Space Team

by Barry J. Hutchison

  Up front, Loren tucked the Shatner into a roll and smiled grimly. “That’s the spirit!”

  A crackling ball of energy spat from one of the attack ships and rocketed towards them. “Torpedo!”

  “I see it,” said Loren, swooping into a twisting dive. The torpedo rocketed past overhead, and Cal instinctively tried to duck to avoid it.

  “That was close,” he muttered, searching the sky for the ship that had fired on them. He spotted it climbing above them, and steered both targeting reticles towards it. “Now, where do you think you’re going?” he said.

  The left-hand sight hovered over the Zertex ship. “Boom!” Cal cried, squeezing the trigger. The cannon flared. The beam struck the ship near the bow, flashing its shields in a rainbow of damage indicators.

  Twisting the grip, Cal kept the cannon steady, tearing into the ship for several seconds before the Shatner tucked into a diving roll, narrowly avoiding a blast of cannon-fire from the stern side.

  The underside of a Zertex ship loomed dead ahead. Cal squeezed the right trigger three times, firing off a volley of torpedoes. They slammed into the attack craft, flipping it into an uncontrolled spin.

  Loren dropped the Shatner into a dive as the spinning ship slammed into another of the Zertex fighters. They erupted in an explosion that sent a ripple of shockwaves racing through space.

  The Shatner shuddered, rocked by the explosive wave. “Shields at seven percent,” Loren said. “Not so close next time.”

  “Hey, I blew two of them up! A ‘well done’ might be nice.”

  “Well done. But next time, not so close.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Cal muttered, then he took aim at an oncoming ship that was still at what he hoped was a safe distance, and fired.

  * * *

  Mech’s body lay motionless on the floor, his hand resting against the glass of the Sentience’s tank, his chest dial cranked all the way to the left.

  Miz paced back and forth beside him, her eyes locked on the circular hatchway overhead. It had only been a few minutes since Cal and Loren had gone through it, but she could already hear the sound of running footsteps – close, and getting closer by the second.

  She extended her claws to their full, impressive length, then ran on the spot and pulled off a few jumping jacks, readying herself for what was sure to come next.

  “How you doing in there, Mech?” she asked.

  But Mech didn’t answer.

  * * *

  Mech swam.

  Normally, the weight of his metal frame would make swimming difficult – impossible, even – but unencumbered by a physical form, he skipped through the water like a dolphin. Not that he’d understand that reference, of course, having no knowledge of the existence of dolphins whatsoever, but that didn’t detract from the gracefulness of his moment beneath the waves.

  From the darkness ahead of him came a pulse of green light. The glow throbbed, ominously. On, off. On, off. A beacon, warning of looming danger.

  Mech’s consciousness swam on through the dark. Around him, tiny brilliant specks appeared in the water, like distant stars in the night sky. Each one was too small – impossibly small – to be able to make out, but freed from the constraints of eyes and visual processors, Mech could see everything.

  “President Bandini,” he said, addressing the billions of tiny old men glistening in the water around him. “You have invaded the Symmorium Sentience against its wishes, and against the wishes of the Symmorium people. I would request that you leave now.”

  He said none of the words out loud, but transmitted the message through a complex series of streaming ones and zeroes, beamed from his own mind into the core of the hostile virus. Still, the gist of it was much the same.

  The former-president-turned-malevolent-zombie-virus didn’t respond, but the tiny dots became slightly less tiny, and the Sentience rumbled out a low, threatening drone.

  Mech pressed on through the water, kicking with legs he didn’t have, and crawling with imaginary arms.

  “So be it,” he said. “If you are not prepared to leave of your own volition, then you leave me no choice but to force you out. Please note that I will take no pleasure from what follows whatsoever.”

  Even without a mouth, Mech somehow managed a smile. “Well, perhaps just a little.”

  And with that, the detached consciousness of Gluk Disselpoof pushed its way through the ocean of microscopic senior citizens, and plunged into battle with a zombiefied alien god.

  * * *

  “Dive, dive, dive!” Cal hollered, as torpedoes criss-crossed towards them from three different directions at once.

  “It’s going to be close!” Loren hissed, gritting her teeth and throwing her weight behind the stick.

  Both Cal’s targeting reticles found the side of a Zertex fighter. He gave them a blast of cannon fire, then launched two torpedoes. The Shatner changed direction before he could tell if the missiles hit their target.

  “Got one behind us,” said Loren. “Closing fast. Its shields are low. Take it out!”

  Cal turned, searching the sky for the pursuing ship. The Symmorium vessels continued to float limply and lifelessly in space. The Zertex ships were too busy coming after the Shatner to start their attack runs on the Symmorium or the Sentience’s station, but it was only a matter of time.

  There! The ship was so close Cal jumped in fright. His fingers tightened on the triggers, but he stopped them just in time.

  “Need to put some distance between us, or the shockwave is going to take us out, too,” he said.

  “On it,” said Loren. “Hold tight.”

  Space rolled sickeningly around Cal’s head as she banked into a spinning upwards loop, then swung the back end of the ship around. Suddenly, they were bearing down on the other ship from above. Cal just had time to launch a torpedo before Loren twisted the stick, sending them into another frantic spin.

  Behind them, the Zertex ship erupted in a chain reaction of explosions, as the torpedo punched through its damaged shields and tore a hole straight through the hull.

  “I don’t know what we were worrying about,” Cal laughed. “This is too easy!”

  A flare of red punched into the ship from below. “Sharg! Shields at three percent,” Loren announced.

  “OK, so ‘easy’ is possibly the wrong word,” Cal said, unleashing a volley of torpedoes towards an attacking ship. “But hey, at least it’s fun!”

  Loren tucked the ship into another swooping roll, just barely avoiding a scorching blast of cannon fire. “You have a very strange definition of the word ‘fun,’” she snapped.

  Cal grinned behind his visor. “Honey, you have no idea.”

  * * *

  Mizette stood above the motionless Mech, listening to the clanging and banging on the entrance hatch above them. The Symmorium were out there now, hammering against the metal. It shuddered and shook with every blow. It wouldn’t be long now until it gave way and the Symmorium came pouring through.

  If they came through two or three at a time, she could handle it. More than that, though, and it would become a much bigger challenge.

  She’d been told not to kill them, but hadn’t committed herself either way. She’d try not to, of course – none of this was their fault, after all – but if clawing them into tiny bits was the only way to stop them, then claw them into tiny bits she would.

  The hatch screeched as it gave way.

  There was a roar of triumph from above.

  And then Miz leaped back, as two dozen shark aliens plunged through the hole, and landed in a heap on the floor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Mech stood upright in a sea of shimmering data, his electronic synapses firing as he tried to make sense of the onslaught of information.

  “Interesting,” he said. He turned to the elderly man who was suddenly standing behind him. “This virus was not created by President Bandini. You may drop the illusion now.”

&nb
sp; The face of the former Zertex president fizzled and blurred, then was replaced by the face of the current Zertex President. Sinclair smirked. It wasn’t the real Sinclair, of course, just an artificial representation of him, but whoever had programmed the smile had got it bang-on.

  Sinclair’s voice modulated like a bad auto-tuner as he spoke. “Well done. You figured it out. I always knew you were the brains of the outfit, Mech.”

  “On the contrary,” said Mech. “Cal was the one who worked it out first. The data I interpreted merely confirms what he already surmised.”

  Sinclair shrugged. “Whatever. Of course, the problem for you now is that you’re in here, trapped with me. With all of me.”

  Mech turned to find several thousand identical Sinclairs gathered around him. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I see.”

  “Which is a problem – for you, I mean - because as we all know, you can be smart, or you can be strong, Mech. You can’t be both.”

  “That is correct,” Mech admitted. “In the physical world.”

  Thousands of identical Sinclairs all frowned in unison. “What?”

  “In the physical world, I must divert my power according to my requirements. But we are not in the physical world. We are currently located in an entirely electronic plane of existence, and here…”

  Mech’s metal frame unfolded like a Transformer, doubling him in size, then doubling him again. “I can do whatever the Hell I want, including disable your damn chip’s censorship!” His eyes flared red as he clenched his house-sized fists. “So the problem for you now, is that all you bitches are trapped in here with me!”

  * * *

  The Shatner screamed through a gap between two attacking ships, then banked sharply up into a corkscrew loop that forced Cal to shut his eyes and swallow back a wave of nausea.

  “Ooh. That was unpleasant,” he grimaced. The ship stabilized and he opened his eyes again, just as another flash of white lit up the sky.

  An enormous battle cruiser dropped out of warp dead ahead of them. Cal wasn’t sure how he knew it was a battle cruiser, he just knew. The sheer size of it was the first clue. The shape – like a battering ram with wings – was the second.

  The hundred or more weapons mounted on its various parts was really just the icing on the cake, and as they all swiveled towards the Shatner, Cal felt his stomach sink through the floor.

  “Uh, there aren’t enough torpedoes in the world to take that thing out,” he muttered.

  “Attack fighters pulling back,” Loren said. “They’re leaving us for Jjin to deal with.”

  “That’s Jjin’s ship?” said Cal. “Wow, that guy’s penis must be tiny.”

  “I’ve lost control,” Loren said. “The ship’s not responding.”

  Cal waggled the weapons controls. “Still working here. Should I shoot him? I’d quite like to shoot him.” He shrugged. “I’m going to shoot him,” he decided, but before he could pull the triggers the visor raised up off his head, and the controls flipped back into the arm rests.

  “OK, turns out I’m not going to shoot him,” Cal said. “That’s disappointing.”

  He blinked, readjusting himself to the change of view. On screen, the battle cruiser loomed large, and looming increasingly larger.

  “They’re taking us on board,” said Loren, pointing to where a wide docking bay hatch was unfolding near the back of the cruiser.

  “Well, that’s better than shooting us, right?” said Cal.

  “Yeah. Maybe,” said Loren. “Although it really depends on what they’re planning to do to us when we get there.”

  “Will he torture us? He looks like he’s the kind of guy who’d enjoy torturing us.”

  Loren shrugged. “I think he’d enjoy torturing you. You’re not exactly his favorite person.”

  “Oh, thanks for that. That’s very reassuring,” said Cal.

  “I suggest we go out shooting, just in case,” said Loren. “Not like we’ve got much to lose at this point.”

  “Yeah, sounds like a plan,” said Cal. He looked around for Splurt as the ship glided in through the hatch, but the ball of goo was nowhere to be found. “Wherever you are, little buddy, stay out of sight,” he said, then the landing thrusters fired and the Shatner touched smoothly down.

  “Nice landing,” said Cal.

  “Not bad,” Loren admitted.

  “Way better than yours.”

  “Yes, yes, I get it. Thanks.” Loren turned in her chair and unclipped her belt. “You ready for this?” she asked, standing and drawing her blaster pistol from it holster. It was much bigger and more impressive than Cal’s.

  Cal stood up and self-consciously took out his own gun. It felt even smaller than he’d remembered. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said.

  Loren straightened and pulled off a textbook salute. “It was… problematic, but interesting serving with you, Cal Carver.”

  “You, too, Teela Loren,” he said, then they headed for the landing ramp, hit the button, and raised their weapons.

  “Squeeze, then release,” Loren said.

  Cal shot her a sideways glance. “Is this really the right time to start coming on to me?”

  “The trigger,” Loren sighed. “Hold it to build up charge, release to fire. Squeeze, release.”

  “Hey, don’t worry, I’ve got this,” said Cal. “I’m going to Butch Cassidy the shizz out of these guys. You know, but without the part where I die in a hail of bullets at the end.”

  The ramp lowered. “Here goes,” Loren whispered.

  “Relax,” Cal grinned. “It’s in the bag.”

  Then he and Loren both violently convulsed as electric shock sticks jabbed into them from behind, and they fell simultaneously to the floor.

  * * *

  Miz drove an elbow into the throat of a heavy-set Symmorium, and wasted a half-second watching his eyes bulge out in shock.

  A fist smashed into her jaw, snapping her head round. She used the momentum, turning it into a twisting claw-swipe that tore four slits in the Symmorium’s uniform and slashed the skin below.

  The hair on her arms tingled and she dropped to her haunches in time to avoid the grabbing hands of another of the shark-aliens. Bounding upwards, she drove a shoulder into his stomach, lifting him off his feet and slamming him against the Sentience’s tank.

  She hissed as a hand grabbed the hair at the back of her head and pulled, sending a shockwave of pain burning up her spine.

  Miz turned, but too late. A flat Symmorium skull slammed into her snout, staggering her. Down on the floor, Commander Junta’s eyes flicked open. He opened his mouth, revealing far too many teeth, then snapped them shut on the back of Miz’s leg.

  Miz howled and went down hard. She dug her claws into Junta’s face, roaring as she forced his jaws apart. A circle of Symmorium knotted around her, their own teeth gnashing hungrily at her.

  “Oh… fonk,” Miz muttered, then she braced herself as the shark-aliens dived in for the kill, closing her eyes and waiting for the pain.

  She waited.

  And waited.

  She opened her eyes. The Symmorium stood in the same circle, shaking their heads as if waking from a dream.

  Miz jumped as a voice rang out from the floor beside her. “Greeting, Mizette,” said Mech, without moving his lips. “Would you do me the kindness of recentering my dial, please?”

  Miz reached over and turned the control knob back to the middle setting. Mech blinked and sat up, rubbing the back of his head.

  “Did you do it?”

  A soothing orange glow emanated from within the Sentience’s tank, pushing away the sparkles of flickering green.

  “Shizz, girl,” Mech said. “Of course I did it.”

  He stood up. “Commander Junta. Uh… all you other guys. Zertex ships are on the attack. You all might want to get back to your ships and teach those treacherous motherfonkers a lesson.”

  * * *

  “Cal?�
� Loren stammered. “Cal. You conscious?”

  “Yes, but kind of wish I wasn’t,” Cal groaned. He rolled onto his front and tried to push himself up, only for a boot to stamp on his back, slamming him to the floor again. “Ow.”

  “Well, well. Look who we have here.”

  Cal raised his head enough to see Legate Jjin standing over them, his hands tucked behind his back. Turning his head, he also saw four other figures lurking around them, shock sticks clutched in their hands.

  “Hey. I know you guys,” Cal wheezed, recognizing the fish-like gills of the tallest figure. “You were the ones from the bar.”

  “That’s right,” said gill-neck.

  “Have you been on our ship this whole time?” Cal asked. With some effort, he turned to Loren. “Have they been on the ship this whole time?”

  “I control your ship,” Jjin said, waving a slim remote control, then clipping it to his belt. “We opened the airlock from outside and they climbed aboard.”

  “That’s just sneaky,” Cal said.

  Jjin placed a boot on Cal’s hand and pressed down. “Where are the others?”

  “What others?” Cal asked.

  Jjin pressed down harder. “Where are they?”

  “Uh… you know you’re standing on my hand, right?” Cal said. “It kind of hurts.”

  “Legate Jjin--” Loren began, but Jjin roared at her.

  “Silence, traitor!”

  He gestured to one of the others. Loren flopped violently as a shock stick was jammed into her back.

  “Stop!” Cal protested. “Leave her alone!”

  “Again,” Jjin commanded. Loren’s head cracked off the floor as the electricity coursed through her again.

  “Cut it out!” Cal yelped. “You’re going to kill her.”

  “Again.”

  “D-don’t,” Loren wheezed. “Won’t tell you again.”

  Gill-neck snorted. Pushing the other man aside he raised his own shock-stick. “You don’t get to give us orders any more, botak,” he spat.

  “Don’t call me ‘botak’. And it wasn’t an order,” Loren said. She scissored her legs around, knocking the soldier’s feet out from under him. He hit the deck just as she flipped upright into a fighting stance. “It was a warning.”