43 Days to Oblivion

by J. D. Oppenheim

  The two moons lit up the puffy white clouds and he could almost make out blue sky. Three transports waited on the deck to move people, food, and weapons. A girl sat near the edge of the ravine with her arms around her knees. She had brown hair down to her shoulders and had on the smooth leather boots pilots wore long ago.

  “Katy?” he said.

  “Vellosians don’t sleep?” she said, looking up at the stars, almost hidden in the moonlight.

  “Nor do pilots I suppose.” They looked at the stars together for awhile. Merthon finally broke the silence. “He’ll come home. He always does.”

  “I won’t make it if I lose Jolo.”

  “He always returns.”

  “He’s been gone a week. No communication.” She jabbed a finger towards the larger of the three boats. “And we’re scheduled to leave in two days.” She stared at the big ship and shook her head. “It’s called an IST, Inter Stellar Transport. The pirates always referred to those boats as Incredibly Slow Targets. Yet up we’ll all go, into the unknown. That thing ain’t even got a gun. It had one turret but we mounted it on a hover craft awhile back.”

  Merthon took a sip of tea. Humans need to release, he thought, wondering if she had fully let go of her emotions. He put his thin hand on her head like a father. And she reached up with her soft, warm, human hands and held his. He like humans, he decided. At least this one. She looked up at him and he was struck by her beauty: brown, almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones. He knew he must say something. Something a human would like to hear. But what? We are out-gunned and out-manned, the Fed has fallen asleep, and soon we will all be living in a transport pulled from a scrap heap. He gathered his last tiny bits of hope and said, “Take heart, child,” his voice calm and measured. “The battle has just started. We do not know God’s plan for any of us.”

  Merthon turned to go but she spoke. “Merthon. Can he, uh, I mean… He’s never been receptive.”

  “You mean physically?”

  “No. I mean a capacity to love,” she paused a moment. “But, now that you mention it, can he, you know, do it?”

  “He can do everything. He’s a man. Just enhanced a bit here and there.”

  “Then what’s wrong with him? With me?” She sighed and hid her face in her hands.

  “My dear, human males are notoriously ignorant concerning females. Have you told him you love him?”

  “You mean just walk up and say it?”

  “Tell him.”

  Merthon stepped into the dark lab and instantly smelled smoke and dust. He flipped on the lights and checked the tanks, the samples, the logic array, and everything was normal. But the video stream of the makeshift cell showed nothing but bare white walls with bits of metal on the floor. He sucked in a big gulp of air. How did she do it, he wondered. She’s not strong enough to break through reinforced rock walls. The door was alacyte. And then he looked to the corner of the lab near the stairs that led to the lower levels. He could see the edge of big door laying flat on the ground, the thick top edge reflecting the lights.

  He stepped over the door and stared into the empty cell. His med bot lay in pieces on the floor. She’d torn the thing apart in rage and kicked the door in, he thought. But that wasn’t possible. He of all people knew what she was capable of. And then he saw the holes where the hinges had been sunk into the concrete and the laser on the floor.

  The monitor logs showed her power had fully drained an hour earlier. So she had to be somewhere close by in hibernation. Merthon grabbed the rifle from the corner, checked it had a charge and stared down into the dark stairwell that led to the lower levels. Would she hide there? He knew he should call for help, but he was the one who’d brought the synth in against Marco’s wishes. He needed her. He needed her alive so he could figure out how to kill them all.

  He sent the tank bot down first with its lights full on. It made it down to the bottom, a big circle of light cutting through the darkness, and he could see the side of an old hover craft and some other long metal tubes that were covered in rust. Next to greasy, black bits strewn across the floor, boxes sagged against the wall full of small parts pulled from some poor Fed ship caught unawares, most likely liberated by the notorious Jolo Vargas.

  Merthon eased down the stairs, then flipped on the lights in the large storage room and waved the gun around as if he were expecting the thin-armed synth to attack. When nothing jumped out at him--and how could she, her power was out--his breathing steadied and he sent the bot out into the big room to search for her. Usually she’d give off a heat signature, but her power had been off for some time and even that wouldn’t work if she was hiding behind a big piece of metal. But two sets of eyes were better than one.

  He knew he had to find her in the next hour or so. He had to do it now before morning came. Evac teams were already up and moving around. Time was running out and no one would want to clean up the Vellosian’s mess. Marco would say leave her. But he couldn’t leave her. He must find out. Jamis altered her in some small way. Altered all of them.

  He sent the bot off to the left along the wall and he went right, next to a pile of thick plastic tubing at least a meter in diameter stacked up one on top of another. He peered into each one, rifle first, the light on the end of the barrel reflecting the smooth walls of the tubes. Next to that was some sort of old ship with strange writing on the side that he’d never seen before. The nose of the fuselage was missing the landing pads looked weak but he went under it anyway, determined to find the girl.

  In the back of the room was a giant metal crusher that could turn a small hover craft into one compact box, a few meters square, ready for transport to a recycler. Jolo and Marco would feed large pieces of stolen boats into the mouth up top and then at the bottom a perfectly square cube would pop out that was no longer a traceable ship, just metal scrap to be sold. They called the metal cubes plugs.

  Merthon picked up a bit of curved alacyte off the dusty floor and tossed it into the big machine and the grinder shredded it, the tiny bits of metal falling in a hopper. Once enough metal accumulated the crusher would smash it together.

  Merthon heard the little hover bot heading his way and looked up. The ceilings must be twenty meters high, he thought. The bot hummed along, zig zagging between large pieces of fuselage hanging from the rafters and the large solar illuminators that would pull light from the outside as soon as it was day.

  The little bot stopped right over his head and disappeared behind a large piece of yellow metal, some piece of ship he couldn’t identify. The bot popped out the other side and came around again then dropped down to his level.

  “Did you find her?” said Merthon to his little water tank bot.

  “Yes. Hanging from a metal beam between the sheet metal directly above.”

  “Good work.”

  Merthon stared straight up, arching his back, nearly losing his balance, but the long metal pieces blocked his view of the synth. The bot could take him up, he knew. Oh, don’t be a fool, he thought. No, that is Jamis talking. He looked around. It’d be best to get Greeley. No, he thought. Its my little mess and I’m going to clean it up and figure this thing out. They’ve got enough to do topside, and besides, she’s out of power anyway. She can’t hurt anyone.

  Merthon was never much of a fighter, Jamis always said his heroics would be performed in a lab. But he steeled his nerves, and slung the heavy rifle over his shoulder. “Take me to her,” he commanded, and he grabbed the hand strap under the little hover bot and suddenly he was lifted up into the air.

  He looked down and there were his clunky boots dangling beneath him and the mouth of the crusher directly under, its wide open mouth ready to catch him and grind him up and smash him into a tight little cube. Why had she chosen this spot, he wondered. Then when he got close to the ceiling he knew. She’d wrapped her bad arm around one of the support beams and was hanging there. Just above her was an illuminator, and once daylight came, she’d start recharging.

  The little bot too
k him face to face with his creation, and he couldn’t help but marvel at his and Jamis’s work. She truly was beautiful: a strong, yet delicate jawline; soft, round eyes; and a small mouth with full lips.

  He realized he was never going to be able to get her down by himself. She used the last of her battery capacity to get here and she was heavier than she appeared. The bot wouldn’t hold both of them. He’d need to find Greeley.

  He reached out his hand and touched the curve of her cheek. “I’m sorry you were taken from me,” he said. It was still dead quiet and dark in the storage area and he hung there for moment longer.

  Suddenly her eyes popped open and she grabbed his neck with her good hand. She clamped down and no air went into his lungs. He thrashed around in a panic, trying to break free, his body desperate to suck in some oxygen. But her hand was like a vice and he grew more frantic by the second. He made one last effort to tear away from her and he lost his grip on the bot and he started to fall. Her nails tore into his neck as she finally lost her grip on him and all he could see was the shiny rectangular mouth of the crusher getting bigger and bigger.

  Right before he hit the teeth of the grinder something flashed before his eyes and had him by the arm and he was hovering again, but this time over the floor a few feet off the ground. It was Silana, with a smile on her face. She set him down and he wobbled a little then sat down and she stood over him, hands on hips, the bot just overhead.

  “You are out of power,” said Merthon.

  “No. I rigged the monitor,” she said. “But I am low. 16% and dropping.”

  “Why did you save me?”

  “Others will die. The creator must live.”

  “What others?”

  She did not respond. Merthon still had the gun and he swung it around and pointed it at her head. “Now I’ve got you. Shut down now and I won’t shoot. And you’ll be spared.”

  “I am unimportant,” she said. Merthon slowly stood up, the gun still trained on her pretty face. “It’d be best not to fight,” she said. “The illuminators have a small shaft which leads straight to the surface. I finally connected to the source.”

  The Vellosian swallowed hard. “The BG?”

  She smiled. “They are coming.”

  Merthon imagined shiny black Cruisers in deep space turning, making calculations, all plotting a course straight for the dusty old rock, his dusty old rock, right down on top of Marco’s hideaway. “I’ve got to warn everyone.” Merthon thought to fire the gun at her, to stun her again like he’d done before. But before he could lift the barrel a little higher and squeeze the trigger his rifle was flying out of his hands, she’d kicked it and it was no longer there. He’d underestimated his own creation and now they were going to pay for it. You fool, said Jamis, in his head.

  “You are not warning anyone,” she said. And she hit his face with the stump of her arm and he fell to the floor. Dazed, his eyes refocused on the round illuminators attached to the high ceiling that had just begun to glow. Morning was coming, and so were the Bakanhe Grana.

  Escape

  Aboard the Federation Warship Persephony

  2 days left

  The holding cells inside the Persephony were dirty white, each with a clear energy wall facing the hallway, and a bank of lights running between. Most were empty, though Jolo could occasionally hear a sad, scratchy old voice, out of tune, singing a song he remembered his men had sung during some war that his former self had fought in.

  There was no night in space, but the lights went off all the same for eight hours each day. Jolo had counted the lights going out nine times since they’d been hauled into the little box with three flat bunks that pulled out of the wall and a hole in the center to do their business. It reminded him of the cell on Sol when he first made it back. This time he had company, but he thought maybe it would have been better to be alone.

  Greeley paced off four steps, touching the wall as he went, then turned and paced another four, then repeated the process, stepping around and sometimes over his cell mates. It was just enough space to drive a person mad. Greeley mumbled in anger as he walked, though occasionally coherent words popped out. “No escape plan. No escape plan.” He’d repeat this little mantra in time with each step. Finally Jolo would get pissed.

  “I got us on board. I got us in front of that scumbag Filcher. Mission accomplished.”

  “Yeah. But with no escape plan. Give me a gun and let me die fighting. This is no way to go. I just can’t believe you had no clue about how to escape this giant, Fed shitboat.”

  “I didn’t think we’d need to escape. And I didn’t see you coming up with any contingency plans.”

  “Well, maybe I should’ve.”

  “Stop it!” yelled Barth, sitting on the floor next to the energy field wall.

  He gently probed the boundary of the energy field, a thin green spark of electricity arcing over to his thick alacyte fingers. Each time he touched the wall a whiff of smoke rose up and with it a burning smell like melted electrical wire. Jolo wondered exactly what was getting fried each time the old engineer stuck that black arm in.

  “That’s just gonna get you killed,” said Jolo. “You of all people know exactly how these cells are made.”

  “Yes, and that’s why I am exactly the person to come up with something,” said Barth.

  “The only way out is if they try to move us. We fight our way free,” said Jolo.

  Greeley stopped pacing. “What’ll make ‘em move us? Gimme one of those little, smooth-faced, green bastards. Hell, I’ll take two out before one a those wussies even gets a shot off.” He was standing in the center of the tiny cell now, his chest out and fists balled, the muscles in his arms bulging.

  Suddenly Filcher appeared, alone, on the other side of the energy field. It was like looking at someone through a thin wall of water, his blue uniform slightly distorted. His voice was a little off as well, like he was farther away, even though only a few meters separated them. Greeley ran towards the wall but Jolo put out his hand to stop him. “Let us out you yellow, worm lovin’ little bitch!” Greeley spit out his words. He went on for awhile longer, until he was out of breath. Jolo put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Soon,” said Filcher. “I’m waiting for rendezvous coordinates. We’ll be heading out to the fringe to protect the survivors.”

  “So you’re going tuck tail and run while the human race is obliterated?” said Jolo.

  “No.” He fiddled with the top button on his jacket. “I’m saving those that can be saved. I’m saving you.”

  “What about my people on Duval?” yelled Jolo.

  “They will run if they are smart. The core will be taken.”

  “The core will be taken? We’re led by cowards and fools!” screamed Barth.

  “Realists!” said Filcher. “Do the math! Even you, Captain Vargas, who always jumped in head first without a plan, can see that we can’t stand against the black bast—” Filch stopped, glanced up at a tiny light on the ceiling, then continued in a lower voice. “…against the Bakhane Grana. They will help advance human civilization with their superior culture and intellect.”

  ……

  There were screams from the room next door. Katy sat on the cold concrete floor and put her hands over her ears but the muffled, gurgling, gagging moans from the next room bored into her head. She tried to go to another place in her mind, so she imagined the blackness of space, wished herself piloting the Argossy, and she could hear her thrusters roaring when they burned, but then another desperate wail shattered the illusion and she was sitting again on the dirty floor. Katy, Merthon, and two locals that were helping with the move had been rounded up and thrown into one of the small bays alongside the main hangar. They were lucky to still be alive, she had seen the blond synths and the big, terrible mechs killing men and women, Duvalites who were helping with the evacuation.

  The big black ships had come all at once. The pirate patrol orbiting Duval got out a warning message before they were destro
yed, so the ground crews had about two minutes to man the big surface guns. But fighting a ground assault was the last thing they were prepared for. All efforts had been about escape. Most of the big guns had been taken down and put on the large transport with all of their supplies. The big Fed merchant carrier that was going to take them all away was still on the deck, but Katy last saw it engulfed in flames. Two men, one named Park, who wasn’t even a pilot, had tried to get the big ship airborne, and at least have a chance to jump out and hide, but the BG had come too quick, and there were too many. Most of the smaller pirate ships had all been blown away by the big ion cannons on the BG cruisers, the surface guns reduced to large, black craters in the orange clay.

  Suddenly, the door swung open and Marco landed like a bag of potatoes on the concrete floor, blood on his shirt and all over his face. He lay motionless, a pool of red bubbles forming on the ground under his bloody, drooling mouth. He was breathing. Katy crawled over to him and started to cry. Marco tried to speak but nothing came out except red.

  The one-armed synth girl stood in the doorway clutching an old pair of pliers, blood dripping down from the end. It was the one named Silana that Merthon had captured. She pointed the bloody pliers at Katy. “This one is next.”

  Two black hover bots grabbed Katy by either arm and raised her up. Merthon jumped between the bots and the synth. But the hover bots forced him out of the way, picked Katy up and carried her into the room, her feet dragging on the floor. They dropped her and she sat up and looked around: two bots, the Silana, a BG warrior and Merthon. She could hear the terrible sound of the big, black mechs moving around topside. Each step shook the walls. She’d seen them cut down the old and sick with their energy blades. The others had been rounded up and driven into a transport like cattle. Ion cannon blasts tore through the upper levels rattling the lights above, but the blasts grew less and less, and Katy imagined the few remaining pirate ships up top were either dead or running.