Manipulate (Alien Cadets)

by Corrie [kids] Garrett

  So instead she used her hurting left hand to hold the right cuff still. It would have been impossible if the cuffs were on properly. She wiggled her right hand, smushed her thumb into her palm, and slowly pulled the cuff over her knuckles. It hurt but she tried to resist wincing. She was lucky that her fingers and hand were narrow, because she didn’t know how to dislocate her thumb like people did in the movies.

  Finally, after a good half hour of squeezing, and often freezing when the Rik turned toward her, she got the cuff off. It made a dull clunk on the wall when she jerked it over her thumb joint.

  One of the Rik turned its bulbous head towards her. Nat tried to look sullen and frustrated, and maybe it worked, because the Rik turned its head back up, looking out the translucent ceiling at the sunrise. It was quite beautiful now, Nat thought.

  She used her feet to slide up the wall, hands tucked out of sight.

  “I have to use the bathroom,” Nat said. “Do you understand? I’m going to be sick.”

  One of the Rik barked, and gave a clear head shake.

  “Do you want me to make a mess? In your pretty prototype ship?”

  She took a step away from the wall and pretended to dry heave. She reeled slightly, she hadn’t realized how weak she still was from the attempt to destroy her mind. She’d have to work fast if she wanted to take out three Rik.

  That got them barking. Two of them came toward her, and the other one, the one she thought was in charge, pulled a small device out of a pocket and aimed it at her. It didn’t look like a gun, but she knew that didn’t mean anything. The Spo energy diverter could do plenty of damage, and it was about the size of a walnut.

  Nat waited until the two Rik were only a step away.

  “Thanks,” she said, and jerked her hands up to pull their masks off. Her fingers found the top edge of each mask and squelched against slimy skin. She dug in as hard as she could and ripped the masks away. Her nails left deep gouges in their soft faces.

  Noise exploded around her. The Rik barked and gasped and she heard a loud thrumming. Nat ducked behind one of the aliens just as a green pulse of light flashed from the third Rik’s weapon. It didn’t throw her, as she expected, but sent a piercing pain through her ears and spine. The Rik in front of her screamed again, he took the full brunt of the weapon. Nat shoved away from him. Three steps took her to the Rik with the weapon, and she locked her injured hands around his slick-skinned ones. She forced the weapon down towards his flippers, but his slippery skin slid beneath her fingers. She gasped, trying to squeeze tighter. Not working!

  She scraped his mask off with one hand, just as he activated the device again.

  ***

  Nat woke up with a bloody nose. She lay crumpled against the wall of the control room, with a heavy weight on her legs. Her vision blurred for a moment, and she leaned her head against the wall. A hand to her face confirmed the bloody nose, and more blood seeped from her ears down her neck.

  Nat forced herself to sit up, closing her eyes against the vertigo.

  The weight on her legs was one of the Rik. His eyes were half closed, and a chunky crust covered his snout. He wasn’t breathing.

  Nat shuddered and pushed him off her legs.

  Both of the other Rik were still as well. One had crawled to its mask, but apparently passed out before getting it on.

  The smell was horrible. Nat retched for real this time. When her stomach was empty, she went to the computer.

  The Spo interface was touch oriented. It was a resistive screen, meaning actual pressure was needed, unlike the capacitive screens used on Earth. The Spo had long claws they preferred not to trim, so the screens were made tough.

  The interface was still lit, but only two icons were up. Nat jabbed one. The stupid resistive screens didn’t detect the pressure. She pushed harder, smashing her thumb into the screen.

  That started the system, but it was well and truly locked. Not just password protected, or encrypted, but body chemistry locked. If she wasn’t Rik, she couldn’t unlock it.

  She slumped to the ground in front of the computer. There had to be some way to destroy this ship. Akemi’s brain would not be used by those horrible Rik. If they wanted to dance on her sister’s dead, mutilated body, they would pay.

  Nat slowed her crying. There had to be a way. She got to her feet and left the control room. The ship was small, but it did have a hallway of sorts. The hallway was dark now, though a few dim green lights were spaced on the edges of the floor. The runner lights made the shadows fall upward.

  The gravity of the ship was light, and Nat had to force herself to walk gently.

  The next room was a galley. It had empty bins and low tables were the Spo would eat, if this ship still belonged to them. The engine compartment was locked. If she could only get in there, she could do enough damage to kill the ship. If the maneuvering engine stayed on one millisecond too long their entry into jumpspace would falter and fling them into – well – nothingness. But Tishing thought of that. There was no way in.

  The last room was completely empty. It was for storage or perhaps a makeshift dormitory, nothing useful. She went back in the dark hallway. The last door in the hallway led to the tiny air lock that could attach to a capsule.

  Nat paused. The air lock. If she could cause it to open during the jump, that would change the state of the ship and cause a catastrophic failure. During a jump the ship essentially only existed in the mind of the computer. If some facet of the ship changed radically during jump, the computer would be unable to bring the ship out of jump space correctly.

  The airlock consisted of two doors, with a tiny room in between. The doors were programmed never to open at the same time, as that would open the ship to the vacuum of space.

  Nat examined the controls carefully. She knew how these worked. Airlocks were generally viewed as a means of entry, not of escape. If the Rik were like the Spo in this, they would view space itself as the prison, and not think of locking the door. They knew she was angry and wanted to demolish them, but they could have no idea exactly how furious she was right now.

  Both air lock doors were secured, but didn’t appear to be locked. To test the system, Nat cycled the outer door open. This screen didn’t require as much pressure as the control screen, since the Spo had to be able to operate it inside bulky space suits. For a moment nothing happened, then, with the characteristic hiss of escaping gas, the outer door cycled open.

  Nat closed her eyes on a rush of burning tears. This was it. She would still have to overcome the natural safety protocols that prevented both doors cycling at once, but that was doable. Greg had once set her a similar problem in a simulation. If she had enough time, Nat could work it out.

  She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. She might have another hour, or minutes. But if she could just work this out…

  Nat got to work. Overriding the safety features wasn’t impossible, but it turned out to be a lot harder when it was standardized for the Rik. She was fortunate that the Spo weren’t as safety conscious as humans with their technology. If this was a human spaceship, she’d never be able to reset the safety parameters enough to destroy the ship. The Spo were smart enough to realize that you simply couldn’t predict what situations would arise, and allowed more leeway in their technology.

  With a final, “Are you sure, absolutely sure?” set of questions, she managed to turn off the pressurization feedback loop that prevented both doors from opening simultaneously. Now the doors would automatically open when the ship’s engines cut off, going into the hyper jump.

  She’d done it.

  Nat felt empty again. What was there to do but wait? She slid to the floor. She would wait for death right here, in case something went wrong with the airlock. There was no point in going back to the control room, with the dead Rik.

  In the silent control room, the locked computer screen flickered. Its green background faded to black. In small white caps a message appeared.

  NAT

  NAT


  ARE YOU THERE?

  IT’S ME. I THINK.

  SOMETHING’S KINDA CRAZY.

  WHERE ARE YOU?

  The computer screen blinked like a lazy eye.

  I HAVE A LOT TO TELL YOU.

  THEY WANT ME TO JUMP SOON.

  WHERE ARE YOU?

  Chapter 26

  As they approached LAX, Sam saw the huge white cylinders that circled the air traffic control tower. They were lit from within, though the colors were faint in the daylight. Blue, purple, green, red, and blue again. The faint shading reminded him of Spo skin. The Spo seemed blatant in a lot of ways, but Sam was learning how subtle they could be.

  Greg was talking into his phone, organizing the shuttles that would take him and the remaining cadets to the orbiting Spo space station. Most of the cadets had already gone up.

  “I want Claudia to come with me,” Sam said.

  Greg put his phone down. “No. She’s not one of the sample, she hasn’t been cleared to be at the trial.”

  “I don’t care. She needs to be there. Call it intuition.”

  Greg frowned. Sam knew Greg hated the human claim to intuition, but with their undeniable subconscious construct, he couldn’t deny it either.

  “Her boyfriend should come too… Chris, right?” Sam asked them in the back seat.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Claudia said. “I mean, not that it matters. Never mind. I do want him to come.”

  “Well, that’s progress,” Chris said. “Would you believe I had to twist her arm to go out with me at all?”

  “Be quiet,” Claudia said, but with a smile.

  “Fine,” Greg said. “They come.”

  At Terminal 3, which had been taken over by the Spo, and no longer housed Delta or United Airways, they piled out of the packed car. The second car pulled up behind, and Downy climbed out with General Gustav who they’d picked up in L.A. Downy pulled Shara roughly from the back, and Nebbie climbed out inches behind her, growling continuously.

  “Cool it, Nebbie,” Sam said. “We don’t have long and we need her.”

  “You’re right, you do need me!” Shara said. “Just don’t leave me alone with Downy. He threatened to kill me. He – ”

  Downy hit her across the face with the back of his clawed hand. She slammed into the car, her face bounced off the door. Blood dripped from her lip, and a purple shadow appeared on her cheek.

  Claudia gasped and turned her face away. Sam gasped too, surprised by Downy’s violence. He was usually so laid back.

  “What is wrong with you?” Greg demanded. “There is no need for that.”

  “She’s Rik,” Downy said. “I’m certain of it. There’s something about her that’s just – ”

  “I don’t care if she’s the Rik overlord, we don’t have time,” Sam said. He gestured for Shara to precede him towards the gate.

  He walked her briskly to Gate 12, where the last shuttle waited. Shara rubbed her neck gingerly.

  It probably hurt, but Sam wasn’t feeling very compassionate. If Downy was right and she was Rik, then she’d probably passed Nat and Akemi to them. Worse, she’d killed Oh Li. She was despicable.

  There were two cabins with separate seating areas on the shuttle. Sam put Shara in his own section, and Claudia, Greg, and Downy. He needed Greg’s expertise and he hoped Claudia, as Shara’s (somewhat) friend, might be able to read her well. Downy, much to Sam’s surprise, would be good for intimidation.

  He left Chris, Gustav, and Nebbie to take the front cabin with the pilot. He knew Chris couldn’t stand Nebbie, but he would cope.

  As soon as they were strapped in, before the first boosters kicked in, Sam began questioning Shara.

  "We know Jia is dead. Where is Nat?"

  Shara looked from him to Downy. "I really don't know."

  ***

  Nat sat cross-legged in the dark hallway, in front of the airlock; the airlock that would kill her in a matter of minutes. The only illumination was the green glow from the control screen and the tiny lights along the floor.

  Her inner arm wouldn’t stop itching. She scratched again and again, from the crook of her elbow to her wrist. The handcuffs still dangled off her left hand.

  When the screen blinked on and off, she wasn’t looking at it, but she saw the light flicker on her arm. She looked up, but the screen looked the same.

  Another scratch, another screen blink.

  This time the screen stayed black. The hallway was almost completely black without that light.

  NAT

  NAT

  Small white caps printed slowly on the screen, and then more quickly.

  WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE AIRLOCK?

  NAT?

  IT IS AKEMI

  Nat looked at the words on the screen in disbelief. Was it a message from the Rik? Did they think to log into the airlock subsystem and see what she’d done? How sick would they be to use Akemi’s name?

  NAT I’M ALIVE

  COME BACK TO THE CONTROL ROOM

  I NEED TO SHOW YOU SOME THINGS

  Nat got slowly to her feet, staring at the words. Then she ran back to the control room. The computer was no longer locked, as it had been before. It was dark, with the same white letters talking to her.

  TOUCH THE SCREEN IF YOU’RE HERE

  Nat punched the screen. If this was a trick…

  GOOD

  GOOD GOOD GOOD

  LOOK AT THIS

  The computer went dark. Nat wanted to scream. She wanted to pound her fists on the computer and demand to know if her sister was really in there, but she couldn’t do anything.

  Pictures flashed on the screen. The first showed a huge metal hallway, curving gradually in an unbroken arc – everyone knew what that was – a particle accelerator. Next was an aerial shot of a circular building, nearly half a mile long. She recognized these pictures. This was the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland that the terrorists sabotaged seven years ago. The resulting explosion had destroyed most of northern Europe and toxified a large part of western Russia. The environment went to pieces, the Spo came, etc. etc. Why was Akemi showing her this? She knew it all.

  The Hadron explosion brought the Spo down on them. Because of the Hadron terrorists, the Galactic Council assumed humanity was insane. Hence the trial, hence the Spo, hence the cadets getting jerked away from their families for six years. This was where it all started.

  The pictures kept coming. First the standard Hadron collider photos, the ones that still played over the news occasionally. Then a short video clip. It was the Hadron collider from space. The camera got closer and closer to the earth, then zoomed in on the collider.

  A view from a spaceship? Nat wondered. She’d never seen that view before. A weather satellite maybe?

  For a moment a red circular object obscured the video. Then the red package fell away from the camera and zoomed toward the ground. It got smaller and smaller in the view, until it disappeared. Two seconds later, the ground erupted in a giant firework explosion. The ground rippled away from the blast like cut elastic. Debris mushroomed into the atmosphere. The camera started to shake violently and then the video cut off and the screen went dark again.

  Nat recognized the infamous Hadron explosion, though she’d never seen it from this angle. As far as she knew, no human spacecraft had captured the explosion on video.

  DO YOU SEE?

  THE HADRON COLLIDER WAS BOMBED FROM SPACE

  NOT TERRORISTS AT ALL

  The computer continued to talk at Nat. Her hands felt icy and she rubbed her eyes to uncloud them.

  DO YOU SEE?

  I FOUND THIS VIDEO IN THE RIK ARCHIVES

  THEY CAUSED THE HADRON EXPLOSION

  THERE’S MORE

  Nat was still taking in the first crazy revelation. The Rik were behind the Hadron explosion? It was crazy. Humanity hadn’t known aliens existed when that happened. They certainly hadn’t known the Rik. The terrorists who caused the explosion had claimed credit. They were apprehended and
executed before the dust storm reached India. With northern Europe a crumpled wasteland and toxic rain spreading into the Urals, Earth was in an uproar. Radiation poisoning spread towards the Atlantic, and huge chunks of arctic ice melted.

  Then the Spo arrived. The Galactic Council had given the Spo the opportunity to be Earth’s sponsors and wardens until the time of their trial.

  During Nat’s training, the Spo had always come back to the Hadron explosion. “Survival is sanity,” that was their mantra. And humanity had proved itself capable of the grossest insanity by nearly destroying their planet.

  Only now, Akemi was saying humanity hadn’t done that. The Rik had done it. Humanity’s trial was a set up. Oh god. Nat had to tell someone. She had to get back and tell Greg and Sam.

  The computer was showing more pictures now. Ships, lots of ships, grouped around a ringed planet.

  “What now?” Nat said, though she knew the computer (was it really Akemi?) couldn’t hear her.

  The ships in the video began moving, coming around the dark side of the ringed planet as a slow moving flotilla. They’d been grouped closely, but now they began to spread out. As they went into black space, she got a glimpse of another planet in the distance. It was orange, with swirling red spots.

  Then the screen went black again.

  THEY’VE BEEN HIDING BEHIND JUPITER

  THE RIK FLEET OF SHIPS

  THEY’RE PASSING MARS, GOING TO EARTH

  “What?” Nat asked. “What are they doing there?”

  I’M MONITORING THEIR COMMUNICATIONS