by Marc Landau
Not sure what good a wooden bat would do against the Krin warrior, but at least I’d feel great smashing the thing in the head. Like the Vikings maybe said, “It’s a good day to die!”
Just as I was about to yell my war cry and charge the Krin, the bot’s hand appendages glowed with orange electricity and shot the Krin with a blast that at least seemed to irritate it. It also made the armor briefly flicker like it had malfunctioned.
That’s when the two Pokas came racing in. I wasn’t sure if they thought this was a game, or they were trying to protect us. Either way, in their mayhem they leaped and slammed into the Krin, making it wobble.
Its wing things whipped around like a dragon’s tail and slapped the original Poka. She yelped and slid across the room and into the wall with a THUMP.
“You hurt Poka, you bastard!”
I went psycho, blood burning in my veins. Swinging the bat with reckless abandon. Smashing the beast over and over again, until the bat snapped in half. I stabbed it with the foot long wooden spike but couldn’t penetrate its armor.
At least we were keeping the thing busy and away from Kat. Maybe she could defeat the ship and help out. A quick glance told me she still had her hands full dissolving millions of Krin arrows. Again, it struck me weird that she didn’t just make the cube disappear with a snap of her fingers. The Ultra didn’t seem so all-powerful at the moment. Was the human-hybrid mix making it weaker, or was this all part of its mysterious plan?
The bot shocked the Krin again and again, its armor blinking on and off. That’s when I got the idea. “Bot. On my call, shock it.” It beeped a confirmation and I moved closer, ducking out of the way of its deadly dragon-tail swipes. I crouched low and readied myself to lunge. Then I went airborne…
“Now!” I screamed mid-flight, and the bot shocked it again.
The Krin’s armor flickered off, and in that instant when it disappeared, I drilled the wooden spike deep into its back (I think it was its back), feeling the wood pierce its flesh (or whatever it was).
The Krin screeched a terrible, staticky shriek and fell to the ground. Its armor flickered on again, and I yelled at the bot to shock it again. It did, and I stabbed it again. Shock and stab, shock and stab, over and over, until I was covered in black slime. Ugh. Why did all these aliens have so much slime? How about an ashy alien for a change of pace? Anyway, the thing stopped moving. Chalk one up for the good guys. And teamwork.
Chapter Thirty
I raced over to Poka to see if she was all right. She wagged her tail, got up and shook it off like water off a duck. Then she raced over to the Poka-clone and they both started playing.
With the Pokas okay, I went to see if there was anything I could do to help Kat. But she didn’t need my help. Suddenly she clapped her hands together, and the Krin ship turned into a black mist and faded away into nothingness.
A clap of her hands, and just like that, Kat had defeated the Krin ship. It was as easy as I’d thought it should be for the Ultra to defeat it. But why didn’t it do that earlier? Was it waiting to see what I would do? Would I sacrifice my life for Kat? Was it testing me?
Frak you, Ultra!
Regardless, the dragon ninja was dead and the Krin ship was gone. It was time to get back to Prime.
“Thanks for the assist, bot.”
“I did not assist in any significant measure. I produced three percent of the defensive…”
“Can you just say ‘you’re welcome’?”
“You are welcome.”
I slapped the walrus on the shoulder appendage. “It’s good to have you back. In all your argumentative glory.”
“Beep. Thank you. It is good to have the alien parasitic organism cleared from my programming.”
“You’re going to have to tell me all about it…”
“I returned to the contaminated pod and ran a tri-level multi-tiered subroutine cleansing protocol on the core root of my kernel until I was assured all alien code had been scrubbed from the key programming modules. I repeated the process thirty seven thousand times, then did seventy-three hard reboots, then contained any remaining code in a hard sealed biohazard data shield. Then…”
“I meant, tell me later. Right now we have other things to do.”
“What could be more important than understanding a sentient alien code? You cannot understate the primary importance of sentient code. It has only been theorized until now. Conscious code. Conscious. Beep, blip.”
The bot was acting like it had gotten the greatest birthday present ever. The gift of data. And just as I thought, it was drowning in new, previously unknown awesome alien information. It probably felt like I did when I’d first seen the planet and what the brethren could do. Except for the bot, it was numbers and equations that made its eye slits go wide with awe. I, on the other hand, was way too stupid to be impressed by math. I’d barely passed algebra.
I was happy to see it so excited that it had something to tell the world about since it had decided not to stay behind. At least it could gloat to its robo-buddies at the oil bar.
The sentient code thing sounded like it was a cure for cancer or something. I don’t know. To me, conscious code sounded like a robot with a mind of its own. My first reaction wasn’t, “Oh universes, that’s amazing!” It was, “Oh great. A conscious robot. What a pain that’s gonna be.”
“It sounds really impressive, but we have to get back to Prime before the Krin.”
The bot hummed its processing noises.
“You are correct. That is more important than the discovery of sentient code.”
I honestly wasn’t sure if the bot was being sarcastic or not but there was no time for petty sniping.
I checked on Kat and got an answer to at least one of my questions. It turned out the Ultra had a good reason for not just snapping its fingers and making the Krin disappear earlier. Maybe it wanted to see if we could defeat them on our own, because Kat looked wasted. She was on wobbly legs and looked like she’d been awake for a week playing Hextor Four in the virt-stream. Or like she’d nano-snorted a kilo of dark meth. Maybe both. She definitely needed rest.
I helped her to the nearest command room chair and sat her down. “You okay?” I asked, and she nodded. “Just need to rest a little.”
The Ultra’s powers had taken a toll on its human host. The two weren’t meant to fight battles with the Krin or teleport ships and fight with the brethren. Humans are too mushy for any of that. Kat was probably meant to keep the Ultra safe and contained until it could get home to its planet. She was a cardboard shipping box, not a battleship, and it was taking a toll on her.
The only problem was, as much as she needed rest, she needed to get us back to Prime. I wanted to tell her to teleport us, but there was no reason to bother asking. I could tell she was in no condition to teleport the Outpost a bazillion light years back to Prime. She at least needed a snack and a nap first.
I had the bot bring her another month’s worth of rations, but she pushed them away. No worms, no nothing. Just listlessness. I hoped she wasn’t about to go back into the comatose state I’d seen before. We needed her more now than ever. As much as she might need it, now was no time for a prolonged space sleep.
“Kat. I know you’re tired.”
She was barely keeping her eyes open.
“But we need to get to Prime.”
She opened her eyes a little, it looked like she was trying to lift cement blocks. “Get the bot.”
“Huh?”
She pointed weakly at the walrus.
“Come here,” I told it.
The bot scooted over, and Kat touched it with her hand and it started glowing again. Then she closed her eyes and started snoring. I almost laughed. The Ultra was snoring. Who knew? It was a cute little wheeze-snore Kat used to do, but would never admit to. “I don’t snore!” She’d argue and there was nothing I could do to convince her. I tried recording it but was never ready when it happened. Plus, I didn’t want it to stop. It was cute.
While the bot did whatever it was doing, I picked Kat up in my arms, carried her to the sleep quarters, laid her down on the bed and kissed her softly on the cheek. There was nothing to do but wait. I couldn’t get us to Prime unless the Ultra decided to give me the power to teleport. I closed my eyes and focused, trying to imagine us going through a wormhole and magically appearing back at Earth. It didn’t work. It was just a fantasy. I wasn’t the Ultra. If I was anything, I was the Omega.
Might as well get a snack, give the Pokas some treats and take a nap myself.
I took one, maybe two steps toward the kitchen pod, and suddenly was flying backwards down the hallway and SLAMMING into the rear wall. At first I thought another Krin had gotten onboard and back-slapped me like it had the Poka-clone.
A force pressed me against the wall so hard, I couldn’t move my arms or legs. My cheeks, lips, and eyelids all fluttered like I was in a free fall. I’d experienced this before in training, and during the faux jump with Kat back on the planet. There was only one thing it could be. My body was being crushed by G-forces.
I was grateful for the nano-support implants the military had installed to keep me alive at over forty-three Gs, which they said was the most any non-upgraded human could survive without a suit or nano. I wasn’t sure how many Gs the nanos would give me, but I knew the military didn’t have any ships that could go as fast as I feared we were going. We were easily moving at ten times the speed of the fastest Prime ship ever created, even the dark site secret ships.
The force of it made my eyelids practically flip up onto my forehead, and I recalibrated my estimate. We were going at least a hundred, maybe a thousand times faster than any known ship.
I guess I wasn’t going to be getting snacks or treats for the Pokas. How would they survive these speeds? Oh, right. I’d been giving Poka supplements in her food rations that includeda G-force nanos. It was an all-around nutritional supplement and when I first read the ingredients list, I was like, What’s the point of G-force nanos? The Outpost barely floats. Thank the universes. I guess it knew this was going to happen. Maybe it was all part of the Ultra’s master plan.
I hoped the Poka-clone had the nanos too, since she was supposed to be an exact replica. The bot and Kat would endure the trip with ease. Nothing external bothered them. It was so annoying. I get it, I get it. You can survive the vacuum of space. And you’re made of some type of advanced metal that is almost indestructible. Stop gloating.
Maybe there was no time for snacks or treats, but it looked like at least I was going to get a nap. The G force was too much even for the nanos. I was about to pass out again. Frak, I was sick and tired of passing out. If I never passed out again it would be too…
Chapter Thirty-One
I don’t know how much later it was when I regained consciousness. It could’ve been seconds or years. For all I knew, I could’ve died and gone to hellvian. It certainly tasted like a demonoid had taken a crap in my mouth.
I woke crumpled on the floor with the sounds of unfamiliar voices echoing in the hallways. Someone or something was on the ship. I got to my feet, shook off the forced nap, and scrambled to red alert status. I instinctively went to get my bat, then remembered it was sticking out of a pile of gooey Krin.
I heard what sounded like sentences but couldn’t quite make it out. It was like being underwater. My ears hadn’t fully recovered from the G-forces. I remembered reading the pressure could burst a person’s eardrums. The last thing I needed was to be partially deaf.
I heard the voices again, and that’s when it clicked. No one was on the ship. The voices were coming through the ship’s comm systems.
We weren’t being jammed anymore. Thank you, Ultra. Even though I have no idea why you jammed us in the first place. It was Prime. Dear, sweet Prime. The sounds of other humans was a sweet song. It had been too long since I heard them.
“Outpost zero zero zero, three zero zero. Respond.”
Ah, the sweet song of my call numbers. Zero zero zero. Yes, I was basically the last Outpost in the farthest region of the universe. But I wasn’t the last Outpost. I was third from last.
“Outpost zero zero zero, three zero zero. Respond.”
My body automatically snapped to my best facsimile of attention hearing the command’s prompt. I almost saluted with a “Yes, Prime Command,” but was still too shaken from the trip back to Earth. Or wherever we were. I hustled to the command room to check our location, knowing we could be at a planet still far away from Prime. This could be a routine location check. But I doubted it. There was little chance a Prime military blockade could stop our Ultra-boosted Outpost traveling at millions of miles per millisecond or however fast we were going. I had no clue, other than to say it was fast enough to knock me out and kill me if it weren’t for the nanos. Thanks, nanos.
“Auxiliary sub-private zero zero zero, three zero zero, responding,” I replied.
Command didn’t care about my actual name. I was way too far down on the totem pole for them to notice. I might not be as low as a plankton, but even on Earth I was an insect. Maybe a worm, at best. To them I was more of a galactic prisoner with a number and a job no one wanted, more than a soldier with a name and rank. Little did they know, I’d probably be covered in medals galore after all I’d been through. Beat that, front-line attack squad global-war soldier.
“Zero zero zero, three zero zero. Initiate immediate system power shutdown and prepare to be boarded.”
Usually they’d include taking all weapons offline, but they knew I had none. Maybe I should take the charge out of my ray pistol, but I was sure Command wasn’t worried about a little pea laser.
Once in the control room, the screens confirmed my hunch. We were, in fact, back at Prime. Glorious green and blue Earth, I missed you so much. I’d kill to be back in my home quarters playing games and eating chiptos.
I scanned the continents and guesstimated where Mom was sitting and watching her shows. I waved at the spot. “Hi, Mom, I’m back.”
“Zero zero zero, three zero zero. Power down systems and prepare to be boarded,” Command repeated.
On another screen, I saw something I never thought possible. We were surrounded again. This time not by enemy aliens, but by my people. It looked like the entire fleet was sitting outside the ship with all their weapons pointed at my face, cocked and ready for battle.
“Zero zero zero, three zero zero. Power down systems now!”
What else could I do? I wasn’t about to fight the entire Prime fleet. The only defensive weapon we had was the Ultra, and I wasn’t about to unleash it on Prime. I was worried enough about bringing it here in the first place. This close to Earth, with the entire fleet outside, it could easily do what it did to the fleet before and suck up all their energy. Then suck the energy from the Earth. Then do the same to the sun, snuffing it out like a candle.
Please Ultra don’t suck up the sun.
We’d come back to save the planet, not destroy the Milky Way. I’d begun to trust that the Ultra wasn’t trying to hurt us. It seemed to have plans of its own, but they didn’t include harming us or Earth. If it was, it would’ve sucked up the fleet and the planet the moment we got here, but instead Kat was still lying unconscious in the sleep quarters.
““Zero zero zero, three zero zero. You have one minute to power down, or you will be destroyed.”
The command room doors slid open and Kat walked in. She looked at me, still groggy from her space nap, rubbing the side of her head. “Who’s making all that racket? It woke me up.”
“Sorry to ruin your nap, but we’re about to be blown up by the Prime fleet.”
She gave me a quizzical look. “Why would they want
to blow us up?”
“Maybe the whole thing with the Krin destroying half of their fleet and heading to Prime has them on edge.”
She shrugged. “Makes sense. But we’re not a danger.”
“They don’t know that. Also, you’re kind of a danger.”
“Right. I keep forgetting about the Ultra.”
“You forgot about the Ultra?”
“Hey. I just woke up from a nap. Don’t judge.”
“Prime wants us to power down so they can board us, or they’re going to blast us out of the sky in about…”
““Zero zero zero, three zero zero. You have thirty seconds to power down, or you will be destroyed.”
“Thirty seconds.” I rubbed my eyes frustrated. “I think we have to shut the ship down and give up.”
Kat’s eyes glowed about seven colors, and her body snapped to attention. Shat. The Ultra was getting involved again.
She touched my hand, and suddenly I saw millions of images flash through my mind. At first I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was like the world’s biggest image dump. But after a few moments, I knew what the Ultra was doing. It was communicating. It was showing me options, possibilities. Showing me every possibility possible. A trillion paths to the future. And in the one that mattered the most we couldn’t surrender.
If we did it would be just like vids I’d seen a thousand times.
We give up. The military doesn’t believe us about the Krin. They never do. Then they experiment on the Ultra, take the Pokas away, and who knows what they do with them? I’d ask them to send them to Mom, but the military does what it wants to. It doesn’t listen to auxiliary sub-grunts. If I was lucky, they’d adopt them out to decent homes.
I’d be sent to a psych-unit. The watchman who rants about aliens. The military would pump me with truth-nanos, take all the info from my brain, and before they killed me and said it was an accident, or suicide I’d have to escape, save Kat and the Pokes, and the bot because they’d scrap it too. Then we’d have to make it back to the ship to save the planet from the Krin anyway because the Prime fleet had no chance.