by S. H. Jucha
“At this present time, I’m inclined to limit the teams to stun weapons,” Alex replied. “While it might be nice to have a plasma rifle or two —”
“They can’t be fired aboard a ship in space,” Myron acknowledged, cutting Alex off. He caught Tatia’s scowl and sent,
In reply, Tatia sent,
Alex’s cool, calm gaze beheld Myron. Then he sent,
The academy commandant felt the power coiling around Alex’s sending. It reminded him that Alex only resembled a New Terran. In this case, appearances were deceiving.
“Final point, Ser, I need to know our engagement parameters,” Myron replied.
“Defend yourselves, if attacked, and exit the ship, if forced. However, you’re not to initiate action unless the aliens do,” Alex replied.
* * *
Tatia and Reiko were on hand when Z and Miranda trooped past them to board a traveler in the lower decks of the city-ship. Their enormous Cedric and Frederica avatars carried energy packs on their backs, which delivered power to their shoulder-mounted stun weapons.
Myron McTavish came next, marching down the corridor. He led the Dischnya contingent. The entire group was ensconced in environment suits, and they were armed with smaller versions of the SADEs’ energy packs and mounted stun guns.
Tatia replied.
Reiko stared at Tatia, expecting something more — another explanation that would make more sense than seeing twin, yellow eyes. Tatia’s quiet stare told her that was all that was known, and she shook her head in confusion.
The admirals made their way back to the Freedom’s bridge, while the boarding party’s traveler launched and sailed toward Deirdre’s Trident, the Deliverance. To the Trident captain’s sadness, there was now enough space in the ship’s starboard bay after the fight at the wall to accommodate the traveler.
As soon as Cordelia detected the landing of the fighter aboard Deirdre’s command ship, she signaled the fleet’s controllers. The Tridents, loaded with their travelers, launched toward the distant system. The Freedom followed behind, but it would remain beyond the system’s far belt.
As soon as the Trident fleet threaded its way through the densely laden ring, the ships spread out and the travelers exited the warships’ bays. The freighters, mining bases, and nearby warship were overflown to demonstrate that hostile action wasn’t the Omnians’ intent. Then the fleet’s ships took up stations near the bases and cruised alongside the freighters.
Deirdre’s command ship and a squadron of Méridien Tridents circled the warship, orbiting above and below the ecliptic in line with the warship’s engines and bow to minimize the possibility of fire from the enemy ship.
The warship made several course changes, and the Tridents matched the new trajectories, preventing the massive enemy ship from getting an opportunity to launch its port- and starboard-mounted armament. Eventually, the warship gave up its maneuvering and held a steady course.
Deirdre sent. The telemetry from the Deliverance was being transmitted to the Freedom and was displayed on the city-ship’s bridge holo-vid.
Alex and company witnessed the opening of an enormous bay in the warship’s lower hull section. Reiko enlarged the image to peer into the darkened hold.
“Nothing in there but some scrap parts in a few piles,” Reiko commented. Her comment, in addition to all bridge conversation, was picked up by Miriamal and transmitted to the command admirals.
Tatia regarded Alex. When he nodded to her, she said, “Admiral Canaan, you have permission to launch the boarding party.”
The pilot paused at the yawning opening to the bay and waited for directives. Z, Miranda, and Myron, using a copilot’s helmet, examined the interior. The scrap piles waited in the far corners of the cavernous bay. The interior held nothing else.
The SADEs were content to let Myron command the boarding party, but they would take the lead in the investigation. Their armament and avatars would provide a greater degree of protection.
The pilot slid the traveler into the bay and set down on the deck. No sooner had he executed the maneuver than the warship’s massive bay doors closed.
Myron could be heard chuckling.
Myron removed his piloting helmet and replaced it with the one from his environment suit. As he walked the aisle to the fighter’s rear, he called to the Dischnya over the team’s comm. “Prepare to disembark. Seal helmets and check weapons.”
Dutifully the Dischnya ran through their protocols, which Myron had drilled them on continuously.
-17-
Boarding Party
“Ready, Commandant,” Homsaff said over the comm, when her two squad leaders, Simlan and Hessan, reported their warriors prepared to disembark. The two male Dischnya were among the first contacts of the Harakens, who descended from the explorer ship Sojourn, when it made planetfall on Sawa Messa, the Dischnya name for Omnia.
Myron signaled the hatch open, and Z and Miranda unlocked their avatars. They’d occupied the aft end of the traveler, standing in the aisle. The fighter’s seats couldn’t accommodate their bulky avatars, not with the huge power packs on their backs.
The SADEs jumped from the traveler’s interior, forgoing the hatch steps, to land on the deck with resounding thuds. Next, Myron led the Dischnya warriors off.
Homsaff stayed close to Myron. She’d become accustomed to following his hand signals, during skirmish games, and used them herself to communicate to her squad leaders.
The Dischnya’s environment suits hid much of the warriors’ unusual characteristics. However, their helmets announced their uniqueness. Omnian engineers had fabricated a bubble design that allowed room for the warriors’ muzzles to move. As such, the helmet’s clear face prominently displayed the Dischnya furred skin, piercing yellow eyes, elongated snouts, and ferocious teeth.
In turn, Myron tapped the top of his helmet twice with an open hand, and Homsaff repeated it to the squad leaders.
After the pressure equalized, the bayside hatch of the airlock opened. Ominously, the far hatch was open too.
Z and Miranda carefully examined the airlock’s interior and stared through it into the corridor. They scanned the passageway on a series of frequencies to detect heat, sonic waves, and other phenomena, which might ind
icate the presence of waiting enemy.
Z regarded Myron, who gestured toward the hatch with two fingers. As a TSF master sergeant, Myron trained his recruits for years to use hand signals in the event that comms failed. Despite his thorough adoption of an implant, old habits had value, and the uncertainties of this boarding action had him reverting to the habits he trusted most.
Homsaff could hardly contain her anticipation, although she wasn’t anxious for confrontation. She wanted to prove to Dassata that the Dischnya held value to him in his expedition. This was their first opportunity to do so, and Homsaff, in no uncertain terms, had drilled into her warriors the need to acquit themselves well.
“We don’t engage in the old ways,” Homsaff had lectured the warriors. “We follow the commandant’s orders, and we demonstrate our right to accompany Dassata and the Omnians to the stars.”
The boarding party stepped through the airlock and entered a broad corridor. Myron signaled to Homsaff, and she deployed her squads to guard both directions.
Myron examined both directions of the corridor. Within 10 or so meters each way, there were heavy, mechanical hatches, which were propped open.
Myron was fairly sure which way the bow lay but thought it smart to depend on the SADEs for orientation. As it was, he would have been correct. Miranda and Z led off, and Myron signaled to Homsaff.
The boarding party filed through one open hatch after another. There wasn’t a single sentient in sight, which worried SADEs, human, and warriors alike.
The team noticed small amounts of debris that littered the corridor. Dust gathered on conduits, and doors were ajar. All in all, the ship was slovenly maintained.
“Body heat,” Z called over the team’s comm, moments before the boarding party was attacked.
The enemy ship’s crew poured from doorways along the entire length of the Omnians. They wielded all manner of hand weapons: knives, sections of pipe, and heavy metal weights. Quickly closing on the Omnians, they slashed and pummeled.
The boarding party was forced into hand-to-hand combat, the enemy too close for the team to use their stun weapons. The SADEs utilized their avatars’ tremendous strength to fling individuals away from them, focus their shoulder weapons on those attackers, and stun them.
Myron’s TSF combat techniques were in heavy demand, and he attempted to defend himself as best he could. Fortunately for Myron, who was close to being overwhelmed, Homsaff and Hessan bracketed him. With Dischnya strength and reflexes, the enemy crew members were repelled by fierce kicks and backhands.
The Dischnya copied the SADEs’ technique. As quickly as some distance could be created between the warriors and the attackers, they stunned them. The fight should have been brief. The primary group of attackers were put down in short order. However, more alien crew members continued to pour from both ends of the corridor.
The SADEs fought efficiently. Their energy reserves were more than sufficient for an extended engagement, but Myron and the Dischnya were sucking air from their tanks in great quantities.
Inexorably, the enemy bodies piled up until the new attackers struggled to reach the Omnians, climbing over their comrades to do so. The mound of bodies slowed the attackers’ advance and allowed the Omnians to stun them, as they approached.
Suddenly, the attackers froze in place. Knives and blunt objects were dropped to the deck. In response, the Omnians held their fire.
The boarding party stood quietly, except for Myron and the Dischnya’s heavy breathing, staring at the pile of bodies and the silent and ghostly still attackers.
The bridge personnel stared at the holo-vid, seeing through Z’s eyes. From the moment the fight started, they were stunned. The assailants of their boarding party were humans.
Z focused on various aspects of their adversaries to amplify information for Alex.
“They’re in horrible condition,” Renée remarked. She was the first to break the silence on the bridge.
The images Z sent revealed sores on skin from unhealed minor injuries, swollen flesh indicating infections, runny noses, bleeding from mouths and noses, and missing digits that were burned shut.
“In addition to their injuries,” Reiko added. “They’re emaciated. I think they’re slowly starving to death.”
“Look at their eyes,” Mickey said quietly. “They’re unfocused, blank, like they’ve been switched off.”
Alex linked to Miranda, the sisters managing his connection.
“Miranda, compare two faces for me,” Alex said. He’d seen an attacker fall near her feet, and he directed the SADE toward the part of the image he’d recorded. Then, he highlighted the face of an adversary, who stood stock-still, a few meters away.
“These two are undoubtedly clones from the same tissue source,” Julien said. “I’ve identified others who exhibit identical appearances, but most of the attackers appear to be unique.”
“What are the polished metal plates in their foreheads?” Tatia asked.
Before anyone could offer an opinion, the antagonist nearest Z and Miranda began speaking. The heavily damaged male spoke a short phrase in one language, waited, and said a similar length of words in a second language. The repetition of new languages went on and on.
“His speech is so eerie,” Renée remarked, “It’s toneless, no inflection.”
“This individual wouldn’t have the capability of producing all these languages,” Alex said. “We’re facing drones, which answers Admiral Tachenko’s questions.”
“Someone or something is operating these human drones and communicating through them,” Tatia growled out, disgusted with the concept of humans coopted by aliens.
“The sisters will handle communications, until a common language can be established,” Alex announced. “We’ll follow along,” he added, directing the sisters to broadcast the interaction.
The sister aboard the boarding party’s traveler broadcast a short signal. It halted the drone’s speech. There was a brief pause before the male uttered a signal burst of his own. Immediately, the sister and the entity behind the human assailants furiously exchanged sets of code.
A quiet squeal was heard over the Freedom’s bridge speakers. The controller had attenuated the volume when it didn’t recognize the speech.
The traveler sister prepared for the intrusion of malicious code, but none was included in the communications. She sent a quick note to Alex about its absence, indicating that the Nua’ll were probably not the entities behind the drones.
The Sisterhood possessed major assets in the present exchange. They had the various carrier waves gleaned during the fight at the wall, and they possessed huge databases of codes, which they’d been analyzing. Within a short period of time, the language of the Omnians was communicated.
“A digital entity is controlling the drones, undoubtedly sentient,” Julien stated. He’d attentively followed the code bursts. The speed with which the language was exchanged could only have been assimilated by an entity as powerful, or more powerful, than a SADE.
Once communication protocols were established and the Omnian language established, the sisters heard,
Alex interrupted the discussion, saying, “I’ll speak to you. You may call me Alex.”
“Are you a digital entity?” asked AR-13145, his voice transmitted through the Freedom’s bridge speakers.
“I’m human, like those you use as workers,” Alex replied.
“If you resemble my biologicals, can I presume that you think you’ve a right to repossess my specimens?” the alien asked.
Alex’s anger rose at the reference to the poor human drones being seen as the alien’s biologicals. Instead, he quelled it and asked, “Why do you believe you have a right to these humans?”
“A ship was discovered without propulsion, adrift in space. We recovered it and developed these biologicals from the entities’ cellular components. They’re my constructs and are no longer members of your race.”
“These humans had to be grown to maturity, and they had to be trained to operate your ships,” Julien said.
“This was part of our work, part of the process,” AR-13145 replied.
“What’s their mental status?” Alex asked.
“When the biologicals mature, their independence is eliminated by attaching them to my communications network,” AR-13145 replied.
“Is the process reversible?” Julien asked.
“Once the transformation is complete, independence is permanently forfeited. These are my biologicals until they expire,” AR-13145 explained.
“Why don’t you take care of your biologicals?” Renée asked. “Wouldn’t it be more efficient to maintain them adequately to get more use out of them?”
“Unfortunately, there is an inherent weakness in this species. Our control techniques don’t produce the best interface, which means the biologicals have a shortened lifespan after being subsumed,” AR-13145 replied. “It’s more efficient to produce more entities and allow the attenuation cycle to persist.”
“I would be curious to see your process,” Alex said.
“You’re denied access,” AR-13145 replied.
“We don’t need your permission, AR-13145,” Alex replied. “By the way, AR-13145 is too cumbersome to speak. You need a better name for our conversations. I think I’ll call you —”
