Quantum Cheeseburger

by Jeremy Michelson

  I slammed the control panel with my fist.

  “Make this thing go faster!” I shouted.

  Azor rustled. “The g-forces are already near tolerance levels for your species,” he said, “Increasing speed will result in your injury and possible death.”

  “I’ve been dead before,” I said, “I’ll be fine. Go!”

  Azor hesitated, tendrils hovered over the controls.

  “As you wish,” he said. His tendrils flicked at the panel.

  Crushing weight slapped me back against the seat. It felt like the flesh was being ripped off my bones. I swear I could hear blood vessels bursting under my skin.

  Somehow I maintained contact with the ship’s sensors. New vector lines appeared. Our speed only gained us moments. We needed something else.

  I tried to think through the agony of my body. It felt like I was being ground into paste. I knew the makers inside me had to be busy trying to repair things. But there was no way they could keep up with the damage.

  I turned my fading consciousness to the fire controls. We still had one plasma cannon and two missiles.

  I accessed the missile system. It was a smart missile like the ones Bey Jodo had fired at us. I had little doubt Bey Jodo would be able to destroy it like I had. His ship had four times the plasma cannons mine did.

  If I couldn’t destroy him with it, maybe I could do something else.

  I gave the missile a new mission. Hopefully, my slapdash programming would hold long enough.

  Before I could release it, I felt something stir through me. The Dendon. I moved past my consciousness. It did something to the missile.

  Fire the weapon, the Dendon said.

  What did you do?

  Fire it.

  I gave the command. Something thumped below the ship and the missile appeared on my sensors.

  It streaked toward Bey Jodo, a line of white fire across the cold reaches of space.

  Eighty-Two

  My poor half crushed body screamed for mercy in cramped, cinnamon and rancid cat food reeking, confines of the little ship Azor and I stole from Bey Jodo.

  I fired the missile.

  The missile streaked out from the ship. Then made a sudden arc away from Bey Jodo’s ship. It angled off into deep space in a streak of white fire.

  “What the fuck!” I cried.

  The crushing weight of our little ship’s acceleration had almost squeezed the life out of me. I didn’t have the strength to program another missile. I could smell my own blood. The creases and bumps in the chair I sat in cut into me like knives.

  Damn you, you’ve killed Liz. You’ve killed my world. Why?

  Wait...the Dendon replied...watch.

  “Human, do you still live?” Azor asked.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “I do not believe you are in any condition for a reproductive act, and even if you were, I would choose not to participate,” Azor said.

  He said something else, but I didn’t listen. I was still connected to the sensor array. The arc of the missile changed.

  Tell Azor to stop acceleration and prepare to evade, the Dendon said.

  I did a quick calculation of the missile’s path. It didn’t make sense, it would still miss by a long–

  Unless...

  “Cut acceleration,” I choked out the words, “Be ready...evade.”

  “Human, what do you–” Azor stopped, then shouted something unintelligible. Probably profanity in his language.

  The main engine of Bey Jodo’s ship cut out. It turned on its axis to bring its main plasma cannons to bear on the missile. Which seemed to be flying a parallel course to him.

  Before he could fire, the missile surged ahead. Dived toward him.

  And exploded.

  My sensors blanked to prevent overload from the blast. Beside me, Azor cursed (I think it was cursing) and slapped tendrils over the controls in a cloudburst of patterns.

  The weight of acceleration lifted and suddenly I breathed again. My entire body screamed and whimpered as reports of pain zipped into my brain from every extremity. I was probably little better than a bag of jelly and half crushed bones.

  I snaked a tendril consciousness into the little ship’s power plant and siphoned off a steady stream of energy to start fixing myself. Immediately warmth spread within me. My skin crawled and itched. I hoped it was a good sign.

  Sensors came back online.

  Bey Jodo’s ship tumbled out of control.

  I reached out with sensors. His ship had light damage. A lot–but not all–of his weapons seemed to be knocked out. Life support was good. Whatever cloaking capacity the small ship had also seemed to be gone.

  Debris from the missile had sliced through parts of his ship, but left the main drive and his cabin untouched.

  Did you mean to do that? I asked the Dendon.

  He didn’t reply.

  Part of me was glad Bey Jodo hadn’t been killed. I didn’t want to be a murderer. Even if it was some who really deserved it. My program for the missile had been similar to what the Dendon did. But his version was a lot better than mine. I suspected he could have destroyed Bey Jodo if he wanted.

  So why didn’t he?

  “Weapons control!” Azor shouted, “He is recovering!”

  I turned my attention back to the sensors. Bey Jodo’s ship straightened out. Stopped its tumble. Bey Jodo was a pretty good pilot.

  We were almost on his tail, though. The blue-green curve of the Earth approached fast. I figured our vectors and overlay them with where I projected Liz and the maker bomb to be.

  It was going to be close.

  Bey Jodo put his ship back on course.

  Then he shot at us.

  Fire from a single plasma cannon burned a white line at us. Azor slapped the controls. The ship burned aside. The beam passed within inches of us.

  The arc of the Earth was under us now. It was night below. We raced toward the sunrise.

  “Human! Shoot! Shoot him!” Azor shouted.

  Fire from Bey Jodo’s ship flashed through space at us. Azor piloted the ship around the blasts. Barely.

  We were getting close. Too close for either ship to use missiles.

  I brought up the targeting system. Bright arcs of vectors appeared in my mind. The vectors disappeared over the curve of the Earth. Projections estimated a contact point with Liz and the maker bomb. I had to make a choice.

  I aimed our single plasma cannon on Bey Jodo’s craft. The targeting lock kept falling out as Bey Jodo juked back and forth.

  “Human! Take the shot! Take it!” Azor cried, “He accelerates.”

  Bey Jodo was. The back of his ship glowed bright as his main engine kicked in.

  “Go faster!” I shouted.

  Acceleration pushed me back in seat as Azor commanded more speed from the engine. Pain crawled along my raw back. I tasted blood on my lips.

  The targeting system locked on Bey Jodo’s ship. I hesitated over the fire control.

  “Shoot!” Azor shouted.

  Shooting would be murder.

  Not shooting would allow Bey Jodo to murder the woman I loved. And my entire world.

  “For Loj’s sakes shoot!” Azor said.

  Let him go.

  I froze. The Dendon. Why would he want to let Bey Jodo go free?

  I want him to return to his home world, the Dendon said.

  Why?

  An image formed in my mind. Bey Jodo standing next to my ‘body’ on the cold table in his ship. He pulled the sheet back. Your race is so ugly, he said. Then he touched a finger to my cheek.

  The image faded.

  When he touched you, I transferred a coded maker to him, the Dendon said, The Dons have makers inside their bodies to protect them from such an intrusion. But their work is inferior to what I gave him. It is insinuating itself into his body, slowly taking over his native makers. By the time he reaches his home world, he will be carrying a plague of Dendon makers. Everything and everyone he touches on his home w
orld will spread my virus. Within days all live on the Don home world will be infected.

  I swallowed. A nauseous pit formed in my stomach.

  What happens then? I asked.

  Though I already knew. It was sickeningly obvious what the Dendon planned.

  They die, the Dendon said, They all die. All life on their world will be extinguished. Just as it was on mine. Justice will be done. Vengeance shall be served upon them.

  I moaned with the weight of it all. The targeting system still had Bey Jodo’s ship locked on. All I had to do was send a command and his ship would be destroyed.

  “Shoot him, human!” Azor said.

  Shoot. Kill Bey Jodo.

  Save Liz. Save Earth.

  Don’t shoot. Liz dies. Earth dies. The Don home world dies.

  Genocide.

  Murder.

  Murder one life. Save billions.

  I didn’t want the choice. I didn’t want to be the one.

  I had to be the one. I was the only one with the power at my fingertips.

  You can still save your warrior and your world without killing him, the Dendon said, Give me control of the weapons systems. I’ll disable his weapons. He will have no choice but to run then.

  The vectors were converging. My sensors picked up two small objects in the path. I had only seconds left.

  It would be so easy to hand control over. Let go. Let someone else take care of things.

  Follow orders. Do what I was told. Let the adults handle it.

  Blood wouldn’t be on my hands then.

  Give me the controls, or let your woman and your world die, the Dendon said.

  Sensors showed me two small objects directly in Bey Jodo’s path. He launched a missile. His ship arced away.

  I missed my opportunity to stop him.

  “Go after the missile!” I shouted.

  “It is too late, human,” Azor said.

  The sensor array showed it to me. One of the small objects turned and sped toward the missile. It had to be Liz, trying to stop it.

  “No!” I screamed.

  They met.

  White light as the missile vaporized everything within its sphere of nuclear fire.

  I screamed in wordless rage.

  Liz. Oh, Liz.

  A shock wave rocked the ship. The sensor array went offline. I blinked at the sudden blindness of it. Beside me, Azor swore and pounded the controls.

  “Where is the Don!” Azor shouted.

  Something rocked the ship again. Our ship spun. I reached out for fire controls. Only to find our last plasma cannon had been disabled.

  We had one missile left. But it was locked in place, I couldn’t launch it.

  “Human, do you have sensors!” Azor said.

  “No, sensors are down,” I said.

  Another blast rocked the ship. Damage reports flashed in my mind. The little ship cried in pain.

  A small vid screen buzzed to life on the console. Bey Jodo’s tentacled head appeared, a smile on his thin lips.

  “You hesitated human,” he said, “And now all is lost. Your species is weak. The universe shall be better off without you.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” I said.

  There was something I could do. I cut out the main engine. Azor’s tendrils tapped the controls. The panel went dead.

  “Main engine is offline,” he said, “I have no attitude controls either.”

  Our little ship started a slow tumble.

  Bey Jodo laughed. It chilled me.

  I used the communications array to locate his signal.

  "Oh human, you amuse me," he said, "For a brief moment, I thought you had the courage to win. But of course, you didn't. You have failed your people, and now they will die. And you will get to watch it happen. You will hang above your world, listening to their screams until your air runs out. Then I shall collect your frozen corpse and take my prize home."

  He’d be taking more than that home.

  But he wasn’t going home.

  The main engine wasn’t damaged. The controls weren’t damaged. The Don’s little ships were tough. They built them well.

  I turned Azor’s control panel back on. I fed it a set of coordinates. Azor’s tendrils hesitated over the panel.

  “Human?” he said.

  “Be ready,” I said.

  I armed our last missile, set it for manual detonation.

  Bey Jodo's gloating face still sat on the screen. "We always win," he said, "My race is superior to all. We have the patience and the will to rule. Someday the entire galaxy will bow to us. And you will in a small way have contributed to it. Maybe we will put a statue of you on this dead world. Here is the ugly being who sacrificed his race so that the one true race could rule all. Would you like that?” He laughed. “Only the Dendon race had the ability to stop us. But they were weak, too. They didn’t have the will to strike first, as we did. Now they are dust and distant memories.”

  I felt the Dendon stirring within me. Stirred with white hot rage. The feeling didn’t touch me, though. I was past rage.

  I measured the strength of his signal. His ship was close now. Too close for him to react fast enough.

  I restarted the main engines. Released the controls to Azor.

  “Go,” I said.

  Azor flung his tendrils on the controls.

  Our ship spun. Acceleration kicked me back in the seat.

  On the big view screen in front of us, Bey Jodo’s ugly ship rotated into view. Faced right at us.

  “What are you–” Bey Jodo started to say. He broke off, a frantic look in his eyes.

  I pictured him, in a panic, trying to tell his ship to evade us. He didn’t have time. In three seconds we’d hit and I’d trigger the missile’s warhead. Bye bye, Bey Jodo.

  I could only hope Liz was able to disable the maker bomb.

  “Sorry Azor,” I said.

  He brushed a tendril on my arm. “Honor, human.”

  Bey Jodo’s ship loomed in the screen. I prepared to activate the warhead.

  Gold flashed across the screen.

  It struck Bey Jodo’s ship.

  Azor jumped. Tendrils flailed at the controls. Our ship rolled from a hard burn of the thrusters.

  Bey Jodo’s ship moved. But not under its own power.

  Azor rotated the ship. Braked its momentum. Bey Jodo's ship came back up on the view screen.

  A figure in golden armor tore pieces off Bey Jodo’s ship and flung them into space. His remaining plasma cannons hung in chunks where she had ripped them off.

  His ship rotated slowly.

  “Why is he just sitting there?” I asked.

  “Look to the rear of the vessel,” Azor said, a tendril pointing to the screen.

  There was a giant hole where the ship’s power plant was located. I zoomed the view out. I spotted a lumpy object a distance away from the ship. Sparks shot from it. The power plant.

  Bey Jodo’ ship wasn’t going anywhere under its own power.

  The golden figure beat the crap out of the ship. She left the cabin untouched, but anything that looked remotely like a weapon, she ripped off.

  When she was done, there wasn’t much left of the ship but the control cabin and a haze of metallic fragments floating around it.

  She grabbed a thick cable that hung from the gaping hole in front of the engine. Holding the cable over her shoulder she dragged Bey Jodo’s ship toward us. When she got the nose of our craft, she braked Bey Jodo’s vessel. I didn’t see any blast of rockets on the armor. How was she controlling things?

  Azor seemed to be wondering the same thing. "Dendon technology was further along than we were led to believe," he said, "Further still than any of us have come."

  The golden figure reached out and touched our ship with one languid gesture. Audio crackled to life in our cabin.

  “Either of you want to keep this piece of trash, or should I hurl it into the sun?”

  I let out a shuddering breath. Liz’s voice. Until I heard her, I
couldn’t let myself believe it was her.

  “I thought he blew you up,” I said.

  “Nah, dumbass blew up his own bomb,” she said. She went on. “Yeah, I know, I wasn’t supposed to blow it up. I figured a 50 megaton nuke would take care of it, though.”

  “I concur,” Azor said, “And please do not terminate Bey Jodo. He should be held for trial by the court of SixUnion. This perhaps may be the wedge to break the Don’s power.”

  “All right,” Liz said, “But I’d rather watch him burn.”

  I leaned my head back against the seat. We’d done it.

  I felt the Dendon stirring within me. Sullen anger. Disappointment.

  "This will be better," I told it.

  Eighty-Three

  We didn’t get a ticker tape parade for saving the planet.

  I did get a medal a few months later.

  Sort of.

  General Mattany showed it to me. The Presidential Medal of Freedom. It looked nice. It had a blue ribbon and a silver star with a blue circle and gold stars inside it. It supposed to be the highest civilian honor that can be awarded in the United States.

  I’d been ushered into Mattany’s stuffy office on the Area 53 base. I sat on the hard metal chair and motioned to the wall I’d torn once torn through.

  “I see you got it fixed,” I said.

  He gave me a hard look. Like he hoped laser beams would shoot out of his eyes. I smiled at him. The room was warm and had the musky scent of Mattany's cheap cologne.

  Without another word, he unfolded his delicate hands from his desktop. Reached down to a drawer. I stiffened as the metal drawer screeched opened. Was he going to try to shoot me?

  Not that it would have done him any good.

  He took out a flat, blue box. Dropped it on the desktop. It was the only thing on his desk. The rest of the surface was a barren wasteland of chipped gray Formica. His thin fingers drummed the top of the box.

  “You really don’t deserve this,” Mattany said.

  “Deserve what?”

  He grasped the box and opened it. On a bed of creamy white satin was the medal. It was shiny. I also had no idea what it was for, and told Mattany so.

  His face scrunched up like he’d just sucked concentrated lemon juice.