No-Ears dove forward and knocked its coworker aside, saving Topknot from Silhouette’s attack. No-Ears fell to the ground and then reached for Silhouette’s legs, grabbing both in one large hand. She slipped one foot free and kicked No-Ears hard between its eyes, the once again in its throat. The Burmin recoiled while Topknot ran forward to tackle Silhouette, but she dropped into a low crouch and at the moment when Topknot’s body collided with hers she used all of the strength in her legs and lifted the Burmin on her back, using its momentum to flip it over onto No-Ears.
No-Ears again reached for Silhouette’s feet and managed to clasp one of her ankles, but she did not try to break free. Instead she dropped her knee on the Burmin’s arm and sliced rapidly at its bulbous bicep. She got in several strong gashes before No-Ears released her and pulled back its arm. Topknot swung a fist at her as it lifted off of its bleeding companion, but missed. No-Ears squirmed in a puddle of its own blood and tried to stand up as well, but slipped on its own fluids and fell back to the ground.
Topknot and Silhouette stood apart from each other on either end of the fallen No-Ears, waiting for the other to make the first move. Topknot picked up its chair and threw it at Silhouette, which she ducked under with a graceful plié. Topknot then grabbed smaller items from its desk and hurled them at her as well. She leapt over the gurgling No-Ears and for each item Topknot threw she dodged it and took one step closer to the last standing Burmin. When Silhouette closed in, the Burmin swung out its arms to grab her, but she evaded its grasp and latched on to one of its arms and pulled her body close, swiping the utility blade with one hand, driving it into the side of Topknot’s throat. She yanked the knife free as the Burmin’s hands went to extract it, and blood spurted from the wound. Silhouette spun behind Topknot and stabbed the blade hard into one armpit, and then the other. The Burmin reached behind himself and Silhouette swayed out of the way. She stabbed the knife into its protruding spine and then severed a tendon behind its left knee. Topknot collapsed to the floor, screaming in agony.
Silhouette jumped high and landed with both feet on the back of Topknot’s head and drove its face into the ground with all of her body weight. She rolled the Burmin onto its side and saw that it was unconscious. Silhouette finished the job with a precise stab to its primary neck artery. She glanced over at No-Ears, and saw the Burmin laying face down in a puddle of blood, lifeless. She looked over the room to make sure nothing else alive was in there with her, then she went back to work.
The terminal was a completely foreign system, using data technology and language she could not wrap her mind around. She loaded yesterday’s Ocu recordings and traced the insignia key that she had seen the Burmin draw. The energy core made several loud clunks as its safety locks disengaged.
She darted over to the core, stepping around the main containment vessel and climbing around the ventilation pipes. First, she made sure that the emergency ventilation valves were closed because when opened they contained the vacuum of space, and when she accessed the maintenance hatch she did not want to get sucked into the open vacuum. Inside the machine, the coolant compound coiled around the core and then was vaporized as it circulated through the vacuum tubes to release its radiation out of the tail end of the ship. The vapor was collected and reintroduced to the core system before it escaped into space. Emergency measures would dump all of the overheated coolant into the vacuum of space and replenish the system with unused coolant as it was needed.
She tested the valve handles and each one was closed, as they should be. Then, she opened the main emergency access hatch, giving her direct entry into a four way pipe split and putting her within reach of each of the emergency valves. She pulled out the adhesive from her suit and sealed shut all of the emergency ventilation pathways, covering the valves in excess. The epoxy dried as quickly as it was applied.
Silhouette closed the emergency hatch and moved over to the main cooling isolation access. She undid the secondary safety bolt and pulled at the large, circular valve handle, but it would not budge. This was not an area of the core that would have been accessed except in extreme emergencies, and the valve had apparently not been adjusted in a long time. She propped up both feet onto the pressure vessel and wrenched the valve with all of her body’s strength, and it jerked loose, causing Silhouette to slide off of the pressure vessel and fall to the ground. Her back ached, but she only let herself feel the pain for a moment before an alarm blared throughout the core room and her adrenal glands went into overdrive. The emergency cooling system attempted to engage, but it failed. Dials along the vessel began to rise, bright light growing in intensity as it beamed out of the vessel’s single porthole window. A Burmin voice came from a communicator somewhere near the terminal. “Problem” was the only word Silhouette understood. She jumped up and loosened the valve the rest of the way, opening the hatch. She fully unscrewed the valve handle and, using the rest of the epoxy, she covered it in the glue so that it could not be twisted shut again. Failing to receive a response from the core room, the Burmin voice became frantic.
Silhouette rammed her blade into the valve access and tore into it, slicing at the seal and scraping at the metal within. She then slammed the blade into a secondary valve inside of the pipe, damaging its hinges. Core gauges continued to rise, and some were already at their upper limits. The interior of the pipes was extremely radioactive. Her suit was capable of deflecting the radiation, but exposure could be deadly. She continued to damage the isolation valve’s integrity until she felt it was beyond any immediate repair.
Two Burmin hustled into the room down the stairway, each with a gun in hand, and they found the room empty except for the dead bodies on the floor. Silhouette watched as they hollered into their communicators. A voice responded and they hurried over to the core controls, pulling levers and fiddling with the terminal. More emergency signals went off as the beam of light from the core brightened in a flash, its intensity becoming blinding and strong enough to heat the room to an uncomfortable level.
The two Burmin screamed at each other and into their communicators, unable to subdue the core’s impending meltdown. One tried to close the glued valve handle and could not get it to turn.
Silhouette left the room, leaving a trail of wet, red drips behind. She had not noticed until now that her suit had partly torn away from her hands, her hands which were now lacquered with her own blood. The metal had scraped the skin from her bones as she tore into the valves within the pipes and exposed her to the radiation within.
* * *
Silhouette raced down the hallways, stepping aside into darkened corners as more Burmin ran past her toward the energy core. The entire ship had not been alerted of the emergency yet. They must still be trying to contain the core before it goes into meltdown and they have to drop it into space. She may have only minutes left.
On stage Davi was locked into battle with a large, ornately decorated Burmin and defeated humans were scattered on the floor of the stage around him. Davi dodged several swinging fists, but a solid strike by the resplendent beast knocked him back. The Burmin’s purple robes and bejeweled ears flapped in a sudden dramatic breeze and the crowd erupted into thunderous excitement as their hero prepared for its final triumphant strike. A loud gasp then filled the room as a shadow appeared against the curtain backdrop and the small, black figure moved behind the unaware Burmin.
Perplexed by the audience’s reaction, the Burmin lowered its rising fist and looked out into the crowd. The spectators yelled out in warning, but before it could react the confused Burmin howled out in pain as it was knocked to the floor. The shadow leapt on top of fallen Burmin hero and plunged a blade into its protruding backbone, paralyzing the beast.
“Davi!” the shadow shouted as it jumped off of the Burmin. The human soldier ran toward the shadow and together they left the stage.
Then all went dark.
* * *
“What happened?” asked Davi as they ran.
“The energy core,” repli
ed his sister. “It either overheated and melted through the ship or they just dropped it into space. Backup power should….”
Lights returned, but far fewer than were on previously. A warning signal blasted through the halls, then a Burmin voice grumbled over the ship’s intercom system.
“Backup power?” asked Davi.
“Enough stored energy to keep life support going, but not enough for shields, weapons, or galactic travel.”
“Are we escaping?” asked Davi. “What about the others?”
“There is no time,” said Silhouette. “I said no hesitation. No more questions. Keep running.”
Burmin poured out from the theater and filled the halls behind them. Silhouette and Davi reached the docking bay with little interference, but many Burmin had already made it to the spaceport and were already loading onto the ships. Sister and brother weaved through piles of cargo on their way toward the nearest transfer ship, one which looked identical to the one they had arrived on. Burmin moved frantically as they carried supplies into the ships, presumably to escape to planet Nye. Silhouette grabbed her brother and they ducked behind a pile of tumbled crates.
“They haven’t spotted me,” she said, “and they’re not paying much attention to you yet. From here we’ll have to sprint into the nearest ship and hustle over to the escape pods. Burmin will see us running for the ship. We’re going to draw attention. No matter what happens, keep running and head for the escape pods. There are two levers inside. Green lever closes the hatch. Red lever disengages the pod locks. Press both red buttons at the same time to launch the pod. It should fire even though the ship is still docked.”
“Got it,” said Davi, “but why tell me if you can just do it?”
“Chup raho! I said no more questions!” She elbowed him in the gut. “But if you end up alone you know what to do. Just keep running, no matter what.”
“Ok,” Davi wanted to say more, but he knew his sister would only repeat the whole no hesitation thing again. Ships were beginning to leave the docking bay, and the flood of theater-goers began to seep in from the entryways. Silhouette was waiting for the right moment, watching the Burmin hustle up and down the loading ramp with supplies in their arms.
“Ready?” asked Silhouette.
“Yeah,” said Davi.
Hundreds of Burmin were closing in from behind and more ships fired off, leaving the spaceport. The commanding Burmin’s voice continued to grumble over the loudspeakers and multiple Burmin on security platforms struggled to direct traffic toward the larger capacity ships. Davi looked back at the approaching wave of creatures and saw that a line of Burmin had funneled around the side of the crates, heading right for them. “Uh, Sue….”
“Run!” Silhouette shouted, pulling Davi forward by his hand.
They darted toward the ship, drawing the eyes of all of the nearby Burmin, several pointing toward the duo and yelling in growls. An energy blast was fired from somewhere to their right, but it missed and they ran down the loading ramp and into the transfer ship. Silhouette and Davi entered the cargo hold, passing under two Burmin who were high up on loading platforms. The two Burmin both stood shocked and looked over to each other, surprised to see a human man running into the ship and being led by his own shadow, but then they started climbing down off of their platforms in pursuit.
Silhouette and Davi ran through the ship’s corridors taking the same route she had mapped out on the previous transfer ship, but with her Ocu she noticed that a Burmin stood inside of a room, gun drawn, waiting to ambush them. “Stop!” she yelled, stopping dead in her tracks, but Davi stumbled forward as he tried to slow himself and an energy blast fired from the side room, hitting Davi and disintegrating his left arm below the elbow. Davi screamed out and fell to the floor. The Burmin stepped out into the hallway between Silhouette and her brother.
“Davi, run! Take the next left!”
The Burmin turned toward Silhouette. She stepped forward and grabbed at its weapon, pushing it away from herself but failing to wrangle it out of the Burmin’s hands.
Davi stood up, clutching his burning arm. The two Burmin from the cargo hold appeared at the end of the hall behind his sister as she wrestled in desperation with the gun-wielding Burmin, still struggling to take control of the weapon. The alien creature pushed a hand into her face and tore off her headpiece, taking hair with it. The weapon fired and the blast hit a wall. The two other Burmin charged forward.
“Run Davi!” she shrieked.
“Sue!” he yelled back.
“NOW!”
Davi took a step forward toward his sister, but then backpedaled and turned, running for the escape pods. He opened the pod door, stepped inside, sat in one of the oversized seats, and listened as the Burmin yelled to one another. Gunfire rang out in the halls once more. There was a moment of silence after the blasts, and Davi felt his heart drop into his stomach.
A Burmin hollered, perhaps in triumph, and energy blasts erupted again as heavy footsteps thumped through the corridor. The Burmin were coming for him. Tears blurred Davi’s vision as he reached to close the pod door, but then his sister leapt into the escape pod.
“Now! Now! Now!”
Davi squealed in surprise and slammed the door shut. Green lever. Red lever. A bleeding Burmin clawed at the transparent door, smearing it with blood but unable to pry it open. It fired blasts from its weapon which left dark scorch marks.
“Now, Davi!”
Red buttons.
They both slammed into the door of the pod as it rocketed off and away from the Juggernaut, forcibly reminding them of how physics worked as they crawled with great effort toward the seats. Sue pulled herself into one seat and then helped Davi climb in as well, strapping them both into one shared harness.
The launch rockets ceased and they were now free floating with only their harness to hold them in place. Sue let her entire body relax in a moment where she had no control over their fate, a moment where she could rest her overworked everything.
The blood on her fingertips had dried, but the skin had already started to blister. She placed her right hand on a flat disc that she thought was an armrest. The disc turned out to be the orientation controls of their pod and she swiped her fingers along the disc, angling their view back toward the command ship to see if they were being followed.
“Burmin ships,” she said. Davi woke from a dazed stupor at her words, turning his head and half-closed eyes to the view. “You can see them launching from the Juggernaut’s belly. They look like little fire bugs.”
“They’re going to find us,” said Davi.
“I don’t see any coming our way,” said Sue. A twinkling light caught her attention as it rotated into view. “Look! The core. There it is, floating just off the rear of the command ship.” Their pod continued to rotate, and Sue’s eyes welled as two large Erdian cruisers came into view, escorted by countless smaller crafts. “The Presider did it,” she whispered. Sue convulsed as she alternated between coughs and laughs, pain seeping into her voice as she allowed herself to feel it again. Davi rubbed his eyes with the fingers on his remaining hand and looked at his sister, then back to the view in front of them.
One of the Erdian cruisers fired a laser strike that landed squarely on the floating energy core, and the resulting explosion was a massive flash of light followed by a visual ripple across the entire hull of the Juggernaut. The back half of the Burmin command ship was vaporized and blown out into space in all directions, waves of debris and energy catching several escaping Burmin transfer ships in their wakes.
Sue activated the same message she had sent the Presider forty-eight hours earlier, resending the message every few seconds as she oriented the pod and altered its trajectory toward the Erdian fleet.
“We’re in a Burmin pod, Sue. They’re going to shoot us!”
“I don’t think so. Even if my message doesn’t get through, we’re a weaponless escape pod. They would want to capture us for interrogation if anything.”
Erdian fighters moved in and picked off the few transfer ships remaining in the nearby space, then they turned to fire more upon the Juggernaut itself. Some escape pods still managed to launch from the Juggernaut, all heading toward planet Nye, but the one Silhouette and Davi were in was the only one drifting toward the human ships. Several fighters moved in and surrounded the pod: one to the left, one to the right, one above, and one below.
“Where are they taking us?” asked Davi.
“To burgers and beds, I hope” said Sue. “Then we can go wherever you want, brother. You’re free now.”
“Bahut dhanyavaad. For everything, Sue.”
The pod was pulled into the docking bay of one of the cruisers and several Erdians ran toward the craft. Sue unlocked the pod door. She was helped out of the ship and laid on a medical stretcher, as was her brother. They were wheeled across the bay to where the Presider waited to greet them. “Welcome home,” she said.
Epilogue
“Ground troops are transferring the Burmin compounds to Nyian control as we speak,” reported Ticker. “Minister Rivera has put together an economic team to help stabilize the planet’s economy, but we’re still in the process of bargaining with the Jjask to include Nye’s resources in the trade agreement with Erde. It will take some years for the planet to stabilize.”
“But stabilize it will,” shouted Minster Rivera from his table in the audience.
Silhouette Page 8
