Starfighter Down

by M. G. Herron

  “You may look like her, but you’re not her. There’s nothing coming out of your mouth but lies. Give me a shuttle and let me off this mothership, or I’ll jump into the vacuum and die instead of giving you any information that could hurt my friends. I won't do it. I won't betray them. I won’t be y—”

  His voice climbed to higher pitches of earnestness as he rambled. And then suddenly his mouth opened wide and he clutched his head the way Mick had done, reinforcing her theory that something had caused the strange behavior in both men.

  What if the space madness wasn't random, as the legend supposed? What if it wasn’t caused by toxic radiation, but something else?

  What if it was contagious?

  What if Mick and Park had both caught it, like a virus?

  Casey heard the soft footsteps of Colonel Volk behind her, returning after evacuating the other patients. “What’s wrong with him?” he said, aiming his blaster at Park again.

  Casey’s hand shot out and pushed the gun down. “Don’t.”

  “I’ll just shoot him in the leg. It’s treatable.”

  “No. There’s another way.”

  Suddenly Park snapped up and narrowed his eyes. He gritted his teeth, then bent down and swept up a bloody scalpel from the floor, which he held in front of him like a dagger.

  Colonel Volk snorted with disdain. “What are you gonna do with that, Lieutenant?”

  Casey gasped when Park turned the scalpel against his own throat this time. The blade glimmered dully in the harsh fluorescent light of the hospital wing. “Don’t come any closer. I’ll do it!”

  Casey raised her hands. “Okay. All right.”

  “What are you doing?” Colonel Volk asked.

  “Just give him what he wants. I have an idea,” Casey whispered. She looked back at Park. “All right. We’ll let you go free. Just—just calm down.”

  She began to back up.

  “This is a bad idea,” Colonel Volk whispered.

  “Just go with it.”

  She forced the colonel to back out of the room. They fetched up against a wall in the hallway and she began to slide along it towards where Yorra and a few of the other patients were huddling fearfully, bracing themselves against each other and one medical bot shaped like a cone, colored white with red stripes.

  Park followed them out of the room, saw the pack of people blocking the way, and turned and went in the other direction, glancing down each hallway, trying to find another way out.

  That’s odd, Casey thought. Park would know his way around the hospital wing. But, for some reason, he was acting like this was the first time he’d ever been here.

  Maybe he’d never been in the hospital wing in the Paladin, but all the hospital wings on every ship in the Solaran Fleet were designed exactly the same way. Not identical, but close enough that she could find her way around any one of them easily.

  Instead of heading out towards the rest of the destroyer, Park staggered into the surgical unit.

  Just as she’d hoped.

  “Come on,” Casey whispered.

  They followed Park at a discreet distance while he poked into hallways and shook his head. He gripped the scalpel in his good hand. The other hand, the one with the missing finger, he held close to his uniform. Yorra had found a metal cane that would serve as a good club and Colonel Volk still had his blaster. Casey remained empty-handed. She didn’t want Park to see all three of them holding weapons and panic.

  Leaning back, Casey conferred with Colonel Volk, who she knew had fairly good aim based on his earlier success hitting the injector gun and taking off Park’s finger. She didn’t want him to lose any more fingers, but they needed a contingency plan. Colonel Volk agreed and they continued dogging Park, deeper and deeper into the hospital wing. He passed one recovery room, and then another before he made it to the ORs.

  As Lieutenant Park turned to go into one of the recovery rooms, a blaster bolt from Colonel Volk sent him reeling into the opposite wall. He stumbled away, moaning and dripping blood from his severed finger.

  “Good,” Casey whispered, “get him into that OR.”

  Park snarled, shaking his head as if to clear cobwebs or banish a headache. His injured hand kept clawing at his right ear.

  Colonel Volk fired at the wall again. Naab stumbled away from the blaster and into one of the automated ORs.

  “Perfect. Now let’s go,” Casey said. She rushed through the door and came under the arcing slash of a bloodied scalpel. Casey ducked and rolled along the floor, slamming her elbow and sending tingles down her arm. She used the other arm to push herself to her feet and leaned against the control console of the operating bot, which looked like a cockpit filled with a thousand spidery metal arms, each bearing sharp implements. The arms were folded up against the top of the shell so that when she pressed the open button, they all slid aside to reveal a lounge chair contoured to the human shape. It looked, she thought, almost like the tanning bed she used to use in the sauna back home.

  Turning back, she saw Park caught between herself, the operating robot, and Yorra and Colonel Volk, who blocked the doorway, each bearing their own weapons. Colonel Volk fired his blaster at the floor in front of Park, turning the metal white hot where the bolt struck.

  Park hissed at Volk—actually hissed—then slashed out at Yorra. Unlike before, when she had been unprepared and hoping that her friend wouldn’t hurt her, this time she was ready. Yorra slapped the metal bar down on Park’s wrist. He dropped the scalpel, and his hand curled inward into a claw.

  Casey leaped out, grabbed his shoulders and yanked Park into the open bed.

  Despite his injuries, the strong and stocky pilot braced himself against the half open shell, like a many-legged insect that refused to be pushed down the drain. He thrashed and squirmed, shoving Casey back with a power she’d never felt from him, even during their sparring sessions—a power fueled by fear of xenos. It took all three of them—Yorra, the colonel, and Casey—to force him down into the bed, but not before Park bit Colonel Volk’s bicep between his teeth. The colonel bashed Park in the head with the butt of his blaster, which seemed to daze the pilot long enough to get him strapped in. Casey slapped the button that would close the surgical shell and keyed in the command for an automated diagnostic (all while sending up a prayer to Lt. Colonel Walcott, may he rest in peace, for making sure all his pilots completed their basic first-aid training).

  The hologram of the AI’s face came up at the foot of the egg casing. Casey blinked dumbly as, for a moment, she thought she saw herself in Harmony’s pulsing light-face. She was pulled back to the moment when Park punched the inside of the glass, but she knew this glass was both shatterproof and durable, actually made out of transparent aluminite, and that his hand would break long before the shell would give.

  “What kind of operation would you like to perform today?” Harmony asked.

  “Diagnostic,” Casey huffed. “Diagnostic.”

  “Certainly,” the AI said in a cheerful tone.

  Park’s straps tightened down, as if pulled by an invisible winch. He struggled so hard against his lashes the veins in his forehead and neck popped out. But though he fought, he couldn't escape.

  “No! I won’t be one of your experiments!” He spit against the glass. “Let me go, you voidspawn creeps. The Fleet will find you. They’ll wipe you out!”

  Behind her, Yorra choked back a sob and slapped both hands over her mouth. She turned away and buried her head into the colonel’s shoulder. The XO held her as he, too, put as much distance between himself and the operating robot as he could without leaving the room.

  In the chair, beneath the shell, blue lasers swept up and down Park’s thrashing body.

  “Error,” Harmony reported. “Patient must remain still. Applying tranquilizer.”

  One of the surgical arms, which had been folded up against the shell, shot down and embedded a needle in Park’s neck. His eyes went wide as a clear liquid was pushed into his veins. His thrashing slowe
d, but didn’t stop. Any normal person would have been knocked out cold by that quantity of tranqs, even a starfighter pilot accustomed to taking chemicals into their system. Park continued to struggle. Gradually, the fight left his limbs, retreating to his face and vein-riddled neck. Foam drooled out of his mouth.

  He looked like a rabid animal. Casey placed a hand against the transparent shell. “I’m sorry.”

  A blue scanner traced Park again, eliciting a warm chime from the operating bot. “Foreign body detected. Preparing for extraction.”

  The AI’s face blinked out. In its place, a subcutaneous image revealed a xeno form, almost certainly Kryl. The alien resembled a worm, its thin segmented body sprouting eight legs, each terminating in multi-pronged, hair-thin talons. Casey shivered violently. Though every fiber of her being conspired to send her fleeing from the surgical machine, she forced herself to face her fear and remain at Park’s side. She had no idea if he’d survive this procedure. Casey hadn’t been able to be there for Nevers. Or for Walcott. So she stood her ground here, now, for Park.

  Is this loyalty? Casey wondered. Stubbornness? Or do I just want to prove that I’m not a coward?

  “Hang on, Park,” she said.

  His face went slack. The drugs had finally taken hold. Several of the operating arms unfolded. Casey flinched when the pilot began to thrash again. She didn’t know how he had any strength left, but there it was.

  Two of the operating arms clamped down on Park’s shoulders with angled grabbers and held him flat against the table. A strap shot out of the bed’s tapered edge and lashed down over his forehead. Another extended to restrain his feet. At the same time, a surgical arm lowered and held a mask over Park’s mouth that reminded Casey of nothing more than the oxygen mask they each wore in the cockpit of their Sabres. The egg’s interior filled with a thin gray gas.

  Another of the surgical arms extended and formed scissors that cut away part of Park’s uniform, exposing his muscled chest and abs. Suddenly, the gas evacuated and a suction cup fastened down over the top of his sternum, sealing against his skin.

  Inside the suction cap, the creature she’d seen in the hologram appeared in outline against Park’s flesh. The creature seemed to know it was being tracked. It squirmed forward, disappearing again under Park’s left pectoral muscle. The suction cup followed, hurrying after the creature as it burrowed into muscle and tendons. The worm fled down toward his waist, then up along his ribcage until the machine trapped it against Park’s neck.

  The surgical apparatus applied continuous force, pulling the creature up to the skin until every segment of the xeno—no longer than her pinky, its extremities whip-thin—was outlined clearly against Park’s clammy skin. It looked like his flesh had been branded with the xeno’s form.

  Casey heard somebody gag behind her and turned to see Colonel Volk covering his mouth with one hand. Yorra had her face buried into his shoulder. While Casey was looking at the bewildered pair, a piercing cry of pain erupted from Park.

  “AAAAGH!” The pilot’s body arched up as his skin split. The worm-like xeno came crawling out, its skin pale and mottled with veins. The worm pulsed with Park’s blood. It opened its petal-like mouth and gave off a tiny scream of its own before it was pulled through a tube attached to the suction cup. The operating machine spat the xeno into an aluminite jar, which was immediately sealed.

  Park sagged back against the table, his head lolling to one side, and went truly and finally still. The operating bot sealed the wound with staples, then treated and wrapped the blaster-burned stump of his missing finger. The surgical arms retracted. The straps that had been holding him down loosened and slithered away. Pressure released with a hiss. The aluminite shell of the surgical table cracked and levered open.

  With her heart hammering in her chest and her breath coming quick, Casey hesitantly approached Park, who was deathly still. Had he survived? He wasn’t moving…

  She reached out. A low rush of hot breath tickled the hair on the back of her hand. Casey sagged in relief. Park had a raging fever and his skin was clammy, but his chest slowly lifted as his lungs filled with air.

  “He’s alive,” Casey reported. “I think he’s gonna make it.”

  Yorra and Colonel Volk separated sheepishly and studied the situation warily from across the room before slowly approaching.

  Seeing Park breathing on his own, Yorra exhaled a tremulous sigh. Colonel Volk holstered his blaster and dug a flask out of his officer’s jacket. He took a swig, then offered it to Yorra, who took a sip and passed the flask to Casey.

  Casey’s anger at the XO flared. But after what they’d just been through? “Hell, why not,” she said and took a shot.

  After wiping her mouth, Casey picked up the clear jar containing the Kryl worm. She held it at arm’s length. Her skin crawled. The tumescent xeno convulsed and vomited up a surprising amount of blood. She wished the surgical machine had killed the creature, but she’d be damned if she was going to risk opening the jar to finish the job. “The admiral said she needed evidence. Do you two think this little parasite counts as evidence?”

  Fifteen

  Elya crouched atop the ridgeline and gazed down on the compound they called Slocum.

  It had the look of a military encampment: six identical rectangular prefab buildings had been placed in a column along one side, evenly spaced like neat little soldiers. The other half of the property featured a “parade ground”—really just a grass field—encircled by a paved track, several small sheds likely used for storage, and a communications array powered by a bank of solar cells feeding into a large battery. The whole thing was encompassed by an electrified chain-link fence. Not the best defensive system, but sturdy enough to keep out large predators in the early days of a new colony. The Empire must have provided the patterns for the buildings, and probably the 3D-printers, too. As usual, they offered the bare necessities and not much more.

  Now, however, several details made the structure look distinctly not Imperial. For instance, one corner of the fence had been torn open, then patched back together with what looked like a yellowish-gray spider’s webbing, but which Elya knew to be Kryl excretions. The ground in front of the security gate was torn and pitted, as if it had been the site of a great brawl, and patterns of soot—blaster marks—told the story of a tragic, last-ditch defense. Packs of groundlings roved the perimeter, occasionally stopping to pick at one of several ravaged human corpses. The bodies had been out so long that they had almost no meat left on their bleach-white bones, which could be seen poking up through the remaining shreds of clothing. Trails of dried blood stained the untrimmed grass leading to the largest pile of bodies in the middle of the parade ground.

  “So this is what raised the flag to the Empire,” Elya said. “The first packs of groundlings were discovered… what, a year ago?”

  “Two years.” Thom, the machinist, snorted and glanced sidelong at Elya. “Took a while for the Colonization Board to take us seriously. The Kryl infestation was under control up until about six weeks ago. Once preparations for the evacuation ramped up, the Kryl started to organize themselves. They only raided Slocum recently.”

  Elya spat into the grass. “At least they didn’t make themselves hard to find.”

  Father Pohl smiled grimly. Charlie and his three soldiers stood apart and held their silence.

  “How do you know the jamming signal is coming from here?” Elya asked.

  Thom handed his binoculars to Elya. “Check out the communications array.”

  The satellites were half-covered in what looked, at first, like fungus. Planted on the ground among the panels, a bulbous sac laced with veins slowly expanded, as if breathing. With each contraction, it excreted a small amount of yellow pus onto the ground, and it was this pus that crawled up onto the panels and over the communications antennas, turning into a hard chitin as it spread over the electronics equipment. It took him a moment, but Elya finally picked out the antennas and dishes that broadcasted radio waves
and tightbeam signals. The equipment was covered in organic matter.

  “Destroy the creature producing the jamming signal,” Charlie said, “and your cube should connect.”

  Elya handed Thom the binoculars and glanced back at the soldier. The facile nature with which Charlie handled his gauss rifle, and the way he un-self-consciously used hand signals to halt the hiking party for water breaks over the past few hours told Elya much about the man. He led the group like he was in command but deferred with shaded glances to Father Pohl.

  Thom had chatted amicably with Elya for most of the morning, quizzing him about Hedgebot, the mechanics of his Sabre, and the requirements for qualifying to fly starfighters with the Fleet. He’d also told Elya the names and stories of the three soldiers humping rifles and following Charlie’s orders. The tall woman with grey hair was known as Postiss. The younger blond guy with bulging biceps and pecs you could set a teacup on was her son, Brill. And the other woman, with a thick brow, jet-black hair tied back in a ponytail, and a dimpled chin, was called Taylix. All of them were ex-infantry who had done stints as mercenaries after the Kryl War before retiring to Robichar.

  “How do you suggest we get in?” Elya asked. “The place is crawling with Kryl.” He stepped back from the ridgeline and widened his gaze to take in the forest, which had grown thicker as they descended toward the encampment. Hedgebot, on his shoulder, stood up to mimic his pose. The last thing they needed was for one of the groundlings roving the perimeter to spot them and sound an alarm. The Kryl’s psychic connection meant that they could respond to outside threats faster and with more accuracy than any human security force, and the two larger, uglier creatures—the kind Solarans called sentinels—standing guard near the door of one of the prefab buildings would be a whole hell of a lot harder to kill than the groundlings. This particular brand of xeno could rise to three meters tall and was covered in overlapping plates of purple-black carapace twenty centimeters thick in places. They had two alert, unblinking eyes lodged too far apart in their head, which was crowned with a single horn of dark bone. It made them look kind of goofy, especially when they were just standing there staring at nothing, but Elya wasn’t fooled.