Starship Defender: Beyond Human Space

by Michael Keats

  Kate hadn’t let anyone know about her origins aside from the government officials that had first found her. The Defender had given her the perfect chance to look for normal friendships without being escorted by men in suits. The dream hadn’t lasted.

  “Are you planning to eliminate everyone on board?” Harry insisted. “Are you one of those aliens that turns bad and tries to eliminate humanity too? Because I’m not technically human. We can reach some form of agreement…”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Harry,” Kate told him.

  He shook his head and peeked at her arm. She’d almost covered the wound completely. She now needed something waterproof to stop the blood from showing through the bandages. Harry was equally disgusted even though he no longer saw her blood color.

  Kate had spent some of her childhood on Earth. She’d feared the constant rejection from everyone, even from the men in suits. They were probably aware of the Fraterans’ origins, but she’d always feared that they wouldn’t be prepared for her actual appearance if she was ever wounded. They took the Fraterans for normal people with minor genetic alterations, not for actual aliens whose ancestors had conquered the stars long before the rest of humanity had even reached the clouds.

  The first few years had been the worst. She’d seen scientists rubbing their hands together, expecting that one of them would eventually die. They planned to study their organs and composition. She’d feared dying and being sliced open, but she’d also feared that some scientists could take some of her friends and perform experiments on them.

  Overall, the government had protected them… more or less. She couldn’t blame humanity for having a few rotten apples who sought too much power and lacked the ability to control their thirst for more. She’d lived amongst humans. John would accuse her of sympathizing with them, but she couldn’t avoid it. She wanted humanity to live, just like she’d have wanted Fraterans to survive without human help.

  Harry sat on the desk in the great cabin. He was just a hologram and didn’t need to sit down, but he did so anyway. His behavior had been designed by bored scientists and engineers who’d wanted a companion to chat to. A human scientist seeking to leave a legacy had then wiped his memory, made a few minor changes, and sold him as his own work. Fraterans didn’t have the right to own copyright like normal humans because everything they knew could be linked to national security. Scientists stole their work without further consequences.

  Harry was still trying to process her story, though. She’d talked to him before. He had good intentions, at least deep down. Really, really deep down.

  “And what about that thing of touching your forehead and your navel?” he said. He referred to the classic gesture that Fraterans made to wish each other good luck or to show respect. “Is it part of your alieny behavior?”

  “It’s just a cultural thing,” she said. “It means that we value the other person.”

  “And why don’t you do it with humans?” Harry insisted. “I haven’t seen any of you use it with any of the naval officers or seamen.”

  Of course he hadn’t. Kate didn’t use the gesture herself too often because it was part of their old lives. John and some others did. They would never treat a human with respect. They considered them both technologically and mentally inferior.

  John had once told her that one cannot show respect towards both a cat and a Frateran, because it means showing respect for a cat and disrespect for the Frateran. One cannot treat both of them equally. He probably thought of humans as little more than cats, despite their technology.

  Fraterans hadn’t been such an elitist race many generations before, but their recent problems had made them wary of trusting outsiders. They’d had so many wars amongst themselves that they no longer recognized the potential of working with other nations, much less with Earth.

  Their elitism wasn’t unjustified. Fraterans had been an advanced race for many generations, whereas humanity had only recently begun its progress. Humans were in their expanding and explosive development stage. None of her fellow Fraterans would consider them their equals until they reached a higher level of cultural development. Her friends were a bunch of snobs, but they were too obstinate to change their mannerisms.

  Harry continued asking questions to try to understand her, but he had reservations about her and her people. He sometimes acted as though they had nothing in common, and then he leaped in excitement as soon as Kate talked more about Fraterans. Harry was trying to make up his mind. His inquisitive nature was part of his artificial intelligence programming. He’d eventually accept her, though. They were both destined to work together.

  The ship shook and both Harry and Kate looked around. They were under attack.

  Chapter 39: Kate

  Kate ran out of the great cabin and checked her bandage one last time. No blood dripped through. She was safe. Harry walked after her.

  “What’s going on?” Kate asked.

  Several engineers had gathered around a holographic screen and argued about the nearby ship. General Dovrik’s ship had a kind of force field to stop them from moving freely. The Defender had stopped flying. The thrusters and engines still worked, but they couldn’t move away from the general’s ship.

  Harry looked at the screens then at her, wondering if he was right to trust her.

  “It’s a grappling field,” Kate said. She’d read about force fields that stopped movement and blocked communications systems, but she didn’t know enough about them. John knew much more about Frateran strategies and about potential weaknesses, but they’d lost him. She was on her own and helping a group of humans who had never faced anyone like General Dovrik.

  She told the engineers everything she remembered about grappling fields, and their eyes opened up wide in fear that she could be telling the truth. They didn’t want to trust her words or her knowledge because they considered her their equal.

  One of the scientists zoomed in on the field. Their sensors weren’t designed to detect it, but several of the radars noticed a strange interference. So many interferences following a regular pattern are never a good sign.

  The only way to avoid a grappling field is to escape before it catches you.

  They needed to accelerate as fast as they could and flee the area before the grappling field became too tight around them. The smaller the bubble, the stronger its effect. They had no time to waste. No time to ask any questions. Still, the engineers didn’t accept her word.

  “Harry,” she told the hologram. “You need to tell them that I know what I’m talking about. You know I’ve spent time aboard the general’s ship. You know what I’ve seen.”

  Harry saw her honest eyes and avoided her gaze. He didn’t say anything.

  “I mean it!” Kate told the engineers. “We can’t stay here.”

  The engineers took her word for it. For once, they didn’t stay to analyze the field. They’d all faced General Dovrik’s troops before. The Frateran Armors had been enough to make them wary of getting too close to the ship.

  “Sir,” a scientist told the subcommander, “we must get out of here.”

  The subcommander nodded and called everyone to battle stations. He nodded at the engines officer. “Turn on the engines,” he said. “Give us everything we’ve got, and then some. I don’t want anyone catching us in one of those nets.”

  The engineer nodded and tapped a few commands onto her screen. She held onto her armrests, but the ship didn’t accelerate. It was too late. She increased the power. The Defender didn’t move.

  They were trapped.

  A message arrived through an open communication channel. It was in perfect English, but Kate recognized the voice behind the translation system. It was General Dovrik.

  “Surrender immediately,” Dovrik told them. “Surrender and send us the traitor immediately, and no harm shall come to you.”

  The crew stared at each other with accusatory eyes. They didn’t know who the traitor was.

  Kate did. The general was
after her.

  Chapter 40

  Despite my interest in starting a firework business that was likely to last for less than a day, the doctor wasn’t too happy about taking part in my plans. To him, being prisoners aboard an alien ship and at an insane alien general’s mercy was better than saving everyone else.

  Oh, right: his loyalties were split between his people and humans. Actually, scratch that. Aboard the Defender, he only cared about Dr. Thompson because they were old friends. I couldn’t understand why such an elitist and racist alien snob would be interested in a human, but it was his problem, not mine. Dr. Thompson awoke intense passions in both humans and computers alike, so she could also make aliens fall for her.

  I needed to destroy the ship, though. If everything the doctor had told me about the grappling field was right, I didn’t want it to get anywhere close to the Defender. I needed them safe and flying. The only option was to damage the Frateran ship enough until it released the Defender. And if we were lucky, we could even fly out aboard an escape pod just in time to be rescued by our people. Actually, my people. I’m not sure how to categorize Frateran refugees.

  “You are insane,” Dr. Langley said. “You are completely insane. Don’t you realize that placing explosives around the ship will blow everything up?”

  “That’s kind of the point of it, isn’t it?” I tapped on one of the alien screens to try to get it to do something for a change. It didn’t. Must be something about the circuits’ aversion towards me. Both human and alien computers hate me. “Are you going to help me find some explosives, or do you want me to search the ship myself? It’ll be dirtier and I’ll have to fight many other alien guys, but I haven’t gone to the gym for a while and need the exercise.”

  The doctor stared at me with reservations, with rage, and with some kind of jealousy. I guess it’s because I was taller. Some people don’t like being looked at from above.

  “I won’t take part in this madness,” the doctor said. He wasn’t too convinced about his own words.

  His doubts weren’t for being a visitor from another planet; this was the scientist in him. Doctors, scientists, engineers, and most people who spend their days surrounded by books, have something against solving things using one’s own hands. They don’t like fist fights, they don’t like wars, and they don’t like blowing things up. I guess that’s why I was never admitted to study a science degree.

  “Would you rather let a bunch of racist aliens destroy the Defender and conquer Earth?” I asked.

  The doctor raised an eyebrow.

  Okay; he was one of those aliens. Perhaps I should’ve worded it differently. Diplomacy isn’t one of my talents. If I’d been more diplomatic, I’d have found a better job… hopefully one that didn’t force me to risk my life every other day.

  Dr. Langley didn’t understand or share my reasoning. To him, an alien conquest of Earth was just like a small roach problem: depressive, but we’d survive. And he kept looking at me with that I don’t like you expression. I don’t have anything against doctors or against aliens, but we were supposed to work together.

  “Don’t stare at me like that,” I told him. “We have one Defender, and I’m guessing that you don’t like the guy who’s hurt your stomach. I don’t care if you’re loyal to Earth or not. We can’t let anyone destroy the Defender or nobody will be able to keep the aliens at bay.”

  He didn’t follow the reference. Where had this man grown up? Oh… yeah. Another planet. But he should’ve watched TV shows or something. It would’ve been educational enough to avoid sounding like a total alien.

  Dr. Langley reluctantly agreed to help me. Perhaps he was just tired of listening to weird reasoning and wanted me to shut up. In any case, he was going to help me.

  Stealing the explosives was easy enough. The communications room had been better-guarded than the armories. It must’ve been because of their culture and my primitive thought patterns, but there’s something seriously wrong with guarding computers more than things that explode. Just a personal opinion, though.

  The surgeon limped after me, complaining and groaning about my speed. He could barely walk straight, so he was just an observer while I hit everyone, picked fights, and dodged those armored bullies who always tried to rip my head off my shoulders.

  I don’t know how we managed to get anywhere without raising any alarms or without being killed a dozen times. Those Frateran guys are as unprofessional as naval men aboard starships: they drink, they play something similar to card games, and they argue and drink even more. And then they fight, beat their companions unconscious, and forget to patrol the ship.

  Someone needed to get those men in line, or an enemy spy could end up destroying their ship.

  I wasn’t going to complain, though. It made the trip easy. I even had a tour guide telling me the wonders about his magnificent and grandiose ship, a symbol of elegance and good taste.

  “Don’t turn right unless you want to find yourself in a pile of excrement,” the doctor said flatly. “That’s where our plumbing systems take the waste.”

  See? Elegance and good taste. The deck above us had a room for animal waste, another deck held a series of animal pens that hadn’t been cleaned for years, and the Frateran soldiers used another one to drink without their officers knowing. It was full of vomit. Of gooey and purple alien vomit. Believe me: it stinks worse than vomit, combined with earwax and rotten eggs, and with a couple of persistent and rotten farts.

  And I was carrying a bit of each of those wonderful elements of Fratera with me. On my boots. I was going to throw them away as soon as I got out of that ship.

  The doctor was doing it on purpose. There had to be a less smelly way of setting explosives around the ship.

  Once we’d set explosives everywhere and indulged ourselves with every awful smell available, we headed for the hangar to grab an escape pod. I’d set the temporizers to give us enough time to get to the Defender so that the explosion didn’t damage us, but we didn’t have too much time.

  In case we weren’t under enough pressure, the doctor left a blue trail everywhere because he was bleeding. If we didn’t leave soon, someone was going to realize that we were roaming around the ship without permission.

  The hangar was empty, so we headed for a shuttle almost the size of an escape pod. It was spherical and I hadn’t flown any Frateran ships, but I’d flown almost all kinds of planes and starships. If Dr. Thompson, a civilian scientist, had managed to fly one, so could I.

  I helped the surgeon enter the shuttle and dumped most of the stolen weapons in it, the but uniform marching of a group of four Frateran Armors headed straight towards us.

  They didn’t raise the alarms. They knew they’d crush me effortlessly.

  I didn’t have enough time to board the shuttle and leave. I had to face them.

  Chapter 41

  I grabbed one of the guns and a sword that we’d stolen from the armored soldiers. I’d hoped to take them as souvenirs and to brag about my alien weapons, but fleeing an alien starship isn’t as easy as one would think.

  Outside the shuttle, a group of four armored soldiers wanted to greet me and welcome me to their ship. They were in an awful mood, in the kind of punching mood that makes it a bad idea to stand between them and their target. And I was their target.

  I won’t lie: I wasn’t that confident about my skills. I’d been lucky a couple of times against them and I was trained to fight, but luck is never infinite. I’d rather avoid fighting if I’m not likely to win.

  The surgeon pulled my sleeve to stop me from leaving. “Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t face them. They aren’t like your normal soldiers. Leave me here and fly, but don’t face them.”

  “I’ve faced them already,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Can’t be that difficult, can it?”

  I know, I know. My mouth gets the better of me and I should’ve gone the cowardly way and tried to escape. But then they’d have triggered the alarms and someone would’ve shot me do
wn within seconds of taking off. I hate being shot as I escape, so I had to stay and act like a proper officer.

  I walked out of the shuttle with a gun in my left hand and a sword in my right. Four armored soldiers stood in front of me, ready to attack. Two of them were somewhat taller than the other two, but all of them were fairly intimidating in those solid armors. I don’t have anything against wearing a kevlar, but you’re supposed to take it off before a fair fight.

  The two taller armored soldiers headed for me. I shot at both of them and the ray bounced off their shields. I had to try anyway; you never know if someone might’ve forgotten their shield that morning.

  I took out the electric sword and wielded it high in the air with the hilt by my head. I’d watched thousands of historical films where knights defended their lands with a sword in their hands. Swords are much more accurate in movies, but I’d manage.

  I brought down the sword and tried to slash one of the soldiers, but they jumped aside and dodged it. One of them tried to punch my chest, but I blocked his armored fist with my arm. It was too strong, and I stumbled back. The other soldier pulled me up by the neck of my shirt. Its fist collided onto my ribs once, then again. I groaned.

  I couldn’t see either of their faces because the helmets were completely opaque, but I got the message: my being alive offended them. This wasn’t a practice fight or a sparring game. I had to get rid of them or they’d get rid of me.

  My wrist wobbled with the pain of the earlier impact. I brought the sword down onto the soldier closest to me, knocking it down. The other looked at me in surprise. I charged like a madman with a sword over my head. I slashed thrice, but the sword only cut the air. The soldier’s palm struck against my chest, emptying all air from my lungs. I stumbled back and gasped for air. This wasn’t ending there. I brought the sword down onto the soldier’s head and left both opponents at my feet.