Stasis (Alpha Ship One Book 1)

by L. D. P. Samways

  I looked around and tried to find some sort of tactical advantage. I needed something that I could use to deliver damage to one or if I was lucky, both of them. But there wasn’t much in the way of weapons around me. After all, the ship had been ransacked by the Ursines before takeoff. I assume it was to prevent something like this from happening in the first place. But it was no good giving up. If I did, then I’d die, and so would Dale and Jess. As the both of them continued to fire upon Borch and Ern, I searched through the coms desk for any sharp objects. I was running out of time, so I couldn’t be thorough. I had to find something, and I had to find it fast. But the problem was, there were literally no sharp objects. No pencils, pens or knives. The Ursines had made sure of that.

  I had to improvise.

  “Ahhhh!” I heard Jess scream. The terror continued behind me as I tried to come up with something.

  An idea. A plan. A darn weapon of some sorts.

  “Hurry up, their gaining on us!” Dale said.

  I panicked. I grabbed the first thing I saw. The coms headset I’d been wearing earlier. I looked at it for a split second and then had an idea. I ripped the microphone stick from the jack attached to the headset and threw the ear cups on the floor. The microphone was attached to a slim flexible wire. The wire was covered in plastic. I tore the jagged end with my teeth and exposed the copper wiring inside. It was sharp, and it would do.

  I quickly turned on my heels, bent my knees slightly and exploded into a run. I covered half the length of the room in a few seconds. Before Borch could turn around I jumped on his back and wrapped my arms around his throat, pulling back as hard as I could. I heard him gargle slightly as I pressed into the alien’s windpipe. With the copper microphone wire still in my hand, I pulled my arm back, and then jabbed the sharp end into the beasts throat, while still holding onto dear life with my other arm. Borch bucked and thrashed as I stabbed the sharp object into his neck. Sprays of weird purple liquid escaped through the beasts wound and sprayed all up the walls, and onto Dale and Jess who had now focused both their fire on Ern who was lying on his back, trying to get up, but falling back down after every attempt. It took the combined firepower of both Dale and Jess to get him down, but he wasn’t dead. Just injured. Borch on the other hand was bleeding out quickly. His energy was ebbing and he’d stopped resisting. I eased myself off his back and fell onto the ground. Borch soon followed, nearly landing on me. But I rolled out of the way before I was turned into a splatter mark on the metal grates.

  “Good grief,” I muttered under my breath, struggling to breathe. “Check their vitals,” I said as Jess moved in to check on Borch. I composed myself, got to my feet and moved in, the sharp metal object still firmly in my bloody hands.

  “He looks dead to me,” Jess said. I agreed as we both stared at the dim, lifeless eyes of Borch who now had a near foot-wide hole in his massive neck. I could see the flesh and bone that had been savaged by the crude and improvised instrument I held in my hands.

  “Ern’s still breathing, but he’s out cold,” Dale said as he stood over the alien, who was only a few feet from us. I stepped back and tried to catch my breath. We’d just taken on two of the most ferocious beasts known to man. They were the first casualties of what was surely going to be a long war. But there was no escaping what was trailing behind us, behind the Alpha Ship One. Twelve thousand miles of warships. On course for Earth. And we were in front, way in front. But if we made one wrong move, one attempt to break free, then they’d probably shoot us down.

  “What now?” I asked, standing over Borch, still staring into his lifeless eyes.

  “Well, Borch is dead. Roderick is also dead. Ern on the other hand, isn’t. Not yet anyway,” Dale said.

  I nodded my head.

  “How bad are his injuries? Will he survive?” I asked.

  “Why the hell would you want him to survive?” Jess asked.

  I stepped away from Borch and took a few steps to my right, toward Dale and Ern. I stopped a little before the downed Ursine, and knelt down. I got up real close to Ern and evaluated his injuries. He had a few holes in his arms, but his chest had come off clean. So the big fella would be alright for the time being. Not that I really cared whether he lived or died. Quite frankly, I wanted him dead.

  But just not quite yet.

  “It would make sense to interrogate him. We have some time before reaching Earth. So we might as well spend it learning about our new enemies,” I said, standing back up and looking at Dale and Jess.

  “What about Roderick and Borch? What are we going to do with their bodies?” Jess asked.

  I thought about it for a second or two. We couldn’t dump them in space. One of the many thousands of Ursine ships behind us could end up bumping into their floating corpses, sounding the alarm off. We’d end up being decimated by a fleet of warships. And Earth would be next. So the usual protocol for a death on the ship was out of the question.

  “Burn ‘em,” I said.

  Jess and Dale looked a little distraught at the idea of doing such a thing.

  “What, even Roderick? Don’t you think that’s a bit OTT?” Jess asked.

  “No. The guy is three hundred years old, well, according to him anyway. And if he is that old, then there wont be any family on Earth waiting for news on him,” I said.

  “What about science?” Dale asked.

  “What about it?”

  “If the guy really is three hundred, don’t you think Earth would like to examine his remains?”

  I smiled.

  “He’s not a tree. Cutting him in half won’t reveal much. Besides, according to his story, the guys at Pilgrim Tech know the secret to his long and prosperous life. So he’ll just be taking space up in the ice room.”

  “What about Ern? Where do we put him? Are you sure its safe to interrogate him? What if he overpowers you and tears you to pieces?” Jess asked.

  “Trust me on this. Just do as I say. Take him down to the brig, and put him into the Prism.”

  Dale smiled.

  “Look at us turning this thing around! Now all that’s left are the warships behind us!” he said.

  The three of us laughed. It was a surreal moment. Laughing over two dead bodies and one severely incapacitated one. But we were happy. We’d finally managed to get some leeway on this thing, and I was determined not to let it slip. I’d make sure that Ern would answer the questions I had. And when I was done with him, I’d deal with the Ursine fleet behind me. But first things first, I had a war to stop from even starting. And the way to do that was to understand why the Ursines were doing what they were doing in the first place.

  ***

  “Wake up!” I said, squirting some water into Ern’s face. He was locked in the Prism cell in the brig. It was basically an empty room that held a prisoner in an energy field, making it impossible for the prisoner to move. The Prism had energy beams that looked like whips, holding and gripping onto the prisoner’s limbs, including their hands, arms, wrists, legs and neck. Resisting it was impossible. The beams acted like copper cabling, tied around so tightly that the act of struggling would actually tighten the beams even more. So I wasn’t even the slightest bit worried when it came to interrogating Ern.

  “Wake up!” I said again, squirting yet more water in his face. The water droplets sprayed up the beasts snout, making Ern cough and sneeze as he came to. Waiting for him to gain his faculties, I stood still and taut in the middle of the large empty room. The walls that surrounded us did a good job of making the place seem enclosed, and claustrophobic. I imagine from Ern’s perspective, the room seemed small. In fact, the Prism was designed to create a feeling of claustrophobia. I can imagine it being quite stressful, finding yourself bound and fastened beyond the point of any movement at all. But that didn’t stop Ern from attempting to relinquish himself from his laser beam chains.

  “It’s no use, Ern. Those restraints are top grade galactic tech. Every sector prison has them installed. Some of the biggest and stronge
st alien races have been shackled in a Prism cell, and none of them have managed to escape.”

  Ern roared as loud as he could. The walls around me vibrated slightly as his primal scream rattled through my ear drums. He thrashed and struggled. Saliva dripped down his snout and pooled on the hard cement floor directly beneath him. I watched on in awe as he tried to power out of the restraints, but no matter how hard he tried, the beams just gripped onto him even tighter.

  “You feel that, don’t you? The panic? The realization that this is all truly coming to a messy end? It’s frightening, isn’t it? To know that you aren’t in control anymore. To know that it didn’t work out how you intended it to,” I said.

  By then, I was pacing in front of the Prism restraint system. Ern was still thrashing, and saliva was still drooling out of his shout. As I paced, I was attempting to figure out some sort of plan. There were two ways that I could approach this. Both of them ended in the same result. Me getting answers. But figuring out which way was better suited to getting those answers as quickly as possible was the hard thing. Hence my pacing.

  “You need to relax Ern. The more you struggle, the less you’ll be able to breathe. That laser restraint around your neck will be getting tighter and tighter the more you struggle. Thankfully, the thing was designed with that in mind. And luckily for you, I made sure that I gave you enough breathing room when I put you in the restraints. I mean, let’s face it, you’re lucky that it’s only you and me in here, and not Dale, Jess or the two Spaniards. Especially the two Spaniards. You killed their traveling companion. Their friend. And unfortunately, humans have been known to react violently when coming face to face with the guilty party responsible for their bereavement.”

  Suddenly, Ern stopped thrashing. The eerie quietness that engulfed the Prism cell made me feel nauseous. In my experience, when these creatures become quiet, they also become violent. And I didn’t fancy taking him on by myself. I knew that the restraints he was in would keep him firmly locked in place, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the least bit worried that the laser restraints would fail and he’d be free to take out all his anger on me. But anger wasn’t what he decided to inflict on me. Nor was it aggression. No, instead, he’d decided to start laughing. Laughing in his native tongue of course, which consisted of a continuous chirping sound. It threw me off guard, and I wasn’t expecting it.

  “What’s so damn funny?” I asked, moving closer to Ern. I decided to get real close this time. So close, I could smell his singed hair from the previous firefight in the brig. It was a dangerous move. A move that would usually be unadvised. Getting that close to a violent prisoner wouldn’t be what most people classed as a bright idea. But I wasn’t looking to be smart. I was looking to be dumb. Real dumb. Dumb enough to antagonize a vicious beast to the point where he wanted to bite my head off. That’s the only way I’d be getting any information off him. It was a tactic. A tactic that the human race was known for. Around the universe we were held in that regard often. Known as the primitive race that got its way by throwing their weight around. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Roderick’s story wasn’t so hard to believe in the end. The idea of humanity setting up an interstellar war just so they could conquer another planet totally seemed in the bounds of reality when it came to what we were all about as a species.

  “You think you’re tough, don’t you, human?” Ern growled. His snout was still oozing with saliva as he spoke, drips and drabs of it falling onto the floor. I was close enough to smell it. Close enough to feel it as some of it sprayed on my face as he spoke. I resisted the temptation to wipe the slimy stuff away. It would make me look weak, and I didn’t want to look weak. I wanted to look strong. Stronger than him. Stronger than his race. And I was determined to do so by any means necessary. So I raised my hand and backhanded the unsuspecting Ursine. He roared in displeasure and his eyes became fierce with rage. He stared into my soul as he started to bark like a dog. But his bark was loud and tainted with anger. I could feel his animosity toward me as he clipped and jerked at my face with his mouth. But fortunately for me, the restraints were holding out just fine and kept him at bay.

  “You hit me when I’m bound like a prisoner, but I guarantee you that you wouldn’t have the guts to do so if I wasn’t,” Ern said once he’d stopped growling and barking.

  I slapped him again. This time twice, in quick succession. The back hands echoed and hung in the air. My skin made contact with his, and once I’d finished dishing out the slaps, a deafly silence fell over the Prism cell. He’d stopped growling and just stared at me, as if my slaps had caused him to forget himself. He was no longer playing the part of the prisoner. He was subdued and silenced. He just stood there, staring into the nothingness that surrounded him. At first, I didn’t know if it was all just a ploy. A ploy to get me to get closer to him. A ploy that could allow him the space and ability to lash out at me, and bite my head off.

  But nothing came of it. He remained there, unmoving, unflinching. The Prism lasers continued to grip and tighten around him, but there was still no movement.

  “You will tell me everything you know. And if you don’t, I’ll make sure that Earth kills every member of your stupid species before I kill you!”

  There was no reply. Just silence. Silence and hollow stares. Ern wasn’t moving a muscle. It was like he’d switched off.

  The lights were off and nobody was home.

  “Ern, you better tell me something, or I’m afraid things are going to get real nasty for your species,” I said.

  I was just about to slap him again when he blinked. Finally, some movement! At least I knew he was alive and hadn’t shorted out on me. Not that he was a robot, but you get my drift.

  “That’s it, you’re seeing sense. Good. The more you tell me, the better off you’re going to be.”

  Ern blinked again, and then looked down at me. Without warning, he opened his mouth. He didn’t bark or growl this time. He spoke calmly.

  “That’s the difference between us and you,” he said.

  “Us?” I replied.

  “You humans are quick to use aggression when it comes to getting what you want. But aggression can’t always win. It won’t always win.”

  I looked at Ern and then to the floor. I was confused. What his species were doing could also be classified as aggression. He had twelve thousand miles of warships heading to Earth! Surely that was aggression?

  “We aren’t as different as you think. Our species gets what it wants, when it wants. We fight for our right to be the dominant force in the universe,” I said, looking back up at Ern. His eyes were still hollow and he looked defeated. I felt a pang of pity for him. But this was war. This was survival of the fittest!

  “That’s where you’re wrong, human. You fight to be dominant and we fight to rid the galaxy of it’s constant threat. Make no mistake, humanity is a threat. But not the threat that you want to be, or think you are. But a threat either way. Like a virus, you procreate at a high rate. You multiply every year, doubling your population. Humanity is a stain in our eyes. A stain in many other’s eyes. A stain that must be removed. And we will remove it. There isn’t enough room in your galaxy or ours for a virus to incubate. For too long you have done just that. But now it’s time for us to find the cure. To cleanse the history books of your barbaric, uncivilized race.”

  I stood there, my heart thumping in my chest, unknowing of my next move. Ern’s speech had taken me out of the game. My head wasn’t in the right place. I had doubts flooding through me. Doubts of whether I was the bad guy in this. Doubts whether or not we were really a stain, or a virus. So I had to leave. Take a breather. Let Ern stew a little. But I couldn’t risk him cottoning on that I was unsure of my people. So before leaving the cell, I turned around.

  “We may be a stain in your eyes, but in ours, the universe is full of possibilities. It’s a wondrous place, a place where anything can come true. Our species has gone from making fire to conquering deep space t
ravel in less than 3000 years. It’s an achievement. We are the brightest, strongest and most passionate species known to the Galactics. That’s why we are held in such high regard. A regard that travels light years ahead of the most distant planets we’ve discovered. We are the pioneers. We are the experts and we will reign supreme. So you can send your warships and you can try and change the inevitable, but I’m afraid that your race will never defeat ours, because humanity is a hell of a lot more than you can handle, my simple bear brained friend.”

  I turned back around and swiped my key card on the reader. The doors opened and I was just about to walk through. Before I could, I heard Ern chirping. He obviously found my speech funny. I refrained myself from rising to it. So I walked through the doors and turned the corner. Before the doors swooshed back shut, I heard him say something. It made me stop dead in my tracks.

  “You cannot defeat what cannot die.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “What did he say?” Jess asked as I sat down at the mess table. By then, the whole crew had congregated to discus the possibility of ending this thing before it even started. I noticed that Teresa and Philip were a little downcast, which was understandable considering that Roderick was gone.

  “He said that we cannot defeat what cannot be defeated,” I said, repeating it word for word, even though it came off clunky as I said it. The four faces that were staring back at me had the same confused look on their mugs that I’d had when he’d said it to me earlier on. Like them, I was struggling to make heads or tails of what he said. To me, it sounded like he was suggesting that these things couldn’t die, which we knew to be false, seeing that Borch was very much dead.