by Adam Moon
Danny mumbled, “I don’t know how to fly a skin and neither does Becky.” If he thought that excuse would get him out of this suicide mission he was way wrong.
“Well then I hope you’re quick learners. Let’s go.”
I took another peek at the monitor and saw that two more of our warships were out here with us now. They must have just arrived. Even with three warships, I wasn’t sure what our chances were against that huge thing but three was better than one.
Space Walk
Rick said, “I’ve got Danny, you take Becky, ok?” Then he grabbed Danny around the waist and shot out of the airlock like a cannonball.
I wanted to say something like, no way, or, I can’t do this, but Becky was standing right next to me and I didn’t want to worry her. I’d only taken a skin out once before but I was already pretty adept at maneuvering it.
I said, “Activate flight controls. Manual control,” and my legs cinched together and I floated a few inches from the deck. I grabbed Becky’s mech around the waist and used my mind to command the unit.
I shot out of the airlock too. It’s not easy to see anything in space but when you’re so far from the nearest star its damn-near impossible. Becky somehow spotted Rick and Danny so I made my way in their direction. They hit the hull hard but Rick used his magnetic boots to get purchase. Danny followed suit right before me and Becky landed a few feet from them.
Rick’s wrist hinged open and a small pilot light was glowing blue in his hollow forearm. He aimed it at the hull and the flame grew. Sparks lit up the black but no matter how long he stayed in one spot he just couldn’t cut through the hull. What the hell was this thing made of?
He flipped his wrist shut and said, “Jack, grab Becky again and on the count of three we’ll kick off. Then once we’re fifty feet away, fire a popper at this thing. Try to watch for my signal. Two Poppers have a better chance than just one.”
I nodded, grabbed Becky again and watched him raise one finger, then two, and finally three. I shot away from the hull with Becky in my arms. Rick had Danny just like before. I watched the proximity read-out in my visor tick back to thirty feet and then I glanced at Rick.
Only then did I realize I didn’t have a weapon on me. How idiotic could I be? But then, just in time, I remembered Rick had told me he fitted my skin with an arsenal. I said, “Give Jack his guns,” and my forearms opened up, little guns popping out of each. I had a gun on each shoulder and even though I couldn’t see it, I knew I had a head turret too.
My chest cavity opened and I gingerly reached inside, coming out with a PQ5000. I aimed it at the hull just in time to see Rick’s gun light up. I fired less than a second later.
Both Poppers hit the same spot and exploded at the same time. The shockwave made us tumble away but we regained control pretty easily. I wasn’t sure how to feel when I saw the gaping hole in the hull. It meant we’d succeeded but it also meant we had to go through it.
Contact
One of our fellow warships must not have gotten the memo about us sneaking over because it let loose with its weapons.
Luckily the alien craft was so immense; none of the explosions affected us, or the alien ship for that matter. A single missile shot out of the alien ship and like the one before it, was easily shot down.
That didn’t make any sense to me. This ship was designed to wage war. Guns jutted out of every orifice. Its hull was three times thicker than was necessary for regular space travel. It was designed to withstand explosive impacts from weaponry. So why was it acting so weak? Maybe it was toying with us?
Before I could get lost pondering what it all meant, Rick was waving for me to enter the gaping hole in the ship.
There was some debris floating out of the hole but nothing I recognized. By the time I reached it, there was no push-back from escaping atmosphere which meant it had all been evacuated from the breached compartment.
EMP
There was a single tall door inside the breached compartment. Beside it was a recessed area specifically designed for the lean alien hand to go inside. Maybe it was an identification device to ensure only aliens could get through. Maybe it was just a handle. But there were wires dangling from it and an actual handle, newly installed and primitively welded onto the door itself.
Rick snatched the handle and turned it. The door opened to a tiny airlock that we all barely fit inside. He closed the door and then opened the next one.
The ship was even more alien than the little one we’d already captured.
To our surprise, it was utterly deserted.
I said to Rick, “We need to leave Danny and Becky here. We forgot to get them weapons.”
Rick shook his head. “It was not our job to make sure they had weapons. They’re Marines; they should be able to do that for themselves.”
Becky said defensively, “Hey, we’re only cadets. We’ve never been in combat before.”
Rick said, “Do you think the Bleeders give a shit about that?”
Becky hung her head.
“Just hold this airlock until me and Jack return. It might be our only means of escape.”
The corridor we were standing in went as far as the eye could see to the left and to the right. Before we had to make a decision which way to go, a door just twenty feet from us opened up and these tall, alien mech skins rushed out of it. They moved awkwardly and yet their presence was frightening. Before any of us could react, one of them chucked something cigar shaped at our feet. I watched it open up like a prickly flower and then I felt my consciousness waver, like I might faint. The alien mechs disappeared back inside the doorway.
I turned to Rick and then I saw Danny and Becky’s mech skins fall over.
Rick said, “Fuck. They’re using EMP’s. They killed your friends.”
When your consciousness is inside a mech skin and the mech is destroyed, then so is your consciousness. Danny and Becky still had bodies back at camp but there was no longer a human being to be put back inside them. The human being had been killed by the EMP. Rick and I were spared because of the extra shielding he’d installed.
I yelled out, “You mother fuckers,” and was just about to rush into that room and slaughter every last one of those alien bastards when I heard a human voice call out, “Hey, what did you say?”
Rick said, “What the hell did you say? Are you human or a Bleeder with a translator?”
“We’re human. Are you human?”
“Yes.”
Cousins
After several minutes of back and forth, we finally decided they weren’t lying to us. They came out first, hands raised, weapons down.
There were three of them. The guy in the lead came right up to us and asked, “Where the hell did you get those robots from? How are you controlling them?”
Only then did I realize that those guys weren’t running mechs but were wearing armored suits. It was difficult to know how much mech each one had at its disposal. But it hardly mattered. If we’d have fought them, we’d have crushed them pretty easily.
There was a silence as each side tried to figure out what was going on. The lead guy in the weird armor said, “You’re from Earth, aren’t you?”
“So?”
“No, I mean, you came from Earth recently, right?”
“Yes. We came to destroy the Bleeders before they made good on their promise to kill us.”
“Well, we were born on Bleeder. Our ancestors were among the humans abducted from Earth two hundred years ago.”
Rick said, “No way. We assumed you were all long dead.”
“They bred us to experiment on us. That was their biggest mistake.”
Rick interrupted, “Hold on. Let me tell my ship what’s going on so they can stand down.”
The guy said, “Good, because we barely know how to operate this stupid ship.”
Rick said, “Yeah, I could tell.”
I looked down at the empty mech skins at my feet and then I took a step forward and punched the leader in t
he abdomen. He doubled over in pain.
Rick laughed and said, “You’re doing nothing for relations between our people Jack. I’m sorry your friends died but it was an honest mistake. They thought we were Bleeders.”
I didn’t care about excuses. I felt a little better already.
History
Captain Wilkomen was reluctant to allow the folks from the alien ship to board the Conquistador and the people from the alien ship were reluctant to open dialogue on unfamiliar turf but Rick basically bullied everyone into agreeing to those terms.
We took two ambassadors with us back to the escape shuttle bay on the Conquistador and then shut the doors to lock out the void. Luckily, their armored suits had breathing apparatus or else they might’ve died during the spacewalk.
Wilkomen met us with an armed escort. I guess I don’t blame him for that.
I was a little pissed when he told us to retrieve the mech skins that belonged to Danny and Becky.
He said, “They are worth a fortune and they can be refurbished.”
I get where he was coming from, I just thought it was insensitive. I also think he still distrusts these people from the alien warship so he probably wants to make sure they don’t get their hands on our technology.
Rick and I went back and retrieved the dead A.C.E. units. When we returned, the captain had convened to his living quarters with the guests.
Rick shoved the guard at his door out of the way when the guy tried to refuse us entry and we went inside to listen to what the long lost humans had to say.
We took up posts at either side of the door when the captain didn’t order us out of his room.
The captain called the guy David and the girl Sarah. David and Sarah looked almost human, altered by selective breeding and environmental differences. They were taller than us and more spindly. But they were human; that was certain.
They both had their facial armor off now. They had fine hair on top of their heads but they had no eyebrows or lashes. David looked like he’d just shaved but he probably had no hair follicles on his chin.
Sarah said, “They bred us and conducted sadistic experiments. We don’t have a written history but we have word of mouth accounts of their brutality. They were testing our physical and mental limits but they were also amusing themselves at our expense. Then about fifty years ago we rose up and slaughtered them. Neither I nor David was born yet but our parents told us all about it. They said the uprising started slowly but as word spread, humans turned on their slave masters. The massacre was so vicious that the Bleeders fled their own planet. It’s been our planet ever since. We’ve been calling it Nova instead of Bleeder.”
The captain was stumped. This wasn’t what he’d expected at all. “So where did the Bleeders escape to?”
David shook his head. “We have no idea which planet they ran off to or even if they’re still alive. But we keep some of their warships posted out here to make sure they never get into this star system ever again.”
The captain said, “You’re not very good with the weapons systems, are you?”
“No. It’s not easy to interface with their technology. We’ve unlocked a couple of things but most of it eludes us. We were hoping our presence alone would be enough to deter their return.”
I shook my head and took a step into the center of the room. “The Bleeders are still alive. We captured one of their ships. They were so frightened of us that they committed suicide.”
David stiffened. He said, “I was worried they’d survived. I kind of hoped space would suffocate them before they found a viable planet to colonize.”
“There’s more,” I said. “When we captured them, they were coming from this star system.”
“That’s not possible. We didn’t see any alien ships.”
“It was small. Maybe too small to detect.”
“Why was it flying away from here then?”
I didn’t know the answer to that but I hazarded a guess anyway. “Maybe because its mission was over,” I said. “It had a weapons hold but by the time we captured it, the hold was empty.”
“We haven’t had any weapons detonate or deploy on Nova though.”
“That’s good. Maybe they didn’t even use them on your planet. But if they did, maybe there’s still time to find them.”
David lifted his palm to his face and said into it, “Alert ground control about a possible breach. A Bleeder ship was discovered coming from Nova and it seems it might have deployed some type of weapon.”
Rick added, “Our tech geeks can send your people readouts of the types of electrical and chemical signatures to look for.”
Ground control said, “I’ve alerted the authorities.” Then he said candidly, “What are our ancestors like then?”
David looked around the room and said, “I don’t have the proper vocabulary to describe what they’ve achieved in such a short amount of time. You’d have to see for yourself.”
“Take some pictures for us.”
“Only if they say it’s ok.”
An alarm sounded which meant someone had arrived in the skin bay. The captain ignored it so the arrival must have been expected.
When a modified A.C.E. unit walked into the room, I could tell it was Peggy, Rick’s fellow warrior and savior of the Conquistador, just by the markings on the skin.
It was overkill now though. Apparently the aliens were weak cowards, already toppled by our cousins long ago.
Weapons of Global Destruction
With the help of the tech guys, the Novans were able to find several weapons of global destruction buried equidistant from each other across the surface of the planet.
It took a full week to find them all, during which we were allowed, even encouraged, to move our warships into orbit around Nova. Everyone was treating this like a family reunion.
No one knew why the weapons hadn’t detonated already. One of the tech guys said, “Maybe they malfunctioned or maybe the aliens had to get far enough away before they detonated them to avoid the shockwave?”
We had no idea so we accepted his explanation easily, if only to move past it and on to bigger things.
Nova
Nova orbited a star close in size, age and brightness to our sun. The planet was about ten percent smaller than Earth with an atmosphere that was comparable but hardly ideal. But the human inhabitants had taken to it and adapted over the six or eight generations they’d been there.
The couple million people that had been abducted had grown to over a hundred million in the two hundred years since.
The truth is that we felt bad for them. If we’d known any of them had survived, maybe we would have searched out the Bleeders more vigorously? But they seemed pretty happy, all things considered.
The Novan council shuttled up to meet us in person. There were four members, with four remaining behind, just in case.
We could only guess what just in case really meant. Did it mean, just in case this was a trap and we killed them? Did it mean, just in case we abducted them? But it wasn’t unreasonable for them to be suspicious of us. We were guests here; they got to call the shots in this neighborhood.
David and Sarah went back to their own ship after we’d grilled them about the entire history of their people. I’m pretty sure they were sick to death of answering our stupid questions.
The captain and his first mate were even granted access to the surface but they declined the invitation.
The Novans had tried their best to acclimate to the alien tech but it was pretty obvious they hadn’t quite figured it out yet. Their suits were too big and clumsy.
Their ships jittered around sometimes out of control. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Mech Madness
The delay in action gave me a chance to talk to Rick a little more about our predicament. We were both dead, and I for one was not handling it very well.
He tried his best to console me. He reminded me of those four thousand poor unfortunate souls stuck in thei
r mechs because the cryo-freeze facility their bodies were housed in was attacked by terrorists. He said they were lucky they were uploaded in skins or they wouldn’t be alive today, since their fleshy bodies rotted away.
But that just served to remind me that my body was probably in the early stages of decomposition already. That’s an image not easily shrugged off.
He added, “Just make sure to maintain perspective, ok? Those four thousand mechs went crazy over the years but that’s because they fed off of each other’s misery. Stay positive and you just might keep your sanity.”
I didn’t know they’d gone mad but I guess that explained why I’d never heard of their exploits; they were being kept away from all the action because they were unstable.
Rick said, “If you ever run across the warship Dreadnought, just keep your distance from the mechs. That’s where all four thousand are stationed. It doesn’t even have a human crew or a captain. It used to but they all resigned because the mechs drove them nuts.”
I wish Rick hadn’t consoled me. Now I had even more worries running through my mind. Like how long would it take for me to lose my humanity? How long until I lost my mind? And even worse, what would happen to me when mechs were no longer needed? It seemed like the war with the Bleeders was approaching quickly, so what happened when it was over? Too many questions and not enough answers is what drove the four thousand mechs nuts on the Dreadnought, I just know it.
Boom Ship
The weapons of global destruction were impossible to safely reverse engineer which meant they couldn’t be disarmed. One by one, they were launched into orbit and put inside a little spherical Bleeder craft just like the one we had captured a month ago.
The Novan council decided that we should tow the alien ship behind us until we reached the new Bleeder colony and then use the weapons on the Bleeders. They thought that would be tough justice.
