Salvage Conquest

by Chris Kennedy

  The pressure in the cylinder dropped below 25%, and I shut off the flow. I looked at the outside pressure which now read “250 millibars,” or about what you’d encounter around 30,000 feet up on an Earth-normal world. I’d only survive a minute or two; it wasn’t much better than vacuum.

  Gotta stay alive!

  All or nothing. The spacesuit didn’t use the same oxygen bottle. If the pressure didn’t get up high enough, I’d have to basically don it in near vacuum, and the way I felt, it wasn’t a strong prospect. I twisted the valve open again, and the last of the tank air rushed into the fresher.

  As the tank ran down, I realized I was hearing the rush of the air. Glancing at my arm, I saw that pressure was now up to 620 millibars. The bottle ran empty, and I twisted the valve closed before my suit pressure dropped. The instrument read 650 millibars, about 12,000 feet in altitude. It would be enough. Except, as I looked at the display, the pressure went down to 649…648…646.

  “Damnit,” I growled and went over to the door, moving my head along the seam so the suit’s microphone could pick up any sound. The distinctive hissss of air escaping came to me. It was right by the locking mechanism. I needed to hurry.

  As I clawed at the helmet release, I had a second of panic when it didn’t want to come undone. Then I remembered it was a safety feature of the ESVS. The pressure inside the suit was higher than it was outside. I twisted the valve again, and this time, left it open. The suit deflated, and my ears popped painfully. It also got harder to breathe. I fought the growing sense of panic as the pressure inside equalized with the outside.

  You can do this!

  The helmet popped open easily, and with the mask up, I could twist the entire rig so it would release. Next, I pulled the seal open on the zipper and yanked it down. Then, all I had to do was scrunch down, slide my head out, and I was quickly free of the suit. My fingertips were black; I’d gotten frostbite. If it was frostbite or die, I’d take the frostbite. Besides, there was a medkit near the airlock. It was fixable. I was just glad it was cold, or the burns would probably have hurt like crazy.

  While I was stuffing the discarded ESVS into another corner, I heard a groaning sound and spun around. Was the door bulging outward? The groan repeated, and the hissing leak increased dramatically. In a panic, I turned and grabbed the spacesuit.

  What ensued would probably be funny, if I hadn’t been trying to save my life from a horrible, vacuum-sucking death. Between the discarded ESVS and the much bulkier spacesuit, I couldn’t get the spacesuit rotated enough to get it open. In retrospect, I should have prepositioned the damned thing, but with the room leaking and the door bulging, it was too late to worry about it.

  I don’t even remember how I got into the suit, only that my legs hurt and there were scratches on my neck. Bent almost double and grunting like a fat guy trying to do a pushup, I fumbled the helmet onto its ring and twisted the lock. It clicked into place, and I pulled the face shield down, just as the door failed.

  With a bang, the space-spunk-sealed door blew open, the air pressure more than enough to rip it from its frame and send it flying across the room. Unfortunately, I flew with it, propelled by the same force as the door. I had just enough time to be glad there was only enough air to partially pressurize the fresher before I collided with the opposite wall.

  * * *

  I must have hit the power button, because I woke up. If I hadn’t, I would have suffocated in seconds in a space suit with only as much air as was in the helmet, just like back on the bridge. But I was breathing, the spacesuit was pumping air, and the heaters had stabilized my temperature.

  Still alive.

  The spacesuit seemed undamaged, which was really good. A heads-up display was projected on the inside of the helmet, showing power levels, oxygen, maneuvering fuel, and other consumables. Everything was either full or near maximum. After struggling to stay alive minute-to-minute for hours, it was a little like being born again. Despite all my various pains, I felt good.

  Now what?

  I didn’t want to consider that particular question. I’d only been concerned with living to the next minute, then the next, and the next, for so long, I hadn’t considered what followed. The answer had somehow merged to my ship where the engineering section used to be.

  Using the spacesuit’s far superior zero-g maneuvering system, I located the discarded ESVS and stripped it of all useful gear, adding what I found to the spacesuit’s copious amount of pockets and storage clips. Afterward, I moved the door out of the way and exited into the hallway.

  I didn’t bother with the airlock; after all, a huge hole was handy. Using the suit’s maneuvering jets, I flew outside and angled back over the hull. It was a joy to be out in deep space again, without feeling the slow advancement of entropy working to freeze me to death.

  Once out in space, I utilized the spacesuit’s radar to look for the missing section of my ship. As I suspected, it was out there—12 miles away and moving further at 51 feet per second. I could reach it with the spacesuit. Most of its basic functions were not all that different from a mech’s, after all. However, if it proved to be in as bad shape as the other half of Arcturus, I wouldn’t have enough fuel left to return.

  Instead, I flew back to where the strange ship’s hull was fused with mine, then along the strange hull. It wasn’t easy, not at all. Unlike my ship, handholds were few and far between. Thanks to the non-ferrous nature of the armor, my magnetic grapples barely worked. I was forced to use my thrusters to fly to my destination. As soon as I reached the end of the center trimaran style hull, the nagging part of its strange composition hit home.

  “It’s a Zeshtoo ship,” I gasped.

  The battle fought in the system, a battle which brought me here to look for salvage, was between the Zeshtoo and the human forces of the Bimark Hegemony. Had I collided with a Zeshtoo warship?

  From my new vantage point, the design of the alien ship was even more discernable than before. It was long, sleek, and graceful. Not at all what you would expect from a warship. In addition, while it was clearly armored, there was no sign of weapons hardpoints or the hugely powerful shields you’d expect from a ship designed to fight. It was very confusing.

  Examining the ship, I tried to find a cockpit or bridge. Adding to my fear that this was a Zeshtoo warship was the lack of a visible piloting area. I burned even more fuel flying along the hull, looking for an opening. I eventually found an iris-shaped formation in the hull which I believed to be an airlock, only I’d never seen anything as advanced.

  Just outside Arcturus’ airlock was a small armory with my weapons—all of which I’d left there. I had nothing more dangerous than a screwdriver or a plasma torch. As I floated outside the alien ship’s airlock, I opened the spacesuit’s tool kit. I took out the screwdriver and the plasma torch, examining both and weighing my options. I eventually settled on the plasma torch and floated over to the iris.

  “Probably gonna have to cut my way in,” I said as I looked at the lock. There were no displays or controls of any sort. The entire thing, and the hull around it, were colored a dull green, which had probably helped me locate it in the first place. Then I noticed a hexagonal piece which was black instead of green. Reaching out a tentative, spacesuited finger, I touched the shape and almost shit my suit when the iris sprang to life, rotating to create an opening.

  I probably made a pretty ridiculous tableau, floating in space, brandishing a plasma torch at the dark opening into the spaceship. Did I think Zeshtoo would come boiling out at me? The idea made me shiver despite the suit’s perfectly maintained temperature. Nobody had ever seen a living Zeshtoo. If a ship was disabled, they self-destructed. We knew they were lizard-like, almost like a dinosaur in some ways. And we knew about their unwavering ferocity.

  Do you want to live?

  What choice did I have? I drifted inside.

  * * *

  The airlock, which is what it had to be, was circular instead of the cube shape I was used to. As soo
n as I crossed the threshold, lights came on. After the shock of the door opening, this wasn’t as bad. Maybe I was getting used to surprises? At least nothing had exploded or leaked in a few minutes. I examined the lock. Like the hull, it was almost seamless and without any of the common piping, power conduits, and controls.

  The interior was a uniform light gray. Opposite the entrance was another iris door and another off-color, black hexagon. A couple puffs of propellant, and I drifted over to the ‘button’ and touched it. This time, two things happened: the outside door quickly closed, and I was unceremoniously dumped on the floor.

  Gravity!

  It took me a full minute to get to my feet. I couldn’t figure out why it was so hard, until I realized the gravity wasn’t what I was used to—it was stronger by about 20%. The Zeshtoo lived in a higher gravity. Did anyone know this? I had no idea. I was more excited by the fact that the ship had gravity, because that meant it had significant power.

  The lights and working lock doors weren’t as significant as gravity. Artificial gravity took considerably more power. That meant the alien ship probably had primary power. Of course, did that also mean it had living Zeshtoo? Gripping the plasma torch, I touched the inside plate again. The second door rotated open.

  The hallways were dimly lit, close to my idea of twilight, and the light seemed more reddish than I was used to. They were also quite a bit shorter. Maybe six feet tall. I was forced into a constant, slight crouch. I must have been quite the sight, stalking down the corridor in a full space suit with a plasma torch in one hand.

  As I thought, everything seemed to be working. The spacesuit said there were 1,400 millibars of atmosphere, which was slightly denser than Earth at sea level. The air was richer in oxygen at 25%, and the CO2 level was somewhat higher, though not dangerously so. The air was close to saturation level with water vapor, and the temperature hovered around 105 degrees. It would feel like a tropical rain forest to me.

  Every portal I came to was the same as the airlock, down to the black hexagonal switch. Some of the rooms were a mystery, others were obvious. The easily identifiable ones were a pair of staterooms with pads on the floor instead of raised beds. There was also a room which must have been a galley, and another which served as the ship’s computer center. It was funny their computers were so similar to the computers I was used to.

  At the end of a corridor was a heavier door of the same design. I had no idea if it was an engine space or the command center. The little map my spacesuit was building said I was in the middle of the central hull. I touched the plate, and it opened with a slight bang of escaping air.

  “Holy shit,” I gasped. It was the command center, only a big chunk of Arcturus’ hull was transfixing the space. Air slowly leaked from the places were the two ships became one. Though that, in itself, was not what made me gasp. Instead, it was the reptilian aliens embedded in the metal of my ship.

  The lower half of one torso stuck out at an obtuse angle. It had powerful legs with bright claws and a long, heavy tail. There was no blood. Death must have been instantaneous. A few feet away, the other alien had been merged with the metal just below the waist, it’s upper body projecting out from the bulkhead. I wondered: Is this two parts of the same alien?

  It was, without a doubt, a Zeshtoo. Enough of them had been pieced together from blown up ships to confirm as much. It was kind of like a velociraptor from Earth’s ancient past. Only a velociraptor didn’t wear a uniform or a high-tech headpiece and a flashing monocle over one big eye. The alien’s scales were iridescent in the brightly lit command center, casting little rainbows of light. If it hadn’t had razor sharp claws on long, powerful arms and far too many teeth, it might have been beautiful.

  Its eyes were closed in death. I moved closer to examine it, my suit’s camera set to record. If I survived this, the images would be quite valuable to the Bimark. I was glad I’d kept my helmet closed. Who knew what kind of weird germs the alien had? There had been a few extremely deadly plagues as the result of bugs from other worlds. I reached out to touch its scales, and it grabbed my hand.

  “Argh!” I screamed and tried to pull away. It had a firm grip on my hand. It’s eyes were slitted, like a reptile’s, and it was staring at me. The intelligence in the gaze was even more frightening than the grip it had on me.

  “You have killed me, mammal,” the Zeshtoo said in passable Earth Common.

  “It was an accident,” I said stupidly. “I was coming out of alter reality!”

  “As was I,” the Zeshtoo said. It’s iron grip lessened, and I pulled free in a panic, falling backward and fetching up against one of the many control stations. “Most bad luck,” the alien sighed.

  I could tell it was not well, which only made sense as it was merged with a metal bulkhead. I couldn’t imagine how much pain it was in.

  “I would have killed you if my weapon was not inside the wall with my legs.” It looked at the other alien’s lower part, and I could see a weapon belted to its waist. “Just out of reach as well,” it said. “Bad luck runs in many numbers. I couldn’t use it on you…or myself.”

  I stared at it dumbly, realizing I was clutching the plasma torch at my side. I’d completely forgotten about it in my panic. The alien looked down and saw it.

  “An agonizing way to die,” it said. “Finish your killing?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” I persisted. “I’m just a salvager.”

  “Does not matter.” The alien looked at the pistol on the other. “My fate is sealed. If you give me that mercy…” It looked at the nearest control station. “If you give me oblivion, I will give you my ship.”

  My pulse quickened. The ship was mostly operational. The import of what it was offering began to dawn on me.

  Survive!

  I moved, slowly at first, to the side, so I wouldn’t be in range of those claws again. Maybe it was just luck it hadn’t clawed my suit open. A complicated ruse wasn’t out of the question to my freaked out brain. When I reached the rear end of the other alien, I reached around it to avoid being close to the one I’d talked to, found the weapon’s handle, and jerked it free of its holster.

  It was surprisingly similar to our own laser pistols, though strangely shaped. However, the controls were mysterious.

  “There are two buttons,” the alien hissed and pointed with a claw. “Yes, there, by your small blunt digit.”

  “Thumb,” I said automatically.

  “Whatever, mammal. Click the button, and the weapon will be ready to fire. Depress the stud under your curled digit twice to shoot.”

  I nodded, clicked the button and felt the gun vibrate once. Some kind of a warning? A yellowish light was glowing on the side. There didn’t appear to be any kind of sights. I was only a yard away, so it wouldn’t matter. I aimed it at the alien’s blunt, scaled head, but quickly lowered the gun. “The codes?” I asked.

  “I hoped you’d forget,” it said and made a hissing/chuffing sound. Laughing? “Go to the panel. Press the icons I tell you to.”

  A minute later, the controls were active. The displays were using a rudimentary form of Earth Common I could understand. How do the Zeshtoo know so much Earth Common? Whatever the reason, I had control of the ship. I could see navigation, propulsion, engineering, weapons, and shield controls.

  “Are you satisfied?” the alien hissed, breathing faster. Clearly the exertion was painful, possibly agonizing. Its pain tolerance must be unbelievable.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Finish,” he said. “I beg you.”

  I raised the pistol and lined it up on the target.

  * * *

  The ship was underway, moving at a slow pace to meet up with the former stern section of Arcturus. I was already getting used to the controls of the alien ship. It was unusual, though not terribly complicated. The ship smelled musky, like fish and rotted vegetation. The smell of metallic blood was fading after I’d cut away the bodies and jettisoned them.

  As I watched the ship
section getting closer, I considered my latest salvage. A lot of things needed figuring, not the least of which was how to take the ship through alter reality and arrive at a human system without being attacked. The arrival of a Zeshtoo warship wouldn’t be greeted with open arms, not after the battle in this system. Another issue was repairing the damage. I didn’t have one complete ship, but two damaged ones. Based on the various systems I’d studied, I was optimistic.

  The dead alien did give me its ship, but not the data in its computers. Some kind of failsafe had locked or deleted it. Only the operating systems were functional. I shrugged. I had time now. The future was rife with possibilities, and I looked forward to what would come of my salvage.

  I survived.

  * * * * *

  Mark Wandrey Bio

  Living life as a full-time RV traveler with his wife Joy, Mark Wandrey is a bestselling author who has been creating new worlds since he was old enough to write. A three-time Dragon Award finalist, Mark has written dozens of books and short stories, and is working on more all the time. A prolific world builder, he created the wildly popular Four Horsemen Universe as well as the Earth Song series and Turning Point, a zombie apocalypse series. His favorite medium is military sci-fi, but he is always up to a new challenge.

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  Akalla Nights by Ian J. Malone

  Matt wiped the sweat and grime from his forehead then rose to his feet amid the smattering of wires and gutted equipment lining the cargo bay floor around him.

  “How bad is it?” Leslie asked.

  “Bad enough.” Matt frowned at the large metal claw before him. “I’ve installed a temporary patch between the power relays to get us by. Without the proper parts for an actual repair, though, we’ll have to keep Loader One on light duty, or we’ll blow out her main conduit.”