by Isaac Hooke
An hour later, Eric was inside a shuttle aboard the pyramid-shaped ship known as the Devastator. He had switched to his android, and was interacting with the universe from its viewpoint. With him sat other androids containing the AI cores of Bambi, Brontosaurus, Crusher, Dickson, Frogger, and Sarge. They wore gray digital camos, with helmets, and plasma rifles strapped to their shoulders. On their chests they carried vests harboring energy and frag grenades. It wasn’t the greatest load out, but it was all they could manage in such short order. Resistance was expected aboard; Eric just wasn’t sure what kind of resistance.
Another android sat beside Eric, this one the spitting image of Jain’s avatar. Its eyes were currently closed.
“So, did the transfer work?” Eric asked.
Jain opened his eyes and paused a moment to examine his hands. “Yes. My consciousness feels so… limited, now.”
“Your Accomp is in control of the vessel?” Eric asked.
“The original is, yes,” Jain said. “I retain a copy in my local AI core. When I return my consciousness to the ship, the original will overwrite the copy I keep with me, ensuring that duplicate Accomps aren’t created.”
“I might have to try that transference method with Banthar Prime sometime,” Eric said. “Though I’m not sure Dee would be too happy about me strapping her with the task of managing a planet without me.”
“I wouldn’t mind terribly,” Dee said.
“Speaking of Banthar Prime, are you being drawn away often?” Jain asked.
Eric shook his head. “I’ve had to check in on a few things, but nothing big enough to warrant pausing external reality for more than a few seconds at a time.”
The shuttle shook as it launched. In five minutes, they were docking with the Void Warrior vessel known as the Forebode.
When they landed, the bay doors opened. There was no need to pressurize the hangar bay: they let the cold void of space seep inside. They were all androids, after all.
Artificial gravity glued their feet to the deck as they exited the shuttle. In front of him, ice from condensation formed on Bambi’s ears.
“Look, icicle earrings!” she joked. She modeled them for Crusher.
“Nice,” Crusher said. “But how come I didn’t grow any?”
“I’m special,” Bambi said.
“You are indeed,” Brontosaurus said with an amused grin.
“Wipe that smirk off your face, big guy,” Bambi told him.
“Who me, smirk?” Brontosaurus said, his grin deepening. “Never!”
They entered the special shuttle that the Void Warriors had prepared. Inside, the other five Void Warriors were waiting. They were equipped with similar load outs as the Bolt Eaters, except their weapons were laser rifles, and they had only energy grenades.
“Well, here we are, the Bolt Eaters and Void Warriors,” Frogger said. “Together again as you’ve never seen them before!”
“I don’t get the joke,” Crusher said.
“It’s a play on old movie trailers,” Frogger said. “Never mind.”
“They do that a lot,” Crusher told the Void Warrior beside her, a woman named Medeia. Eric knew her name because of the label on his HUD. “Archaic cultural references. You get used to it.”
Medeia simply nodded.
“You’ve all transferred your consciousnesses into androids?” Eric asked the Void Warriors.
“We have,” the one named Mark said. “You told us our comm signals wouldn’t pass through the energy shield of the world killer?”
“They won’t,” Eric said. “I was just checking.”
“Yeah, about that,” Medeia said. “How come your signals will? You’re controlling your android remotely, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Eric said. “But mine are based on gamma rays. They have much higher penetrative abilities.”
“I’m sure we could have jury-rigged something,” Medeia said.
“I’m sure we could have,” Eric agreed. “But we didn’t have time.”
“What if you’re wrong, and your rays don’t penetrate?” the Void Warrior named Sheila asked.
“Then I’m not going with you,” Eric told her.
Jain buckled himself in across from Sheila. She gave him a glance that seemed somehow significant before she looked away.
There’s something going on between those two.
Not that it was any of Eric’s business. He’d taken along his own two girlfriends, after all.
He hoped he didn’t regret that.
Not that they would have ever let him leave them behind.
The ramp closed and the shuttle shook as it launched. The artificial gravity faded away when the ship exited the hangar bay. Eric had permission to access the external camera feeds, and he did so, which allowed him to watch as other Mind Refurb ships nearby closed to escort them toward the world killer.
“Here we go,” Eric said.
12
Eric watched as the shuttle approached the outer extents of the world killer. The invisible energy shield was indicated on the video feed, displayed as a red ellipsoid around the donut ship, as recorded by their sensors during the previous attack.
Eric remembered the conversation he had with Jain before the mission.
“We’re going to have to decide on who’s in command,” Eric told the former SEAL.
“That would be a good idea,” Jain agreed. “Since it’s my shuttle, and my teleportation device, I’m in charge of course.”
“Not so fast,” Eric said. “Sure, I’ll let you command the shuttle, since it is yours, after all. But once we land on the world killer’s hull, I’m taking over. Invading alien warships is like second nature to myself and my Bolt Eaters. We’ve done it so many times, we could do it in our sleep.”
“I’ve boarded a few ships myself,” Jain said. “Plus, I was the commander of a Navy SEAL team. I’ve been leading men into battle for my entire adult life. I’m more than qualified to do this.”
“Yes,” Eric said. “But you’re a bit rusty. You’ve been leading starships. Which is completely different from small unit tactics.”
“Not so different,” Jain said.
Eric shook his head. “I’ve had the same training as you, thanks to my Mind Refurb nature.”
“Wait, you say I’m rusty?” Jain said. “As far as I can tell, the last battle you had was over eighty years ago.”
“But a Mind Refurb never forgets,” Eric said. “Eighty years ago might as well be yesterday. Besides, that was the last battle recorded by humans and Mind Refurbs. I’ve had more than my fair share of battles on Banthar Prime since then. The insurrections, the assassination attempts… the Banthar have kept my combat skills sharp, don’t you worry.”
Jain opened his mouth, but Eric raised a hand to forestall him.
“Look,” Eric said. “Let’s do it this way. We’ll go by who has the bigger mind.”
Jain frowned.
“And since that’s me—my mind is the size of a planet—I’m in command by default once we touch the alien hull,” Eric said. “But if anything happens to me, or my connection severs, then you take charge.”
Jain stared at him for several moments. For a second, Eric thought the former SEAL would disagree yet again. But then Jain shrugged.
Eric took it as tacit agreement, and smiled fleetingly at that. He wondered if Jain would acquiesce to his commands so easily during the actual mission. Probably not. But he was ready to spar with him if needed. And if they really came to blows, well, then Eric was ready to give the order for the two teams to go their separate ways. He only really needed the Void Warriors to get him inside. Once he was aboard, the Void Warriors could do whatever the hell they wanted as far as Eric was concerned. His Bolt Eaters were enough to handle the job.
“You know,” Brontosaurus said, bringing Eric out of his thoughts. “If it was so easy for you guys to create teleportation devices, maybe we should have had you create some teleport bombs for the rest of the fleet to use.”
“Not so easy,” Jain said. “Cranston here had to open up his drive and scavenge it for the parts he needed. That drive is offline at the moment… as soon we return to the Forebode, he’s going to have to reinsert those parts to get his main teleporter working again.”
“Not only that,” Cranston said. “But the range is extremely limited. It can only teleport us a maximum distance of a hundred meters or so.”
“Too bad,” Brontosaurus said.
As the shuttle came closer to the world killer, Jain said: “Fire light laser. Let’s confirm the positioning of that field.”
The invisible laser released, and the energy field activated, becoming a bright yellow curve that precisely overlapped the virtual ellipsoid surrounding the target ship on the feed.
“Okay, so it matches.” Jain glanced at Eric. “If that field is thicker than a few meters, we won’t make it though.”
“It’s not,” Eric said with more confidence than he felt. It was possible the Link had changed the specs on the energy shield since the last time the Banthar database had updated.
The shuttle continued to approach the energy shield. Abruptly the world killer veered toward them, as if intending to ram them with the shield—which would probably incinerate them.
Jain glanced at the Void Warrior named Cranston. “Teleport!”
Despite his reassurances to the contrary, Eric was still a little worried that his signal to the android would get cut off once they passed the shield. He supposed now was the moment of truth.
On the view screen, the ship jumped toward them.
“We’re through!” Cranston said.
Eric was still in control of his android, much to his relief.
“Decelerate!” Jain said.
The enemy hull was hurtling toward them. Fast.
They hit, hard. Eric was jarred in his seat. On the camera, he watched as the hull receded—the shuttle had bounced away.
“Fire grappling hooks!” Jain said.
Lines streamed out from the shuttle and slammed into the craft. The shuttle began to reel itself in. But then the target swerved toward them again.
“Brace yourselves…” Jain said.
Once more Eric was jolted as the vessel impacted.
The shuttle bounced again, but the grappling hooks retracted rapidly, and in seconds the craft slammed into the hull for a final time.
“We’re secure,” Jain said.
“By the way, we’ve lost all external communications with the fleet,” Frogger said. “As predicted. Looks like Scorpion is still in control of his android, though.”
“I am,” Eric said. “Electrify exteriors.” He touched a button on the bracelet he wore. He felt a subtle jolt as current began to flow across the surface of his skin. That current would zap any enemy micro machines that attempted to latch onto his body. It did drain his power cell, however, and while that cell was auto regenerating, if too many micro machines attacked at once, the current layer would fail, and he’d be vulnerable.
“Lower the ramp,” Eric ordered.
Cranston glanced at Jain for confirmation, and the Mind Refurb nodded.
The ramp went down, opening out into empty space. As usual, there was no explosive decompression, as the inner cabin hadn’t been pressurized in the first place. All this time, though their lips had been moving when they spoke, no actual sounds had come. Instead, their voices were transmitted over the comm band via a communications sublayer inserted into the subroutine ordinarily responsible for speech processing. Because that man-in-the-middle subroutine interfaced seamlessly with the speech processor, their communications were synced perfectly to their lip movements.
As the ramp continued to lower, Eric began to see crayfish-sized micro machines crawling across the hull all around that ramp; when it touched down, flashes appeared across the surface as the micro machines were zapped by a similar protective current that enveloped the shuttle.
“There’s a lot of them,” Brontosaurus said. “How long will the shuttle’s power cells hold up?”
“About ten minutes,” Jain said. “Should be more than enough time for us to vacate.”
“We’re going to have to skirt them,” Frogger said.
“I’ll go first,” Medeia said, securing the cabin’s lifeline around her waist.
“Wait—” Mark tried.
But she was already pushing off from her seat. There was no artificial gravity out here, so she floated easily through the open ramp and out the shuttle. She floated above the swarming micro machines, and reached the extents of the lifeline—the cord tightened.
The hull was coated in a series of small vents that extended for as far as the eye could see. They were like miniature versions of the gooseneck vents one might find on the top of a building.
Medeia slid the rifle down from her shoulder, reached down, hooked the strap over the tip of one of those small gooseneck vents, and used it to pull herself down to the alien hull.
When her feet touched, she activated the magnetic mounts at the bottom of her boots and latched onto the surface. There were a few sparks at her feet as micro machines attempted to climb onto her. A large swarm had broken away from the group surrounding the shuttle; she untied the lifeline from her waist, letting it float behind her, and quickly moved away, leading the micro machines. She pointed her laser rifle at the things and released several quick bursts.
“Well, at least they’re vulnerable to our weapons,” Medeia sent over the comm. “But killing them with single laser shots is terribly inefficient. I’ll keep circling the shuttle until the rest of you get out here. I’ll try to keep them occupied.”
“Kill them with an energy grenade?” Mark asked as he retracted the lifeline.
“They’re a bit close for that,” Medeia said.
The Void Warriors and Bolt Eaters evacuated the shuttle the same way as Medeia, by tying the lifeline around their waists, leaping out the ramp, and then looping their rifle straps onto the surface features to pull themselves down before latching on. Always a few micro machines broke away from the shuttle to pursue each of them. The team members mustered near Medeia’s latest position; the micro machines always joined up with those that followed her, so that the secondary swarm was growing fairly big.
When they were all out, the shuttle left the hull before the micro machine attacks drained its power cell entirely. The craft would probably have to continually adjust its trajectory to compensate for any sudden directional changes the world killer employed to take the vessel out.
“This way!” Eric said. He moved across the metal hull at a jog. Well, as much of a jog as he could manage, given all the little hooks and vents. The magnetic mounts adjusted their intensity in realtime to match his gait, allowing him to run almost as he would under real gravity. He tripped at one point, and had to release his magnetic hold entirely so that he wouldn’t slam into the surface. He realigned his feet beneath him in a blur and reactivated the mounts before he floated away.
The ship hadn’t seemed all that big during the approach, but now that he was navigating across the surface, the utter immensity of it struck him. The hull stretched to the horizon on all sides. Yes, it was big. Once they got inside, the teams had a long way to the target. He hoped they could make it to their goal within the seven hour time limit. It all boiled down to how much resistance they faced.
When the teams had put some distance between themselves and the micro machine swarms behind them, Eric called a halt.
Teams. Have to start thinking of them as a single team. Not teams. We’re all on the same side here.
“This is as good a spot as any to cut inside,” Eric said. “Cutters, forward!”
Brontosaurus and Crusher joined him, and slammed the tips of their plasma rifles into the hull. They switched the weapons into cutting mode, and began releasing powerful plasma bursts into the hull in rapid succession. They slowly rotated the weapons as they worked, carving a circular pattern into the hull.
“The rest of you, de
fensive positions,” Eric said.
The team took up positions three hundred and sixty degree around the two cutters. Eric gazed through his scope and scanned the distant hull, looking for signs of any incoming targets.
He thought of the task ahead. It wasn’t going to be easy.
Tanis had offered to deliver a specially crafted nuke to help speed up the process, but Eric had told him an energy grenade would do the job just as well.
In fact a grenade was preferable. A detonation above the hull would cause some damage to the vessel’s armor, true, but not enough to stop the world killer. One might think it would be a simple matter to drill a hole into the hull and then toss the nuke inside to cause even greater damage, but the hull was designed to vent excess energy generated aboard. The nuke would incinerate the metal in the immediate vicinity, true, forming an empty sphere roughly five hundred meters in diameter, but that was nothing against the sheer size of the vessel.
No, if they wanted to use a nuke, they’d have to drag the payload through the labyrinth of corridors and compartments all the way to their target, deep inside the vessel. And they’d have to make their way back to the surface before detonating it, unless they wanted to die in the process. At least with a grenade, they could detonate it the moment they reached their targets, and still escape with their lives. In theory.
Besides, dragging a nuke would use up arms that would be better served pointing rifles at the enemy.
It wasn’t long before Eric spotted a swarm of micro machines on the hull ahead. He unleashed his plasma rifle in quick bursts, taking down large swaths of them with each strike.
Eric glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s pick up the pace a little bit, kay?”
“Doing what we can,” Brontosaurus said.
Something big appeared among the micro machines. It was a tentacled, squishy thing. All black. He could barely see it, so he switched to LIDAR.
It extended its tentacles in front of its body, and used them to pull its body rapidly across the hull. In that manner, it broke away from the micro machines and crawled toward the team.
