Starship Defender: Beyond Human Space

by Michael Keats

  Hopefully, I’d find some traitors, mutineers, or others eager to join my quest to either seize control of the ship or destroy it.

  I wasn’t going to find anything useful in the regions affected by the fire, so I kept going. The doctor continued struggling after me, walking step after step and groaning and panting whenever I slowed down.

  I hate having my fate linked to someone who can’t run and who keeps rolling his eyes and insinuating that I’m dumb.

  “Wait,” the doctor said. He held onto a wall and gestured at me to slow down.

  “We can’t stop here, Doctor,” I said. “We need to keep going. Why don’t you go back to the room and wait? I’ll inspect the ship and you won’t need to walk so much.”

  “I don’t trust that you won’t get yourself killed,” he said.

  “And I don’t trust that you won’t die along the way,” I said.

  “I’ll heal,” he said. “You’re too impulsive for this ship. Fraterans don’t take escapees lightly.” He glanced down at his stomach. He wasn’t feeling physical pain; he was remembering something which had scarred him from within. I didn’t know much about the so-called Fraterans, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know much about them.

  We walked past the bridge areas, but they were guarded by a bunch of armored soldiers. I’d fought those fellows before, and I didn’t want to face them unarmed. We’d barely managed to get rid of a few of them aboard the Defender, and we were lucky that most of them had gone voluntarily. Unarmed, I was a punching bag.

  “Over here,” the doctor murmured, and he led me to a nearby communications room.

  We stood by the entrance: it was full of computers. Several short guys with large eyes and bony fingers gestured frantically in the air while wearing VR glasses. They clearly weren’t human.

  They were smaller than most humans and didn’t look too muscled, so I was guessing that they were the equivalent to our engineers: soft, brittle, and very unused to physical confrontations. I was going to act like a common school bully for the first time in my life and smash a few brainy heads.

  One armored soldier guarded the entrance, but he was joking in a foreign language with one of the techies. He had his arms crossed and wasn’t even looking at the door. His gun and sword hung from his belt, eager to be used by someone like me.

  I was about to do one of the stupidest things one can do when he’s unarmed and aboard an alien and unexplored ship: start a fight without knowing enough about the enemy.

  Chapter 36

  I ran into the room, grabbed the armored soldier’s gun and sword, and shot him first. He instantly dropped onto the floor. His rigid face showed both surprise and disappointment for not reacting on time.

  The other techies looked up and drew guns and electric swords from under their desks. I toppled one of the desks and used it for cover. Navy engineers aren’t armed and don’t hide any guns under their workspaces.

  Their techie aims weren’t awesome, and they shot everywhere but at me. I shot one of them down, but he didn’t fall. Instead, an invisible shield absorbed his shot. He’d pushed a button near his chest to activate the shield only a minute before. The others had done the same.

  This explained why armored soldiers wore swords. I guessed that swords didn’t have the same limitation as guns.

  I had five opponents in the room, on the other side of the desk I’d turned into a barricade. Two of them hid to my right. One carried a gun and another a sword. The man with the gun could barely hold his hands still; he was trembling and didn’t dare to peek out of his hiding spot.

  To my left, a man and two women. Or Fraterans. Or whatever those large-eyed humanoids were. Two of them wielded swords and one of the women had a gun. Two of them were as scared as the other group, but the woman with the sword had a martial pose and knew how to use her weapon. I could see it in her eyes.

  I went for the group on the right. The guy with the gun didn’t even shoot at me. His arms shook and he dropped the gun. I smashed the heel of my hand against his nose, knocking him onto the floor. The other tried to swing the sword against me, but I parried him with mine and punched him in the jaw.

  One of the women from the other group shot in my direction, but her aim was awful. I held my sword high in the air and charged towards them, shouting insults and threats. The woman with the gun shook too much to be able to defend herself, and I slashed the electric sword against her, incapacitating her.

  The other two stood bravely in front of me, each with an electric sword. I crouched by the others and grabbed a second sword with my left hand.

  I know, I know. I’m not left-handed or ambidextrous, but they didn’t know. I was just an idiot trying to bluff my way out of a fight.

  I held both swords in the air, facing them. They exchanged confused glances. They probably wondered if that stupid human was really capable of fighting with both hands if they, the superior species, couldn’t do such thing.

  I couldn’t, but at least I was going to try.

  Both Fraterans charged towards me. I parried the woman’s sword with my right sword, and the other was easy to parry with my left. We exchanged blows and I managed quite well.

  The woman kicked my stomach and I stumbled backwards. I hit my head against a shelf and dropped both swords.

  Crap.

  That’s the reason why I can’t fight with both hands at once: I lose focus and end up losing both weapons simultaneously. I brought my hand to the back of my head and it came back tinted in red. I might’ve cracked my own skull.

  I sat up and tried to react, but the woman charged towards me, and so did the man. I rolled on the floor and crawled quickly under a table to avoid them. I stood up, ran behind them and scrambled for one of my swords. They both turned around and charged at me with high guards.

  I greeted the man with a kick on his stomach, then on his head. I grabbed the sword just in time and slashed the woman’s legs. The electric wave knocked her down, and she shook until she fell unconscious. Frateran swords were much more powerful than our versions.

  I caught my breath and checked that I had no rivals left.

  Dr. Langley entered the room, looking approvingly around him. “Not bad,” he said. “Not bad at all.”

  “Not bad?” I said. “I’ve knocked down six people on my own! Thanks for helping, by the way.”

  “Five were mere scientists,” he said. “I’d like to see you try to face two Frateran Armors at once.”

  I’d knocked one down and it hadn’t been too hard. Winning fights isn’t about facing the enemy openly and fairly in a battlefield. I won my fights because my opponents didn’t keep their concentration 100% of the time, or because I managed to distract them.

  Call me coward or cheat if you like, but fair and honorable heroes die before hitting 30.

  I’d manage against five Frateran Armors as long as they weren’t focused on trying to hurt me from the onset.

  Chapter 37

  After getting rid of the scientists and the Frateran Armor, I looked for tech to steal. I didn’t want to face any other aliens without being fully prepared.

  I liked the shield tech these people were using, so I took a bunch of shields, some of those super-advanced electric swords, and four guns. I would’ve stolen the armored soldier’s armor to wear it myself, but I didn’t know what I’d find underneath. Experience has taught me not to steal people’s clothes unless it’s an emergency. You might end up with unpleasant surprises if they aren’t wearing any underwear.

  Yeah, right. Call me germophobe if you want, but I’m a battle-worn soldier. I’ve seen the space leeches people get from sharing caps. I’d rather not share any clothes with someone I don’t know.

  Once I’d locked the doors to make sure that nobody interrupted my exploration of the communication room, I dragged the knocked down men and women aside and immobilized them in case some of them decided to act like heroes. Most were still alive and I wasn’t sure about one or two of them. I wasn’t dumb enough to
leave any of them free to attack me as soon as I turned my back to them.

  The surgeon simply stared while I dragged everyone around. His wound probably made him stand aside instead of helping, but many doctors use silly excuses. You never know if they’re faking their limp to avoid physical labor.

  The comm room must’ve been a paradise for techies, but it was too full of stuff for me. I didn’t know how most of the devices worked, so I grabbed everything that fit in my pocket. If I pocketed enough stuff, some of it would be useful.

  “Don’t bother with the hard drives,” Dr. Langley said. “You need Frateran DNA to use them. It won’t work with any of the refugees because they’ve blocked our DNA from the systems.” He had a shoulder leaned to a wall and both arms pressed against the blanket over his stomach. He wasn’t faking his state.

  I walked over to one of the unconscious Fraterans and plucked one of his hairs. “Here,” I said. “That’s your Frateran DNA.”

  Dr. Langley let out a roaring laugh that sounded painful considering his state. He groaned and pressed his stomach harder. “Sorry,” he said. “Humans never cease to surprise me. You need a person’s DNA and their intention to use the device. It won’t work with stolen genes.”

  “Can’t humans use it with our own DNA?” I said. “We’re supposed to be old cousins, right?”

  The doctor raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes. “You can get all of your people to try, but your brains are too inferior to emit the correct brain signals. And your DNA lacks some of the mutations that the program will look for. Human and Frateran DNA might have been equal many years ago, but not anymore.”

  I just heard more and more talk about genetic inferiority, yet all the Frateran stuff I’d tested hadn’t worked properly. I fought with their weapons better than they did, and I’d used a DNA melder that was supposed to kill me. They weren’t putting their tech through enough quality control mechanisms. Humans did test their stuff before considering it finished.

  I wasn’t going to argue with a wounded man whose breath failed him. And besides, arguing with scientists is impossible: even when you’re right, they’re never going to accept it. They have a thousand fancy ways to call you dumb and say that you’re wrong, even when they’re trying to convince you that the sky is red instead of blue.

  “Our engineers will decode everything,” I said.

  Dr. Langley didn’t insist with his views, but he turned his head to avoid looking at me while I wasted time. He eventually pointed out a small pocket-sized box hidden under one of the desks. Each of the desks had an identical device stuck underneath it. “Take the core over there,” he said. “You won’t be able to access it, but I’d like to…” his voice trailed off with a hint of nostalgia.

  “What is it?” I asked, trying to look busy instead of staring at him. I didn’t want him to tell me stories about his past; we didn’t have enough time for it. I needed to know what I was taking, though.

  “It’s a copy of most of the ship’s systems and databases, our culture and technology. It is capable of helping us rebuild Fratera from scratch.”

  “Sort of like Wikipedia?”

  “Like what?”

  “Never mind,” I said. If he’d lived on Earth like a normal human being for the past few decades, he needed to know what Wikipedia was. Had he ever eaten hamburgers? Hot dogs? Perhaps his story of being an alien wasn’t that far-fetched. “Does it include weapon designs and ships?”

  The doctor nodded. “It does, but you’ll never be able to access it. I’m taking it as a relic, a souvenir.”

  Protected stuff? Earth had enough hacker kids to access everything we wanted.

  The doctor must’ve read my expression, because he shook his head again. “You’d need a thousand years to get past the authorization systems without using Frateran DNA to access it. Refugee DNA won’t work.”

  He sounded like a broken record. Can’t do this, can’t do that, too primitive to do anything. Better not get into an argument about this, because I wasn’t going to fight a wounded man.

  I went for one of the computers that the alien scientists had been using. I needed to send a message to the Defender to warn them that I was alive, aboard the enemy ship, and about to do something stupid. I didn’t know exactly what kind of stupid thing I’d do and I was open to suggestions.

  Turning on the computer and accessing the standby screen was easy, but it asked me for an authorization code and prompted me to put my DNA into the system. Unauthorized DNA was likely to trigger some alarm, so I went for the auth codes.

  Nothing.

  I typed random stuff onto a holographic keyboard, but the system didn’t want to help. People on Earth used dumb passwords. These computers were harder to access.

  “What are you doing?” The surgeon looked at the screen over my shoulder. He sounded as condescending as always. I don’t know if he was acting so arrogant for being a scientist or for being an alien, but he was awesome at being an asshole.

  “I’m trying to open a comm channel,” I said, “but I can’t get past this screen.”

  “It’s asking for an authorization code,” the doctor said flatly.

  Did he consider me so dumb?

  “Starship computers are restricted to authorized personnel,” the doctor said. “Don’t you have passwords on Earth?”

  “No,” I said sarcastically. “We live in a happy world and sing songs around campfires. Nobody ever restricts anyone’s access anywhere. It’s a free world.”

  “Really?” the doctor nodded slowly as he processed the information. “I guess I was treated differently when I got there. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  Yeah, me neither. The chances of the doctor truly being an alien were dramatically increasing.

  Opening a comm channel wasn’t possible, but I somehow accessed the star charts and proximity range sensors. Hostile Alpha had changed direction and no longer fled from the Defender. Instead, we were heading straight towards her.

  Hostile Alpha had a strange spherical element in front of it. Its representation reminded me of a containment sphere, but we’d only tried those at very small scales on Earth.

  “What’s this, Doc?” I asked.

  The doctor studied the sphere. It approached the Defender slowly yet without hesitation. “It’s a grappling field,” he said. “If they catch your ship, we’re doomed, Commander.”

  A grappling field? I’d heard of grappling hooks at sea and of launching harpoons at rival starships to stop them from escaping. The doctor told me about the alien version of those hooks: they worked similar to a shield with EM-blocking powers that didn’t allow anything to enter or leave the sphere.

  If it trapped the Defender, the only way out was to disable the grappling field from within Hostile Alpha.

  “Can we block it from here?” I asked.

  “If you can guess the authorization codes without raising any alarms…” the doctor said.

  Awesome: so someone was about to grapple my ship, and I wasn’t even able to stop them. Time to look for a more radical way out of this.

  “I need explosives,” I said. “I want to turn this ship into a billion little pieces of space dust and trash.”

  The doctor’s expression reminded me how everyone stares at mad people whenever they go into politics and climb the ranks. Nobody knows what they’re capable of doing, and nobody knows how to stop them.

  Impossible problems require explosive solutions. And I’ve always liked explosions.

  Chapter 38: Kate

  Kate found some bandages to cover her arm, and she’d retreated to the great cabin so that nobody noticed her specially-colored blood. Harry entered the cabin with her and stared at her with a blend of disgust and repulsion. He was grossed out and he didn’t bother to hide it.

  “And I’d found you attractive,” he mumbled. “I’ve abandoned my acting captain to save an alien. A horrible monster that doesn’t even have proper blood flowing through its veins.”

  Kate didn’t want to
talk about it. She’d expected this reaction all her life, and she didn’t care anymore. Harry had saved her because he’d known the real her. His reaction was based only on her appearance. It wasn’t a pleasant situation, but she understood his surprise. Most people don’t react well to that kind of surprises.

  “I’d assumed that you were incredible,” Harry continued. “You were intelligent, you had a beautiful smile, and you emanated some kind of special vibe that made the commander and me fight for your favor.” He chuckled to himself. “I was fighting to attract an alien’s attentions!” He shook his head and stared at her arm. “You’d look normal if it weren’t for that arm of yours. You could’ve hidden it all your life! Does anyone else know?”

  Kate had gone through rejection and reservations. Governments on Earth hadn’t accepted Frateran refugees openly. They’d first considered them a threat, the start of an alien invasion. Even after telling their story and providing enough proof about their peaceful intentions, many powerful men and women had rejected them.

  Men in suits had always accompanied them everywhere and kept normal humans away, just in case some of the refugees tried something on the population. None of them had had ill intentions, but some of her own kind had grown resentful towards those who had promised to protect them and yet had shown no interest in their comfort.

  Vortos had been one of the idealistic Fraterans who had expected everyone on Earth to accept them with open arms in exchange for new technology and new knowledge. He’d once been an idealist, a dreamer. His dreams had turned to nightmares when he’d witnessed the mistreatment of his own people. People like John had shielded themselves with condescension and pride.

  The memory of John made her smile. He’d sacrificed himself for her. The general had planned to kill him first, so that she died knowing that John was dead too. Now she had to keep going for her people and for the memory of those who would never live normally amongst humans.