The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle

by John Thornton

  The Free Rangers heard what Paul had yelled, and they turned to see what was approaching. Some were startled, but others just got to a side of the clear causeway and pulled or kicked themselves along as fast as possible. They were agile in zero gravity from their many flights in shuttles.

  Tiffany rolled out into the causeway, and then gravity manipulation was lost and the automacube slowly rose in the air as the drive wheel bumped it away from the clear permalloy. By firing a small stream of cleaning fluid in the opposite direction of the course of travel, Tiffany directed the automacube along the causeway.

  “I am not facing whatever those things are!” Sebastian cried.

  “I agree. Better to stay here,” Hector said. He pulled the emergency lever on the bulkhead door and it slammed shut.

  The lead sphere had reached the place on the hull where the causeway jutted out from the end of D cylinder. Its bluish purple glow radiated down into the causeway casting strange shadows. The light that came from the sphere was irritating to look at. The sphere sprouted four legs which connected to the clear permalloy. It then grew out two appendages which it used to examine the causeway. Tiffany passed directly beneath where the sphere was grabbing. Tiffany used every device on the automacube to scan, assess, and evaluate the sphere which was just on the other side of the permalloy. On the bottom of the sphere’s legs there were round discs with tiny hooks. The whole sphere shimmered in its glowing.

  The long appendages whipped down hard on the clear permalloy, but bounced off without an effect. It tried to grab at the green lights, but it could not get though the permalloy.

  Paul, hanging there at the end of the causeway near the airlock looked back. The last several sections of the causeway had twists in their connections, at the seams, but people could easily pass through. “Come on everyone! Hurry!”

  Paul looked around the airlock door. There were two buttons just to the side of the airlock, on the ship’s hull, but within the causeway. ‘Depressurize’ was on the blue colored button, and ‘Pressurize’ was on the rust colored button.

  “Tiffany? What do I do here? The airlock has a cycle. How do I get the door open?”

  “The airlock has to be tricked into operation. It will vent into the causeway, so it will not actually depressurize completely. However, it does require going through the cycle each time to get first the external door open, then that door must be closed from inside the airlock. Only after that can the internal door be opened. There is no way to have them both open at the same time, even with the causeway connected. The system had no other way to function. The seal at the end of the causeway is magnetically and electronically locked in place. I apologize that I could only use those old style connections. That final seal is not nearly as strong as the permalloy seams. So to enter, select, ‘Depressurize’ first, followed by ‘Pressurize’ from inside the airlock.”

  Paul pushed the blue colored button and there was a blast of air that came past him. It knocked him back a bit until he grabbed one of the handrails on the hull next to the airlock. The door then opened to the airlock. Air from the causeway then rushed past him and back into the airlock.

  “I think I see how this works,” Paul called back.

  Jillian joined him, followed by a couple of the faster movers in no gravity.

  Another of the spheres had landed on the causeway’s outer surface and it too sprouted legs and appendages. This one’s manipulation appendages were also touching and feeling the causeway.

  Haiden was not able to travel as quickly as the others, so Tiffany, who had been the final one to actually leave before the bulkhead was shut by Hector and Sebastian, slowed down to assist him.

  “I am coming back to help!” Jodie yelled out.

  “No, just go on! This AI is helping me,” Haiden said and waved Jodie away.”

  Jodie nodded and pushed herself back along toward the airlock at the end of the causeway.

  Then Haiden looked at the machine. “I never thought a maintenance automacube would be pulling me through null gravity by shooting out cleansers. Do you know what those things outside are?”

  “The best conjecture is that they are alien life forms,” Tiffany replied.

  “I would not believe you, had I not seen them myself,” Haiden replied. “How are they in space without technological support?”

  “It is a curiosity,” Tiffany admitted. “A very astute observation for which I have no answer. I shall ponder this.”

  The sphere that had been sailing through space landed on the causeway and it connected like the others had. This one’s appendages roamed around until they found the seam between the telescoping sections. It took a keen interest in that seam. Again Tiffany, this time with Haiden in tow, passed by one of the spheres with only the thickness of the clear permalloy between them.

  Several other spheres converged on that same seam, where the sections of the causeway had locked together. They all were rubbing, smacking, and probing the areas of the seam. Then a few more arrived, and there was an entire line of spheres all the way around the clear permalloy causeway. They connected their appendages together and retracted their legs until they were compressed tightly together in one solid mass around the seam.

  Tiffany increased the thrust that was propelling the automacube and Haiden along. More of the Free Rangers had reached the end of the causeway and led by Jillian they had exited into the airlock. That group had already cycled through and entered the Exterior Repair Station control room. Paul stood by the airlock and watched.

  Gretchen reached where Paul was and stopped her floating. She held to a handrail on the hull. She called back to Tiffany. “Do you need my help?”

  “I am at maximum speed,” Tiffany replied as the automacube let loose with another eruption of cleaning fluids. “I am now out of the items I have used for propellant. I can still maneuver sufficiently to reach the exit with this man.”

  The spheres suddenly floated away from the causeway spreading out from where they had been huddled. The fading away of the strange bluish purple glow was almost more eerie than it had been when they encircled the causeway. There was a sense that the spheres were somehow watching, waiting in anticipation.

  “Paul get into the airlock!” Gretchen commanded.

  “I cannot,” Paul replied. “It is still cycling. Jodie, Jillian, and those others went ahead.”

  There was a strange smell that permeated the causeway. Some foamy bubbles started to appear around the seam in the causeway on the outside of the permalloy. There was a sizzling sound as well vibrating on the inside of the clear permalloy.

  “Hurry!” Paul yelled. “They did something to the walls! The permalloy is melting! I am coming!” He shoved off and darted toward the automacube and Haiden.

  “Paul, no!” Gretchen yelled and grabbed his foot which caused him to swing and bang into the wall. “You will not go back. No risks like that. The airlock is open now. We are going in.” She pulled him with her as she swung from the handgrip. They tumbled in the zero gravity into the airlock. Gretchen reached the color pad and hit ‘Pressurize’ on the rust colored button.

  The exterior door shut and the airlock cycled. There was an odd ringing sound as gravity manipulation began. Paul and Gretchen crashed to the floor with a painful fall.

  The interior door opened.

  Jillian and six of the Free Rangers rushed into the airlock. They were now dressed in bubble helmeted spacesuits. The Free Rangers had many tools and items of equipment in their hands. Jillian held her bubble helmet under her arm. “If those things are trying to ruin my causeway, we will stop them. Sebastian and Hector are still on the other side, and there may be more people over there who need an escape route. We need this to stay open. You two, get out of here!”

  Paul and Gretchen staggered up and stumbled into the control room with its very large command chair, and enormous display. Jodie and two of the Free Rangers were standing there watching the display.

  “There were only the seven space su
its in storage,” Jodie explained. “Jillian insisted on leading that team back to get Hector and Sebastian. Sebastian is her uncle. This bridge to that habitat is essential, since the shuttles cannot fly.”

  The display had a live feed from an aperture which looked out and showed the causeway. They could see Tiffany’s automacube pulling Haiden along. The two of them had nearly reached the end when the airlock cycled, the external door opened, and the space-suited Free Rangers flew out.

  Haiden and Tiffany entered the airlock and shut the external door.

  “Can you magnify the view?” Gretchen asked.

  Jodie sat in the control chair and adjusted several levers on one of its arms. The view was magnified and followed the team as they floated quickly back through the causeway.

  The team had just reached where the spheres had encircled the causeway, when two of the spheres rushed at the causeway at high speed. They struck right on the same side directly on the line of foam they had created. The permalloy bucked.

  Great jets of gas leaked out of the large fissure made in the permalloy by the spheres. The Free Rangers were all wearing spacesuits and therefore were not injured by the decompression or loss of atmosphere. They started to apply patching to the fissure and were spreading a spray permalloy from a canister.

  One sphere shot a long appendage inside of the fissure and flailed it around violently. A Free Ranger was batted to the side of the causeway losing the canister of liquid permalloy he had been spraying. Another Free Ranger charged the whipping appendage and severed it cleanly with a vibration saw. The broken parts floated away and lost their glowing color and quit moving. The sphere was otherwise unaffected.

  Two other spheres rammed the opposite side of the causeway, again right on the area where they had laid the foamy materials. This side too fractured, but even more severely than the other side.

  The display was suddenly blotted out by a bluish purple mass.

  “Shift the camera angles!” Gretchen ordered.

  “I am on it,” Jodie said.

  A different view appeared. It was from a more severe angle and the causeway was further away. The spheres and the team were seen at the fissure point fighting. The fractures were getting bigger, and one of the humans in a spacesuit had been pulled through the fissure and split in two by spheres pulling on the body from different positions.

  There was also a sphere at each end of the causeway. The one far away on the D cylinder end looked small, and what it was doing was unclear. The other, was right next to the airlock where the causeway connected into A cylinder. It was hammering away at the seam between the hull and the causeway.

  Two things happened nearly simultaneously. The fissures in the causeway, about midway along its length, quickly tore and split all the way around. The spheres moved apart from each other and then one group pushed one section one direction, and the other group pushed in an opposite way. The causeway was broken. The sphere by the airlock placed some bubbly foam against that seal and it quickly ruptured the magnetics and electronics which held that end of the causeway to the hull.

  The causeway was now in two pieces, one of which was no longer connected to the Colony Ship Vanguard in any way. The spheres rushed in from each end of that section, trapping the space-suited humans between them. Bluish purple appendages whipped, and flailed and bashed until there were no intact spacesuits anymore in that section. A single bubble helmet floated lazily away from the butchery, a line of droplets forming a hovering trail behind it.

  A single human had been on the other side of the fissure when it split. That person had leaped and fled back toward the bulkhead door on D cylinder. A sphere went into the causeway chasing that person. The spacesuit was ripped and torn apart and came flying out of the end of that section in various sized chunks.

  In the control room, Paul was watching the display. He dropped to his knees and wailed, “Turn it off. Turn it off! I cannot not take any more death! When will it stop. No more! No more, please no more.” He pounded his fist into the floor as he wept.

  Gretchen, Jodie, and the remaining Free Rangers watched in stunned silence and inaction as their friends were murdered in space.

  14 gathering unexpected help

  Brinley and Larissa crouched behind a cargo container in the bright light of the warehouse they had been passing through.

  “Where are the turtles?” the strange and anguished voice cried out.

  “That Roe has not seen us,” Brinley whispered.

  “I intend to keep it that way,” Larissa quietly answered. “Until we get proper weapons, we avoid these things. You may be immune, but I am not.”

  “Larissa, I could almost think you were afraid,” Brinley smiled.

  Larissa turned her intense blue eyes on Brinley. “We are at truce, but there is no reason to be insulting. It is to our tactical advantage to avoid conflict until we can decisively win. We will fight if we must, but our goal is reaching our supplies. The Jellies are the primary enemy, not these Roe.”

  “Where are the turtles?” the Roe cried out. It had once been a woman of young adult age. Now it was just shambling through the hallways and corridors screaming its refrain.

  “Come on,” Larissa said and in a low crouch she sprinted to the next cargo container where again she squatted down and watched. Brinley followed her.

  The Roe stumbled out of the warehouse and down a more dimly lit hall. Its voice echoed as it yelled, “Where are the turtles?”

  “That was the third Roe we have avoided. Do you think the CPO androids sent us into territory where more Roe are? Was it a trap?” Brinley asked.

  “I have pondered that possibility,” Larissa admitted. “Those mechanical constructs, androids as you put it, have yet to prove which side they are on. If our supplies are not at the gravity conduit like they promised, we will know. Then we are facing three enemies: the Roe, the Jellies, and those androids.”

  Is it possible the androids and the Jellies are allies?” Brinley asked.

  “That too remains to be seen. Let us collect our supplies and discuss potentials then, if we receive them,” Larissa said. “The map we were shown showed the gravity conduit is one level up. There should be stairs behind that door.”

  “The directions have proven accurate so far,” Brinley commented.

  Looking carefully over the cargo container and seeing nothing, Larissa hustled to the door. It was a typical steel door. Brinley joined her.

  “If another Roe is behind here, we may have to fight,” Larissa said. “But I will carefully check first.” She pulled the lever on the door and it opened ever so slightly. Beyond was a dimly lit corridor. The shaft of light that came from opening the door shined down the corridor to a stairway. A small pair of bright orange eyes glared back at the light.

  “Tagalong rat inside,” Larissa said as she quietly shut the door. “The stairs are there.”

  “If you see one tagalong, there are more around,” Brinley recited an axiom she had learned as a child.

  “Do you know a different route?” Larissa asked.

  “I am sure there is one, but I do not know where,” Brinley replied. “I believe we are still several levels down from the lowest point I have even been in the habitat.”

  “When you say habitat, I think of the beauty of the Wilds, not these forsaken corridors and metal walled rooms,” Larissa stated.

  “I grew up in ‘forsaken corridors and metal walled rooms’ so that is my habitat,” Brinley replied. “I did not grow up in a ecological backwater.” She was against struck by the contrasts in Larissa and how vastly different their backgrounds were. Not for the first time did Brinley wonder how life for her would have been had she been born in a biological habitat.

  “Rats in the Wilds, my ecological backwater, along with most of the other animals, can be easily run off by a show of strength,” Larissa stated. “Will that work for these tagalongs?”

  “Probably,” Brinley replied. “Well, let me revise that. Maybe. It depends on where
the Roe is that they are following. Tagalongs are very aggressive against weak or injured targets, or if something is trapped. They usually attack in numbers. They will feast on the dead or dying.”

  “I know that type well enough,” Larissa said. “One who prey on the weak and vulnerable. So we need to get past these tagalongs and go up those stairs. Are you ready?”

  Brinley could see a bit of excitement and almost a gleefulness in Larissa’s gaze. Brinley said, “Yes. But beware where the Roe is, I doubt it was that one crying about turtles.”

  “Go!” Larissa said and threw the door open. It screeched as it opened all the way.

  The tagalong rat blinked is glowing orange eyes as the light from the warehouse flooded the corridor and illuminated the stairs. It then dashed down and disappeared in some unseen hole. Larissa was sprinting to the stairs and took them two at a time. Brinley was right behind her.