The Mothership

by Renneberg, Stephen

  The amphibian’s hand relaxed, letting its weapon slide onto the deck. Virus tightened his grip as anger and confusion raged within him. He forced its oversized head inside the console’s swirling colors and symbols long after it had ceased resisting, long after Bandaka had retracted his spear.

  Vamp put a hand on his shoulder, and tried to pull him off. “Virus, you’ve won.”

  “It’s not dead!” His eyes were wild with vengeance as the alien lay helpless, its eyes closed, its small mouth limp and open.

  Vamp pulled harder on his shoulder. “Virus, it’s had enough.”

  “It killed Timer!” It’s in my head!

  “Yes, and now it’s our prisoner. Or do you want to start murdering prisoners?”

  Virus hesitated as the rage consuming him faltered.

  “It might be a useful hostage,” Dr McInness suggested. “Dead, it’s just another corpse. I think there’s enough of those in this ship already, don’t you?”

  Virus released his grip and stepped back. The unconscious alien slid to the deck, its defense shield still shimmering around it. He stared at it confused, then as his anger subsided, a thought shook him to the core, What have I done?

  Dr McInness hopped toward the unconscious alien, studying it curiously. He longed to speak with the amphibian, to examine it, but with no instruments all he could do was stare and wonder.

  “Take its weapon,” Vamp commanded. “It might come to.”

  “I was out for over a day,” Virus said.

  “Yes, but it’s a lot smarter than you,” Dr McInness explained. “No offence.”

  “None taken,” Virus replied as his obedience training whispered that the amphibian was indeed superior to him in every way.

  Bandaka slipped his spear through the shield and angled its fire hardened point at the exposed flesh beneath the alien’s angular chin. “Fishman be no trouble, when he wake up.”

  Virus picked up the alien’s weapon and tested its weight in his hand.

  “If it so much as twitches,” Vamp said to Bandaka, “Spear its ass.”

  “Throat easier,” Bandaka said, not certain his spear could penetrate the flexible, yet steel like clothing the alien wore.

  A squeal of tortured metal sounded from the locked security hatch. They all turned to see the door bend slowly outwards. Timer’s special slid across the floor and clanged against the door, then it crawled slowly up toward the door’s center. After a moment, the special began to bend with the hatch.

  “Now what?” Virus asked anxiously.

  Dr McInness studied the door warily, backing away. “It’s some kind of magnetic field.”

  The metal hatch groaned again as a concave bubble formed at its center, while outside, the Command Nexus gathered an army to rescue its only hope of victory.

  * * * *

  The battloid robotically followed the same orbit around the Nexus Chamber’s shiny inner sphere, always approaching to within five meters of the walkway below the lip of the puncture wound in the outer armored shell. Oblivious to their guardian, small maintenance drones labored tirelessly to remove damaged supports and install gleaming new structures with a purpose born of desperation. The movements of battloid and drones were perfectly synchronized, ensuring neither obstructed the other as they strove to restore the Command Nexus to full functioning.

  Slab craned his neck to get a look at the battloid. “It doesn’t look so tough.”

  Markus nodded to the borrowed M16 in Slab’s hand. “Those weapons will be useless against it.” He was certain the untrained civilians would be quickly massacred by the battloid, which would then turn on Beckman’s team. It might be enough to prevent the destruction of the ship, but if not, he would ensure their payload was never detonated.

  “Then we’ll just make a lot of bloody noise!” Slab said with a grin.

  “Right before it smashes our faces in,” Wal added pessimistically, more nervous than the others because he had no weapon. He’d grab the first weapon to become available, if anyone went down.

  “We’ll get you a couple of minutes, General,” Bill said to Beckman. “But don’t stuff around. Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast.”

  “We will, thanks,” Beckman said, glancing back to where the last of his team hid in the shadows, waiting to move. He’d initially planned to take the payload in alone, but it was clear now that was impossible. There had been no vote, no discussion, just an unspoken agreement that they would do this together.

  Nuke held the torpedo’s silver metal housing in one hand and the stealth power pack in the other, a short black power cable from one of the stealth rigs joining the two. He used his fingers to grip one of the housing’s silver support struts while his thumb hovered over the control surface. Tucker knelt beside Nuke, responsible for his protection, while Xeno lay unconscious in the corridor beside Nuke’s empty backpack. They would have to leave her there, as she showed no sign of recovering from the tranquillizer.

  “They’ve got it free,” Cracker whispered.

  Beckman turned to see a damaged rectangular blast door, supported by a maintenance drone at each corner, float clear of the central black sphere. Thousands of brilliant, flickering beams of electric blue light flooded out through the opening into the chamber. A short distance away, the battloid glided beneath the damaged blast door on its precomputed path, still well away from the four maintenance drones waiting with the replacement door. The drones began to float the replacement door up toward the sphere, while the damaged door was lowered to the deck to be cut into small pieces for nano disassembly.

  “You’re up,” Beckman said. “Good luck.”

  “You don’t need luck to get killed,” Cracker said with a grin, before darting forward. He jumped down onto the twisted walkway and ran to the right, with his companions close behind.

  They sprinted noisily along the metal walkway to close the distance to the battloid. They had hoped it wouldn’t see them until they were in position, but its motion and thermal detectors acquired them the moment they stepped through the puncture wound. It immediately angled its shields toward them and brought its weapons to bear. Every repair drone in the chamber instantly became aware of their presence as dozens of torches stopped cutting metal. Drones ferrying away damaged metal sheets turned toward them while those carrying freshly formed supports immediately withdrew from the chamber to prevent them being damaged.

  “It’s seen us!” Wal yelled.

  They ducked down using the walkway for cover as the battloid fired. Five plasma streams passed over their heads, melting the wall behind them, then the repair drones with the replacement armored door rose up beside the walkway, momentarily blocking the battloid’s line of fire. Behind the door, the battloid glided forward, aware of the drone’s path and positioning itself for the perfect angle once they were out of harm’s way.

  Cracker stood, holding the dynamite in one hand ready to throw, but the massive blast door glided obscured his view of the battloid. There was little hope the dynamite would do more than distract the armored machine, but if he couldn’t see it, it wouldn’t even achieve that feeble goal.

  Slab fired a burst from his borrowed M16 at one of the maintenance drones holding the upper left corner of the blast door. The unarmored drone sparked, lost its grip on the blast door and fell.

  “It works on them!” Slab said, holding up his M16 meaningfully.

  The door’s upward movement slowed, as its weight was now taken by only three machines. It was more a block of armor than a door, being several meters thick, and designed to slide into place in the central sphere like a cork in a bottle.

  Bill sighted on the repair drone holding the top right corner and fired repeatedly with Tucker’s pistol. When the drone took a fatal hit and fell away, the armored block began to sink under the its immense weight, overpowering the two drones balancing it from below. Other drones, sensing the danger, immediately dived to assist.

  Cracker depressed the detonator. “Get down!”

/>   The others looked at him confused. The battloid was still hidden beyond the blast door.

  “What are you doing?” Slab demanded.

  “Improvising!”

  Cracker threw the dynamite at the top of the blast door, then they dived onto the walkway for cover. The dynamite struck the door’s upper edge and exploded. The feeble chemical blast had no effect on the armor, but the force pushed the door sideways, pivoting over the two lower maintenance drones like hinges. The armored door pancaked onto the battloid’s shields below, sinking slowly through them and driving the shield emitter arms back. The battloid toppled over under the immense weight and was pinned to the floor of the chamber. Slab stepped to the edge of the walkway and blasted one of the two maintenance drones still trying to lift the blast door while Bill destroyed the other with Tucker’s heavy caliber pistol. The base of the massive door fell to the deck with a mighty clang, momentarily trapping the battloid beneath it.

  “Good one, mate!” Slab said approvingly.

  Inside the shadows of the blast tunnel, Beckman jumped to his feet and shouted. “Let’s go!”

  He jumped out onto the walkway, ran to the nearest support and started across the supporting pylon to the inner sphere. It was a meter wide with no guard rails and although polished to a mirror sheen, was not slippery. In single file, the others followed as maintenance drones carrying damaged pieces of metal dived towards them, bombing them with their burdens. Fragments of pylons and metal plates rained down on the narrow support before falling to the deck below. Beckman ducked as a metal panel flew over his head, then jumped forward, dodging a blackened cylindrical support beam which struck where he’d been standing. Behind him, the others evaded wreckage as they hurried across the walkway. Markus stopped to fire at a drone, turning on the walkway as it flew past him. He finished firing facing back the way he’d come. Nuke stood barely three meters from him. He lowered his aim quickly toward Nuke’s throat.

  Have to sever his spine, Markus thought, so there was no possibility of a nervous twitch to trigger the warhead.

  Just as Markus fired, a drone dived past his shoulder at Nuke. The drone took the burst squarely, flashing from electrical systems shorting out as it spun into Nuke’s shoulder. The wrecked machine knocked him off the walkway, but Tucker caught Nuke’s arm.

  “Don’t drop me, man,” Nuke yelled, looking wide eyed down at the chamber floor far below.

  “Don’t tempt me,” Tucker said, then swung Nuke up onto the walkway behind him.

  Nuke sighed with relief. “Thanks, Tuck.”

  “Markus’ shot saved you,” Tucker said as he fired Conan, vaporizing a maintenance drone and the twisted triangular piece of metal it carried. “Now stay out of the way.”

  Markus cursed silently, when he saw Tucker now blocked his line of sight towards Nuke, then turned and fired at another diving bombing drone.

  “Keep moving,” Beckman yelled when he saw the others had slowed to shoot.

  Once the maintenance drones had hurled what they carried at the walkway, they dived onto the blast door pinning the battloid and began lifting it. Slab and the others on the rim walkway raked the drones with gunfire. Several times the blast door started to move, almost freeing the battloid, then a drone would explode and the massive metal block would crash back down onto the flailing battloid.

  When Beckman reached the containment sphere, he threw his back against its armored wall, balancing on the narrow ledge encircling it. The ledge was barely wide enough for the sole of his boot, although like the walkway, it offered good traction. He edged sideways toward the blast door opening, firing his special at any drone that swooped toward them.

  Markus reached the sphere and began inching after Beckman, firing sporadically. Maintenance drones equipped with cutting torches dived on them. The brilliant white beams reached barely ten centimeters before dissipating, but could slice through carbon steel like paper. Beckman and Markus knocked several torch-wielding drones down, while others scooped up metal debris from the floor and climbed to bomb them. Out on the walkway, Tucker fired Conan at a diving drone which vanished in a flash, except for a metal claw arm that spun past Nuke’s face.

  Nuke’s skin stung from the proximity to Conan’s blast. “Hey man, not so close with that thing!”

  “Quit complaining, Lieutenant. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

  When Tucker reached the end of the walkway, he stopped to let Nuke squeeze past. High up on the sphere, the silver blur of a seeker at speed caught his eye. He fired, cutting it in half, then its separated leg and cannon sections skittered down the side of the sphere, its cannons firing wildly.

  “Runners incoming!” Tucker yelled.

  Beckman edged toward the flood of sparkling blue light pouring from the sphere’s interior, throwing thousands of scintillations across the chamber’s polished surfaces. The entry to the passage leading to the containment sphere was several meters below the walkway. Beckman jumped down, rolling like a paratrooper to his feet, then squinted into the dazzling light pouring from the interior. At the end of the corridor through the heavily armored inner shell, a spherical multifaceted surface spun slowly on its axis. The blue light wasn’t flickering, but poured steadily from millions of tiny diamond-like facets, which slid past the passageway as the crystalline sphere rotated. It was the center of a vast information network, the ship’s nerve center, its heartbeat and its guiding intelligence.

  Beckman raised his special and fired a single shot at the glittering crystal sphere. Super heated plasma flashed down the short passage, then burst harmlessly against a defensive field providing the Command Nexus’ inner layer of protection.

  Beckman shrugged, “Hmm. Worth a try.”

  Markus jumped down into the entrance, then immediately turned to fire at a maintenance drone swooping toward him. The machine crashed into the sphere’s outer armor, then fell in flames to the floor. Beckman helped Nuke down into the passageway, then Nuke set the warhead down and checked it had suffered no damage.

  “We’re in,” Beckman said into his radio.

  Outside the containment sphere, Tucker fired at the nearest maintenance drone, then ran along the ledge and jumped into the entrance. He rolled, coming to rest with his back against the wall as an armored seeker leapt into the passageway. Markus fired, but the seeker’s shields easily deflected his small caliber bullets. It took a step forward into the passage, then Conan completed its recharge and fired, blowing the seeker out of the entrance. Tucker immediately rolled sideways, avoiding a two meter square of blackened metal hurled at him by a diving maintenance drone.

  He raised Conan, preparing for the next attack. “It’s going to get crowded in here.”

  * * * *

  Vamp and Virus backed toward the control consoles lining the control room wall, fighting against the magnetic field tearing at the metallic items they wore. Dr McInness gripped the sides of the command chair as he watched the security door over his shoulder, while Bandaka kept the tip of his spear pressed firmly against the unconscious alien’s throat. The bubble in the security door ballooned outwards slowly until it encompassed the surrounding walls, filling the control room with the squeal of tortured metal. The combat units outside knew they could never hope to cut through the reinforced neutronium armor encasing the command center. Their only hope was to tear it apart at a molecular level. The door shuddered as a hairline crack opened along its length, revealing glimpses of silver and black movements in the hall outside.

  “Ideas anyone?” Vamp asked.

  Virus turned toward the control consoles, passing his hand over one, then another, searching for anything that would buy them some time. The screens mounted above the consoles came to life with various technical diagrams and readouts, while one displayed a three-dimensional map of the Solar System. Virus glanced at it, and moved on.

  Dr McInness’ eyes did not. “What’s that?” the scientist asked, pointing to a tiny speck on the system map close to the third planet.

 
; Virus peered into the panel, able to interpret only a few symbols. “Navigation. It’s useless, we’re not moving.”

  “Zoom in on Earth.”

  Virus returned to the console, plunged a hand in and touched the blue and white marble third from the golden sun. The view screen above the console flash-zoomed to Earth, while the blue marble inside the console grew to the size of a basketball.

  “Down there, bottom left of Earth,” Dr McInness said. The tiny speck had resolved into six silver dots floating beside several pictograms.

  Virus touched the silver dots floating close to Earth, then the wall screen flash-zoomed again. Six silver cylindrical shapes appeared, each with the rounded ends narrower than the middle section. They floated above northern Australia in two rows of three, holding a precisely equidistant formation.

  Dr McInness fumbled for his radio, all thumbs, as he pressed the transmit button. “Major!” He yelled. “Can you hear me?”

  Through a sea of static, Beckman’s voice sounded. “What is it Doc? I’m kind of busy down here.”

  “There are six ships in orbit! Right above us!”

  “Friend or foe?”

  “I can’t tell. I haven’t seen this design before.”

  “Give me your best guess!”

  Dr McInness squinted at the screen, watching the six highly reflective ships floating serenely against black velvet. With no point of reference, he couldn’t gauge their dimensions. They could have been the size of soda cans, or twice as big as Manhattan Island. Beside each ship was the same glowing symbol.

  He turned to Virus. “What does that symbol mean?”

  Virus studied the symbol, sensing its familiarity, yet unable to summon its meaning. He shrugged helplessly.

  “Call it, Doc,” Vamp said urgently.

  Dr McInness starred anxiously at the screen, unable to decide what to tell Beckman. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  Before he could decide, the magnetic field engulfing the security door pulsed, wrenching the radio from his hand. Behind him, the metallic gear carried by Vamp and Virus was caught in an iron grip. Both of them grabbed the console chairs to prevent being pulled to the door, frantically shrugging off ammo belts and straps with buckles as their weapons and equipment were sucked to the door. Gear that had been firmly sealed in pockets shredded their clothes as it shot toward the super magnetic field. Even the specials flew from their holsters and crashed into the swelling bubble.