Stars Fell on Alabama

by M. Alan Marr

  “Holy shit—” Chaz yells, his feet involuntarily planting themselves firmly in place. Dev motions for Chaz to stay put.

  “Yeah, no problem,” Chaz whispers quietly.

  Dev begins cautiously flanking around to the right. Dev and the Yeti lock eyes on one another. Although Dev has his weapon trained on the Yeti, he can’t fire. He whispers to Chaz over the ear-set. “Stay still and don’t take your eyes off him. Yeti are surprisingly fast. If he lunges at you, you may have time to fire, but not if he catches you off guard.” Dev slowly moves further downrange. “As long as I’m moving, the Yeti will be tracking me.” As Dev slowly moves laterally, the Yeti, still gripping the Lyran, is coldly fixed on him. Dev whispers very calmly, “I can’t fire without hitting the hostage. I don’t have a shot.”

  “I will in a few seconds,” Chaz whispers, very slowly bringing his weapon up. “Just keep moving . . .”

  Dev continues to sidestep a wide arc to Chaz’s right. Chaz closes one eye and slowly lines up his gunsights. His arms are bent, and he’s holding his weapon steady with both hands. The Yeti seems to be in exact lockstep with Dev, turning its body as it tracks him, consciously keeping the Lyran hostage between them. Slowly, Chaz’s line of fire clears. He takes a breath and whispers to Dev over the com line. “I have the shot.”

  Dev, his eyes still locked with the Yeti’s, smiles slightly. The tiny change in Dev’s facial musculature breaks the Yeti’s stance, and it suddenly jerks its head directly at Chaz. It happens in slow motion—Chaz squeezes the trigger, firing multiple pulses of energy at the Yeti. The first pulse strikes the beast square in the chest. The second and third cause its body to explode, sending the Human hostage flying off to the side, the Yeti’s arm still holding on to the Lyran’s neck. The fourth pulse impacts with the ground behind where the Yeti stood, sending up an explosive plume of flame and dirt.

  Dev and Chaz quickly converge on the downed Human. Dev is still on guard, while Chaz tries to pry the Yeti’s hand from the worker’s neck. The worker is blue in the face and nearly strangled.

  “Watch the claws, they’re toxic,” Dev warns as he maintains defensive watch for other Yeti. Chaz holsters his weapon and uses both hands to grip the Yeti thumb and two fingers, bending them back to release the Lyran. It takes effort because the hand is actively gripping the Lyran’s neck. Chaz forces the hand open. The worker, spattered in exploded black Yeti blood, gasps, the color instantly returning to his face. Chaz flings the arm away. On the ground, the severed Yeti arm and hand continues trying to grip at something. Chaz shivers, trying to shake the creeps the disembodied arm gives him.

  “Thank God you’re here,” the worker chokes out, holding his neck. Chaz helps the man sit up. His neck already has a Yeti handprint bruise, but he’s not bleeding. The man is coughing and trembling uncontrollably, holding on to Chaz in a panic. The life in the severed Yeti arm finally wanes and dies out.

  The sound of airborne engines is heard overhead. Dev and Chaz look up and see support ships from Adonis landing nearby and farther downrange in the settlement to render assistance.

  Dev looks at the face of the terrified worker and forces him to focus. “Look at me. Look at me! Did any other Yeti come out of there?”

  “I—don’t know, sir. Just the one, I think.”

  Dev looks at the wreckage of the Yeti fighter, then back at the Lyran. “Can you make it to the rescue ships?”

  “I—I think so.”

  Chaz helps the man to his feet.

  Dev looks at the man and doesn’t see any other injuries. “Okay, go. Hurry.”

  Chaz draws his weapon again. Together, he and Dev walk cautiously toward the Yeti ship. Dev stops by the small bits and stain on the ground that was Chaz’s Yeti. Dev looks first at the mess, then at Chaz.

  “Hair trigger,” Chaz remarks.

  “Overkill.” Dev smiles. He tugs at Chaz’s arm and puts himself between the ship and Chaz. “Stay clear of the forward guns.” He and Chaz divert in order to approach the Brigand from its side. Chaz is right next to him.

  “How many does that thing hold?”

  “There’s usually four of them inside,” Dev says as he does a visual survey of the crashed and badly damaged Brigand. The ship is an electrical mess: shorting cables, smoke, some orange flames. Electrical arcs buzz and traverse the metal angles of the ship. “Don’t come in contact with any of the ship.”

  “Don’t worry,” Chaz replies sarcastically. He can see how charged the wreckage is. They round the ship from the rear and see a large gaping hole blown out of its side. They can clearly see the remaining three Yeti inside are dead. One is decapitated below the shoulder. Another is shredded. The last, nearest the damage, is burned to a crisp with electrical arcs continuing to seek out any remaining uncharred organic material. Chaz focuses on the dead Yeti’s empty eye socket, glowing with electrical arcs. The empty seat had apparently been occupied by the Yeti Chaz shot.

  Chaz winces. “Oh, gross.”

  “Come on.” Dev runs from the wreckage toward the factory.

  They enter the burning building. Nothing but death and destruction as far as they can see. A large section of the building collapses. Chaz pulls Dev out of the way, and they barely escape. Outside, survivors of the factory disaster begin to emerge from other parts of the installation. Many of the survivors are badly burned, apparently having been too frightened to leave even a burning building with a Yeti right outside. Chaz hears a sudden crash of metal near him and swings his weapon toward the source. Dev is quick to put his hand on the barrel of Chaz’s gun and gently push it downward. A frightened man comes crawling out from the source of the noise, a pile of metal containers. Chaz lets out a sigh of relief and holsters his gun, thankful he didn’t fire. Chaz helps the man to his feet. “Don’t sneak up on a man with a weapon.”

  The man looks at Chaz’s holster and then him. Before anything else is said, a large shadow blocks the sunlight. Everyone looks up and sees an enormous shape in the sky, billowing smoke, and slowly headed downward. It is Adonis. Their attention is diverted when a two platoons of Lyran ground infantry arrives and take defensive positions around the crashed Brigand. The other platoon advances on the facility looking for enemies and tending to victims. Dev and Chaz meet with the Lead Infantryman and brief him on the status. Chaz watches as two soldiers set up some equipment near the ship. One Infantryman places a bazooka-like weapon on his shoulder. The Lead clears the area and orders to fire when ready. The Infantryman fires a large pronged cartridge at the ship. The projectile’s prongs imbed in the hull, rapidly drawing all the electrical activity toward the cartridge.

  Dev explains, “The cartridge is an electromagnetic capacitor.”

  “Like a lightning rod.”

  The group watches as the Brigand’s electrical charge nullifies. Another Infantryman scans the crashed ship with his interlink device. “All safe!”

  “What will they do with the ship?”

  “Study it; try to gain new information.”

  “Will it help?”

  “Probably not. The Yeti don’t have computers per se, but you never know. There could be something new in there.”

  Dev and Chaz turn their attention to Adonis as it nears the ground. Adonis manages to make a shaky landing with its ventral thrusters, downrange of Dev’s fighter, closer to the settlement. They hear the engines shut down, but smoke continues pouring from them. There is also smoke emanating from several hull breaches.

  The crew who stayed with Adonis begin emerging through exterior emergency bulkheads and escape lines. Some external boarding ramps lower with power. Others fire explosive bolts to drop their boarding ramps to the ground. Personnel urgently exit the ship. A few begin an immediate survey of Adonis, making sure the ship itself doesn’t present a danger to anyone on the ground. Everyone else seems to head toward the facility and Lyran settlement. The next group off the ship are those assisting injured Adonis crew members.

  Many long hours later, a field hospital is
set up outside near Adonis, with makeshift tenting put up to shade the survivors. Personnel, both military and civilian, work in tandem to tend to the many injured Lyrans and Adonis crew members alike. All four Adonis docking bays are open, with landing pads extended. Retractable stairs lead to both sides of the platforms. Every working Adonis exterior door and hatch is open, including the massive hatches to the engines.

  Dev and Chaz set down a stretcher with an injured Lyran near a group of medics. The surviving Lyran doctors and two Adonis medical officers are working nonstop tending to the injured. Chaz sees a crewman carrying a child and helping a barely ambulatory victim a hundred feet away and runs downfield to assist. Chaz takes the free arm of the woman and helps her toward the medical encampment.

  Dev spots his friend, Commander Vijay, working with a large paper chart set up on some cargo boxes, along with an electronic pad. His First Leftenant is on hand. Both are injured but continue working. Vijay’s left arm is in a makeshift sling. His right uniform sleeve is cut above the forearm and a bandage applied to his skin. Dev approaches and salutes.

  “You live, sir,” Vijay says, somberly repeating the once jovial greeting offered to Dev when he first arrived on Adonis. He returns Dev’s salute. He is pretty beaten up.

  “And you, sir,” Dev replies.

  Vijay looks across the field hospital and sees Chaz assisting the injured. “I feared Commander Chaz never made it off the Weather Deck.”

  “We barely escaped.”

  “A Brigand collided with Adonis at the start of the attack, just aft of the Weather Deck at the forward masthead. Six sections on three decks decompressed.”

  “Survivors from the Weather Deck?”

  “A few. They are writing their reports as able.”

  Dev looks at the paper chart. “Is that the damage assessment?”

  “This is the latest. The Brigands were swift. They strafed the city before attacking the complex. The garrison’s defensive battery was hit first. Then the officers’ quarters, barracks, astroport. Three quarters of the military personnel were killed, including the entire command staff. A gunner is now charge of what’s left of the garrison. The civilian population suffered as well. Medical center, food storage, pumping station, academic campus, all but destroyed. The Lyran doctors here now were off-duty at time of the attack.”

  The news of just how extensive the destruction to the civilian population affects Dev. He looks around with a terrible thought ringing in his head and then quietly addresses the First Leftenant standing with Vijay. “Leftenant, a moment if you please, sir.”

  “Of course, sir.” The officer takes a couple steps back and turns away to give the senior officers as much ‘privacy’ as can be expected in the circumstance.

  Dev looks at his friend and speaks quietly. “Vijay,”—Dev takes a nervous breath—“where was your patrol route before you were diverted to find me?”

  Vijay can see the anguish in Dev’s eyes and puts a caring hand on Dev’s shoulder. “I know why you’re asking. But your conscience is clear, my friend. If anything, your presence saved lives today.”

  Dev, weighing that information, nods slightly to his old friend.

  An infantryman hurries to the First Leftenant and hands him a message, and waits for the officer to read it, then dashes off again.

  Vijay calls to his officer, “Thank you, Leftenant.”

  The Leftenant returns to the chart. “Yes, sir. Report from civilian leadership, sir, the populous has open their homes to survivors.”

  Vijay enters that information in his pad.

  Dev looks toward the setting sun. “It’s going to be dark here soon. Their reactor launched just after we landed.”

  “Yes, it was far enough out of orbit when it detonated. I have crews trying to run an umbilical from Adonis into their grid as we speak, but the mutual damage is making it difficult. A fresh water generator is being set up as well, until we can piece together their pumping station. Hopefully the damage there is confined to the surface, otherwise we may need to decontaminate the aquifer. Have you anything to report to include in the dispatches?”

  Dev nods. “We encountered a single Yeti survivor from the crashed Brigand inside the complex. It had a Lyran hostage by the neck.”

  Vijay writes that information in his pad. “You eliminated it?”

  Dev shakes his head in the negative just slightly. “Chaz.”

  Vijay is surprised. “Really.”

  “I didn’t have the shot.”

  Vijay notices Chaz tending to a crying woman until a medic begins working on her injuries. “I have to say, I’m impressed with that Earth resident.”

  Dev looks around and slowly shakes his head. “Something feels very wrong here.”

  “I agree,” Vijay replies. “This almost seems like a diversion. During the attack, we received partial battle telemetry from one of the fighters from Warship Calibos. It was incomplete, but appears they chased a Yeti mothership out of the system more than twenty hours ago. We think the Brigands that attacked Adonis were lying in wait behind an asteroid that passed through the system a few days ago.”

  “Any word from Calibos?”

  “None. Nor from anyone else.”

  “Diversion,” Dev echoes, thinking aloud about the situation. “Comms are down . . .”

  Dev and Vijay suddenly look at each other with great concern. They are both thinking the same thing.

  Vijay looks at Dev’s fighter in the distance. “Your fighter, Dev, is it damaged?”

  “No, sir.”

  Chaz jogs up to the command post and nods to Vijay. “Sir.”

  Vijay nods to Chaz but continues to speak urgently to Dev. “Is your compression drive functional? Do you have enough fuel to reach the Crown?”

  “I’ll make do.”

  “Very well. I’ll hold our position here. Adonis still has a few working guns, so we’ll guard survivors. Tell the Admiralty the rest of my fighters will remain on patrol around Lyra until receiving new orders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And if Adonis is to fly again, they’ll need to dispatch a Tender.”

  Dev looks at the badly damaged warship. “She’ll fly again.”

  “My hope.” Vijay presses a few keys on his pad. “I’m sending my dispatches with you. Fly fast, Dev.”

  “Yes sir. We’re out of here, Chaz.” Dev runs toward the fighter.

  Chaz is surprised how Dev just took off running

  Vijay address Chaz. “Sir, despite these trying times, I’m glad to have met you. I’m relieved you’re both safe. Also, my sincere thanks for all your assistance. I commend you, sir.”

  Chaz is anxious. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Go on, you and Dev have work to do.”

  “Aye, sir.” Chaz takes off in a run toward the fighter. Dev is already inside and initiating the startup sequence. Chaz hears the engine startup surge. Not certain what kind of danger the intakes of the running engines present, he pauses slightly. He sees Dev’s arm urgently waving him over. Chaz bolts toward the fighter and climbs aboard quickly.

  “I thought you were leaving without me. What’s going on?” Chaz asks, out of breath.

  “We think something terrible.” Dev lifts off as the canopies are closing. Chaz quickly buckles in. Just as the canopies lock down, Dev swiftly transitions the fighter from vertical to horizontal flight, and then throttles up and the ship launches skyward. Dev eases back on the stick and increases their pitch. Chaz glances out the canopy and sees they are climbing perpendicular to the surface of the planet. Ahead, the edge of the atmosphere passes by the ship with the slightest of notice.

  Dev explains, “Vijay and I think this attack may have been a diversion.”

  “Diversion?”

  “Something about it doesn’t make any sense. The Yeti fled Lyra twenty hours ago, but left Brigands in hiding. They’ve never done that. It’s as if they wanted to keep Adonis out of the way.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “
I really hope I’m wrong about this, but those Brigands could have obliterated the entire settlement, only they didn’t. As it is, even if she was flyable, Adonis has no choice but to stay right where she is.”

  This news is chilling to Chaz, who understands that something much bigger is going on. “Where are we going now?”

  “To the Crown.” Dev flies quietly for a minute as he considers various possibilities, none of which are adding up. He’ll know more when they reach the Admiralty. Chaz, meanwhile, is staring outside, lost in his own thoughts.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Dev says.

  “Yeah,” Chaz answers somewhat vaguely.

  “Are you sure?” Dev says, glancing at Chaz.

  “I killed that Yeti.”

  That was it.

  Dev speaks with certainty, “You saved that man’s life.”

  “The Yeti would have strangled him?”

  Dev admits the grim truth. “The Yeti would have eviscerated him and left him to die slowly.”

  “Don’t they have weapons?”

  “Their instinct is to rip their opponents open.”

  “For real?”

  “It doesn’t get any realer than that,” Dev says. “Their claws have an anticoagulant toxin. It had that Lyran by the neck. The Yeti’s free hand would have gutted him, and the Lyran would have bled a painful death. I didn’t have the shot.”

  Chaz swallows and makes light of his contribution. “Then I guess it was good I was there.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  Chaz thinks about the ship. “Hey, I thought you said it wasn’t that easy to go back up.”

  Dev shakes his head. “That was different. We were in a combat situation and already on a trajectory inside the atmosphere.”

  “Okay, so?”

  Dev chuckles. “Different circumstance. You have to be very careful if there’s zero-g fighting going on above you.”