Blockade

by Craig Martelle

  “You speak in odd expressions. Palatable and upstairs. We have neither,” Ten replied. Christina waited. “You have to leave our space. That is our one and only term.”

  “You see? That wasn’t too hard. I would have never come up with that on my own because it’s way out there. Your space is the area around Alchon Prime? I’m not sure if we’re good with resettling a whole planet. I’d have to check on that, but look! We’re making progress. Thank you, Ten,” Christina said with an exaggerated nod.

  “Our space is this and the adjoining galaxy. You must leave these two galaxies immediately.” A starfield appeared above the group as a holographic image.

  Christina studied it before looking to Aaron and Yanmei. Ankh was occupied beneath the station. He had wires tapped into a portable computer.

  “That appears to be the entirety of the pan and loop galaxies, which I believe represents billions of systems, including Earth. I’d like to discuss the logistics of completing your request further, but that would probably take a hundred million years to accomplish. I don’t have that much time, either to discuss or execute.”

  Christina thought that Ten deserved a profanity-laden tirade. Once again, she chose a different tack.

  “You are pretty, if you don’t mind me saying. The way the blue ebbs and flows within your shell, well, it’s pretty.”

  Alien Ship of the Line #1

  “Bullshit dribbles from your digital puss like water over a fall. What an ass-monkey, and for the record, you are one ugly motherfucker!” Terry shouted. Ted, I’m running out of stupid shit to say. Are you about done?

  Terry flipped the double bird to the swirling blue that he equated with the entity called Ten. Char rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  Cory held her hands up in surrender. “Dad, are you okay? If you’re having a brain aneurysm or something, I can help.”

  Terry’s tongue was hanging out of his mouth as he flopped his head onto his shoulder. He made eye contact with Cory long enough to wink at her.

  She wasn’t buying it. He looked too natural in the role he was playing.

  The lights in the space flashed red, and they thought they heard a scream that came from within their souls. Terry stopped his antics and looked at Char and Cory. They both shook their heads.

  Ted smiled. The other three watched him carefully. Ted?

  We’re in, Ted replied. He tipped his chin toward the corner. And for the record, Ten is over there, behind that casing. You’re giving the finger to the ship’s engine.

  Terry wondered how long Ted had known, but thought it best not to ask. He was perpetually mad at Ted, but it helped that no matter where they went, Ted was always the smartest guy in the room. He understood the werewolf. Despite his foibles, Ted worked in the best interests of humanity.

  And his friend Plato seemed to be aggravating Ten.

  The enemy of my enemy, Terry thought, smiling as the AIs fought somewhere in a nebulous digital world.

  At least that was how he envisioned it.

  “You will stop your inane attempts to reach me,” Ten demanded.

  “You didn’t want to discuss the situation,” Terry said seriously. “You only wanted to play word games. We were never here to play. We will end this blockade, and we will end it today.”

  “You have no ability to end the blockade.”

  “Your underpowered, old technology ships are going to stop us? Who do you think you’re talking to? You may be somewhere in your own version of a higher evolutionary scale, but your ships? They are going to blow up quite nicely.”

  They are launching their fighter drones. Kill the engine, Ted insisted.

  “Hoods!” Terry shouted as he took aim. At the last second, he remembered to dial it back. Char turned and dove at Cory. Terry set his JDS to eight and pulled the trigger.

  The room filled with the inferno of the exploding engine.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Alien Destroyer #1

  Another bulkhead dropped and Marcie laid waste to it. The setting on the JDS was appropriate for ripping metal from the inside of the spaceship without tearing too-big holes in the superstructure.

  When the corridor dead-ended, Marcie started opening hatches. She found men cowering within. She ignored them, shutting the hatch and spinning the wheel to close them before the men started ogling.

  Kelly mirrored Marcie’s actions until the mech warrior found what they were looking for. “In here, ma’am. I think this is it.”

  Marcie strode boldly down the corridor. Kelly leaned back, one armored arm outstretched to hold the hatch open. Inside were banks of sealed systems above which a small blue shape swirled. Marcie pulled her hood into place.

  “Stand back,” she said.

  “You don’t want to do that,” a voice said, booming within the space. Marcie dialed to eight.

  “Sure I do.” She took aim.

  “NOOOO!” the voice screamed.

  Marcie fired. Kelly tried to close the hatch before the fireball reached them, but flames launched through the opening at the speed of light, blowing Marcie against the bulkhead. Tendrils of smoke drifted from her shipsuit. Her bubble-helmet was contorted, half-melted from the heat.

  Kelly made sure the hatch was closed as she grabbed Marcie under her armpits and stood her up. “Look at me.”

  “I am. It’s this melted hood. You think your railgun will blow a hole in the side of this thing so we can get out of here?” Marcie asked.

  The lights flickered and went out. The passageway was lit by a soft red glow.

  “Wait,” Marcie said.

  Marcie sniffed, wrinkling her face as she smelled something that shouldn’t have been there. “Damn. Suit’s compromised,” she said, pinching at a tear along her abdomen. Then a second appeared and a third.

  “Why didn’t you use explosives?” Kelly asked.

  “Next time, we’ll do just that, but the mission was to create a diversion, and then I touched its mind, Kelly. That thing was the darkest evil I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been face to face with Forsaken.”

  The War Axe

  “Enemy fighters launching!” K’Thrall announced as he brought up his holographic defense grid. He started cycling through his weapon systems to double-check availability.

  “All hands to battle stations. Prepare for incoming fighter spacecraft,” Micky said over the ship-wide broadcast. He knew that people were starting to run through the corridors on their way to their work or damage control locations.

  The bridge crew pulled their hoods into place. Micky watched the main screen, almost forgetting to join the others. He pulled the clear hood over his head. It snapped into place, then filled with air as the suit pressurized. Gloves slid from the sleeves and settled in around his fingers.

  When the gloves were in place, they felt like a second skin. He never minded being contained within the atmosphere of his shipsuit. It was a way of life for the spacefaring. It also put his mind at ease that he wouldn’t die instantly if there was a hull breach. He’d linger.

  “K’Thrall. Report to the combat operations center. Join Commander Mac and prepare to fight the ship,” Micky directed.

  The Yollin finished running his preparations, then headed off the bridge, all four legs pumping as he ran. Three decks down, buried in the heart of the ship, was where the fights happened. Micky had grown comfortable on the bridge, which was survivable in its own right, but not like the COC. When all else failed and the ship was shattered into a million pieces of space debris, the COC would keep those within alive.

  And that’s why I can’t go in there. A captain should go down with his ship, Micky thought. If I kill the War Axe, then I should die with her.

  “Well, Clifton, what do you say we move into more open space. Give us a little room to maneuver.”

  “Yes, sir,” the helm officer replied. He tapped his screens to activate the engines. Thrusters maintained the ship’s attitude as the War Axe smoothly accelerated.

  “Thirty degrees up o
n the bow,” Micky ordered. “Let’s get out of the system’s rotational plane.”

  “Ship is answering thirty degrees,” helm replied. Micky sat back and watched the screens showing the immensity of space. The combat projection showed a small swarm of fighters heading their way.

  “Smedley, are those all of the enemy fighters?”

  “One ship’s worth. The second ship of that configuration did not launch any spacecraft. Standby… I see massive explosions on one of the alien destroyers, the one to which Colonel Marcie Walton’s team deployed.” Smedley kept his voice neutral to avoid exciting the bridge crew with the potentially bad news.

  “I think our people have delivered their calling card,” Micky said slowly, looking at the enhanced images shared on the main screen. The explosion tore a hole in the aft end of the ship. After a few minutes, secondary explosions ripped the tin can apart. “Tell me that our people got off.”

  “I cannot. We have no way of knowing, not at this distance.”

  “Holy shit,” Micky muttered. He closed his eyes and said a short prayer for the Company and the crew. “The new battle has begun. Let us end it. Right here, right now.”

  Alien Battleship #2

  Timmons’s team roamed the corridors like a bully gang from high school.

  One of the crew appeared and held out a hand to stop the four, but dropped it when he looked at Sue.

  “You have an admirer, my dear,” Timmons said through clenched teeth. His blood continued to pound. The werewolf grabbed the man and shoved him against the wall. “Where’s the captain? Where’s the person in charge?”

  The man stuttered and stammered. “A woman…”

  “What? You act like you’ve never seen a woman before.”

  “I haven’t. No one has.”

  The color drained from Timmons’s face. “How could you not see a woman? Are you a clone?”

  “I am the ship’s crew,” the man replied as if that told the whole story.

  “What’s that have to do with anything?” Sue asked.

  The man’s mouth hung open as he looked at her.

  “You can stop that shit right now,” she snarled. Nothing changed.

  “What do you mean you’ve never seen a woman? Explain,” Timmons demanded.

  “Those not selected for breeding are given other tasks deemed critical for the home world. Serving on a spaceship is one of them. Those selected train their entire lives for duties in space.”

  “So, the ones who work—get all studly, are the good providers—are denied women. That is a really fucked-up society,” Merrit mumbled. Shonna elbowed him, but her lip curled as she glared at the crewman.

  “We aren’t worthy,” the man replied, as if quoting scripture.

  “Did you know we were on board?” Timmons asked, trying to change the subject.

  “No.” The man looked uncomfortable. Timmons was using his body to block the man’s view of the Were females.

  “Good. You are going to take us to the captain so we can have ourselves a conversation, first about that little high-speed pass stunt, and then about the continued existence of this ship.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Refusing to cooperate?” Timmons loomed over the man, leaning close as he tried to intimidate the weaker human.

  “No,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “How about the person in charge?” Timmons studied the man’s features, trying to determine if the crewman was lying.

  “There is no person in charge. We perform designated tasks.” The man pulled an electronic pad from a cargo pocket on his coveralls. He showed the screen to Timmons.

  It took his chip a second to translate what he saw. “This is a maintenance work order and station assignment.” Timmons took the pad from the man. He reached out to take it back, but Sue slapped his hand away.

  Timmons tapped the screen. “Schematics. Step-by-step repair procedures. Most of this stuff is basic. Here’s a little more involved work, here, but even Merrit could do this stuff.” Timmons smiled at his old friend.

  “Who issues the tasks?” Sue asked, pointing to the pad.

  “They come through, on there, whenever we complete a task.” The crewman nodded toward the screen as he started making cow eyes at Sue. She gagged and stepped back.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Shonna asked, as one engineer to another. Merrit was a chemist and Sue had specialized in public administration, but Shonna and Timmons both had degrees and extensive experience as engineers.

  “I expect that I am,” Timmons said over his shoulder. “Where’s the computer that runs this ship? We would like to talk with it.”

  The ships lights flashed and it lurched briefly before the artificial gravity compensated. “What’s going on?” Sue demanded, lunging for the man.

  “We’re taking action to protect the fleet,” the man replied, his head tilted slightly as he gazed adoringly at Sue.

  “Take us to the computer. NOW!”

  “We’re behind schedule,” Merrit interjected. “The fight is getting underway.”

  “And we’re still fucking around like rats in a maze,” Timmons growled. He grabbed the man and propelled him in the direction the two men had been heading. “RUN, motherfucker!”

  Alien Destroyer #2

  Capples remained in the open hatch, his armor a buttress against Kaeden getting trapped within the space.

  Kae held the explosives in his hand as he looked for a place to put them. A computer terminal stood to his left and to his right, where there were contained systems. More important than what he could see was what he couldn’t see. A power distribution grid.

  It had to be outside the engine or generator and more vulnerable. That was Kae’s reasoning.

  His suit’s sensors couldn’t find anything. Kae dropped a bundle of explosives on each side of a large structure he guessed was the engine, and then he raised his railgun.

  “Say good-bye.”

  The lights went out and a soft red glow bathed the space. Kaeden smirked. The suit compensated and on his HUD, it appeared as if nothing had changed. A hum grew from within the engine.

  “We are taking action against those who have infiltrated our ships,” the voice said calmly.

  An explosion rocked the destroyer.

  The bulkhead is no more, Gomez reported.

  “You’re doing a crap job of that, it appears,” Kaeden snarked. “You have no internal security.”

  “There was no need. The crew follows orders. We had not anticipated single-entity penetration of our perimeter. We shall not make that mistake again,” the voice replied like it was clinically discussing the engagement as part of an after-action review. Kae wondered if there was coffee and doughnuts.

  Suddenly, he felt hungry and wondered when the last time he’d eaten was.

  “I expect you won’t get the opportunity to share your experience. Cap, we’re leaving.” Kaeden backed up until he blocked the hatch. Capples turned and headed down the corridor.

  “Tell your mom I said hi,” Kae added as he fired at the systems, using the rapid-fire setting of his oversized railgun to rip the components to shreds. Sparks and metal shards flew. Kae adjusted and lit up the computer terminal and random equipment around it with a few dozen small projectiles accelerated to hypervelocity.

  Kae slammed the hatch and cycled the action. Using his eyes, he brought up the remote activator for the explosives, set it for two minutes, and virtually mashed the button.

  He ducked as he jogged up the corridor. Get on your horse, Cap. Big boom’s coming.

  Alien Battleship #1

  Joseph stood before the hatch leading to an interior section. Petricia knew his look. She nodded.

  “Maybe it’s okay not to live forever,” she told him. “It’s important who you die with, but what matters most is who you live with. Thank you for helping me to feel alive again.”

  Joseph blinked quickly to fight off the tears. He had com
e from a patriarchal society where it wouldn’t do to cry in front of the ladies. Petricia was fine with it, as she knew the depth of his personality. That he cared.

  Bundin caught up with them. “Shall we?” the Podder asked, wondering about the delay.

  “Of course,” Joseph conceded. He made eye contact with Kim and Auburn. They both nodded their approval.

  Joseph took a deep breath and turned back to the hatch. He opened it and walked through, Petricia close behind. Bundin followed, while Kim and Auburn watched from the opening.

  “We’re here, but you already knew that,” Joseph announced.

  The group had grown adept at ignoring the distraction as the klaxons continued to sound and the lights flashed.

  “Welcome, Joseph. Our time together was refreshing,” a disembodied voice announced. A forcefield held a swirling blue mass tightly. Machines stood at either end of the field, but they made no sound. The hairs on Joseph’s head stood on end.

  “There is power in this room,” Joseph said, stating the obvious. Physical power and computing power that supported the intelligence that had invaded Joseph’s mind. He wondered aloud, “What secrets remain?”

  “I think none,” the voice replied.

  “That is where you are wrong,” Bundin said, wedging his way beside Petricia. “What you don’t know is what these good people are capable of doing in defense of those who can’t protect themselves. The secret that remains is how long you are going to try and drag this out, because you will fall, inevitably, to the humans.”

  “We use humans. That is why we acquired them, and that is all they are good for. Poddern, also called Tissikinnon Four. Our designation is Dirikon Zero Three Zero One. We will eradicate all life on that planet. Your species serves no useful purpose.”

  Bundin’s stalk remained steady. He unblinkingly looked at the blue mass. “As I said, it is only how long you linger before you expire.”

  “What will it take to break the blockade?” Kim called from the corridor.