by SD Tanner
Dropping like an arrow into the water, he was surprised when his feet hit something solid. Like the wall of green, the water displayed intelligence by forming a platform beneath him. Turning to face the wall, Mariana placed her hand against it so that it spread apart, but the water didn’t fill the gap. He could now see that under the free flowing blue liquid was an entrance, so well hidden that only a native of the planet could have found it.
When they walked through the opening, it resealed in the same way the ones on their ships did. A platform and stairs were carved into the brown land behind the wall. Standing on the flat surface, he was above what was essentially a small city. Some of the buildings were the equivalent of three stories and others were low shanties. The windows weren’t sharply edged, but were only uneven holes in the walls. None of the buildings appeared to be made from bricks and their texture was similar to the murky brown skin covering their ships. The city loomed from the floor of the enormous cavern, lit by splashes of purple the same way the green walls were. Scanning into the distance, he couldn’t see what lay beyond it, if anything at all.
People who looked like Mariana were walking along the dark brown lanes that wound between the buildings. All of the women were dressed in the same style as her, only some were a little curvier. What he assumed were males also wore fitted body suits, but their shoulders were broader and their hips were narrower. Both sexes were tall and slender, moving so gracefully that they appeared to be drifting rather than walking.
Occasionally one of them glanced up at the platform they were standing on, but none expressed any concern, moving on as if they hadn’t seen them. Their lack of interest worried him, it was if they knew who they were and didn’t care.
“No one is surprised to see us.”
Tank didn’t reply, but pushed him towards the stairs leading to the lane below. Mariana was already lightly tripping down them, reaching the bottom and turning to look at him with a quizzical expression. Following her, she guided them along the narrow lanes. While they walked, people moved out of their way, allowing them to pass without looking at them closely. Their reaction astounded him. Had a human on earth been confronted by the sight of large and heavily armed aliens, all hell would have broken loose. These people were calm, almost serene and accepting.
Eventually leading them into a tall building, it opened to a simple room with stairs leading to the upper levels. What was inside of the room stopped him in his tracks. A series of reliefs had been carved into the walls, painted brightly to emphasize the point of each one. Turning to his left, he followed the story it was telling. The first showed the image of the planet, peaceful and bright with dwellings above the ground. The next was of people being attacked by blackened creatures that resembled the critters. After that was a picture of the city he’d just walked through, but around it were the fallen bodies of those obviously killed by the critters. Another showed the image of what looked like a Bombardier. That picture was followed by another of a man in Navigator gear standing next to a woman who he thought might be Mariana. It was the last picture that bothered him the most. The final relief was empty.
Now he understood why Mariana had stopped running. His arrival had been foretold, but their future was not.
Stepping forward, he was hesitant to touch her. “You knew I was coming.”
Not answering, she walked across the room, sitting on a chair that was one of eight in a circle. Flicking her chin at the one opposite her, she said, “Sit.”
Unsure what to do next he did as he was asked. The chair was solid and lump-like, creaking loudly when he sat on it. Worried it might break he gave her an apologetic look.
For the first time since he’d met her, she smiled. Her purple colored eyes became an even lighter shade and a glow seemed to be dancing inside of them. “Not weak.”
Where she might look delicate, she’d confronted two heavily armed men and stood her ground, making him suspect she wasn’t only talking about the chair. “No, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” She asked, looking puzzled.
Reaching across the small divide between them, she touched his exposed face and then nodded.
Turning to find Tank standing ten feet from where he was sitting, he was clearly refusing to join the circle of chairs. “Did she just…read me?”
Tank said nothing, but continued to stare ahead wearing his usual fixed expression. Either he didn’t have an answer or he didn’t want to give him one. His mentor’s behavior was confusing, but now was not the time to ask why.
Before he could question her, three men walked into the room. All were tall and dressed in the same fitted suits. The man wearing the gold colored one had a softly lined face, making him appear much older than the other two.
Sitting on the chairs to the left and right of Mariana, the three men didn’t stop staring at him. He was starting to understand that the color of their eyes reflected their mood. The eyes of the two younger were so dark they were almost black, and with their stern expressions, it was obvious that they weren’t happy to see him.
When the elder man spoke, it was in a soft and steady voice. “Welcome to Aria.”
Once the little box translated the man’s words, he waved at the reliefs encircling them. “How do you know about us?”
“You will take Mariana.”
One of the younger men exploded in rage, filling the room with a barrage of angrily spoken words he couldn’t understand. Waiting for the AI box to speak, Tank stepped forward menacingly. Waving him away, he listened to the AI box while it spoke.
“No. He is enemy.”
Looking back at the older man, he said, “I will protect her.”
It was Tank who growled in a warning tone, “Don’t make promises you can’t or won’t keep.”
Turning in his chair, making it creak noisily, he gave Tank a hard look. “Why do you think I won’t?”
“Are you willing to go up against the Guild?”
CaliTech had been his home ever since he could remember. It had protected him, providing him with everything he could ever have wanted or needed. Dunk Two wasn’t a man he felt comfortable with, but he’d done nothing to harm him. His younger clone, Dunk Three, was effectively his brother. To take on the Guild would be to destroy the very thing that had made him everything he was. He might not agree with all of its decisions, but he and Dunk Three could slowly change it for the better. Did he really need to go head-to-head with the people who were all he could call family?
“It won’t come to that.”
“It might.”
He shook his head confidently. “No, Tank, it doesn’t have to. Dunk Three and I are the next rulers of the Guild. Between us we will control the military and CaliTech. We’re not exactly powerless.”
“Do you trust Dunk Three?”
This was not the time to argue about the politics inside of the Guild. They should be presenting a united front, but Tank was highlighting divisions that he was only just beginning to understand.
Raising his hand as if he could silently tell Tank to shut up, he returned his gaze to the elder. “I will protect Mariana, but we need to test her for enemy DNA.”
“If she has it?”
The Guild would order the planet to be cleansed, but he didn’t want to talk about that until it was a known fact. “It depends upon how much of it she has.”
“If she has too much?”
He didn’t want to lie, but the elder’s direct and blunt questions were forcing his tongue. “We’ll bring her back and talk about it.” Pointing to the relief with the image of the critters, he added, “It looks like you already know what happens if we don’t do something.”
Looking across at the relief, the elder replied, “Yes.”
Relieved that the man was clearly aware of the problem, he nodded enthusiastically. “They almost destroyed us, but we fought back and won. Now we’re looking for them and when we find them we’ll kill them.”
Laughing in a way he could tell was cynicism, the youn
ger man leaned towards him. “Will you?”
His question felt like a challenge, making him wonder why the man was so angry with him. They’d never met this species before, and although the Guild might decide to cleanse the planet, they didn’t know that.
Gently placing his long and graceful fingers on the young man’s arm, the elder shook his head at him. “She will see.”
Reluctantly, the younger man leaned back into his chair, but continued to glare at him with dark eyes. He wasn’t convinced by anything he’d said, making him wonder if he was right to doubt him. Although he didn’t agree with everything the Guild did, it would take a lot to turn him against it. Would he ignore what they did to Mariana to avoid challenging the status quo? He wanted to believe he was a better man than that, but being so young, he didn’t have any evidence that he was.
After agreeing to take her, everything moved quickly. Within an hour, they were back in their attack ships and Mariana was seated in his lap. When he wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her steady as the ship lifted into the air, he became aware of how slender and vulnerable she really was. His tutors at CaliTech had made it sound as if taking control of the planets was commonsense. What they hadn’t told him was that it would mean taking someone like Mariana and using her in ways she didn’t deserve. In reality, their plans were ruthless and he wasn’t sure he was the man they’d taught him to be.
CHAPTER NINE: Tiny minds (Ark Three)
“It’s gonna ram us.”
“Pull the Navigators out of stasis.”
“Roger that.”
After returning to the battleship from Aria, he hadn’t been willing to put Mariana into stasis. Drowning in the goo, while it forced its way into every crevice and orifice, was one of the worst sensations he knew. Once they could contact Ark Command again, Commander Casey had suggested he send her to them in an automated pod, but Tank had persuaded her to let him do it his way. It would take four months to reach earth, giving him time to get to know her before they landed at CaliTech. He’d assigned the Bombardier’s living quarters to her rather than the room next to the Navigator stasis pods. The Bombardiers didn’t really need their quarters and it gave her some space to call her own. She’d seemed happy enough, although Tank’s squad hadn’t been too pleased about losing their room.
They’d been in space for a week, but now a black ship similar to the one that had attacked them earlier had appeared in their path. This one was equally as difficult to detect and had even more menacing spikes coming out of it at every angle. The spiker, as they were now calling it, was spinning madly towards their battleship, which was dodging left, right, up and down to evade its attack.
His earpiece crackled to life. “What the hell?” Cardiff asked.
“We’re under attack. Gear up and get to the B-crap.”
While his crew called off, announcing themselves onto the grid, he sat next to Tank watching the screens surrounding him. “What do you want me to do?”
Appearing unworried, Tank answered his question with one of his own. “What are your orders?”
Their ship jogged to the left and upwards at the same time, almost lifting him out of his chair. “Send out three attack ships. No lasers. Missiles only. If we cut it up with the lasers it’ll just turn into more enemy ships.” Giving it a little more thought, he added, “Target the battleship TAG at its center. Let’s see if we can explode it.”
“If we have to tag the spiker then it could drag us all over the place.”
As the ship dipped sharply again, he felt his butt lifting from the chair. “It’s doing that now anyway.”
While using the screens in their visors to control the ship and weapons, the Bombardiers around him chuckled. One of them had already targeted the spiky ship with a beam aimed directly at its center. In theory, the laser should heat the molecules at the center of the ship, ultimately causing it to explode, but how long it would take before the atoms became so agitated that they lost cohesion was anyone’s guess. Last time he’d tried this tactic, desperate to escape their beam the enemy ship had crash-landed onto the bird planet. Once again, they would need to dog its every move, holding the beam as steady as they could.
Tank might have been taking the enemy attack in his stride, but he was sweating inside of his gear. The sensor layer was designed to absorb the beads of sweat trickling down his neck and spine, keeping him dry and cool, but it only made his skin itch under the layers of hydraulics and armor. Rolling his shoulders, hoping to gain a measure of relief, he remembered Mariana. “I’m going to meet my squad in the docking bay, but before I go I’ll bring Mariana here.”
Tank merely nodded. “Bom Six-three, you have the helm. Stay tagged on the enemy.”
Pushing through a slit in the wall and into the Bombardier quarters, he listened to the chatter on the grid. Ark Command were well out of range to talk in real time and all he could hear were the battle team. His squad were swearing at one another, while Tank’s team were calmly moving through their paces as if this was something they dealt with every day. He should tell his squad to shut up, but he couldn’t be bothered arguing with them.
Bombardier quarters were sparse. Four hard surfaces protruded from each of the walls, acting as the most uncomfortable beds he’d ever seen. A slit in one wall led to a bathroom, but it was equally as basic. From what he’d been told, once he was transformed his body functions would slow down, meaning he would need significantly less oxygen and food to stay alive. His heart rate would drop to that of a Navigator in stasis, beating only once every five minutes. Turning into mostly a thick exoskeleton, very little of his body would be alive, which was why a Bombardier could expect to live for hundreds of years.
Mariana was curled into a fetal ball on one of the beds, and not wanting to stand over her, he sat on the end. “Mariana?”
Her delicate face was framed by her tangled tawny hair and her eyes were a light shade of purple. Turning and sitting upright, she asked, “Enemy?”
“We call them critters and we think so.” Drawing her knees to her chin, her purple eyes darkened. He didn’t have time to ask what had happened on her planet, but judging by her unhappiness, he could guess. “We’ll get rid of it.”
“How?”
“When they came for us there was a man who had created a…” Struggling to describe the Navigator technology, he said, “…a weapon.”
“You?”
“I guess so, but I’m going to become an even better one. He also stole the alien technology and now we can be transformed.”
Narrowing her eyes, she tilted her head at him. “Critter?”
Her question sent a cold chill along his spine. How were they any different to their enemy? They used the same technology, plus they were equally as ruthless towards any alien species carrying too much of the enemy DNA. Dunk’s master plan had sounded sensible on paper, but to become stronger they denied others the right to life, including their own species.
Unwilling to answer her, he stood again, moving towards the slit in the wall leading back to the Battle Command Pod. “You should wait in the BCP. If we need to evacuate the ship then the Boms will take care of you.”
When he arrived at the docking bay, Tank was already waiting inside of the attack ship. Climbing aboard, he scanned the screens on his visor, checking the status of the other ships. The spiker was constantly jabbing towards the battleship, forcing it to jerk in all directions. Attack ships were surrounding it, matching its every move as it accelerated towards the battleship. Traveling at over a million miles per hour, just like their last engagement, they seemed to be equally matched with neither side able to best the other.
While Tank launched the attack ship into space, he asked, “Why isn’t the TAG working?”
“We don’t know what it’s made of. Maybe it would work, but it takes too long.”
“Then we’re down to Space Spear missiles and we don’t carry as many of those.”
“Ark Command will need to modify the ship’s weap
ons.”
Hurtling through space, not knowing which way was up still disoriented him. Having no frame of reference other than what the screens on his visor gave him, he was swimming through darkness, neither upright or upside down. The three attack ships, battleship and spiker were rolling around the black like drunks in a bar brawl. His stomach lurched unhappily as they twisted in every direction, neither side able to get the upper hand.
Fed up with being thrown around, he said, “Let’s target it with two Space Spears each. That should blast it into small enough pieces.”
“Roger that. Bom One-oh-one. Bom Four-two. Target center hit. Coordinate concurrent detonation. Confirm target once set.”
Using the sensors inside of his gloves to interact with the screens he could see through his visor, he moved his hands to target the center of the spiker. Once the missiles were fired, they would hunt a target until they hit it, but he didn’t know how much of an explosion they would need to destroy a spiker. The only way to be sure was to hit it as hard as they could and that meant all of the missiles needed to detonate simultaneously. If they didn’t launch the missiles from the right positions then they could interfere with one another, forcing them to move out of one another’s way so that they wouldn’t hit the target at the same time.
“Ark Three target ready.”
“Bom One-oh-one target ready.”
“Bom Four-two target ready.”
Tank ordered, “Fire on my count. Three. Two. One.”
Six missiles, two from each attack ship, launched directly into the heart of the spiker.
“Pull back.”
Reducing their speed, the three attack ships continued to tag the spiker, allowing the distance between them to grow wider. As the six missiles concurrently hit the center of the enemy ship, a massive explosion followed, hurling pieces of it into space. Just as he’d hoped, the combined force of six missiles was enough to disintegrate the spiker into pieces no larger than a basketball. Moving outwards from where it had been, these small fragments were heading directly towards them.
