The Mothership

by Renneberg, Stephen

  He set the timer, then placed the dynamite on the control console beneath the cockpit window. The panel’s molecular structure immediately dissolved, filling with swirling three dimensional shapes as the explosive sank into it. For a moment, they watched surprised as the console tried unsuccessfully to establish a bioelectric link with the dynamite, then they dived for cover in the rear of the control room.

  When the dynamite exploded, the front panel directed the blast upwards, blowing out the cockpit window. The blast was a bullet into the transport’s brain, scrambling its control systems. The propulsion field bubble around the transport vanished, unleashing a blast of wind through the shattered window, while the lights in the cockpit failed and the interior acceleration fields collapsed. The sense of motion violently returned as air buffeted the transport and gravity took hold. With no wings, the transport’s non-aerodynamic shape meant gliding was impossible, and it fell like a stone.

  “Good one, Cracker, you bloody idiot!” Slab growled, shielding his face from the air roaring through the window.

  “Hang on!” Bill said, grabbing for the base of one of the pilot’s chairs.

  The transport belly flopped onto the ship’s upper hull, bounced into the air and careened over the open docking bay. Waiting in the bay was a battloid, a tracker and three seekers. They detected the transport shoot across the open hatch, already aware that it had gone silent in the last few seconds of its approach. The seekers jumped up through the docking bay’s open hatch, and bounded over the hull after the transport, while the heavier machines moved toward a nearby cargo lift.

  The transport hit the hull again, bounced several times, and slid across the thick armor, sparks flying from its underside. It narrowly missed one of the yawning wounds in the hull as the gentle downward slope edged the transport toward the side of the ship.

  Cracker used one of the pilot’s chairs to pull himself to his feet and get a look outside. “We’re not going to stop in time,” He yelled, pointing to where the faceted hull bent down to the vertical.

  Slab hung on against the wild vibrations. “A metal probe up my arse would have been better than this!”

  “Let’s jump,” Wal suggested.

  Slab glanced outside incredulously. “Great idea, Wal! You go first.”

  The transport began to skew sideways, losing speed as it slid obliquely towards the edge of the ship. Bill looked back through the starboard window and saw tiny silver shapes leaping over the hull, vainly trying to catch them. At the other side window, Cracker spotted a dark cavity in the hull, dead ahead. Before he could shout a warning, the transport skidded into the hole and the grinding of metal was replaced by the whistle of air through the shattered cockpit windows. The transport clipped the inside edge of the inner hull, and ricocheted down hard onto the deck, knocking them off their feet. The vehicle bounced several times, then careened through a darkened hangar, skidding past several wedge-shaped fighters that had been saved from explosive decompression by their magnetic deck locks. It clipped one fighter, sending it skidding across the deck into several other which exploded in flames. The transport grazed a side bulkhead, smashed more fighters, then speared nose-first through the wall at the end of the hangar and stuck fast.

  Wal lay piled against the control console, staring up dazed through the smashed cockpit window. “That wasn’t so bad! Any landing you can walk away from, right?”

  They all looked incredulously at him as Slab growled. “Piss off, Wal.”

  Bill climbed shakily to his feet and looked out at the darkened storage deck the transport had nosed into. “They’ll be coming for us.”

  Slab aimed his rifle through the broken cockpit window. “I’m ready!”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Cracker said, “Let’s bolt.”

  Slab hesitated, then realized Cracker was right. Their best chance was to get away from the transport. He tossed his backpack through the open cockpit window and clambered out, sliding off the transport’s stubby nose to the deck. He reached for his pack as movement to his left caught his eye. He whirled around, bringing his rifle up as a hull maintenance drone floated past him and began inspecting the damage the transport had caused to the bulkhead. Slab fired once, instinctively going for a headshot, hitting the maintenance drone in the coolie hat propulsion system. It sparked and fell onto the deck where its telescoping arms twitched momentarily before going limp.

  “They’re not so tough,” Slab said as the others slid down the transport’s nose. “I thought you said these things were tough.”

  “Trust you to pick a fight with a weak one!” Wal declared.

  “It wasn’t weak!” Slab declared. “Look at those bloody arms, they’re like metal snakes!”

  While Slab prodded the lifeless repair drone with his rifle, the others shouldered packs and took in their surroundings. The transport’s nose protruded through a bulkhead, its body wedged tight barring the way back into the hangar. They were in a cargo hold full of metal cubes about a meter and a half square, stacked on top of each other. Overhead, isolated orange hued lights created pockets of illumination surrounded by deep shadows. Bill approached the nearest stack of containers, noting the strange symbols marked on each.

  “Serial numbers?” he said, running his hand over the cold silvery metal.

  When his fingers passed over a cluster of characters, a circular panel as wide as a man’s hand appeared in place of the symbols. The panel was recessed, and marked with five pictograms. He exchanged surprised looks with the others, then tapped each image in turn. When his finger touched the bottom pictogram, the cube’s side facing him became translucent, revealing small containers packed tightly together inside. Bill found his hand could now pass through the translucent surface, so he pulled one out. It was the size of half a loaf of bread and had one symbol marked on it. When he touched it, the top of the container vanished, and the cold metal instantly became boiling hot.

  “Ow!” He cried as he dropped it, rubbing his scalded hand.

  The others gathered round curiously. The container had landed on its side and a thick yellow liquid with small pink cubes had spilled onto the deck. A column of steam and a pungent odor rose from it.

  Slab sniffed, wincing. “Is that food?”

  “Looks like something my missus would cook,” Wal said, “only better!”

  Bill prodded one of the cubes with his fishing knife. It was spongy to the touch and released a thin pinkish fluid that might have been blood. “It’s some kind of meat.”

  Cracker knelt down and put a finger into the yellowish stew, then brought his finger up and cautiously tasted it with the tip of his tongue. He made a face and spat. “Tastes like shit!”

  Bill went to the next storage cube and opened it, finding it had exactly the same contents as the first. They started moving down the corridor between the stacks of storage cubes, opening them randomly. They all held food containers filled with stew like contents, but nothing that resembled vegetables or dried food.

  “If it’s food, there’s no variety,” Cracker said. “It’s all the same.”

  “Like McDonalds!” Wal added.

  “They remind me of ration packs,” Bill said thoughtfully. “Like I had in the army.”

  Slab had advanced a little ahead of the others. The symbols on the storage cubes had changed subtly. He opened a cube to find it full of long, thin rectangular containers. He retrieved one, pressed the symbol on the side and the top vanished to reveal a dark cold liquid. He sniffed it, but it was almost odorless. He took a small, experimental sip, then spat it out, tossing the drink container away in disgust.

  Slab winced. “Jeez! How’d these bastard get here drinking crap like this?”

  “No wonder they nicked our beer!” Wal said.

  A metal shriek sounded behind them. They turned as one to see the transport shudder and jerk backwards half a meter. Something was pulling the transport back into the hangar.

  CHAPTER 17

  Nemza’ri attached a fusion
torch to her heavy lift suit, then sealed the pipe linking the clone tank she’d just repaired to the amniotic storage vat. She was sure the vat was sterile, but wasn’t so confident about the clone tank itself. She’d had to salvage parts from seven damaged tanks to construct one functioning unit, with no way to test her work.

  A day ago, she’d known nothing about clonic insemination, a process her kind used to clone genetic material for reproductive purposes. What she knew now was pure download, force fed into her cerebral implants from the ship’s science base. She regretted having to purge her memory implants of the engineering knowledge she’d acquired over more than two centuries aboard ship, but there just wasn’t sufficient capacity in her cerebral implants to keep it and master reproductive genetics.

  She instructed the clone tank’s consciousness to drain the amniotic vat, then waited as the tank’s level indicator rose to full. It was a near miracle that enough parts had survived for her to assemble even one clone tank, as most of the equipment in the genetics lab had been damaged or destroyed.

  Lying unconscious on operating tables near the tank were the two myrnods she’d captured in the cargo hold. Tubes extending from their chests drained the precious growth hormone she was using to accelerate the cloning of the genetic material harvested from the male survivors. When she was finished with the myrnods, the med drones would attach them to the two most viable males to accelerate their recovery.

  Clonic insemination was a process she’d known little about before the crash. She’d been freed of reproductive responsibilities because of her shipboard duties, but now it was necessary to reverse the sterilization process and begin replacing those who had lost their lives in the sleep chamber. It was not something she desired or dreaded, it was simply her duty.

  Nemza’ri climbed out of the heavy lift suit and approached the cylindrical clone tank, now almost full of translucent amniotic fluid, heated to the ideal temperature. A med drone floating nearby held a sealed sphere containing the cloned male cells, while a second med drone floated ready with the sterilization antidote. She peeled off her one-piece crew suit and activated her pain suppressor implants. Once her body had gone numb below the neck, the second med drone inserted a long needle into her lower back, guiding it perfectly into her reproductive sac. If her nervous system was still active, it would have been excruciating, but with the pain signals to her brain being intercepted, she felt nothing. Her body was flesh and blood, but she had as much control over it as over any machine.

  The med drone injected the antidote, then when the needle was withdrawn Nemza’ri returned her nervous system to partial functioning so she could walk. She assigned a diagnostic implant to monitor her reproductive sac, finding it was responding as expected, then she approached the clone tank.

  The tank’s side dissolved, revealing a wall of synthetic amniotic fluid held in place by a pressure field. She took a deep breath, compressing air in her complex lungs, then stepped through into the fluid. Control fields lifted her off her feet and guided her into the center of the tank. She could hold her breath underwater for a very long time, but chose to minimize the risk by shutting down most of her bodily functions. If this had been a properly supervised operation, she would have had an air supply, but she’d been unable to find all the necessary parts for a breathing system. She knew exactly how long the procedure would take, and considering her species’ adaptation to aquatic environments, there was little risk.

  One of the med drones passed the fertilization sphere into the tank, then the tank wall materialized, sealing her in. The sphere was captured by a control field and moved to a position in front of her hips. Nano machines swarmed invisibly through the amniotic fluid, penetrating the sphere and collecting the precious cells stored there. The control fields gently separated her legs, allowing nano machines to swarm into her body in anticipation of her reproductive cycle commencing.

  Nemza’ri felt nothing but the warmth of the amniotic fluid and the gentle press of control fields holding her in place. Her diagnostic implants gave her constant updates, monitoring every cellular process with precision. She knew exactly when the sterility antidote brought her dormant eggs to life, and when the nano machines extracted them for fertilization. The nano machines flowed out of her body to combine her unfertilized eggs with the genetic material cloned from cells harvested from the males. Throughout the process she received a running tally of viable eggs. They would mature in the clone tank at an accelerated rate due to the stimulus of the myrnod growth hormone, which would not fully dissipate until they reached adulthood. When the nano-fertilization process was complete, she left the tank, leaving the fertilized eggs to develop in the expert care of the tank’s awareness.

  Nano-fertilization was the technological equivalent of her species laying unfertilized eggs in the rivers and estuaries of her homeworld, which had once been externally fertilized by the males. Her species had begun using the clone tanks to control the reproductive process millions of years ago. The eggs would incubate rapidly in complete safety, then the hatchlings would be provided with nutrients laced with the myrnod growth hormone to continue their accelerated development. Nano machines would begin inserting implants at infancy and the downloads would begin. With a constant supply of the growth hormone, the hatchlings would become fully functioning adults in a few years, and the losses of the sleep chamber would begin to be recovered. It was a process she could repeat every few days, for as long as required, as she could clone her own eggs if ever she needed more than she carried naturally.

  When she stepped from the clone tank, her implants informed her that more than fifty thousand eggs had been successfully fertilized. All would be hatched. All would mature. Nemza’ri was well satisfied, for she knew the ship no longer needed an engineering technician to maintain inertial accelerators. It required personnel.

  It required a breeder, which was what she had become.

  CHAPTER 18

  Beckman glanced at his watch, estimating the stealth field power packs had only minutes of life remaining. We can still make it, he thought, but he knew it would be tight.

  He glanced up at the dark gray wall rising before them. Even in the shadow realm of the stealth fields, the severity of the ship’s wounds were clearly apparent. What had appeared as black pinpricks from a distance were in reality ominously dark cavities. Many ragged holes pockmarked the hull hundreds of meters above the valley floor, while one hull breach touched the ground a short distance away. It was that ground level opening that Bandaka was now racing for, across a sea of ashen tree trunks.

  Suddenly, Bandaka stopped, although his monotonous tapping continued.

  Beckman halted beside him. “What is it?”

  “Fireflies,” Bandaka replied uncertainly.

  Beckman realized the over powering bulk of the ship and a concern for hostile flying machines had kept his attention focused on the sky. He dropped his gaze to the ground ahead, where he spotted tiny points of brightness forming a perimeter around the ship. They circled each other, constantly changing direction, darting back and forth at knee height, simulating insect behavior to deceive intelligent motion sensors, yet following the same preprogrammed path. They were the size of small marbles, although their glow indicated they were large enough to generate their own propulsion field.

  Detection or defense? Beckman wondered, already anxious about lost seconds. “Find the biggest gap you can,” he said loud enough for the others to hear. “We’ll go through single file, time our runs to avoid the fireflies.”

  Bandaka’s keen eye had already spotted a small gap. He quickly headed off to the right, moving over the rough terrain with a fleetness of foot that forced the others to jog to keep up. Several times, Beckman heard someone stumble and fall, then curse as they picked themselves up. When they drew near the fireflies, Bandaka halted just long enough for the others to catch up.

  “No more tapping,” Beckman said. “Once you’re through, get to that hole on our left.” They were two hundred met
ers from the ship’s outer hull now, but the power packs would start failing any minute now. “Nuke, if this doesn’t work, detonate here.”

  “How did I know you were going to say that?” Nuke said.

  “Sound off before you go through, so we don’t all go at once. Bandaka, you first, then me.”

  “I go now,” Bandaka announced, then the sound of the aboriginal hunter’s soft footsteps faded rapidly as he loped towards the fireflies.

  Beckman counted slowly to ten. “I’m moving out,” he said, then started after Bandaka, as several small points of light darted across in front of him. They flew in short fast circles, then when they shot away to his left, he ran through the perimeter. Once on the other side, he jogged straight for the ground level hull breach.

  He checked his watch, dismayed to discover another valuable minute had been consumed. This is going to be close!

  The ghostly gray world flashed white as a wave of heat washed over his back. Beckman looked back at the firefly perimeter where a pillar of flame clawed skyward. When the inferno died, he recognized the long barreled sniper rifle with its unmistakable telescopic sight, now white hot, fall from charred hands. The blackened corpse crumpled, as bones turned to ash and gave way under their own weight.

  It’s Cougar! Beckman realized, suppressing a sickening feeling rising from his stomach. He hadn’t seen what had fired, but he guessed Cougar’s stealth field had been penetrated by a firefly. Now they know we’re here!

  Markus saw the fireflies swarm around Cougar’s ashen remains and took his chance, sprinting through the gap, the fourth to cross. If he was lucky, the fireflies would close the gap, once they’d finished studying Cougar, blocking the others from crossing and putting an end to Beckman’s insane plan.

  Beckman felt his legs tiring as he ran. He wondered if a counter measure existed that could be launched against their stealth fields, unmasking the remaining members of the team and catching them in the open. He heard a chorus of boots crunching charred trees and clicking on fused ground behind him as the others slipped through the gap, one by one, and ran for the ship. Tucker, being the strongest and fittest, was the last to cross.