by Korza, Jay
Jockey looked to Emily as she came onto the flight deck. “I’d love nothing more than to try those weapons out but I can’t. There must be some sort of safety lock on them. I can’t operate them while we are inside the hangar.”
“Can we at least use the ship for shielding?” Wilks was now looking over the technical data the ship’s sensors were sending to the monitors.
“Sure, but I don’t know what kind of weapons the droid will have, if any at all.” Jockey looked thoughtfully for a moment at nothing in particular before adding, “However, if we’re inside the ship for protection, and the ship won’t allow us to arm weapons, then we’ll just be sitting in here while that droid pounds us from the outside. Once the shields are down, the droid will be able to damage the ship, maybe even to a point where it won’t be space worthy anymore. Not to mention the fact that if it is a security droid, it might have the codes to override our shields without even firing a shot.”
Emily thought for a split second before voicing her agreement with Jockey. “Wilks, get a defensive perimeter set up as far away from the ship as possible. I don’t want to risk it taking any damage.” Wilks nodded as he walked out of the ship, giving orders as he went. Emily took a quick glance at the sensor readings for the docking bay. “Jockey, I want you to stay in the ship, get the shields up, and then get to the top of the hangar bay. We don’t know the potential weapons capability of the droid but maybe you’d be high enough to be out of range. If we can’t stop the droid, try to keep the ship out of range until Daria can get the doors open. This ship is too important to lose.”
Jockey looked at Emily with hopeless eyes.
“I know what you’re thinking, Jockey, but I know that she and her team are still alive. Just because the droid is here doesn’t mean that they didn’t get past it. Now take care of this ship.” Emily patted Jockey on the shoulder and left the ship.
~
Daria was slowly going through all of her options in her head. She didn’t want to miss anything that might save her life. Daria tried searching through all of the information the database had gathered until she got locked in the room. “OK, Bloom, don’t let me down.”
~
“What happened to Doc’s signal?” Snake was looking over Bloom’s shoulder at the terminal he was working on.
“She seems to have entered a secure room. Our comlink connection has been completely severed.” Bloom was trying to break through the security code even though he knew it was pointless. Since they had entered the complex, his program had been unable to crack the code. He didn’t see why it would be able to break it now.
Snake could see the look of despair in Bloom’s face. “Do you know what the purpose of the room is? Is she in danger? Ahhhh!” Snake and Bloom both yelled out and grabbed at their ears as they tried to stop the feedback that was screaming through their heads. When the sound stopped, he looked at Bloom. “What the fuck was that?”
Bloom was reviewing the data logs from the last few seconds and began running a trace program. “I don’t believe this. When Doc entered the secure room, it initiated a separate security protocol that’s different from the main one I’ve been trying to hack.”
“Is that good or bad? And why is my head still ringing?”
Bloom smiled and clapped his hands together in a gesture of triumph. “The security program detected Daria’s comlink and is trying to figure out what it is. It’s sending a signal through her comlink and the entire temporary network we’ve set since we got here.” Bloom was working his console more furiously than Snake had ever seen.
“If I’m understanding even half of what you are doing, it looks like you’re hacking the system by following the security program back to its origin through the comlinks.” Snake began to read through the information that his visor was displaying.
The background static that had plagued the comlink system for the entire mission was suddenly gone. Bloom was able to use the security feed to not only reestablish their comlink connection with Daria but he was also able to use the security system to connect with any comlink anywhere in the entire installation.
“Doc, are you there? Doc, this is Bloom, can you hear me?”
Daria’s response was nothing shy of completely ecstatic. “Thank God, Bloom! I’m about to be wasted if I can’t come up with the proper security code for this room.”
~
“Keep laying down fire!” Emily could barely hear herself as she gave the command.
Wilks was trying to direct fire from his squad. The droid seemed to be unstoppable. Its shields were much stronger than the personal shields the aliens had been using. The ammo was running low and they were running out of cover. The droid’s weapons were pulverizing the shipping crates and other items the soldiers were using as cover. Wilks didn’t want to fall back into the control room because they would have nowhere else to go, but he was quickly running out of options.
The droid was using a combination of energy and projectile weapons. The droid had a pretty good knack for ricocheting the rounds off the walls and into the soldiers. Luckily, none of the rounds or their fragments had hit anything other than the soldiers' body armor. It was still too close for Wilks’ comfort.
Wilks was taking another look at the hangar to see whether he had missed anything that might help him out. Just as he was returning his sights back to the droid, he saw Emily take a projectile round to the chest. Emily stopped firing, looking down at her chest in astonishment. Emily’s eyes locked with Wilks’ as a small rivulet of blood came out of her mouth and flowed down her neck. Emily slumped to the ground.
“The lieutenant is down!” Wilks was about to leave his cover and go for Emily when he saw Davies’ huge hand reach out from behind cover and pull Emily to safety just as an energy bolt struck where her head had been. The second energy bolt struck her in the leg just below the knee.
“Jockey, is there anything you can do from up there?” Wilks was about to lose his whole team if he didn’t do something quickly. He decided that if Jockey didn’t have any new ideas, he would have to risk losing the ship to save his men.
“I still can’t override the weapons safety protocol. There is an emergency disengagement for the landing gear in case they get damaged. I could try to drop one of the skids on the droid. I really don’t think that I can be very accurate, though. If I miss and hit one of you guys…” Jockey let the sentence finish itself in Wilks’ head.
“OK, I know what the el-tee said before but we have to risk the ship. Can you bring her down with the landing ramp facing away from the droid? That way we can use the ramp for a little bit of cover while we board. Then you’ll just take her back up to the top and hope that we can figure something out after that.”
“I can do that. Get everyone prepped to move. I’ll be coming in hard and fast and I want you guys boarded in less than thirty seconds from my mark.” Jockey gave Wilks a few seconds to organize the retreat before he began his descent. “Get ready, guys. Thirty seconds on my mark. Three, two, one, MARK!” Jockey pushed the throttle as far as he dared in the confined space of the docking hangar.
~
As if on cue, the security system added, “You have sixty seconds to enter the proper security code before you cease to exist.”
“I caught that, Doc. I’m working on it. I’m in the system; it’s just a matter of seconds now.” Bloom knew he was almost there—he just had to focus and he would get it.
Bloom was tracing the program back to its source and digging through the code on the other end. The graphic interface of the alien computer system made it almost like playing a video game as Bloom dodged security nodes and chaser programs. Bloom knew that he was getting close to where he needed to be because he began to receive a feedback through his comlink that got worse the deeper he probed. He was sure that it wasn’t an intentional safety measure by the security program, rather a by-product of the security system tapping into the comlink system.
Bloom dug deeper and fought through the fee
dback. Every time the pain lessened, Bloom dug in the direction where he felt the most pain. Bloom’s vision was so blurred from the pain that he switched to direct neural input. Bloom didn’t like to use direct neural input especially during a mission because it drained the user both physically and mentally worse than if he had run a double marathon. But he had no choice; if he couldn’t see the interface he couldn’t do his job.
With the direct interface turned on, the image of the alien interface blasted into Bloom’s mind. If the appearance of the image into his mind could be described as a “blast” then the pain that followed was nothing less than a nuclear explosion. Bloom almost passed out but kept himself in the moment and worked through the pain and found what he was looking for.
Bloom had expected the pain to increase when he switched to a direct neural link but he wasn’t prepared for how overpowering it would be. He also wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Time began to slow down as the pain vanished altogether.
Bloom
Nancy and Phil were beside themselves with frustration. Their little boy was almost four and still not talking. He made a lot of noise, babbled all day long in fact, making guttural noises intermixed with high-pitched screeches. Never once had he said mommy or daddy.
Jason had been to a couple of speech therapists who were at a loss for what might be going on with him. When he was with the therapists, Jason didn’t even babble or make any of the other noises he made all day at home. As soon as they left the office, Jason would be back to his own language that no one else could understand.
Nancy knew her son could understand her even though everyone told her she was wrong. But when she talked, he listened and even responded, though she had no idea what he was saying. If she told him to change his shirt, he did. When she needed help around the house, he would pitch in, as much as a four-year-old could. Even with these and many more examples, Phil would always tell Nancy that she just saw what she wanted to see, and unfortunately their son wasn’t normal and never would be.
Most Wednesday nights, Phil took Jason to one of his “Humans First” rallies. Phil didn’t consider himself a bigot, racist, or speciest; he just cared about humanity and thought the Coalition was catering to other species and leaving humans behind as fodder for the Coalition’s political agenda. Phil had plenty of human friends who weren’t white so he knew he wasn’t a racist. He also had worked in the past with plenty of other species and didn’t hate them personally; he actually got along with many of them, so he couldn’t be a speciest.
Phil didn’t want any harm to come to the other species of the galaxy; he just didn’t want them taking human jobs on human worlds. He didn’t want his tax dollars going towards saving a Shirka birthing forest on a planet that he wasn’t even allowed to set foot on lest he become food for the newborn cubs. He was tired of being out of work and seeing more of his benefits being given away to other species instead of the humans who deserved the benefits more.
Phil arrived and grabbed a doughnut and a cup of coffee from the sign-in table. He tried handing one to Jason but his offer was rebuked with an outstretched hand shaking back and forth no. “Suit yourself, kid. More for me.”
Jason was usually a very active and interactive child even though he didn’t speak to anyone, but at these weekly meetings he became very withdrawn and tended not to interact at all. Phil thought that being around a lot of people and hearing all of them speaking passionately about their thoughts might just give Jason something to speak about. Some of their passion for communicating might just rub off on his son. But after almost six months of meetings, Jason never showed any sign of improvement.
This week’s topic was going to be the Coalition’s plan to integrate different species into combined military units. Phil couldn’t believe what they were doing; this was going too far. If there were interspecies military units, what would happen if Earth needed to defend itself against one of the other Coalition member species? How would humans rise up against an alien aggressor if their units had the aggressors mixed in with them? Their aggressors would have access to all of the same equipment, tactics and everything else. Something had to change.
One of the usual speakers was at the podium, ranting and pounding his fists. It seemed that no matter what he said, people would cheer as long as he pounded his fist somewhere in his sentence. “Rabble rabble rabble”—fist pound—cheering. “Rabble rabble—fist pound—rabble.“ Cheering.
Phil was getting excited and so spun up that he began making his own speeches to the people around him. He was adding his own thoughts during the natural pauses of the speaker at the podium. The crowd around Phil was now cheering him on, urging him forward towards the podium, some yelling to let him speak too. By the time he was pushed to the podium, the speaker was even encouraging Phil to get on stage.
Phil took the stage and stood in front of the microphone. At first, he was a little shocked that he was the center of attention. He wasn’t exactly sure how he had made it there or what he should do next. Something in his brain told him to play it safe; start with the material he had already been spouting in the crowd, the stuff that got him there in the first place.
His first few sentences slobbered out of his mouth awkwardly and barely made sense. He got a few confused looks from the crowd along with a couple of supportive shout outs “Yeah, man!“ The next few lines came out much more coherently but they still didn’t receive the responses he had gotten just a few moments ago.
The original speaker was starting to sweat a little and made a small tentative step towards Phil. He knew that his moment was about to end if he didn’t get the crowd back. What was missing? Ah ha! Fist pounding! He needed to add some fist pounding.
Phil pounded his fist into the podium and looked out to the crowd. That got their attention but something was still wrong. A few of the faces towards the front actually looked a little scared. Damn it. The fist pounding doesn’t come before a sentence, never before a sentence. In that context it seems aggressive, even attacking.
Deep breath. “Rabble rabble rabble.” FIST POUND. Cheering! That was it; Phil had found his rhythm and set into it as though he had invented the podium fist pound. The crowd loved him and cheered for everything he said, even the stuff that didn’t make one lick of sense.
When it was all over, Phil was taken aside by a few of the men who had organized tonight’s rally. Phil was still high on endorphins from his impromptu presentation so he barely heard most of what was being said to him. The main points did sink in, though; he was asked to speak at a public rally in two weeks. The rally wouldn’t be just for humans; it was going to be in the middle of the town square and open to every citizen who wanted to attend.
Phil was beside himself with joy. After being unemployed for so long, he finally felt as if he was needed again. In fact, he didn’t think he ever felt this important even while he was working. His work was never really that important and if he were honest with himself, he wasn’t really that good at it, either. But this, this was something that he excelled at. Getting in touch with the people, showing them that they weren’t the only ones who felt this way. Showing the crowds that they weren’t the minority anymore, that they were strong if they stuck together in their fears and ignorance of the real facts. Well, the last part in Phil’s mind was more along the lines of, ‘if they stuck together in their convictions and knowledge of right from wrong.’ Eh, you say tomato, I say idiot.
When Phil was finally done being patted on the back, he realized that Jason was still somewhere in the crowd and he needed to collect his son before leaving. Phil looked around and finally found Jason under the snack table, crying. Phil had hoped that being on stage and being the center of attention would enthrall his son, maybe even encourage him to talk. All that happened was Jason became more withdrawn tonight and cried like a two-year-old. Phil was so elated from his evening that even this couldn’t bring him down, much.
Phil got home and told Nancy to put their son to bed. He had great news
and wanted to tell her without the crybaby around. He didn’t want anything to detract from his news and didn’t want his wife’s attention divided in the least.
Nancy knew that Phil had always had issues with their son and a difficult time accepting his situation. This was the first time she had ever seen Phil regard Jason with such contempt and lack of respect. Nancy didn’t know what to do. She knew that she was loyal to her husband above all other people in the universe but one, her son. She hadn’t seen Phil this excited in years so she decided not to broach the subject with him this evening, but she would, and soon. Something needed to change if he expected them to continue as a family.
Nancy sat next to Jason on his bed and brushed some hair away from his eyes. Jason closed his eyes and nudged his forehead into his mother’s hand. He then babbled and cooed something in his made-up language. Nancy smiled. She recognized the string of babble; she thought it meant something along the lines of “I love you” or “Thank you.” Maybe it was a combination of both or could be used for both. She just seemed to hear this particular string of babble when they were alone with each other and she was doing something particularly motherly. “I love you too, pumpkin.”
Nancy kissed Jason on the cheek and then left his room, gently closing the door behind her. She walked out in the living room of their one-bedroom apartment. Since Phil had lost his job, Nancy was the only one earning any money and they could barely afford this tiny apartment. Nancy told Phil that once he got a job then he could have his own room but until then, their son would get his own room and a small feeling of normalcy. Phil tried to rebuke her but for the first time in their whole relationship, Nancy was standing firm and he knew that he couldn’t win the argument.
When Nancy sat on their ragged and stained couch, Phil was already pouring what was probably his second or third glass of whiskey. She sat there and listened to Phil’s news and even managed to look interested in it. She didn’t agree with Phil’s obsession with the humanist movement but it was the one thing that brought him out of his depression after he was laid off. Nancy thought that once the depression lifted, he would find the motivation to get another job.
