by Chris Turner
Almost as quickly, his dreams faded to dust as his precious escape ship erupted in a ball of flames before his very eyes. The concussion knocked him backward.
Crawling on his hands and knees, he sobbed. “No, no! It wasn’t meant to be like this!” He pounded his fists on the ground.
Looking over to the other ruin, Yul frowned. If the dragonfly creature hadn’t been confined in Hresh’s Biogron, it would have survived the onslaught. “Up, you!” he cried at Hresh, turning back to gather up the distraught man. “This is not over. We may need you to fly one of the alien craft. You’re a scientist, you should know something of technology.”
Hresh’s eyes rounded like saucers, mirroring resentment at the sardonic remark. “Why not fly one of the terraformers?”
“Too slow, too obvious,” grunted Yul. “One of those gets in the air and the Orb will gun it down in a second.”
“This ship here then,” Nonas cried, motioning to the last aphid lightfighter parked a stone’s throw away.
He sped up the locust ramp and smashed the butt end of his E1 on the access control panel. The door jerked open. Yul and Cloye scrambled aboard, dragging Hresh. Obviously the locusts kept no security here, expecting no resistance to their clear occupation of the hangar.
The foursome crouched low, crawling ahead in the dimness, breaths held.
Nonas motioned them to the sidelines with his weapon silently. The whites of his eyes betrayed no sign of hostile movement. His lips moved as if to utter a reassuring word, then suddenly his head and helmet exploded in a ball of crimson. Yul and Cloye ducked, staggered back, faceplates coated with Nonas’s brains.
Yul cursed. “Shit!” So a guard had been posted.
He ran full tilt through the murk, a blood-crazed yell on his lips. Bending low, he slammed hard into a weapon-bearing locust with its lumo disruptor clutched in its pincer. He knocked the weapon aside and sent the insect flying. He crashed on top of its crusty carapace, his full weight straddling it like a gorilla, then he smashed his gloved fist into its chitinous face. It lay there, stunned. Yul’s mechanical fist arched back for a killing strike, but he stayed his hand. It took all his willpower to temper that iron hammer of a fist from smashing through its gullet and into the back of its skull.
No, another time. They would need this verminous creature to fly this piece of trash out of here.
The thing was still conscious as Yul saw. He dragged the insect into the pilot’s chair.
The locust played dumb, its head lolling. Yul twisted its claw with painful effect. The locust chattered out gutturals through its bleeding mouth. Yul grinned with satisfaction.
The locust set pincers to tapping the key console. It got the message, Yul saw. The engines roared to life.
The creature twisted and turned more sticks and toggles that looked like insect antennae. Cloye and Hresh stared at the ship’s surroundings in horror, ruminating on the dire situation. Cloye prowled around like a caged lioness, wincing at the murky tanks off to the side, replete with their gape-eyed human occupants. She dragged Nonas’s headless corpse off to the side, gagging at the carnage.
Hresh stood mute, like an unmoving statue, eyes glazed over.
“We’re all dead,” he mumbled.
“Make yourself useful,” growled Yul. “See if you can figure out these controls. We could use some weapons right now.”
“Forget about their weapon systems,” muttered Hresh. “This panel’s covered with alien script. How do you expect me to decipher it?”
“The same way you rig up a mechanical monster out of a butterfly. Figure out their crapbox weaponry. This grasshopper here—” he motioned to the dazed locust “—doesn’t look as if it’s going to be much use with weapons, even if it’s capable. I’m thinking at best, it’s a pilot.”
Hresh grunted without enthusiasm. He clomped over to sit before the adjacent console.
With Yul’s and Hresh’s assistance, the ship lifted into the air, passing easily through the crack in the dome.
Alien chatter came over the com in garbled bursts.
Yul lifted a finger, cut it across the insect’s neck. “Don’t answer that, freak. Show me the map, the star map.” His quiet command hissed in the insect’s ear.
Though the thing could understand no human tongue, Yul’s suggestive coercion was of such ominous simplicity that the creature brought up a clear map of immediate space.
“Zoom out... Alpha sector! There.” Yul cried, stabbing a finger at a luminous area 18 parsecs away. He pushed his blaster to the thing’s head. “Now. Set it!”
Cloye sucked in a breath. “That’s far, Yul. Does this ship have the capacity for it?”
“It better, or we’re dead. The farther we’re away from this alien nightmare, the better.”
The locust tapped in the coordinates with celerity, fearing the intruder’s threatened punishment. Bright fear danced in its crimson eyes.
“Do you think it understands?” asked Cloye.
“It understands well enough. If it tries to double cross us—” Yul slowly sliced a hand across his neck. “That head comes off.”
Cloye shrugged, wrapping her arms around her midsection. “I’m itchy and cold, Yul. I’m taking this suit off. The suit sensors show the cabin air’s breathable.”
“No! Keep it on. We don’t know what tricks this bug may be up to. It could poison us for all we know with a flick of a switch.”
Photon blasts rocked the ship at her stern. Aphid lightfighters ravaged the shields. They had clued into the hijacking, but it was too late. Yul felt the tug of the light drive hit his gut as the ship entered the light highways. The forward viewports glowed with blurred lines and squiggles, then the ship entered the zone of impossibility, a singularity to nowhere, and everywhere.
Yul breathed a gasp of relief. They had left behind Remus. While he and Cloye were conversing, the locust made motions to lift itself from the chair, reaching for a side panel.
In three strides, Yul was at its side and stuck the weapon in its ear. “Fly this thing!” he cried, waving his mechanical fist dangerously close to the locust’s head, pointing to the star map. “To the free colonies—”
The locust seemed to understand that its life was forfeit, and settled back in its chair.
Yul hated the sight of the tanks that glowed off to the sides, which Hresh seemed to be examining now with macabre fascination. “Get away from there,” Yul ordered.
“You’re strung too tight, Yul,” said Cloye. “Take a break, I’ll watch the bug.”
Yul frowned. “Perhaps you’re right.” He looked around and found some tough cord or adhesive like rope, probably what these bugs used on their victims during their raids. It was in the supply kits by the tanks, which he promptly wrapped around the locust’s chest, securing it firmly to its seat. He wrapped several more loops about its pincers to reduce its mobility so it couldn’t try anything covert. He took several strides aft, stooped, pocketed the lumo disruptor which he had kicked away earlier from the locust’s pincer.
A reek emanating from Nonas’s rapidly decomposing corpse forced him to find a large enough compartment to stuff the body in. He recalled, grimacing, that the air units in their suits were drawing oxygen they could obtain from the cabin...also that the slightly alien air mix was somehow contributing to the fetid stench and accelerated body deterioration of Nonas.
This unpleasant task done, he glimpsed an escape pod aft which could prove useful. Also two small bays with raiding gear and supplies: hooks, grapples, carts, equipment he assumed convenient for the locusts’ kidnapping missions. On closer scrutiny, Yul saw this pod was more an EV vessel, complete with locust tail and wings, perfect for the locusts transporting captured humans.
“I’m burning up,” Cloye gasped, scratching at her neck and shoulder.
Yul frowned, uttering a worried sigh. “Fever. Probably from the toxins when those plants stuck to your skin.”
He eased himself with a grunt into a sitting position beside t
he command post near the tanks, his fingers pressing the bridge of his nose. His eyes were closed, chasing pain and exhaustion away from his aching limbs and wounds. His mind travelled to the nightmarish memory of the squids dragging Hresh’s scientists to their doom aboard the Orb.
“Those poor bastards,” he muttered, “they didn’t have much of a chance, did they, Hresh? Your scientists.”
Hresh shook his head and remained silent.
No matter. What was done, was done, Yul thought. His eyes fluttered closed. Cloye would have the first watch...
* * *
Yul awoke with a start to find Cloye’s olive-skinned body curled around him, practically naked. She had taken off her suit. What was she thinking? He growled out a curse, lurching to his feet, jolting her awake. She blinked, wiping sleep from her eyes.
Hresh was sitting with his back against the nearby wall, like a bag of potatoes, his head lolling, his mouth sagging open. He snored, feet pushed out in front of him like a clown.
The delinquent locust was still strapped to its wire-meshed chair, but the adhesive bands seemed looser than what Yul recalled. He grunted a sour sound. It looked as if it had enough wiggle room to reach one of the side control panels.
“Fuck! That was stupid, Cloye.”
“Sorry, I—must have dozed off.”
“The damage’s done. Get back in your suit.”
“Well, aren’t you a spoil sport?” She pressed closer, her lips drooping in a sultry pout, her breasts heaving.
“I am when I’m thinking that I could have had my throat cut.”
“Relax,” she purred. She eased into her suit, taking her sweet time. “Our grasshopper’s as harmless as a lamb.”
“Is he?” Yul regarded the locust through slitted eyes. The thing glared back at him, silent as a mouse, still as a statue. Something was not right about it. He could sense it in his bones.
The thing’s red eyes gleamed with a hatred that looked like speculation. Yul breathed a quiet breath. “This bug’s fucked us somehow. I can feel it.”
He stomped over to the console and tried to pull up the star map, remembering the sequences the locust had tapped before. The 3D hologram came up, but vastly different than before. Yul blinked in confusion. “Wait, did I? What the—”
“We’re still in the Dim Zone,” hissed Cloye.
“It can’t be, we’ve been flying for hours now,” cried Yul.
Hresh blinked, half asleep, “It must have changed the course.”
“It couldn’t have. Its pincers are strapped to the chair,” said Yul.
“It must have tricked you before you strapped it in,” said Cloye. “Set a faulty course. So don’t blame me.”
Yul tensed in hollow rage.
The ship came out of light drive as if of its own accord.
Yul whirled, caught his breath. He gasped at the panorama revealed on the viewport.
Ring stations, toruses, Orbs, odd-shaped ships everywhere. A firefly swarm of them, like nothing he had ever seen before. “It’s a world of warships...” he murmured.
Mentera heavy vessels, L-16’s, destroyers with massive artillery guns, conning towers a hundred feet high and insect-like grey superstructures, outstretched wings like grasshoppers. They were coming for them.
“What in the holy shades of hell—” Yul smashed his fist into the locust’s plated face. “You double-crossing piece of—”
“Those are Mentera ships!” cried Cloye, baffled. “Why are there so many? Where’d they come from?”
“It’s the Zikri and Mentera alliance,” whispered Yul. “So, it’s real. I see Zikri Orbs here.”
With nothing to lose, the locust whipped its left claw free of the tape and snatched at a toggle on the console, doubtless the hailing frequency.
“He’s warning the bug fleet!” cried Cloye. “Control the thing. Fucking cricket!”
Yul smashed the insect on the side of the head. It chittered and tore its way out of its straps which it must have been working loose while they dozed.
The creature bore Yul backwards, ramming him hard into a nearby tank. The locust’s strength was not insignificant and Yul felt sharp pincers pricking at his suit. He grasped both clacking claws before they could rip the material and wrenched them completely off. Then he whipped the thing off him and stomped a boot on its throat, breaking the wind pipe. The thing jerked spasmodically before it gave a final twitch and lay still; a viscid green fluid dripped from its cracked skull and mangled throat, spreading over its hard carapace.
“That was a stupid thing to do,” groaned Hresh. “Now it can’t fly us out of this mess.”
“There’s no flying out of here,” grated Yul. “There’s a thousand enemy ships around us. Don’t you see? Quick, into the escape pod. We’ll have to brave the planet below.”
Hresh stared in fascination upon the locusts’ ring-torus-shaped vessels.
The hailing frequencies were open and alien chatter sputtered across the air waves, filling the cabin, with clicks like the frenzied buzz of insects from a faraway rain forest.
Yul blocked it all out. He had to think. Damn! He thunked a fist on the control board, silencing the chatter momentarily.
“Hresh, get over here. Turn your attention away from the shipfest. I want you to fly this thing right into the centre of that destroyer.” He stabbed a finger at the insect-shaped L-16 on the viewport.
“Are you crazy?”
“Do it! We’re dead meat anyway. Our only hope is to escape in the pod. Cloye, do you think you can work it?”
“I have a basic training in evac. It’s part of my assassin’s training.”
“Good! To the pod then.”
“We’re sitting ducks,” murmured Hresh, still shaking his head.
“No kidding, anything else you’d like to add?” Yul glared at him.
Yul kicked the locust corpse aside and cast a fierce glance from the controls to the oncoming mass of ships.
“Hresh, do you hear me? Move your ass. Help me figure out these guidance systems!”
Hresh gazed at the controls with owl-like eyes, making some tentative moves, passing fingers over the maze of toggles, switches, and lights. “That looks like impulse thrust, and stabilizers here, I think.”
“Faster! Shit, man, are you a paraplegic? We’ve no time!” He cursed Hresh who started pressing buttons at random, pulling sticks and knobs.
The ship gunned itself erratically forward, in a direction 30 degrees closer to the destroyer. The crew was thrown back with the sudden acceleration. Hresh, twisting sideways, smashed his faceplate against a nearby console. The ship lurched like a lab specimen under electric shock therapy. The locust corpse slid across the cabin, slamming hard against the four tanks.
Cloye yelled from her station down the hall. “I’ve almost got this working, you clods. Careful. I don’t want to fuck up this launch sequence.”
Yul leaned in toward the controls, squinting through the viewport at the dim planet looming below. His lip curled in a vindictive grimace. “Aim closer to that destroyer.”
“They’ll nuke us as soon as we near it!” Hresh objected.
“That’s the point. Do it.” Yul saw the ship launch photon torpedoes at them.
Hresh flipped the alien controls. The ship wobbled on a jerky approach toward the aggressive L-16. The radio chatter grew in intensity. Yul scowled, pulling Hresh away from the controls, shuttling him toward the pod. Cloye yelled at them to hurry. Yul slammed shut the hatch.
He and Hresh plunked themselves into the bucket seats and pulled the straps over their shoulders. They locked themselves in tight.
Cloye engaged the launch lock. The pod, a bullet-shaped four-seater with two port windows and rear double thrusters, burst from the launch bay.
Just in time.
The enemy torpedo struck and a raging fireball exploded behind them. Their aphid lightfighter, now blown to dust, rocked the escape pod with a jarring force. Cloye was wrenched forward, straining against her straps.
Hresh howled in pure fright. Through the viewport Yul caught a gory glimpse of red hot shrapnel swirling in oblivion. The scorched metal fragments flew through the emptiness and splattered against the destroyer’s grey flanks. Random fires burst out on its spiked hull, hitting some sensitive areas, glass, metal fans, conning towers, penetrating the shields. Another concussive explosion rocked the pod. Yul’s look of dismay changed to triumph as his lips curled in a sneer.
The escape pod plummeted toward the murky grey planet below. Rolling and bucking like a horse, it corkscrewed through the black ether. Yul glimpsed another bright flare to the port bow. The pod rocked side to side, a deafening roar filling his ears as it entered the stratosphere.
Cloye wrestled with the controls, guiding the alien craft down as best she could. Enemy fire swept after it, slick trails sliding by the port windows like sheet lightning. A blast grazed the pod, sending it into a crazy tailspin. “Hold on!” she cried, jerking hard on an anti-roll stick, or what looked like one.
Hresh’s eyes tilted upward. The man looked ready to vomit into his helmet.
Lights flashed on Cloye’s console. The ship was tumbling wide on a crash course for the planet. The enemy ships—four aphid aggressors—whipped up and over the yawing pod, turning back to the Mentera station, a bright patch many miles in the distance. Their job was over. The pod and its occupants were doomed.
Cloye’s teeth clenched in a show of white. Her tight-knuckled grip never left the controls. Hresh, white as a ghost, gripped his arm restraints with one hand, two of his fingers trembling on the straps across his chest. Yul braced himself for impact. His mechanical fingers twitched and released, his mind angry with the knowledge that there was nothing he could do. The ship’s nose was up, and Cloye launched the first of deceleration sequences. The high G’s had them sagging into their straps, skin pulling away from their cheeks.
The landscape loomed ever closer: vague shapes of dormant volcanoes, dusty plateaus, rocky headlands from long-dried up seas.
Cloye, blinking against the massive force, kicked in the main stabilizers. Her cheeks and brow were oozing with sweat, practically dripping from her pores, but a determined gleam rested in her eye.