The Link

by Isaac Hooke

  20

  Jain and the others proceeded deeper into the dark belly of the whale.

  It seemed like he had passed Mark’s remains only a few moments ago, when in reality it had been at least twenty minutes. All that time, he kept waiting for the next attack, but none came. There were no micro machines this deep in the ship. Nor any robots or other anti-boarding party units. No defense turrets emerged from the deck or overhead. It was almost as if the Link had designed this vessel under the assumption that no one would ever get through that shield, and the few anti-boarding party defenses present had been added mostly as an afterthought.

  He glanced at the timer he’d setup before the mission started. There was only an hour left until the earthquakes began. The world killer would already be in orbit above North America by then, and would be firing its concentric pulses of energy to heat the Earth’s mantle. Time was of the essence.

  They rushed through those corridors, moving at speeds no humans would have ever been able to sustain for more than seconds at a time. If there had been atmosphere aboard, the clangs of their passage would have reverberated throughout the area. External cameras would have recorded them as blurs.

  And yet, despite their speed, the ship was proving as huge as it had seemed on the outside: a labyrinth of twisting blue corridors. And they were still well away from their target.

  Jain had activated his LIDAR feed hours ago to supplant the dim glow from those bulkheads. It was simply too dark to proceed otherwise.

  Eric had shared the map with the rest of them, along with their target, so Jain and the others could follow along as the Bolt Eater took that winding path toward the heart of the ship.

  “We’re lost, aren’t we?” Crusher said while they jogged.

  “How can we be lost?” Eric said. “You have the map right before your eyes.”

  “Then why is it taking so long?” Crusher said.

  “It’s a big ship,” Eric said. “Remember when we climbed Everest?”

  “You climbed Everest?” Sheila asked in awe.

  “Well, no,” Crusher said. “Only in a VR simulation. Eric said it was for ‘team building.’ But he had it set up to throw the most hellish conditions at us. It was all bright sunny skies at first, but by the end of it, we were in the middle of a snowstorm with wind gusts upwards of eighty miles an hour. Not fun.”

  “She cheated and disabled her pain sense,” Frogger commented.

  “So did you!” Crusher said.

  Frogger shrugged. “I was there only for the team building. Not the pain.”

  “Pain is part of team building,” Marlborough said.

  “Sarge was one of those who kept his pain sense at full,” Frogger said.

  “Anyway, my point is, it took a long time to climb Everest,” Eric said. “This is going to be no different.” He paused. “If it helps, feel free to disable your emotions.”

  “I’m not that weak,” Crusher said.

  “I never said you were weak,” Eric told her.

  They continued to argue.

  At first Jain thought it was just the stress of the mission that was bubbling to the surface, and causing them to butt heads, but their charged back and forth seemed to have a slight sexual dynamic. Jain decided Eric must be sleeping with her.

  And then he had a realization.

  Bambi had probably been his lover, too.

  Well, it wasn’t as if any of that mattered at the moment. Though it did explain the emotional outburst Eric had displayed upon her death.

  The pair stopped arguing shortly after that, and the team continued in silence. The vibrations of their passage would have announced their presence to any troops stationed nearby if the AI’s hidden cameras hadn’t spotted them, but still they experienced no resistance.

  And then, twenty minutes from the target, the long-expected attack finally came.

  “Drop!” Eric suddenly said.

  Jain dropped; he was just behind Crusher and Eric, who opened fire with their plasma rifles from their prone position. The green energy channels lit up the bulkheads.

  Jain peered past them with his rifle scope. He spotted two bulges crouched on the deck ahead. They were outlined in white wireframes, thanks to his LIDAR. On their backs were what appeared to be a pair of weapon turrets.

  He centered his cross hairs over one of targets, and squeezed the trigger. It promptly collapsed. The second one fell beside it. He fired a few more times for good measure.

  “They’re down!” Eric announced.

  “Forward!” Jain said. They couldn’t stay where they were: there was nowhere to hide out in the open like that. “Take cover behind the bodies!”

  He expected Eric to contest him, but he and Crusher instantly got up and raced toward the fallen aliens.

  Jain and Sheila scrambled upright and joined them. Jain kept his upper body bent low.

  Ahead, the blurs that were Eric and Crusher leaped to the deck and slid across the slick surface before coming to a halt next to the targets, which had been reduced to lifeless heaps of metal.

  Jain and Sheila likewise dove, sliding into Eric and Crusher. The others piled into them from behind.

  Eric lifted his rifle scope past the first pile of debris. A pair of blue energy beams came from somewhere ahead and ate into the air above him before striking the bulkhead not far behind. The beams slid downward until hitting the shielding robot. The energy was delayed for a few seconds, until the beams ate through the metal, and then continued downward, toward Eric. The Bolt Eater rolled to the side, slamming against Crusher. Jain likewise slid against the closest bulkhead, as did the others who lay flat on the floor behind him, with all of them moving out of the way of that descending beam.

  “Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a David Copperfield trick gone awry!” Frogger quipped.

  “David who?” Gavin said.

  Jain lifted his rifle past the remains of the closest robot and aimed his scope at the latest threat. He spotted two more figures highlighted on the LIDAR feed ahead. They were similar to the first two the team had eliminated, but now that he was closer, he could make out more details. The robots were essentially cubes on treads, with a pair of weapon turrets mounted on top.

  He fired at the first one just as it turned its turrets toward him. Sheila hijacked his aim, syncing her laser with his, so that her beam hit at the same time. Eric and Crusher followed suite, and in seconds that one was reduced to a melted pile of slag.

  The second one opened fire, and Jain ducked.

  The two beams ate into the metal shielding above him, and forced him to roll away as it swept down. Behind him, Gavin rose to fire.

  “Stay down!” Jain said.

  But it was too late: the beams instantly changed course, swinging upward to smash into his face. Gavin dropped. His status indicator turned red: half his face and head had melted away.

  Growling, Jain lifted his weapon as soon as the beams stopped and he released his lasers in a rapid fire staccato. He also threw his second to last energy grenade, and when it hit, the robot exploded in a satisfying display of twisted metal.

  Jain scanned the passageway beyond. “Seems clear.” He kept sweeping his scope back and forth, searching the passageway, trying to forget that he’d just lost another of his men.

  It wasn’t working.

  This hurts so much.

  He was experiencing the same feelings as with the loss of Mark all over again. Seeing Gavin die as an android felt much worse than losing him as a ship. His perfect face had been blown clean away.

  Jain forced himself to look at his friend. Forced himself to see the consequences of not properly protecting his men.

  But Gavin stood up, when he should have stayed down. It was his fault.

  That didn’t make the burden any less to bear.

  “You okay?” Sheila asked him.

  “Had better days,” he replied.

  “We all have,” she said.

  “Let’s go!” Eric said, standing. “W
e’re almost there.”

  “Wait, do you feel that?” Crusher said.

  “What?” Eric asked.

  Jain felt it then. The deck beneath him vibrated. With each passing second, the vibrations became stronger.

  “Uh, something’s coming,” Dickson said.

  “Termites?” Medeia asked.

  “No,” Jain said. “Gotta be a lot bigger than termites for us to feel vibrations like these.”

  A red glow came from ahead. He zoomed in. The glow grew in intensity as something approached from a side corridor.

  An instant later bright red shapes emerged from around the bend. They were quadrupeds of some kind, or perhaps bipeds that moved on all fours when running. They had scaly bodies, two thin legs, two long arms topped by claws, a long, spiked tail, and a head that was an elongated oblong.

  The creatures left visible indentations in the deck where their feet touched, given Jain the impression that they were very hot.

  He opened fire with his laser, striking the lead in the head. It merely shook that oblong thing, as if shaking it off, and continued its approach. Eric and Crusher engaged their plasma beams, to greater effect. Both their beams struck the lead creature, and its head exploded.

  “These look like they’re from Aliens or something!” Frogger said.

  “If xenomorphs were from hell, maybe!” Eric said, firing at the next creature. “I have a feeling these things are very hot. Probably don’t want to be letting them touch you!”

  “Probably not!” Crusher agreed as she unleashed her weapon at the same creature.

  “How do the Link store these things in their ships if they’re so hot?” Frogger fired a plasma beam.

  “I suspect the Glow Bugs can turn their heat on at will, or by some action,” Sheila said. “Like running at their top speeds!”

  “Glow Bugs?” Frogger said. “That’s the worst possible name for them. Xeno Demons would be better!”

  “Shut up and mow them down!” Eric said.

  Jain fell back to allow those with plasma beams to assume a position closer to the front. The team members stayed crouched beneath the robots they’d destroyed, just in case the incoming xenos had any ranged weapons.

  The passageway soon filled with glowing corpses as the Bolt Eaters mowed down the creatures with their plasma rifles. The deck began to sag in places as the dead bodies melted through.

  “Careful,” Jain said. “The Link could be deploying these weapons to render this passageway unusable. We might not be able to reach the target if we let those bodies melt through the floor.”

  “That’s a good point!” Eric said. “One of the conduits from the plasma core is just below. We won’t be able to cross it if the floor goes. We’re going to have to push our way forward before it fails!”

  “I don’t see that we have any choice,” Jain agreed.

  Eric and the Bolt Eaters got up, and rushed forward while firing their plasmas rifles. The surviving Void Warriors followed behind them, guarding their rear. Jain allowed Sheila and himself to fall back to the very rear.

  Jain stepped between the glowing bodies of the xenos. The floor definitely felt hot to the touch. Heat energy usually dissipated slower in the void because it could only travel by radiation. However, since the dead touched the cold surface of the metal underneath them, their molecules were able to transfer thermal energy directly to the deck, bleeding it off faster.

  He accidentally stepped on the edge of one of the fallen xenos’ thighs, and the heat melted part of his boot.

  “Ah, damn it!” he said.

  “You all right?” Sheila asked.

  “Yeah, gotta pay attention,” he replied.

  Eric and the Bolt Eaters continued firing at the blocking xenos, bringing them down.

  The floor collapsed behind Jain, and he spun about to catch Sheila. Below, a bright green beam ate up the air where the plasma conduit passed.

  He pulled her up, and she gave him a tight hug. “Thank you.”

  Jain turned around to continue weaving past the superheated bodies.

  “My weapon has overheated!” Eric said, falling back.

  The plasma beam weapons of the other Void Warriors in the lead also began to overheat from the relentless onslaught, and they fell back in turn until only Dickson and Marlborough were left firing. And then their weapons failed.

  They stood their ground as the next group of xenos reached them. Dickson and Marlborough activated their bayonet extensions and stabbed at the first two and killed them, but their blades quickly melted away. Then they tried to use their weapons as clubs against the next xenos—they moved so fast that their hands were blurs, but the creatures mostly ignored the blows and swatted them aside like dolls. Dickson’s android crashed into the bulkhead beside him, while Marlborough was hurled backward into the other Void Warriors.

  Jain upped his time sense and reality froze around him. He examined the blueprints fervently, looking for a way out of this. But there wasn’t one. They were trapped.

  And then he realized the solution was staring him right in the face.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but according to these blueprints, there’s another plasma conduit running just behind the right bulkhead of this passage,” Jain said.

  The others would have instantly upgraded to match his time sense when they received his message, thanks to the sync header packet that went with the transmission.

  “You’re right,” Eric said. “So?”

  “Look at the shape of that conduit, relative to the region,” Jain said. “It’s similar to the kickback design the Mimics use for their own conduits. I’m sure you’ve seen it on your Banthar ship, too.”

  “Again, so?” Eric sounded unimpressed.

  “Unlike the conduit running immediately below the deck, this one will be under high pressure,” Jain explained.

  “Ah,” Eric said.

  “We poke a few holes…” Jain sent.

  “It certainly might slow them down,” Eric replied after a moment. “But I doubt it will stop them.”

  “We speed walk past them while they’re distracted,” Jain said.

  “You mean utilize Bullet Time?” Frogger said.

  “Is that what you seniors call it?” Sheila asked.

  “Speed walk, Bullet Time, however you want to describe it,” Jain said.

  “It’s worth a try,” Eric said. “But your guys are going to have to do the hole poking, as our weapons are still overheated. And you’ll have to be very particular about where you place the holes… we’ll need the bodies of these xenos to act as shields against the plasma. Our android exteriors are strong, but not that strong.”

  “Void Warriors,” Jain said. “Sync your lasers to mine. It’s time to show these creatures why we chose our namesake.”

  21

  Jain waited until the sync indicators on his HUD turned green. Then he stepped down his time sense a few notches, but still kept it accelerated so that reality flowed just fast enough for him to aim his laser rifle.

  Dickson was still at the front of the group, where his android had been hurled against the deck. The lead xeno was currently in the process of pouncing on him.

  Jain targeted the bulkhead next to that lead bioweapon and fired; the lasers of Sheila, Medeia, and Cranston activated as well, targeting the same location. Together, the four laser beams easily penetrated the bulkhead and the plasma conduit beyond. The breach caused the metal to tear open as the pressurized contents spilled into the passageway.

  The creature screamed as the plasma struck its side, dissolving part of its exterior. Dickson rolled out of the way and clambered to his feet with his android speed.

  “Let’s go!” Dickson said.

  Jain amped up his servomotor output, then he and the Void Warriors shoved past the Bolt Eaters to take the lead. He charged past the stunned xeno, which still screamed in pain.

  Jain drilled several more holes in the wall with the synced lasers as he ran; he aimed next to each xeno ahea
d of him in turn, and the spewing contents flowed into the creatures, distracting them. They moved so slowly compared to the androids, it was almost comical. Still, sometimes those tails twisted to strike at him, and claws reached out to grab him; without the distraction of the deadly plasma flowing into their bodies, he had no doubt that some of them would have been successful. But as it was, he easily dodged any strike attempts.

  “One of the advantages of not having a Cicada!” Dickson said. “These smaller androids are a helluva lot faster!”

  Some of the xenos were closer to the middle of the passageway, and Jain had to squeeze past them. He dove outright beneath the legs of a bigger one, whose hulking body took up almost the entire passage. The hot bodies scalded his exterior wherever he touched them, but he kept going.

  And then he was past. The corridor was clear ahead. The others joined him, and they kept running. The xenos continued to scream behind them; they struggled to get away from the plasma, and those that escaped its deadly venting didn’t pursue, but instead collapsed to the deck in pain. Their superheated bodies sunk into the metallic surface as it melted underneath them.

  When the bioweapons were well behind him, he lowered his servomotors to their default output, and reverted his time sense to normal, because both were big drains on his batteries. He had to let them self-regenerate for a while. The others likewise switched to their usual operating output.

  “Well, that was fun,” Sheila said.

  “Hanging out with you always is,” Jain told her.

  “Quit flirting!” Frogger said.

  Eric and Crusher took the lead once more, and they continued forward at a jog.

  Jain let himself fall back so that he ran next to Cranston. He was worried about his friend. Cranston had been quiet ever since the earlier incident.

  “You all right?” he asked on a private channel.

  “Hanging there,” Cranston said. “I mean, hanging in there.”

  Jain nodded. “We’re getting tired. Mentally.”

  Cranston was quiet for a moment.

  “A part of me hopes I’ll die while I’m down here,” he said finally. “That way, when I’m restored, I won’t have this memory.” He shook his head. “I can’t get her face out of my head. The way she looked at me, before I squeezed the trigger. The amusement, like she thought I was playing some kind of a practical joke. She was so trusting. So damn trusting. And then I melted half of her head away.”