Escape 1: Escape From Aliens

by T. Jackson King

  His temples felt tight. An ache began in his head. His chest wanted to heave to get a deep breath. He suppressed that impulse. He also suppressed the faster heart beating that sounded in his ears. At least he tried, using meditative techniques to slow his breathing. Blinking his eyes, he kept his attention focused on the oval outline of the entry door. Somehow it would open. Maybe it would slide up, slide down or move sideways. Once it did, an Alien critter would enter. Likely the critter would focus immediately on his backpack and the flashlight that shone a beam at the door, and assume he was hiding behind the pack. The light in his cell had gotten darker as the shit smear on the ceiling dried. To tighten his mental focus he began counting backward from one thousand.

  “Nine hundred ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five, ninety-four, ninety . . . uh, ninety-two, damn it!”

  He had missed two numbers. Centering his thoughts he focused on the visuals of the cell, on the slight increase in his heart rate, on his slow breathing and ignored the growing headache. Bill sent his senses outward, linking into the feel of the metal floor, the echo of his breathing as it bounced off the opposite wall, the sense of weight he felt thanks to the ship’s artificial gravity, the feel of his leg and arm muscles as they held ready to act at—

  The door zipped upward.

  A grizzly looked in.

  Seven feet tall it was. The Alien bear had four arms, a blocky head, two short legs and his lower right hand held a white tube. The bear pointed the tube at the backpack.

  A red beam shot to it, causing the pack to shake and tremble.

  Bill jumped, aiming for the critter’s black-furred back, just behind its head.

  Impact!

  He clenched his legs about the bear’s midbody, his feet passing between the upper and lower arm pair.

  The belt garrote went down over the bear’s head.

  He leaned back and pulled on the end of the belt, tightening the loop about the thick, muscle-corded neck of the creature. Then he leaned forward, wrapped the belt around its neck a second time, a third time, pulled tight a bit of slack, and then he grabbed the neck with both arms and clamped hard, hoping he could add to the blockage of air and blood. As his nose hit the back of the Alien’s head, he realized it was wearing an oxy breather mask. The strap of which pressed against his lips. Opening his mouth he clamped onto the plastic band, twisted his neck and bit through the strap. The mask fell down just as the bear reacted to his landing on its upper back.

  “Medark!” it roared in Alien talk.

  Inside the cell something hummed, then said “Get off!”

  “Fuck you!” he said into the short black fur that covered the Alien’s head. He squeezed its neck with his arms, tightening the closure of the bear’s airway and whatever blood vessels ran up the neck and into its brain. Bill couldn’t believe his luck that a creature so similar to humans had entered his cell. It could have been a talking crab. Or that damned mouthy cockroach!

  The bear’s lower arm pair dropped the white tube and a tiny red cube it had held in its bottom left hand. Then it gripped his legs and pulled on them, trying to unwrap his leg grip of its midbody.

  The upper arm pair reached back with four-fingered hands for him.

  One massive hand grabbed his hair and pulled.

  The other giant hand clamped on his left arm and pulled outward.

  Twenty seconds had elapsed since he’d jumped onto the Alien bear and put the garrote loop about its neck.

  “Argghhh,” it gasped in what sounded like some kind of translated English.

  At least it lacked the air for words.

  Bill felt the hair on the right side of his head begin to pull out from his scalp.

  “Have some pain!” he yelled as he bent his head so his mouth came up against the forearm part of the bear’s right arm. He bit down hard, cutting through flesh, tendons and hitting bone. Bill clenched tight his jaw muscles and bit harder.

  “Crunch!” sounded as part of the bear’s forearm broke under the clamping of his teeth.

  “Ahhhoooh!” it cried weakly.

  But it still had the strength to rip its forearm out of Bill’s mouth. With it went some of his hair.

  The left hand that had been pulling at his left arm let go and went to the bear’s neck, trying to push stumpy fingers under the leather belt so as to allow for air and blood to reach its innards. Bill bit into the thumb and three fingers of the hand.

  The Alien bear shuddered.

  It dropped to its knees.

  A backward glance told him the Alien crewman was still only partway into his cell, having stepped back through the opening when it had felt his weight on its back. An effort at escape.

  “Go to sleep, you hairy bastard!” he grunted as his arms hugged tighter the bear’s thick neck and kept the belt loop cinched firmly about its wide neck.

  The bear felt forward onto its face.

  Ignoring the blood that dripped from the right side of his head, where hair had been torn out, Bill let go his leg grip, rose to a crouch, braced his boots against the Alien’s back, pulled on the belt end and kept pulling for another thirty seconds.

  “Twenty-nine, thirty!” he gasped.

  He looked behind him.

  The cell door was open, leading out into a red lighted space. A gray metal walkway led to the open cell door. He wondered why the door had not closed automatically. Then he noticed the Alien bear’s feet and ankles lay across the door sill. Which the door opening mechanism must have sensed. Whatever.

  Letting go the belt he ran forward, grabbed his backpack and flashlight, then looked up at the X-cross patch of tape that was holding his turd inside the air inlet. He reached up and grabbed the end of the tape. Pulling, he ripped it off the wall. Pulling loose a plastic rod he poked it through the turd to create an air inflow opening. Turning, he headed for the entry door. Reaching up he did the same for the air exhaust hole. Then, seeing that there was no one out on the metal walkway, he turned back to the unmoving Alien bear, bent down, undid his belt loop and pulled it off the Alien’s neck. The Alien did not move. Or breath.

  “Shit!”

  A killer he could be. When necessary. But killing the crewman sent to repair his cell so Bill would be able to breathe had not been part of his plan.

  “Hope you got lungs somewhere in that massive chest of yours!” he grunted as he jumped up onto the Alien’s back and landed on it with his full two hundred pounds of muscle, bones and attitude. He heard the sound of air gasping out. Then a weak wheeze as the bear automatically breathed in.

  Turning away he headed for the open door. On the way he grabbed the white tube weapon that had shot the taser beam, and then grabbed the small red cube the Alien had held in its other hand. His training at Coronado had beaten into him the value of scavenging any and every device an enemy might have on them. Which made him also grab the face mask oxy breather on his way out. Bill stuffed the red cube inside his pants, held the white tube weapon in his right hand and hung the oxy breather from the front of his shirt. Its broken strap prevented him from wearing it like the Alien had done, but he figured a supply of oxygen would be handy. Especially since he had no clue to the layout of the Alien starship. Or the room which lay beyond the cell door. Lastly, he took the pencil flashlight from his teeth and aimed its yellow beam forward.

  He stepped over the feet of the bear and walked out of his cell. Immediately he felt lighter, as if the gravity outside the cell was less than inside it. He felt bouncy, which made him wonder at what was normal on an Alien starship.

  A glance to the right and left told him his containment module lay near the end of a line of such modules, which were arranged in two lines that faced each other, with a wide metal walkway running down the middle between the two lines of modules. Side walkways led from each white module out to the central walkway. Waist-high railings ran along each walkway so Alien critters did not fall off. Below the walkways ran a jumble of tubes and cables. Above was a curving metal ceiling with glowing red spots.
No one else was present on the center walkway that ran down a cavernous room illuminated by the red light patches. Looking around he counted ten cell modules on one side and ten on his side. At either end of the walkway were oval metal doors bigger than the door that gave entry to his module. Which reminded him he needed to finish the first part of his escape plan. Turning around he bent down, grabbed the bear’s feet and pushed them inside the cell.

  “Wham!”

  His fingers barely cleared the floor sill before the cell door slammed down.

  Bill turned around, walked forward and aimed the white tube taser to the right and the flashlight beam to the left. Now what?

  The woman! He had to free her next, before Diligent Taskmaster sent another crewman to recapture him. But where was she? In what module?

  He now stood on the center walkway. To the left side was his module. Which resembled a flattened globe. Between it and the nearby metal door was another containment module. The exterior of each cell was an off-white. Which maybe made it easier to find in the half-darkness of the chamber. He looked to the right and saw the opposite line of cells. A short metal walkway led to a white globe that lay directly opposite his cell. He thought hard, recalling all the Alien had said in its orientation talk with him.

  “Yes!” The cockroach had said there were twenty cells on board the starship, but it had captives to fill only eighteen of them. Besides Bill and the woman, Diligent had said it had captured sixteen other Aliens from nine different planets. That meant the cells at the end of each line were empty, if he assumed the other cells were occupied by captives. He walked forward to the cell opposite his, hoping he’d guessed right.

  The faint outline of an oval door showed in the white metal skin of the cell. But nothing else showed. No manual latch. No wheel like on a submarine hatch door. No buttons. No touch panel. How the fuck was he supposed—

  “The cube!” He stuck the flashlight into a belt loop of his jeans, pulled the match box-sized red cube from inside his pants, looked it over, saw that one side of the cube had a round spot on it and, thinking What The Hell, he pointed it at the cell door and pressed the round spot.

  “Whoosh!”

  The cell door went up faster than he could blink.

  Bill stepped forward and stood on the bottom sill of the door, waiting for the woman whose back faced him to react as she took a food slab from the wall slot.

  In the second it took for the door opening sound to alert her, he saw she was tall, slim, curvy, with sun-tanned arms, had shoulder-length black hair, and wore a blue jumpsuit. To one side was a green dome tent similar to his, along with a holo mountain scene.

  She whirled and threw the food slab at him.

  Bill ducked the slab.

  Astonishment filled her oval face as her run to the door came to a stop just inches from him.

  “Who the fuck are you!”

  He smiled. “Bill MacCarthy. Retired Navy SEAL. Left as Chief Petty Officer. I escaped from my cell. Want to leave yours?”

  “Uh, well, yes!” she grunted, her dark brown eyes flashing over him as she tracked what he held in each hand, then scanned him. No doubt she noted his hiking boots, checkered shirt and jeans, and backpack. Plus the white tube weapon and red cube he held in his hands. She fixed on his lightly bearded face and blinked slanted eyes as her Asian face showed puzzlement. “I’m Captain Jane Yamaguchi. Active duty with the 21st Space Wing, Air Force Space Command at Peterson AFB. What’s your plan?”

  Military like him. Nice. She had stepped back two paces, but was clearly ready to jump through the open door. Which her toss of the food slab and her run at him said was something she had planned since being captured. If the door ever opened she planned to run through it. And through anybody in the way. He liked that.

  “Do what I told Diligent Taskmaster. Pursue him, capture him, capture his starship and free the other captives.”

  She gave him a half grin. “Typical SEAL. The objective always commands the actions.” She looked aside at her tent and a backpack that sat outside it. “How long can you hold open that door? Long enough for me to grab my stuff?”

  Bill nodded, looking back over his shoulder at the central walkway. No one had entered, either by the nearby metal door or the more distant one. “It won’t close while a person stands on the sill. I opened it with this red cube I took from the crewman who came to fix the air flow of my place.” He turned back as Jane moved swiftly to pull on her backpack, grab her own hiking boots from inside the tent along with a canteen, then turned to face him.

  “Ready to exit.”

  He turned in the doorway, still standing on the sill. “Pass by me to the central walkway and hold there until I join you.”

  Faster than he expected she ran past him. Turning at the juncture of the cell walkway and the central walkway, she gestured at the nearby metal door that faced their end of the walkway. “Can your red cube open that door?”

  Bill grinned, then ran out, around her and up to the eight foot high metal door. Which like all the doors he’d seen was an oval, wider in the middle than at the top or bottom. Like the containment module doors there was no external door opening control or touch panel. “Don’t know. Let’s see.” He pointed the cube at the door and touched the round spot on its upper face.

  A grinding sound began, then the gray metal door slid slowly to the left. In front of them lay a square room that seemed empty, though with a similar giant door at the far side of the room.

  “Bill, get in there fast!”

  He jumped over the door sill that met the walkway, then scanned the room to confirm it was as empty as it had seemed at first glance. Twenty feet wide by twenty long, it was illuminated by a bright red glow on the middle of the ceiling. A line of wall hooks ran along either side of the opposite doorway. From them hung what looked like tubes of transparent fabric. From behind came the sound of the heavy metal door sliding shut. “I’m in. Why so fast?”

  Jane looked up, around, then shook her head. She walked to him, paused at a foot out, gave him a smile and reached up with her arms to pull his head down to hers. He cooperated.

  “Cause,” she whispered into his ear. “That bastard Alien likely has the ability to listen to any part of this starship. Like it heard us in the cells.” Jane pressed tighter against him. “Pretend like we can’t believe we escaped. Hug me tighter.”

  “Happy to,” he whispered. “Explain more.”

  She nipped his left ear with her teeth. “Should be obvious. That chamber with the cell modules in it was meant to be opened to space. There was a long black line on the ceiling, like the old STS shuttle cargo bay. That chamber opens to space so our containment modules can be delivered to the spaceship of our Buyer. Remember what it said about why the Collectors do what they do?”

  Shit. Double shit. “Point taken. But can’t it do the same to this room?”

  “Maybe,” she whispered. “I’m guessing this room works as an airlock. For passage by crew into and out from the cell chamber when a collector pod brings in a new captive. I’m assuming a crewman is needed to move us, and our belongings, into a containment module. While we’re passed out from that fucking red beam!”

  He saw her point in the fast move. Perhaps Diligent had not sent another crewman to capture him because the Alien could just open the module chamber to space, thereby killing him. Yes, Diligent would lose a captive that he could have sold. But a captive running loose in his starship was a danger no ship captain would tolerate. Bill wondered if Diligent had been sleeping, or having sex however cockroaches did it, when the news came of his escape from his cell. Whatever the story, he’d had the time needed to escape his cell, free Jane from her cell, and for the two of them to get to another part of the starship.

  “Jane,” he whispered, “the most I know about space and space stuff is what I’ve seen on NASA programs, CNN and Nova. You got any idea of where on this starship we are? And which way lies the bridge? I really do want to grab this bastard.”

 
; She chuckled, still holding him tight. “Well, we just left the cargo section of this spaceship. If human ships are any guide to go by, I am betting there is an engine area, a bridge or command station of some sort, a common eating area for food intake by the crew, sleeping or living quarters for each crew person, an air production and renewal plant, waste recycling space, and hallways or tubeways to connect them all. Plus, the lower gravity here and earlier feels like a half gee, or half that of Earth. That means Diligent must come from a smaller planet with lower gravity. Which makes sense if he is a giant insect.” She paused, her breath warm against his neck. “Your red cube seems to work on any door. The lack of a local opening option seems to be part of the design of this starship. It assumes every person on board who moves through a hallway will have a red cube. Along with the right to move through the starship.” She gestured with her right hand to the wall where the clear fabric tubes hung. “My guess is those are spacesuits. Hopefully flexible enough for different body shapes. Since we don’t know what places Diligent can vent to space, let’s put on a suit and then get the hell out of here!”

  “Right!” Bill let go of Jane, whose close body contact had reminded him of how long it had been since he’d made love with a woman. And Jane was most definitely a woman!

  She also let go, noticed where his eyes had gone, and grimaced. “SEAL boy! I’m more than a rack of boobs! I’m IT trained, work at the Space Operations Center of the AFSPC in Building One at Peterson, and I suspect I know more about tracking space objects, satellites and enemy spacecraft than you do!”

  She’d spoken aloud. But he guessed it was something she’d told Diligent during her own orientation talk. And she was right. Hot-looking though she was, their first duty was survival, then subversion of the control of this starship. “Right! You’ve had SERE training, like me. We’ve done survival and escape. Time for evasion and resistance.” He pulled down one of the tube suits, looked it over, saw it had an opening at one end and a round part at the opposite, and lifted the open end to above his head. “Since the suit com may not work for us, do you know ASL?”