by Roy C. Booth
A shiver wracked her slender frame. Besides, dying of suffocation isn’t so bad, is it? I’ll just fall asleep when my air runs out and that’ll be that.
Ada clenched her teeth. What really burns me, though, is knowing that the bugs have beaten us. They just keep winning, and winning, and winning, taking planet after planet and forcing us back.
There’s no way our last six systems can hold out against their hundreds, what’s left of our fleet against their armada of thousands. They won’t even let us surrender! They just keep coming and coming and coming....
She grimaced at the thought of wave after wave of Chanthi needleships carving up the tattered remains of the Terran fleet. Soon it would be Earth’s turn.
Another year—maybe longer if we can win a major battle or two—and then we’ll be gone; just another afterthought of evolution, swept under the cosmic rug and soon forgotten by the rest of the universe.
She shook her head slowly. “What did we do that was so wrong?”
Sure, there was some squabbling over disputed planets. And of course there was the friction over who is the One True God. Still, the politicians and clergy should have been able to work things out.
“That’s their job, damn it!”
Instead, a few shots were fired in anger, and then that scout ship was destroyed. Next thing you know, everyone overreacts and now nine years later we’re facing extinction.
“It just isn’t fair.” The whispered words sounded pitiful, even to Ada.
She chuckled bitterly again. You should know better than that by now. The universe isn’t fair, it just is. We have no more inherent right to survive than anyone else. But, damn, it shouldn’t end like this. We have such potential… We’re smart; we’re adaptable; we create great works of art and music and literature. If given a chance, we could do so much! We’ve only been outside our home system for a century.
“We need more time!” Her scream of outrage echoed inside the pod.
Frustration eventually turned to resignation. She sighed and shrugged.
To all there comes an end.
Ada focused on the view port, observing how the frost crawled across the interior of the diamond-coated glass composite, obscuring her view. The fuel cell that kept the heater going—along with the air pump and the artificial gravity—had failed an hour earlier. It wouldn’t be long now.
She brushed the halo of hair from her cheek. The long, lush, beautiful auburn tresses of which she was once so proud were long gone, shorn during induction processing. What grew back in the nine months since now hung in greasy, sweaty clumps.
You may beat us in the end, but we won’t go down without a fight. Just like today: you won, but you left limping badly, didn’t you?
She shouted in defiance. “Yeah, you destroyed our six, but not before we took out eight of yours! Not as easy as you thought, was it?”
Ada sported a wolfish grin as she rubbed at the rime with a sleeve. To her irritation, her breath fogged the glass, forcing her to wipe a second time.
She watched as a twisted, charred piece of alien debris tumbled past the viewport, glinting in the distant sunlight. What else could she do at this point? She had no engine, no weapons, little air, and less hope for rescue.
“No, not so easy,” she whispered.
As Ada looked out on a spray of stars nearly lost in the infinity of blackness, her spirits flagged. She had nothing left to her but thoughts of mortality. It didn’t take long to survey the interior of the hexagonal pod. It contained little more than two bunks and a food locker. Even worse, someone had raided the locker, leaving only the water bottles.
Great. No food. The shortages among the rank-and-file must be worse than I was told.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—everything else is in short supply. She shook her head to dismiss the thought. Not that the lack of food will matter much. I'll be dead long before that. But at least it would have given me something to take my mind off my situation for a few minutes.
She settled back, shivering, to conserve her meager air supply; a strap secured her to the bunk.
Now you’re being silly. Why bother? The conclusion is foregone. You have no blankets, no heater, no way to keep warm. It’s already below freezing in here. The only question is whether the cold will take you before the lack of oxygen does. As if to settle the matter, her torso spasmed with a prolonged shiver.
I guess it doesn’t really matter; I’ll be just as dead either way. At least Mom and Dad can save the money for my birthday cake and candles next month.
Her attempt at gallows humor fell flat. She blinked back tears.
Next year Connie turns eighteen and it’ll be her turn to die.
She pictured her little sister’s bloody corpse tumbling in space. Ada’s eyes filled with the tears that she wouldn’t permit for herself.
I wonder if Tom had the same thoughts about me right before he died.
She shook off the memory of her older brother, the popular, gregarious one of the trio. He was killed in action at the Battle for Greensward, nearly two years past.
I’ve missed you, Tommy...
The futility of it all finally overwhelmed her and she let herself grieve—grieve for her brother, grieve for all her friends who had been killed in the damn war, grieve for the human race. Teardrops swelled, creating refractive lenses against her eyes. She shook her head to dislodge the distractions. Unheeded, wobbly twin globes sailed across the cabin to splatter against the bulkhead, where they froze into little stars. She cried until she could cry no more, many long, cold, lonely minutes later.
After a time, it became difficult to keep her eyes open.
This is it: the end of my life. I’ll drift off and awake in the glorious hereafter.
At least the heathens can’t take that away from me….
Ada was jolted from near-unconsciousness and thrown against the safety strap.
What—? She felt the thrumming through the deck plating that could mean only one thing.
“A tractor beam!” She crossed to the view port and scraped away the frost.
They did come back for me. I’m sav—! Wait...
“No! No! No!” Her blood ran cold.
Of course it’s one of theirs. They must have come back to sift through the wreckage.
Desolation hit her hard for a moment; she shook it off.
I’m not a quitter; I’m a soldier! I have to do something. I can’t let them take me. I’ve heard the stories.
She frantically looked about for a weapon: a grenade, a blaster, a loose pipe, anything.
After several frenzied minutes of searching through all the various small storage compartments, her shoulders slumped.
Nothing. Why can’t they mount weapons on these pods? One plasma cannon and I could do some real damage!
She sighed, knowing the answer: “Because armed escape pods would be military targets and without engines they’d be easy pickings, that’s why.”
Head lowered, she contemplated the decking for a few moments.
Her head snapped up, eyes wide. “Idiot!”
How could I forget? They drilled it into all of us right before the mission! There’s still one option left.
With renewed purpose, she turned to the instrument console. Her lungs labored in the oxygen-starved atmosphere of the pod, making it tough to concentrate. With fingers stiffened by the cold, Ada made the necessary preparations, hoping against hope that she remembered the access codes she’d been given. Then she sat back to wait. What else was there to do?
It wasn’t long before the pod passed through the massive doors of the enemy’s launch bay. Gravity returned to the pod, pressing Ada into her bunk.
Her features serene now that she was in control of her own fate, she leaned forward and depressed the key that disabled the fail safes and began the sixty-second countdown.
This is one weapon they don’t know about yet because ours was one of the first ships to equip the pods with it. The last resort.
It shows just how desperate we’ve become.
What made it effective as a last-ditch weapon was that it was invisible to sensors until armed. At least that was the theory. It had never been tested in combat—until now. Although the pod had no engine, it was equipped with a miniature version of the space-folding device used in the hyperdrive. It was incapable of moving the pod, but that was not the point. The device would invert space within a fifty-meter radius, and then shut off abruptly a millisecond later.
The fabric of space would distort and then snap back like a rubber band. Theoretically, that would cause cascading graviton waves to blast outward with catastrophic effect—much like a meteor smashing into a still lake.
The effect may be equivalent to a nuke of less than a kiloton, but that should be enough to give them a major case of indigestion. With any luck, there won‘t be enough left of their ship for the next one to figure out what happened.
She shook her head in sorrow. It’s far too late to change the course of the war, but at least we can take out a few more of them before we fall. If we’re all going to die anyway, at least let’s make our deaths count for something.
Forty-three…forty-two...forty-one…
The Chanthi ship’s launch bay doors cycled shut behind her, sealing her in. It should have made her feel trapped; instead it was somewhat comforting.
I guess you could say it provides a sense of closure. Her lips curled into a crooked smile at her pun.
Twenty-nine…twenty-eight…twenty-seven…
I’m committed now; the disarm code is locked out. At least I’m going out on my own terms. Now it’s time to make peace with the Man Upstairs. I’ll be meeting You soon enough, won’t I?
She said a brief prayer, wishing she hadn’t left her rosary on her bunk aboard Sisyphus.
Seventeen…sixteen…fifteen…
Ada saw excited movement through the view port. So, your sensors finally picked up the threat. Ha! Too late! You’re already dead; you just don’t know it yet.
Maybe it’s time to change your mantra. How about, Dead Bugs Walking? Her lips quirked upward in a lopsided grin.
Several figures neared the pod. She grimaced. This was her first opportunity to see a Chanthi up close—jet black but for the canary-yellow eyes, topped with skull projections that reminded one of devil horns. The razor-sharp mandibles and talons certainly didn’t soften the impression.
Damn. Those creatures are even uglier in person than in the holos!
Eight…seven…
Partially obscured by one of the approaching soldiers was an insignia on the far wall, a starburst surrounded by jagged alien characters that she knew read: Divine Might of the Chanthi Diktat.
Five…
We may fall in the end, but at least a few hundred more of you damned bugs won’t outlive us!
She smiled grimly to herself; then she lifted her jaw with pride. First Lieutenant Ada Considine of the Terran Defense Force snapped to attention, saluted, and hissed through gritted teeth.
“Take that, you bastar—!”
Zero.
END
MARK TERENCE CHAPMAN has been a fan of SF for most of his life, but writing it has been a more recent event. Chapman currently has four novels for sale on Amazon with two more in progress.
To find out more about Chapman or his books, go to his blog at tesserene.blogspot.com or his website: MarkTerenceChapman.com.
Find his books on Amazon at www.amazon.com/Mark-Terence-Chapman/e/B001KD533U.
THE WALK
Druscilla Morgan
The old man stood at the front gate and stretched as he surveyed the empty street. He enjoyed his evening walk. Exercise was no longer a chore and the pains in his chest were just a memory. He was glad he’d volunteered for the injection, along with one hundred other guinea pigs. There were risks of course. The doctors had warned him about the possibility of radicalization. The thought of renegade nano bots rampaging through his body had given him pause for thought, but the docs had assured him they would be closely monitoring his progress. What the heck, he’d figured. At eighty two years old, with a rapidly failing heart, he had nothing to lose. The nano cells were injected through a device called a nano pore and immediately began seeking out their target. Over the past few weeks he’d felt his heart begin to regenerate, pumping with renewed vigor as the nano cells went to work reconstructing the damaged tissue. His blood began to flow freely and he found he was able to walk further than the mailbox without stopping to catch his breath.
Now, nearly two months later, he felt completely healed, with the vigor and enthusiasm of a twenty year old. He took another deep breath and started to walk; big strong strides that quickly took him to the end of his street. He stopped for a moment, looking left then right. Before him lay the endless fields of wheat he’d known since boyhood. They stretched across the horizon, bathing in the orange glow of the setting sun. The husky heads waved on their thin stalks like a restless sea, beckoning him forward. He thought about turning left and following the road to town, but the wheat called to him, rustling in his ear like a lover. A sense of oneness consumed him and he abandoned himself to the urge and crossed the road. The barbed wire fence caught on his pants as he climbed over. He swore, momentarily distracted by the sharp sting on his thigh, but it was gone in an instant, as was the blood and the small nick in his skin. Only a slender rip in his pants betrayed his encounter with the fence. He wondered at this small miracle for a moment but quickly forgot about it as the call of the wheat urged him on.
He swung his other leg over the fence and landed on the hard earth with a thud. It jarred him and he wondered if nano cells could rebuild his weakened bones. He’d missed his last appointment but made a mental note to ask the doctors about bone healing on the next visit. Restlessly, he scanned the field. The wheat seemed taller now. It whispered and wavered in front of him like an exotic dancer. Mesmerized, he moved forward, crossing a small ditch with surprising ease. Bathed in the feeling of peace and oneness, he began to push his way through the sea of swaying stalks. The rough caress of their husky heads scratched against his bare arms as he parted them. Each touch was intimate, slipping under his pores and dissolving into his being as he walked deeper into the wheat’s embrace. The stalks rustled around him, enfolding him until there was no longer any distinction between man and plant. Beneath the cloak of the encroaching night, the old man quietly dissolved into the sea of wheat, witnessed only by the rising moon.
“Where’s your grandfather?”
Martin tried to ignore his mother. He was one hundred and eighty points off finishing the top level of Cyber Siege and still had two lives left.
But his mother was no respecter of Cyber Siege glory.
“Martin! Pause that damn game for a moment!”
With a sigh, Martin hit pause, unclipped the gaming bracelet and threw it onto his bed. The curve screen went black as the controller hit the quilt. Shit! Now he’d have to start the level again.
He stuck his head out the door and yelled into the hallway.
“Whaddya want?”
“Where’s your grandfather?”
He thought for a moment. Last he’d seen of the old guy, he’d been talking about going for a walk.
“I think he went for a walk!” he yelled.
“When?”
His mother was relentless. He couldn’t be bothered yelling again so he made his way down the hall. The rich scent of roast chicken wafted through the air and he realized he was hungry. Salivating, he leaned against the wall and watched his mother as she bustled around the kitchen. She opened the convector and swore as hot steam caught her hand. Grabbing a wet cloth, she encased the reddened skin and turned to look at Martin.
“Well?”
“Well what?” He’d forgotten the question.
“When did he leave?”
Oh, yeah. He frowned.
“I’m not sure when he left. I heard him say he was going for a walk, but that was a couple of hours ago.�
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Now his mother frowned as she peered out the window. A blood red moon was rising over the fields. Martin thought it looked cool but kinda eerie at the same time. He shivered a little, catching some of his mother’s now obvious anxiety.
“You’d better go look for him. He should be back by now.”
He didn’t argue, even though he had no wish to venture out into the cold night air. He grabbed a pair of shoes and crammed them on his feet as he silently tried to reassure himself. Grandpa had been the picture of health lately, bounding around with more energy than his own grandson. The old guy would be fine. He’d probably stopped to talk to someone, or decided to walk all the way around the town. It was a small town but it would easily take the old man a good hour to make a round trip. Still, something niggled at him. Without another word, he grabbed his jacket from the chair where he’d carelessly thrown it and slammed out the front door. The cold night air hit him and he stood for a moment, catching his breath as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Thankfully, the moon was higher now. It had lost some of its reddish tinge and glowed like a big, orange ball against the black sky. It shed enough light for Martin to pick his way through the overgrown grass without tripping on stray tree roots. His mother had been nagging him to mow for two weeks and now he wished he’d listened to her. The grass was damp with dew. It clung to the bottom of his pants, the wetness seeping through his thin fabric shoes.
Should’ve worn boots.
He stepped onto the road and began to trace the route he knew his grandfather favored on his evening walks. He walked to the end of the street and stood at the corner, looking from left to right as he tried to get some kind of psychic sense of his grandfather’s movements. He knew the old man enjoyed strolling beside the wheat fields of his now distant youth. The fields were some of the few left undomed. The Sully family had owned these fields for generations and old man Sully, kept alive by the wonders of technology, still retained an iron grip on his traditional values and practices. The Sullys had resisted the government decree that all crops be domed. It had gone to local court, then State court, then finally a National Tribunal. It was a long and expensive process but, incredibly, the Sullys had emerged victorious and their wheat continued to thrive in the natural atmosphere. Martin wondered momentarily if Grandpa had gone to visit old man Sully, but then dismissed it as unlikely. The Sully’s farmhouse was miles away, far beyond the vast stretch of wheat fields. Grandpa loved his walk, but Martin doubted he was that keen.
