by J. S. Fields
The med bay was dim, the track lighting turned to low. Yorden straightened—as much as the ceiling allowed—and let his eyes adjust. There were no Mmnnuggls present that he could see, but given their dark bodies, he didn’t trust his vision in this gloom. There was also no way of knowing if Salice, the Ardulan woman who had been pulled from the wreckage of the Pledge with him, was still being kept here. She’d been hooked up to wires and machines the last time he’d managed to get this far, but the Mmnnuggls could have finished their research. Perhaps they had found the answers they were looking for. Perhaps she was dead, like the rest of his crew. Like his pilot. Maybe like everyone on the ship since there wasn’t a damn beach ball in sight.
“Ardulan!” Yorden hissed as loudly as he dared. After a silent moment, he tried, “Salice?”
A biped with dark hair slid from the shadows. She was thinner now than the last time he’d seen her, but she looked more alert, which was an improvement. She was nude as well—the Mmnnuggls had no concept of clothing—and as she walked towards him, Yorden could just make out the black hexagons that spanned the right side of her torso. It was her Talent marking of Aggression, and apparently it was the only place on her body not under scrutiny by Mmnnuggl medics. Yorden tried to count the pinpricks that peppered her translucent skin. He’d seen more of the Mmnnuggls’ handiwork the first time he’d stumbled upon the woman, and he’d even had a chance to speak to her another time before the Mmnnuggls had corralled him back to his room. She’d not spoken back, of course: the Ardulans the Risalians had bred were mute by design, but she could mime, and the wounds on her body told an explicit story of their own.
“It’s time,” Yorden said, trying to remove the gruffness from his voice. Not that it mattered. Salice always seemed immune to tone. Being bred and raised as a non-sentient slave would do that to a person, Yorden supposed. The next time one of the markin approached him for a hauling job, they were going to have a long talk about the cost of the Charted Systems’ perfect peace. In retrospect, Yorden had seen the Ardulans before, when visiting Risal or signing contracts with Cell-Tal. He’d just…he’d never connected the dots. He’d certainly never realized the Risalians had been toying around with sentients. That was unconscionable.
Salice nodded her head in deference.
“You…” Yorden trailed off. He wasn’t good with women like this. He wasn’t good with anyone like this, but he was especially bad with women. Neek was more abrasive than he was, with a seedy vocabulary to match. That he could deal with. Flirty women he could deal with. This…this stoic silence that bordered on subservience was maddening. Yorden had no desire to be the woman’s owner or master or whatever word the Risalians had programmed into her. He’d thought giving her a name might help, but Salice seemed as unaffected by her surroundings now as when he’d first stumbled across her in the med bay, and just as willing to follow his orders without question. They’d have to chat about that if they ever got free.
“Remember the plan? You can still voodoo the lasers, right?”
The woman nodded, and Yorden thought he caught a flicker of interest in her eyes before they blanked. That was enough for him. He grabbed Salice’s hand and pulled her towards the door. The whirring was back, as was the neon-green lighting, but the sound was much louder now as it filtered in through the gap. No Mmnnuggls came through the opening, however, even though it was large enough to fit just one Mmnnuggl.
“They never seem to like it when we’re together,” Yorden muttered. He got to his hands and knees and did his best to peek out into the hallway. His greasy hair fell forward into the opening, and he jerked back, cursing. So much for stealth. If lasers weren’t already being fired, chances were that not injuring him was still a high priority. Either that or they didn’t want to risk damaging Salice, their prized lab rat.
Yorden poked his head out into the hall. The door slid open another handspan as a Mmnnuggl repeatedly swiveled against a panel just to his left. Five Mmnnuggls waited at the far end of the hall, massing in a column, each spinning in the opposite direction from the one it touched. Three were covered in purple sedative.
“Surrender or the Terran will be killed!” a monotone Mmnnuggl voice boomed.
“Surrender or the what now?” Yorden stood and turned back to Salice. Her eyes were unfocused and pointed towards the ground. He swung her arm experimentally, but she did not respond. “Did you…” Yorden stamped his foot and hissed. “Did you acquiesce to this pseudo-medical bullshit so they wouldn’t kill me?! What the hell?”
Salice didn’t respond.
“You…you could have toasted this whole damn ship. Saved yourself the—you know.” He gestured to a patch of particularly angry welts near her breasts. When she still didn’t acknowledge him, Yorden changed tactics. He wasn’t going to lose another crewmember, no matter how frustrating the circumstances. They could debate self-sacrifice later.
Yorden got down on his knees and looked up, trying to catch Salice’s gaze. Her head jerked slightly when their eyes finally met, and Yorden offered her a tense smile. “Sorry. Ignore the yelling.” He pointed at the door. “We need to escape. I need your help.”
Salice opened her eyes wide and blinked three times in quick succession.
“Excellent.” Yorden stood, and Salice followed him with her gaze. “If you can make sure they don’t fire at us, I think I can deal with the sedatives. We need to reach the cockpit and take control of the pod, maybe see if we can fly it somewhere. You on board with that? We’re going to have to rile them up to do it.”
Salice nodded slowly, as if she was still digesting Yorden’s words.
“Good.” Yorden turned back to the door and pounded on the tortured metal. “Hey, NUGELS!” He slammed his shoulder into the door and then ran his fingernails slowly down the surface. Both he and Salice cringed. “You’d better get in here, you titha droppings! I’m a smelly, angry biped, and I’m going to wring Salice’s neck because I have hands!” For good measure, Yorden grabbed a fistful of round, foreign objects from the counter and threw them at the door. They clinked pitifully to the floor, but the smallest exploded in a short puff, splashing acidic slime that inadvertently disintegrated the remains of the door.
The acid had been unexpected, but they’d cope. What other choice was there? Yorden stood his ground, filling the doorway, and growled. There was no more lingering. The column of spheres—now comprised of six Mmnnuggls after the one by the door joined them—rushed forward, their ears curled tightly back.
“Get ready,” he whispered. “We—” His words were cut off when Salice crashed into his back and made them both fall, prone, to the floor. He heard a crack, felt a sharp pain on the left side of his ribcage, and heard a laser shriek above him.
Yorden was still trying to recover his breath when Salice sprang to her feet, grabbed the top Mmnnuggl, pulled them to her chest by their ears, and then launched them at the others. The Mmnnuggl hit the middle of the tower, and all six spheres smacked into the bulkhead and dropped like stones to the floor. Purple liquid leaked from an ear of the one Salice had grabbed. They vibrated and then lay still.
The largest sphere recovered and floated back to Yorden’s height before careening towards him, their front strategically covered in jagged crystal shards.
“Incoming!” Yorden yelled. He bobbed left, but the Mmnnuggl quickly adjusted. Not wanting to end up with a shredded face, Yorden raised his hand and tried to spike the top of the Mmnnuggl like a volleyball. There were no shards there, but there was a reinforced metal plate. The Mmnnuggl skittered sideways while Yorden shook his hand in pain. Beach ball body armor. Of course.
The sphere rotated once and then came at Yorden again, but they only managed to brush Yorden’s torso as he dodged away. It was close: one of the crystal shards had shaved off a bit of his chest hair. He took the opportunity to grab the Mmnnuggl by both ears and crush them between his hands.
Fittingly, the purple blood smelled like old volleyballs. Yorden tried not to vomit. Lu
ckily, the remaining spheres remained motionless on the floor, which meant maybe they were done with Mmnnuggl blood for a while. Yorden stepped over the prone spheres and motioned for Salice to follow. As the Ardulan stepped carefully over the unconscious Mmnnuggls, Yorden’s mind locked on the sedative still covering his chest from his cell guard. Avoiding hand-to-hand conflict would be ideal. These Mmnnuggls had no laser guns—not ones that Yorden could extricate and use, anyway—but they did have sedative. They had an excellent opportunity.
Yorden grabbed one of the unconscious spheres by an ear and rolled them over his chest, coating the Mmnnuggl in the remains of the sedative. The spheres seemed to have spread a clear coat of something on themselves before applying the sedative, so without it, the chemical would be effective against them. Of course, he could be wrong, but it didn’t hurt to try.
“C’mon.” Yorden gestured down the hall with Purple, the Mmnnuggl he decided to name as such due to them being covered in the stuff. “I think the cockpit is this way.”
Salice did not respond, which was not unexpected, but she did follow him on silent feet down the hall and into the adjoining one. A Mmnnuggl—small, with red-tipped ears—stopped in their tracks as the two bipeds came into their field of vision. The youth chittered nervously and then began to edge towards the interface panel.
“Don’t do it,” Yorden warned. He held Purple aloft and swung them gently by the ear. “Just go back to your business. Keep coming and I’ll either knock you unconscious or flatten you. Maybe both.”
The Mmnnuggl, it seemed, was unimpressed with the threat. The sphere accelerated to the panel and connected. The panel lights flashed. Before Yorden could react, Salice bounded to the youth and pulled them from the interface. She cradled the sphere to her chest, placed her hands on either side, and exhaled. The Mmnnuggl dropped immediately to the ground, unmoving and maybe even dead.
“How are you doing that?” Yorden hissed, trying to figure out if he should encourage the proactive behavior or have a conversation about killing young sentients. “Can you just kill any sentient at will? I thought that weird telekinesis only worked on electronic weaponry.”
Salice’s eyes settled on the sharp corner of the communications panel. She took the Mmnnuggl at her feet, lifted them over her head, and then brought them down quickly on the corner, slicing a large gash down the middle of the sphere. Streams of purple goop ran from the wound and pooled onto the floor. There was the smell of old volleyballs again, and Yorden’s stomach rolled as Salice reached her hand into the gash and began to fish around. Purple ichor squished out around her wrist and fell in sloppy dollops to the floor, staining her bare feet.
A smile threatened to appear at the corners of Salice’s mouth as she pulled her hand from the pulp. Squeezed between two of her fingers was a large, metallic chip. She held it up for Yorden to take, keeping the lacerated Mmnnuggl in her other hand. Instead of grabbing it—there was no way Yorden was touching that macerated thing—he leaned in and inspected the item.
“There is some really fine cellulose circuitry in there,” he said finally. “Must be how they do their ship interfacing.” Yorden looked back at Salice and frowned. “Are you trying to tell me that this is a weapon? Or maybe that it is close enough that you can access it the same way as a weapon?”
Salice nodded. Yorden had no idea which answer she was affirming, but it really didn’t matter.
“Helpful. All right. Let’s keep moving.”
They passed through the next several corridors without seeing any Mmnnuggls. A final turn brought them to a wide doorway leading to what appeared to be the cockpit. Inside, the walls were covered with more paneling, which currently showcased a star field and, as Yorden had suspected, a Risalian cutter. Shots flashed and illuminated the cabin, although neither vessel’s laser fire appeared to be having much effect.
Within the cockpit, about fifteen Mmnnuggls swarmed, all swirling in different speeds of agitation. Yorden couldn’t tell any of them apart—their nondescript purple-black bodies and ridiculous ears were all utterly uniform. He’d thought he might at least be able to tell the sexes apart, if not the genders, after all the squishing and disemboweling, but their insides looked as similar as their outsides. What was different now, however, was their frantic chatter and how not a single one of them had noticed either Salice or Yorden gaping at them. It was the perfect advantage.
Together, the pair launched into the cockpit. Salice wasted no time in hurling the Mmnnuggl body at the largest cluster of spheres, breaking the group apart and sending them spiraling in all directions. Yorden targeted another large group and raced towards them, arms outstretched, with Purple held as far away from himself as he could manage. Mmnnuggls screeched in alarm. When he thought he might be in range, he moved Purple off to his side and gave them a hard shake, trying to direct the sedative outward in a rocking motion. Loud splats followed, and the whirring of the spheres directly in front of him became erratic. Two crashed into one another while spinning at high speeds and then dropped to the floor, swirling drunkenly.
“Huh,” Yorden muttered under his breath. “Salice, you—duck!”
A dented Mmnnuggl was charging towards Salice’s back. Yorden dropped Purple and shot one of his hands out, hoping to smack the Mmnnuggl before they impacted. He missed, but Salice turned to face him a moment later, her arms around the sphere in question, purple blood dripping from the Mmnnuggl’s ears. Her face was impassive, eyes slightly unfocused. Yorden took a step back, concerned for her mental state.
Three screaming Mmnnuggls zipped past his field of vision and crashed into bulkheads, followed by a fourth that was missing an ear. Yorden glanced over at Salice to see a smug expression on her face and the missing ear in her left hand. He considered a quip about bowling balls, but thought better of it. Instead, he picked up One Ear and tossed them back to Salice, who caught and immediately pitched them at an undulating, chittering tower of five Mmnnuggls in the center of the cockpit. The tower broke apart, but before Yorden could congratulate Salice on her aim, something struck Yorden in the small of his back, and he stumbled. Without thinking, he scooped up Purple, launched them over his head, and then slammed himself onto his stomach to avoid any splatter as he heard the telltale sound of goop hitting its target. He counted to five and then sat up. The Mmnnuggl behind him spun wildly around and crashed into one of the black wall panels, bounced off, and disrupted another spinning tower of spheres. Yorden heard an impact, and two more Mmnnuggls rolled past his feet, hitting the wall and remaining still.
Silence filled the cockpit. Wary, Yorden stood up and turned slowly in a circle and took in the scene. Mmnnuggl bodies lay in small piles on the floor. Some had ears that were twitching—others lay motionless. The final Mmnnuggl was hovering right around Yorden’s shoulder height, pressed tightly to what Yorden assumed was the main console. On the viewscreen, the space between the Risalian cutter and the pod was dark. A momentary ceasefire? Unsure, Yorden looked for Salice and found her far away, grinning wildly, covered in Mmnnuggl blood, and surrounded by more bodies.
“Strike or a spare, you think?” Yorden asked, mostly to himself. He debated incapacitating the remaining sphere, but then decided against it. They weren’t engaging him, and he and Salice would need a pilot if she couldn’t figure out how to fly the pod.
Yorden carefully picked his way over to Salice and gave her a firm clap on the shoulder. “Nice work, partner. See if you can pilot this piece of crappy metal, would you?”
The remaining Mmnnuggl tracked Salice’s movements, their ears curling and uncurling as she slid her fingertips across the smooth, black paneling. When the Ardulan turned back to Yorden and shook her head, the sphere chittered. On the viewscreen, Yorden saw a laser beam shoot from the cutter, and this time, the pod jostled.
“Risalians!” chirped the sphere as they began to vibrate.
Salice, without prompting, placed her hands flat upon the interface next to the quivering Mmnnuggl before closing her eyes. The p
od’s laser fired in a long, continuous stream. It hit the cutter’s cockpit—a direct impact. A smile grew across Salice’s face as the ship, still not retaliating or moving, broke apart, sending blue bodies cartwheeling into space.
“Hey, wait, wait!” Yorden ran to Salice and pulled her from the paneling. “It would have been nice to talk to them before—”
“Terran Yorden Kuebrich,” the sphere spoke in crisp, unaccented Common. They shivered—or lurched, Yorden couldn’t tell which—and then rotated once clockwise. “We appreciate your assistance with the Risalians. However, you destroyed our physical forms, which will take a great deal of time to repair. How? You control the Ardulan construct? How? We hypothesized that you were under her protection. She only acquiesced to testing upon the condition that you not be harmed.”
Yorden ground his teeth and glared at Salice. Her eyes were unfocused again, although a smile still played at the corners of her mouth.
“Terran Yorden Kuebrich,” the sphere said again. “Do you control this Ardulan?”
Did he? Why the hell did it matter? God, he wasn’t dealing with another set of religious fanatics like the Neek that were completely obsessed with Ardulans, was he? Or maybe another species bent on their control and manipulation? Yorden didn’t care for either option, but since he’d been making a lot of correct assumptions recently, he rolled the dice one more time.
“Yes, I control her. I, uh, control all the Ardulans. Sure.”
The Mmnnuggl stopped spinning and tilted to the right. Their coloring changed—Yorden had never seen that happen before—from near black to a delicate lilac. A strange buzzing rose up from behind Yorden. He turned halfway, careful to keep watch on the remaining sphere, and saw four more Mmnnuggls appear in the cockpit doorway. Another two joined—and then another four. They stacked in the circular entryway, buzzing the same four notes and slowly changing to the same soft purple.