Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

  No matter what the alien’s anatomy was inside, the force of the blow still doubled him over.

  With one leg straight and his arms pulled back, Connor executed a neat upwards knee thrust to the Lanillan’s chin as it came down.

  Marc was startled at the force the big man was putting out as a subsection of his display registered the breaking of bones in the alien’s jaw. Another part of his mind was interested in the detail that his singlesuit could scan at close range.

  Lekiso’s target raised his weapon to point it at her, and she immediately grabbed him under the hand and pushed up and around to go for a thumb lock.

  The Lanillan’s fingers seemed to bend further than she was used to, though, as if the entire set were double- or even triple-jointed. She succeeded in getting the weapon to drop as the Lanillan lost his grip, but she was in no position to now hold him down.

  Changing tactics, the soldier switched hand-to-hand styles and shoved her hip up into his.

  She twisted around to grab his other arm and, with a neat pivot, executed a judo throw, with the Lanillan’s full weight following him down to the metal floor. A swift pull on the arm she still held and the entire heel of her foot slamming at his head left the Lanillan unconscious.

  And with a cracked skull, ow, Marc read from his display.

  Connor dropped his target with a left cross to the temple, leaving both of the thugs unconscious on the metal floor, with Lekiso and Connor looking around to see if the other was alright. Both gave a smile when they saw that they had succeeded at about the same time.

  “Um, I’ve got station security on their way,” Marc said out loud.

  He had managed to get around the blocks put in by the Lanillans during Meriam’s well-executed kick. Security had already informed him that they were on their way and had tagged the officers on the network grid.

  He could track them as they came to the group.

  “Um, I can see them moving through Enone Hub. From their ETA, they should be here in three minutes. I know a lot more about the software we have now. I could probably hack a lot of things.”

  Lekiso was about to comment, with Marc rubbing at a sore temple, when Ormond interrupted, pointing at the body of the Lanillan that Meriam had sent flying into the far wall.

  “What the hell is that thing?”

  Marc looked over, along with everyone else.

  At first, all he saw was the body, and he wondered what Ormond meant, and then his display highlighted the other creature in violet light. It was listed as a Parasitoid Xeno-adaptic.

  His head hurt so much he didn’t get a full picture, but it looked like a centipede: many insect legs on a segmented body, with both ends capped in starfish-like organs. It would have fit like a watch around Marc’s wrist it was so small.

  Marc knew instinctively that the creature had no head; both ends were equally the same organ.

  The reddish-brown color of the segmented spine and legs was clearly visible on the yellow skin of the corpse even as the dull orange starfish on one end was planted onto the back of the Lanillan’s head where it bent sideways on his broken neck.

  With a sickening snapping sound, the Lanillan’s head rocked from side to side, startling the five humans who were watching.

  Then the body stood up, not like someone who has been knocked over, using their hands to steady themselves and bending to center their gravity. This body just stood up in one smooth motion, carrying all the body weight up on its legs, bending the knees and arching the feet until it stood upright, and then it settled back down on flat feet again.

  It was a wholly unnatural movement for anything, and it really freaked Marc out.

  “Um, do you think we can figure out how these things work?” Ormond had picked up one of the weapons from an unconscious Lanillan.

  “I’m not sure we should try. It could be coded to them in some way,” Meriam said.

  Marc was surprised that she said that, but she could have seen it in a movie.

  “Marc, how long until security gets here?” Lekiso was keeping a wary eye on the corpse. It was upright and very still.

  “Uh, they are very close now, just over sixty seconds.”

  “Okay, everyone stay calm and stay back. We’ll just let the authorities handle this.” Lekiso looked over her shoulder at the others. She was closest to the standing corpse.

  “Sure, boss lady. No problem.” Ormond dropped the weapon back on top of the unconscious Lanillan he was standing near.

  Then Meriam screamed.

  The corpse had suddenly charged toward Lekiso, and the yellow skin had sprouted small tufts of greenish feelers around the eyes, ears, and nose of the head.

  The jaw was open and slack, with the tongue lolling around as if the Lanillan was a walking drunk, but the body moved with determined speed right at the African woman.

  Marc fumbled with the icons of his display to try and find something that would help as Lekiso went into a low crouch, bringing her shoulder in at the waist of the Lanillan. As it charged, she pushed in and then swept upwards with both arms around its waist, and with a heave, she used the corpse’s momentum to throw it up and over her.

  Somehow, though, the corpse didn’t move as expected.

  It twisted around at the waist like it had no bones, pushing around itself to bring the feet of the body down to absorb the landing and entirely back to front, with the torso now facing backward.

  Both of its arms were holding on to Lekiso’s arms, the head stretching out on its neck to allow the centipede-like creature to extend the starfish portion of its body out at her. The parasite moved up and stood in the Lanillan corpse’s mouth.

  It looks ready to jump. Marc felt like he should piss himself.

  An expression of revulsion on her face, Lekiso stretched backward to stay out of reach of the parasitic organism. As she pulled rearward, the corpse twisted at the waist to bring its feet the right way around and began to pull her back.

  Connor became a shadow over both of them as his jump brought him crashing down past the corpse, his elbow out in a drop that connected with the back of the corpse’s head in a crushing blow.

  The force of the big man’s weight drove the corpse down between its own arms, breaking its grip enough for Lekiso to twist free and take several steps away, putting distance between herself and the corpse.

  The elbow strike didn’t seem to cause any damage, though.

  The corpse twisted both arms down and to the side, brought the head up with the parasite in its mouth, still attached, and lurched at Connor instead.

  With Connor backing away as fast as he could, the creature looked as if it was about to jump at him when a sizzling bolt of green fire erupted against the side of its chest. The corpse stopped for a moment, and two more bolts struck it in the chest, the fire quickly spreading to chew into the flesh with a horrible burning smell and a sizzling sound.

  Another shot found its mark and toppled the corpse over onto its back.

  The green fire was consuming the flesh quickly now, spreading along the arms and legs. The parasite itself made a springing leap, like a caterpillar would, arching the center of its body up and then throwing it down to propel itself off the burning corpse and onto the floor a few feet away.

  If it can leap that far, it can jump and latch onto people as well. Thought Marc.

  That was another scary idea confirmed for him.

  Another bolt of green fire hit the floor plating right where the parasite had been a moment before. The creature was a small target at a few inches long, but it also moved fast.

  Bolt after bolt went flying at it from the two Domum security members who had arrived along the walkway, emitted from large single-handed weapons they gripped in gloved fists.

  The creature zigged and zagged along the floor, towards the rocks and crevices of the park, scorch marks left behind it. The Domum security were both ample examples of their species, eight feet tall and as wide as boulders.

  They had dark-blue, almo
st black material covering them from neck to toe, with hardened patches over the shoulders, upper arms, and thighs and solid-looking boots. Each one of them also had a matte-black utility belt with empty holsters, from which they had drawn their weapons.

  One of the security guards let out a yell of triumph when he finally hit the parasite just before it was about to disappear down a crack in the rock. It sounded something like the blurt of a bull.

  He, and it was a he according to Marc’s display, then spoke to the humans.

  “Step back, please. We must deal with the corpse properly.”

  His companion moved closer.

  Pressing a button on the side of his weapon, he then pointed the device at the smoldering body and squeezed the trigger. This time, green flame spewed out in a jet like it was some kind of flamethrower, the body reacted as if stung, jumping from elbow to elbow and trying to get up again even as the muscle it needed vaporized.

  Marc considered the various alien themed horror possibilities. The corpse did not need the parasite after it got up?

  The security guard generously sprayed fire over the corpse, setting it alight and continuing to feed the fire until the body was consumed.

  Marc thought the smell and the sound were ghastly. Covering his mouth and nose so he wouldn’t gag, he saw that Meriam did the same and Connor was looking pale. Lekiso and Ormond grimaced at the sight and the smell but otherwise seemed in control of their stomachs.

  The security guard who had spoken came over and asked them, “Would you mind explaining what happened here?”

  Excerpt from “Conlin Shaw and Orion’s Arrow”.

  Humans colonized space in an ever expanding group of worlds, every nation made their own claim to territories out there in the galaxy.

  We met aliens, just like us their home groups of differing creed and cultures distributed them to their own clusters in the stars.

  What we all had in common was one thing, the threat of complete annihilation.

  Space was dangerous sure, but populated space was also vulnerable to anyone with a big enough rock to throw down from orbit. Populations numbering in the trillions lived in a constant and warranted fear that bombardment could end them.

  This was all going to change when Conlin Shaw found the Orion’s Arrow, human built and equipped to be the salvation for Humans and aliens alike.

  But first, the Orion’s Arrow had a mission for Conlin.

  *

  “Conlin, we have new space contacts in an inclined elliptical three light seconds out.”

  Vickey seamlessly changed to a utility mode designed by Conlin for use by the AI as a naval officer.

  Conlin stepped back to the center of the command ring.

  “Show me.”

  A globe of blue light sprang up around him with a faint set of grid lines showing the three-dimensional space around the Arrow. Distant markers showed the locations of star systems and a rogue comet. The nearest Jumpgate, the one Conlin had used before taking the tug to FTL out here, was also noted.

  The most pressing icon was up to Conlin’s left when he looked at it his gaze would have gone to a point on the far ceiling of the bridge if he wasn’t focused inside the hologram.

  “Classification Vickey?” He asked.

  “The starship is not broadcasting an identification transponder. The Arrow’s database has extensive profiles, however. I have identified the type of ship and the most likely owners from its communication and sensor traffic.”

  Vickey paused for another hologram to project up from the floor in front of Conlin, showing a complex set of structures attached together in a standard boxy form. Thrusters at one end and spaced around the long vessel for quick maneuverability. A rotating crew quarters just in front of the rear thrusters and in front of that the cages which held the many spacecraft docked to the main starship hull.

  “Class 3 heavy carrier, operational status indicates that the crew is from the RAID Corporation.”

  Conlin took a moment to see the sensor images resolve themselves over the three seconds wait between the two ships. A heavy carrier of that kind was well armed and had a flight of a hundred ships to worry about.

  “Vickey, spin up whatever FTL drive the Arrow has, we may need to get out of here in a hurry. Send out a standard communication hail.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Three seconds for the signal to reach the carrier on narrow beam laser radar. Another twenty seconds or so for them to work out a reply and then three seconds back to the Arrow.

  Vickey relayed the response. “They order us to stand down, surrender the vessel and prepare to be boarded.”

  “Lovely.”

  Conlin had no intention of giving up the Arrow, not after everything Dad had done to get him to the ship and take over. The only problem was that he shouldn’t let the crew of the carrier survive to tell anyone what they found. The longer he could keep the Arrow hidden the more time he would have to figure things out.

  So must he cloak the ship, hoping that the carrier had very little to go on, and run. Or did he fight back?

  Could he fight back?

  “Vickey, what has this mystery ship got in the way of weapons?”

  Conlin noticed a distinct pause from the AI, which was significant.

  “You better take a look at this Boss.”

  *

  Space is massive.

  Even the use of the word massive can’t really give you the picture of how big space is.

  To try and give you an idea you must start by imagining yourself standing on the moon. Never mind the ground, low gravity and all of that, we want to think in terms of distance. The Earth will dominate the sky, dark space full of stars to either side the Earth will look close enough to touch.

  But the distance from where you are standing to get back to earth is almost four hundred thousand kilometers.

  We can be a bit vague since precise distances will make this explanation really dull.

  You would have to go right around the earth, along the equator, ten times to cover the same distance. Then also think about light, the fastest moving thing we know of in normal space. Radio waves and other electronic or electromagnetic forces and emissions travel so close to the speed of light they can all be measured by the same constant.

  It takes light almost one and a half seconds to go from the earth to the moon.

  So if there were an explosion on the surface of the Earth big enough to be seen, then you standing on the moon would see it only one and a half seconds later. If you do some mental leaps, you realize that light moves at close to three hundred thousand kilometers per second.

  Let’s expand on this, if light moves that fast, and takes one and a half seconds to go between Earth and the Moon, then how long does it take to go further? Well, it takes light just under eight and a half minutes to reach earth.

  Just think about the number of seconds in eight minutes, and then multiply by three hundred thousand. The distance is massive, isn’t it?

  So space is bigger than massive, on a scale which we would understand thousands of kilometers could sit between any two objects, like spaceships. It creates a lot of gaps for spaceships to go past each other, like the air traffic controlled airspace on earth.

  Only of course, much bigger.

  The reason we bring this up is to explain how battles and war occur in space, because of the distances involved.

  There is no gun ever designed that can fire a bullet three hundred thousand kilometers. The only reason that one could think of using it in space is that there is so little friction a bullet would keep traveling at the same speed until it hit something.

  Great. A bullet can be fired and still cause damage at any distance right?

  Yes, it can.

  Except that at the average speed of a bullet it would take a few minutes to cover anything over one kilometer. With the distance of light speed in one second, also called one light second, the bullet would take hundreds of hours or more to cross the distance. />
  The radar of a starship would be able to pick a bullet up within the distance of one light second and have all the time it needed evade the shell. If a starship is more than a few kilometers away from where the bullet is fired, then it can dodge easily. Just imagine it.

  With the speed of faster than light travel and computations of distance, two starships can travel into a battle thousands of kilometers if not several light seconds apart from each other.

  No bullet or missile is going to cover that distance without being detected and dodged.

  So what about in the movies where they fire torpedoes and energy weapons?

  After all, a torpedo can accelerate up to many times the speed of a bullet or missile and an energy weapon like a laser or plasma cannon moves at the speed of light right?

  Well yes, to both.

  But there are complications.

  Any sort of moving object must either be shot or have its own propulsion, like a jet engine or something similar. So a missile or torpedo with a great big warhead can accelerate and keep accelerating without resistance. But even with a considerable amount of force behind the torpedo it is still much slower than the speed of light, so not much better than a bullet.

  In early battles between starships, they found that long range bullets and more extended range torpedo’s became useless once captains moved their ships further apart.

  Energy weapons, however, did prove effective, for a while.

  You see a laser, or magnetically contained plasma beam or burst of energized particles can travel at the speed of light or close to it. The problem is that as it travels the energy loses cohesion; it breaks up with distance and loses destructive power.

  Imagine shining a torch from the moon onto the earth, it wouldn’t create a nice bright spot on the atmosphere because the light goes in every direction. Try it with a focused laser, and you can manage to reach the earth, this forms the basis for communications over light seconds. But to make the same laser contain enough energy to heat up a single piece of metal over a light second or more?