NanoSymbionts

by Joseph Philbrook

  This time the energy blast missed him. Cindy's drill dart killed the first monster even as it fired on Adam's position. Her second dart took out another one. Just as two energy blasts hit the spot she'd occupied when she fired the first dart. There was a third blast that fairly accurately targeted the spot where she would have been. If she hadn't used her acrobatic skills to change her trajectory immediately after her last shot. Cindy's third dart took out the more imaginative attacker. At which point her cloaking field faded before she could target the fourth.

  Fortunately, even as the creature pointed his weapon at her Al fired a 10 pellet burst with a sweeping motion. One of the first three pellets destroyed the appendage that held the monster's weapon. Two pellets blew small holes in the ductwork next to the creature. The remaining seven penetrated it's primary shell.

  “Looks like they don't want us alive any more boys,” Cindy let that remark soak in for a second. Then she added, “We better move on before they locate us by the holes Al just blew in the ductwork.”

  They were getting close to their destination when it happened. Al was in the pivot position. He almost got clear of the blast as he jumped back. Cindy took out two of the three creatures that had been waiting for them. Adam got the third with his particle beam weapon. Cindy detected less damage to Al's armor than Adam's had suffered from a similar hit. At least his stealth system was still working but he wasn't moving. She didn't have time to asses his injury before a massive adult monster literally ripped open the section of ductwork they were in.

  The security officer was irritated at the number of fledglings, that had failed to stop the intruders. It was even more irritated that the intruders had killed them all. Their failures merited a much slower demise than the quick death the intruders had given them. Then it had analyzed the pattern made by the locations of the bodies. They seamed to be headed for the same part of the ship where it had captured the others. So it had carefully placed a few small groups of fledglings. Which it had armed with weapons that were specially calibrated for it to detect the exact location of every shot they took.

  It was dearly hoping to catch one of the intruders alive enough for it to interrogate. A wave of resentment flowed through it over the way One had claimed the only one of the previous three. That hadn't been able to engage a protective forcefield before the containment field could fully engage.

  Suddenly it detected the marker pulses of the fledgling's weapons fire. When it ripped open the ductwork it spotted a small camouflaged biped. The biped's camouflage was actually quite effective but there had been some movement to avoid the jagged edges of the debris from the hole it ripped in the ductwork. The beast marked the spot where the biped had stopped moving but it would have to be careful if it wanted to catch the biped alive. They were such soft shelled things that they were difficult to grasp without accidentally tearing them to shreds.

  Perhaps one quick snatching motion would be best. With any luck it's claws wouldn't pierce anything vital and the delicate thing would survive. At least long enough for it to apply the death delaying flavor enhancer to it. These camouflaged ones must be a more advanced subspecies of the creatures they'd been harvesting. Because those pathetic things couldn't have killed even one of the fledglings. It hoped it was right about that. Because the more advanced the creature was, the better it could be made to understand what was happening to it and that invariably lead to a more flavorful form of terror. As the creature was slowly consumed alive.

  Cindy had seen the jagged edge of a huge piece of steel hurtling towards her. Fortunately the accelerated reflexes from her recent micro-boost hadn't quite worn off yet. Otherwise she wouldn't have reacted quick enough when she jumped clear of the shrapnel from the disintegrating steel wall and ceiling of the air duct. Cindy observed the size of the clawed appendage which was tearing through the heavy gauge steel like it was so much tin foil. Even as she calculated the trajectories of the flying debris to find a safe spot to establish a stable camouflage image she also set her auto-boost mode to continuous ‘combat mode’ boost. She would still have to wait another 43 seconds before she could move without being seen. Her best option was to spend the time using her accelerated synapses to calculate the 3 second attack pattern that would do the most damage to the armored behemoth that loomed over the opening it had just torn in the ductwork.

  Her sharpened senses felt rather than heard the slight vibration of Adam's armor. As he slowly positioned himself just inside an undamaged section of the ductwork. Where he could fire one or two of those concentrated bursts from his particle beam weapon and have a chance of retreating out of harms way, long enough for his weapon to cool down.

  The monster itself had remained motionless for almost 4 seconds after it tore open the ductwork. Suddenly one of it's clawed appendages moved toward Cindy with such speed that even her accelerated reflexes and boosted leg strength only just barely allowed her to leap clear. Even as she jumped Adam fired 3 bursts in rapid succession from his particle beam weapon. Then Adam began to jump back as another one of the monsters massive appendages smashed into the section of duct he was shooting from. Tearing the opening wider with such force that Adam was knocked backwards nearly a hundred feet. If he hadn't already been moving in that direction as fast as his armor could jump he wouldn't have survived the impact.

  As it was he almost succumbed to unconsciousness as his senses reeled from the blow. Meanwhile, Cindy's drill dart hit the monsters armor at the spot that 2 out of 3 of Adam's particle beam bursts had softened. Even so, it was only able to drill partway through the armor before it exploded. Cindy didn't even get a second for her camouflage image to stabilize. Before she had to duck another attempt by the beast to grab her with it's claws. While she jumped she fired another drill dart at the same spot on the monsters armor. This one succeeded in blowing a small hole in the behemoth's armor. A third dart might be able to reach it's vital organs.

  It was not to be. The beast lunged with yet another appendage at the spot towards which she had just jumped. She hadn't yet landed when two of the four razor sharp prehensile claws, stemming from the four corners of the weight bearing pad that served as a foot or a hand for the beast, closed on the arm with which she had been holding her dart gun. Cindy's heightened senses now only served to increase her awareness of the pain. As she screamed in agony while she watched her dart gun fall from the hand that she no longer had any control over. She was dimly aware that the claws, that had so easily pierced the reinforced bones of her arm, had also severed the nerves connecting her brain to her hand.

  The deafening pattern of roaring sounds the beast had been making from the moment it first tore open the ductwork, suddenly changed in pitch to something slightly less harsh on the ears. It must be pleased with itself for having caught her.

  Suddenly Al's coilgun began firing one long 50 shot burst of explosive pellets at the base of the appendage that was holding Cindy like a rag doll. Cindy realized that from Al's position the small hole in the monsters armor wasn't in his line of fire. So he had opted to try to free her. She saw that Al was firing from a prone position on his back while a pile of debris had his legs pinned down. He had given his position away when he began firing. He was a sitting duck and there wasn't anything she could do about it.

  Then several things happened at once. Al's sacrifice play began to work. The appendage holding her arm flailed wildly as it lost it's grip on her. Throwing her to the floor of the cavernous chamber from which the huge beast had torn into the ductwork. As she fell Cindy saw the monster swing a piece of the structural steel at Al's coilgun, knocking it out of his hands.

  She also saw Adam's flickering stealth field as he leaped down to the floor and began moving towards the monster as fast as he could run. Then she hit the floor and rolled using her left hand to hold her shredded right arm in place. So that what was left of it wouldn't be torn off her body in the tumble.

  Al's hand went numb, when the heavy piece of steel smashed the coilgun to bits and crus
hed his armored glove. He saw one of the beasts 5 remaining appendages reaching for him with a slow deliberate motion. Which made him realize that the beast had no intention of granting him the mercy of a quick death.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw his brothers flickering form dive under the beasts midsection. As Adam began firing his particle beam weapon into it's underside.

  Adam didn't stop firing when his powerpack's overloaded circuits began to complain that the emergency shutdown circuit had been bypassed. Instead he jumped towards the leathery orifice in the center of the monsters underside.

  His brother must have figured out what he was doing about then because the last thing Adam ever heard was Al screaming, “NO DON'T!” In a voice that was, for the first time Adam had ever heard coming from his brother, heavily laced with fear.

  Adam's synapses were not fast enough for him to be aware of the moment when his power pack finally exploded. Even as he was trying to crawl inside the beasts orifice. The monster wasn't quite so lucky but it died a much quicker death, than it's commander would have given it, for failing to capture three pathetic bipeds.

  Cindy knew what was happening almost as soon as Al did. As soon as she heard the tone of voice with which he had screamed the word ‘no’ she knew why Adam had been running towards the beast. She was already sobbing with grief when the blast knocked her across the chamber to a point where she could see into the next chamber.

  Suddenly a small spark of hope began to glow amid the sea of her despair. They were probably all going to die. Certainly Adam already had but maybe, just maybe, his sacrifice wasn't going to be in vain. Though now that she knew how strong these beasts really were she was no longer confident that her plan would work but at least she would get to play her hole card.

  Cindy pulled on the chain around her neck which held her modified recall disk. She pointed it like a lens at the containment field before her. It had taken longer to get here than she had anticipated but thankfully the connection was still hot. Sandra must have committed every last scrap of Hillside's once massive energy reserves into holding the portal connection to her disk open.

  When she activated the preprogrammed sequence a large portal sprung into place between her position and the containment field that was holding Jake.

  Chapter 34 A Small Spark Of Hope

  The modified attack ship passed through the flickering portal just before it snapped shut. Sandra spent the next 15 minutes in the absolute darkness that now permeated the entire underground complex at Hillside. She had funneled every last scrap of power to be had into the task of keeping that damn portal link active. When the power began to run out she had even programmed her nano-tools to siphon what little power was in the emergency lighting systems. Then at the last possible moment, just as Sandra had given up the last vestige of her once confident hope, Cindy activated the recall sequence. That they had preprogrammed to send that unmanned attack shuttle to her position. There was so little power left that she had even had to drain her nano-control system to feed the portalizer so that it didn't snap shut while the fast moving shuttle was only halfway through.

  In the dark she waited. There wasn't any point trying to find her way out of it. She could only hope that the archaic emergency restart system, which depended on some components Steve had built in to the underground complex over 900 years ago, would actually work. It had always seemed ridiculous to her that the water running through the decorative waterfall also turned an antique wooden waterwheel. Which spun the small generator that supplied a slow trickle charge to the initialization system for the auxiliary energy collector. The antique water wheel was, of course, hidden in an inaccessible natural cave where it's outflow rejoined the underground stream from which the water had originally been extracted.

  She was especially anxious because she knew that once the pumps stopped filling the holding tank that supplied the falls, the tank only had enough water to supply the falls for about half an hour. It wouldn't be until it ran dry that a mechanical switching device would redirect water into the tank from a smaller underground stream that happened to be at a depth where no pump was needed for it to slowly trickle into the tank.. If it came down to that, it would take two hours for the tank to refill to the point where the weight of the water would once again open the valve. Which would start running the water through the falls and the silly wooden water wheel. Sandra just hoped that everyone had listened to the emergency evacuation order she'd issued. When she began to siphon the power from the emergency lighting systems.

  Finally the emergency lighting began to glow. Dimly at first but gradually increasing in brightness, until they were as bright as they were designed to be.

  Sandra decided to use the emergency stairs rather than wait for enough power to get the elevator working. Twenty minutes later she was catching her breath in the main power systems control room.

  When she finished examining the assorted gauges all Sandra could do was shake her head. The auxiliary collector's efficiency was too damn dependent on the weather. Sandra didn't usually wish for thunderstorms but since it was only managing to scavenge about twice the power it took to generate the specialized force field that served as a collection surface. There couldn't be one brewing within a hundred mile radius. The collector field would slowly expand as it absorbed most of the potential electrical energy from the area. It would be so much simpler if they didn't have to restrict the field to the narrow range of resonant frequencies that local science couldn't detect. Just to keep the local authorities from suspecting the existence of the underground base. It would certainly be easier if Steve had been willing to install an array of microfusion power cells, like the one in Jake's lighter. Or even to siphon some of the needed power from the local electric company's power lines but he wouldn't hear of it. So it was probably going to take days to build up enough power to initialize the primary power collection system.

  Once there actually was enough power for the primary collector to generate a more robust variant of the collection field, it could start skimming some of the energy that the solar wind cast against the planet's magnetic field. Which would in turn be shielded from the overloaded state that the collected energy could have caused, so that the field could better protect the planet's environments from those energetic particles had they not been so collected. That's when they would finally start to acquire enough power to resume normal operations. Even then it could take years to properly replenish the power reserves. She just hoped Steve wouldn't be too upset when he got back.

  It wasn't until she made sure that the power system restart process was working properly that Sandra let herself wonder if Cindy's plan had actually worked. Then she found that she couldn't bear to even think about the possibility that it hadn't.

  ***

  The small unmanned attack ship's power systems were running at maximum when it automatically targeted the containment field in front of it. It took nearly a minute for the containment field to begin to waver. Another minute and the containment field was breached. Cindy's heart filled with hope. Which was suddenly replaced with despair as another huge six legged monstrosity appeared at the other end of the chamber. It was holding a massive weapon which emitted a beam of energy sufficient to vaporize the attack ship. So that even as Jake's eyes began to focus on his surroundings he was again enveloped by a containment force field.

  Then the beast turned it's attention to Cindy. She tried to jump clear when it pointed a capture gun at her but she didn't quite make it. The huge beast moved with alarming speed as it approached her. Cindy realized that it was even larger than the one Adam had just taken down.

  When it reached her the beast reached out with a strange device from which an assortment of tubes and wires suddenly extended towards her. When they touched her she could suddenly feel the monster's thoughts within her brain. Which was how she knew that the machine that was attaching itself to her would keep her alive as long as possible.

  When it detected that the biped was receiv
ing it's thoughts One carefully remembered the last biped intruder it had interrogated. It remembered that bipeds thoughts and pain in exquisite detail. Soon it was rewarded for the effort as it's latest victim began to understand what was about to happen. Cindy was screaming hysterically before the beast even touched her. One was going to thoroughly enjoy this morsel.

  It waited until the medical support components of it's flavor enhancement system had repaired the damaged nerves in it's victim's arm. Then it was almost gentile as it dipped it's claws into the shredded flesh of the bipeds arm.

  It made sure that it's victim felt the delicious sensations it received from the taste buds on at the base of it's chewing claws, as it carefully tasted a small bit of the damaged tissue. One was so focused on the pleasure it got from tormenting this biped that it never noticed it's doom approaching.

  When Jake had momentarily become aware of his surroundings he was contacted by some of the nano-pods, he'd sent on a stealth reconnaissance mission shortly before he was captured. Jake's nano-pods were able to perform many complex tasks. Yet they fell short of the sentience required to take action outside the scope of their programming.

  When they couldn't reach Jake for further orders, they had followed their stealth reconnaissance protocols. Which were to continue infiltrating systems and gathering data and to replicate as necessary to do so. Above all however, their stealth protocol required them to avoid detection. Which had kept them from actively interfering with any of the circuits they infiltrated.

  When the force field failed they were able to report. More importantly Jake was able to command a switch to a combat mode that allowed them to take action. When the containment field went back up Jake's nano-pods immediately began to deactivate it.

  Again it took a few seconds for Jake to be fully aware of his surroundings. Even so that gave him just enough time to review the reports that his nano-pods had extracted from the last remaining cluster of Jess's augmentation nanites. Thus when the containment field faded the second time Jake was painfully aware of the terrible fate that had befallen his friend. Which made him very angry. Then, as he became aware of his surroundings the second time, he saw what was beginning to happen to Cindy.