat shield failed. The shields were already at 100 percent, but had another five or ten per cent built in—or so Karr had read in the specs. No one ever tested a ship beyond 95 percent, or at least, not in the field.
“I’m sorry, sir. Maybe we could surrender,” said Cheryl Mendez.
“I appreciate the suggestion, but we’re not even in communication with the enemy to do something like that. And my orders won’t allow it. I don’t think we’re getting outta this one,” said Karr. “Let me inform the crew.”
This was a message no captain ever wanted to make, and since these kinds of messages we’re usually never retrieved, Karr had no point of reference. He turned on the ship-wide comm, looked at the men and woman on the bridge, and spoke softly.
“This is Captain Jeffrey Ozias Karr, and I wish I had good news—but I don’t. We’re in a magnetic beam that we can’t seem to escape from. The ship will lose structural integrity in about two minutes. I’m sorry I failed you. But please know, we fight as a team, and we’ll die as one. There are things worse than death. My apologies to you all. Please send any last personal messages to SATCOM-1. Someone may be able to pass them to loved ones someday. May God be with us all. Captain out.”
Everyone on the bridge sat soberly as the ship started to buckle. The thrusters were on full, as there was a hope that maybe Manpower would get off a nuke, or maybe the beam’s power supply would fail. Those were wishful thoughts.
As the main comm went out, Karr texted a message to the SATCOM-1 to Colonel Manpower and looked out his portside window and thought of Major Mahan. “I’m sorry, Melissa,” he said, quietly, as an explosion engulfed the Aurora.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
— Napoleon Bonaparte
22
_________
Aurora Bites the Dust
Shiny metal shards of destroyed robots scattered the desert floor. The Aurora shelling had done the trick. Colonel Manpower’s men proceeded to enter the mountains that surr
ounded the main entrance to GEN-6. The mountains would give the team some protection from the laser cannons, since they were on the opposite site. As the troops, four-wheel-drive trucks, and robotic vehicles arrived, a door built into the mountain was blown open. An engineer was inspecting the newly opened tunnel when Manpower arrived.
Manpower looked at a vid link from soldiers who’d just entered. It looked like a hidden laboratory. “What the hell we got going on here?”
“Colonel, Troop B is in contact with the healthy scientists. The rails guns took out the laser defenses. They’re trying to hook up in Sector C-6. But I heard from a scientist that there were some people taken to a cavern, along with some caged Nomads. I don’t know how to say this, sir … but I want to bring back the ones that are capable of being hauled back … I, ah … I think leaving the others, well, frankly speaking ... I think if we leave them for the blast, it’s the humane thing to do, if you know what I mean.”
Manpower agreed. The experiments, what was being done here, were pure evil, nothing less. “Webb, take anyone you feel has a chance; the others, leave ’em. We don’t have a lot of time nor the equipment to transport the BOT science experiments. We’ll be doing those folks a favor by leaving them for the op. As for the scientists, get to Major Mahan. Have her pick them up and get out. Then we need to go to Operation ‘Wipeout Alien Resistance’—or as I like to call it, WAR.” Manpower was looking forward to it.
Never in all his battle experience did he want to kill the enemy so badly. Maybe it was because, when you killed another human, you could have some compassion, as the other guy was just doing his or her job for their country. But there were executions for people who performed atrocities on Earth, and those folks Manpower enjoyed seeing shot dead. They were bad apples. But this planet seemed to be nothing but one big rotten apple. He never wanted to see these aliens again, ever.