by Julia Vee
Today had been the Bad Day to top all others, but seeing Cam kneeling before the pint-sized alien was the cherry on top. He didn’t hear what she said, but he’d had enough. They were leaving Freak Show central. Now.
Jonesy got up on his knees, feeling like the the ship was swaying around him, with a throbbing lump growing out of the left side of his face. Daina hooked her stump under his arm and hauled him up.
She looked worried, but not scared. He liked this woman. “What now? Shoot her?” Daina asked.
Jonesy considered how to respond. He’d been wondering the same thing himself. Was this Cam or NotCam? If Alvarez was still in there, then he didn’t want to shoot her. If NotCam was making a re-appearance, then he would shoot like hell and reload the fucking magazine while he was at it.
Cam and the tiny alien hadn’t moved since Cam bowed down. In fact, the alien was just standing there, staring at her with those creepy black eyes. The shining lights on the alien’s hands had died with Cam’s exclamation, and the biomechanical conduits had snapped back to the walls.
Those alien tendrils from the ship...he didn’t know who was controlling them but he had a feeling Cam could do it. She could already use the consoles. She was their best chance for blowing this pop stand.
He was probably making a mistake. But if the LT was still in that blue alien skinjob, he had to take the risk. Jonesy shook his head. He took a deep breath, waited for the walls to stop rocking. “Hm. Ow. No, actually, we can’t shoot her. Not yet. She can control the alien tech, so we need her help to get on the jumpship.”
The young woman grimaced and her face filled with resignation as she stared at the bizarre tableau of Cam and the tiny alien frozen in silent combat. “So. We need to get her back.”
He cocked his head to the left. Ow. Again. He heard the lift running. “Yep. And we gotta do it in less than a minute. There’s a pack of Hunters about to get off the lift just down this hallway.” He took off his pack and pulled out the rope he’d salvaged earlier.
Daina turned her rifle to the side, checking the charge pack. She looked around, surveying their surroundings. “Impossible.”
Jonesy grinned and flaked out the rope. “Don’t you know? Wolves specialize in the impossible. We just gotta change the playing field.”
With a grunt of effort, he leaned over and plucked up the small alien. To his total relief, it didn’t put up any resistance and the walls didn’t attack him. As he suspected, whatever Cam and the little alien were doing, it was taking all of their brains to do it. It was a little heavier than he guessed, but Daina was able to help him get the alien strapped to his chest like a baby. A freaky, blue alien baby. Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any weirder.
So when the Hunters rounded the last corner to come barreling towards them, they were treated to the sight of their baby Ringhead, strapped to his chest, as he began to blast them with his rifle. Daina had dragged Cam’s inert body back to the docking bay door, and was trying to get her hand up to activate the door controls.
Jonesy kept the gunfire to careful bursts. Just enough to keep the Hunters from sticking their heads around the corner. Now that he had their ‘baby’ hostage he was definitely calling the shots. At least, until his ammo ran out.
“How’s it going back there?! Charge pack’s getting pretty thin here…”
Daina grunted. “Gah! This bitch is heavy!” Another grunt, “There! … Bah! Nothing. You said this would work!”
Jonesy squeezed off another burst. He thought he might have caught one of them in the eyes when it poked out. “Um, no. I didn’t. I said she could control the doors. I was guessing about using her hand on them.” Another burst. Jesus this baby was heavy. How do all those moms do it?
Jonesy heard a body being dropped to the deck. “Ublyudok!”
Sounds of slapping. Jonesy risked a glance behind him and saw Daina straddling Cam’s unconscious form, slapping Cam’s face with her good hand, and spouting a steady stream of Slavic curses.
Jonesy’s rifle was going to give out any moment. He backed up towards the docking bay door. He was trying to decide if it would be a good idea to try to bring this little Ringhead back to earth or just try to kill it. Maybe Stan could do something with it.
He stopped when he was even with the ladies. Daina was building up a sweat trying to get Cam to snap out of it. “Um, no pressure here, but we--”
Cam’s eyes flew open. They were jet black, all the way through the sclera. Daina’s hand was already in motion but Cam’s right hand shot up and caught Daina’s forearm. Jonesy heard the crisp sound of bone breaking and Daina let out a sharp cry of pain.
Daina tried to pull back but Cam clenched down on the broken forearm, squeezing another yelp out of her. Cam yanked down on Daina’s arm, pulling her in, and met her jaw with a withering left cross. Daina’s teeth clacked together and her eyes rolled up into her head. She collapsed, senseless, on top of Cam.
Cam squirmed and writhed, pulling herself out from under Daina. She gave a negligent kick with one leg and rolled the unconscious woman down the corridor away from the docking bay door. She stood, extending herself to her full height, craning her neck oddly. She swiveled her head and focused her dead black eyes on Jonesy.
Oh. Shit. He let his rifle drop and started pawing around his waist. He couldn’t see with this damned alien strapped to his chest, but he knew his sidearm was down there somewhere.
“Maxwell.”
The voice was Cam’s, but altered. It sounded like there were other voices layered over top of Cam’s, and they were all speaking at the same time. This was even worse than NotCam’s prior appearance. Jonesy had the sinking feeling that this time, whatever was happening was not merely the result of the ship’s “corrections” as Cam had described it. He was a not a religious man, but this was sounding like full out demonic possession. Fuck.
She/It bent down and picked up Daina’s rifle. Cam/It held the rifle in both hands, looking it up and down as if it were a foreign object. She/It gave a small smile, and settled the rifle into her arms, and took aim at Jonesy’s head.
“Maxwell. Put our Mother down. Now.”
***
Jonesy liked to think of himself as a good soldier. One who took orders well. One who would never shoot his superior officer. But fuck this shit. Mini alien was getting one in the eye and Cam/It was getting a double tap in the forehead.
He raised the pistol and put the end of the barrel against the tiny alien’s eye. “Fuck you.”
Cam/It sucked in a breath and took a small step back. She tilted her head, still looking at Jonesy, and seemed to consider.
Jonesy watched Cam/It, his blood pounding in his temples now. He thought about how many bullets he had left and wondered whether it would even do anything to the alien. If he shot the alien, would it kill Cam through the psychic link? This was some seriously fucked up shit, and his head hurt trying to work it out.
Cam/It twisted its lips into an upward tilt, a grotesque parody of Alvarez’s usual warm smile. “You will not hurt our Mother. If you do, we will destroy you. We know you, Maxwell. You want to live, just like all humans.”
“You don’t know shit about me. Goddammit! Cam! Are you in there!?” Jonesy began backing up towards Daina’s still form. “Fight it, LT! I know you’re in there!”
She/It paced him, slowly, following him down the hallway. “We know of your pain, Maxwell. We have travelled the stars, encountered species you could never even dream of. We are dedicated to perfecting life in all its forms.”
She/It pointed at his eye. “This crude instrument hurts you. We can heal you.”
Jonesy gave an involuntary shudder of revulsion. He didn’t want anyone messing with his eye ever again. Sometimes the pain was so bad he wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off blind. Abbé tried to convince him that upgrades would help, and the pain would go away, but Jonesy was done with “enhancements.” He could live with the hand he was dealt.
The rolling voice con
tinued, compelling him with its monstrous words. “What your species calls medicine, we know to be crude and primitive. We have the power to transform you, to make you better than you are, to raise you to your full potential!”
He’d had enough of transformation, thank you very much. Jonesy kept his hand steady on his gun.
“Shut the hell up! Cam! Snap out of it! Remember Cho! We need to tell his parents what happened! We’ll probably need to drink some of that horrible tea they always make for us!”
Cam/It hesitated a moment, tilting her head in that disturbingly alien fashion, then resumed stalking him. Was he getting through to her? He hoped like hell he was. He didn’t have anything else.
Jonesy drew in a quick breath and then began rattling off the names of everyone on Alpha squad. Burke and his horrible body odor. Pretty Nell who always had a line of soldiers begging her for a date. O’Neill and his god awful cheap ass cigars he wouldn’t let go of. Garcia who always cheated at cards, and cheated badly.
With each pronouncement, Not-Cam wavered a little more. By the time Jonesy finished up with Garcia’s horrible deck stacking, tears streamed down Cam’s face, and the black was fading from her eyes.
“Cam, remember Keenan! You love each other! You need to get back to him. And Colonel Phillips. The Colonel and Gunny are counting on you! Hell, I’m counting on you!”
The black disappeared entirely from her eyes and Cam gave a hitching sob, collapsing to her knees again. “Oh god, Jonesy! I’m so sorry!”
Jonesy whirled around and pawed for rifle hanging by its strap. “Thank. Fucking. God! No time for tears now! Get to the jumpship!”
Cam dropped her rifle and staggered back to the door. As Jonesy turned to cover the hallway again, he heard the door open behind him. He squeezed the trigger and the rifle died mid-burst. He crouched down to pick up Cam’s dropped rifle when the alien strapped to his chest woke up.
In a split second, the heavy weight he was carrying turned into a squirming, writhing, kicking mass of tiny arms and legs. His breath flew out of him as he caught a kick to the balls. The alien jerked its head back and popped him in the jaw. Seeing stars, Jonesy went to his knees, fighting for breath. He had to get this asshole off of him. Stan could come find his own damned alien.
Piercing blue light filled the hallway again as the alien’s hands began to glow. In the light, Jonesy could see the Hunters standing now in the hallway, watching him with their weapons down. The walls came alive again. Coils slid along the floor, wrapping around Daina’s still form, twining around her legs.
More coils jumped off the walls and reached for him. He managed to catch one of the alien’s hands and tried to wrench it away. Cam screamed from behind him. “Jonesy!”
He twisted around, saw her through the open door, nearly to the jumpship. “Fucking go! Get home! I got this!” He watched her disappear into the ship, relieved she hadn’t called him on his lie.
The small alien waved its free hand, and a conduit snaked around his right leg. Bitter cold immediately soaked into his leg, immobilizing it like ice. His strength began to ebb. He wished he was the praying kind. He wished he still had his right arm. This would certainly be a good time for either.
The little alien squirmed, flexing and loosening the ropes. Jonesy brought up the butt of the rifle and slammed it down, repeatedly, on the tiny alien’s head. Trapped within the ropes, it was unable to dodge and it began to screech horribly, a sound that tore at his ears. The alien continued to twist and squirm until it was turned around inside the ropes. A dozen bright lines of pain lit up on his chest as the alien sank its clawed hands and feet through his clothes. He continued to hammer the alien, until one of its claws tore through his shoulder, and the pain forced him to drop the rifle.
Jonesy tried to ignore the tiny alien crawling on him and twisted around to look for Cam. The lights on the jumpship were blinking. He hoped Cam was smart enough to do the right thing. The alien placed its cold cold hands on his cheeks, turning him to face it. The bright lights in the alien’s hands dazzled his eyes, washing out the hallway. Even in the blinding light, the alien’s eyes remained, two flat dark circles sucking everything in. He found himself caught in the black alien gaze, mesmerized.
Darkness swallowed him.
16
Her throat hurt from screaming. Her neck hurt from craning it in an unnatural way. Her head hurt from Mother’s probing invasion. Her heart hurt from leaving Jonesy behind. But Cam couldn’t think about any of that now. She just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as she charged through the shuttle bay. Each step felt like running with lead weights and each second felt like an eternity as she waited for Ringhead blaster fire to take her out.
At last she reached the jumpship and she didn’t hesitate, slamming her palm to the console. LET ME IN! Her pounding desire communicated instantly to the jumpship and the door slid open for her.
Once inside, Cam stopped, paralyzed by indecision. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She didn’t know what she needed to do to fly this bucket. As far as she knew, no one had ever even seen the inside of one of these jumpers before. It was dark inside, the only light source seeming to emanate from small twinkles of blue light from the walls. The walls were lined with the same dark twisty tubing that Cam recognized from the larger ship. The air inside felt cool, and after her mad dash heating her up, she found herself soaking up the crisp interior temperature like a dry leaf after a spring rain.
She remained hunched over, heaving and panting. She could hear herself, her huge gulping breaths loud in the stillness of the dark. If she kept this up, she would hyperventilate. How strange. She hadn’t been able to breathe that deeply since her old injury.
Her old injury. A mere eighteen months earlier, as she had lain dying in the hospital with each breath possibly her last, she had thought her problems were enormous. Now she looked down at her pale blue skin swathed in a torn Sino-Sov uniform. What she wouldn’t give to be that soldier again.What would Keenan do now if he saw me like this?
The wave of despair over that thought nearly toppled her. Jonesy had told her to get home, but there was no going home now.
Cam struggled to focus. She needed to get her bearings. Cam lifted her head and took a good look around. The boxy inside of the Ringhead jumpship was practically palatial, with ten feet of vertical clearance. There were no chairs. Huh. Guess those flat assed Hunters didn’t need to sit. No straps either. How the hell did they keep from smacking into each other like a carton of loose marbles?
This thing was literally a giant flying alien refrigerator. If she hadn’t been so distressed, she would have laughed at the absurd image. The walls of the jumpship were spartan to the extreme. She saw no controls of any kind. She wished Jonesy were here. He would know what to do.
She finally spotted a lone console at the far end of the jumper and hobbled over to it, still partially hunched over. Cam straightened and ran her hands gently over the console. Could she lock the door? Almost familiar now, the sensation of connection with the alien ship washed over her, but less overpowering on this jumpship. As she tried to convey the ‘lock’ concept, she heard a small snick sound. Holy shit, that actually worked? Cam looked back over her shoulder and a thin, almost pink seam now sealed off the door, stark in contrast against the dark alien metal.
Cam turned to look forward out of what she guessed was the front of the jumpship. There were no windows. She couldn’t see for shit. This is not going well. Cam imagined finally getting this thing to move, only to crash it into the docking bay doors. With each heartbeat, she imagined a horde of Hunters bursting into the vessel she was attempting to steal.
In frustration she slammed her fist against the console and to her surprise, the flooring behind her shifted. She spun but before she could step away, a thick black slab had emerged, its smooth edges clearing the height of her knees. Tendrils snaked out from the slab and encircled her ankles, anchoring her to the cold alien surface as it continued to rise.
Cam panted with panicked exertion as she battled the hated restraints. In a moment of clarity, she stopped trying to yank at the tendrils and instead tried to communicate with them. NoPleaseNoPleaseNoPlease.
The slab continued its relentless progress, with another band snaking under her arms and across her chest, forcing her shoulders against the slab. Hot tears seared down her cheeks. She sobbed as she continued battering impotently at her restraints. I’m sorry, Jonesy. She had come so close to getting off this godforsaken ship and now she was being captured again. Two more tendrils coiled around her arms and forced them out, extending them until her shoulders popped painfully. Those early thoughts from before started to creep back into her mind. When she’d been bound to the bed, her burning desire had been to end it. I'm no good to anyone now.
A final alien limb crawled around her head, completing her imprisonment. She closed her eyes in agony, crucified by this alien device. Darkness covered her and she sagged against her restraints in despair, surrendering her weight.
As she gave herself over to the darkness, she felt weightless. As if she was no longer in her body at all. A feeling of warmth and comfort enveloped her, along with a reassuring presence in her mind. The darkness around her gradually faded to a dull gray light which cast no shadows. Even with her eyes closed, she felt the light coming from all sides. Cam realized she could no longer see the inside of the ship, but she could see the docking bay. She could see all of the docking bay.
It was as if she could see through the barricade over her eyes, as if she could see through the ship itself. Cam took in a long draw of air, and when she did she realized she could feel the ship. She could sense where the ship breathed air to feed into its engines. She flexed her arms against her restraints, and she could feel the guns along the underbelly.
