Edge of the Vortex

by Donald B McFarlane

  As he made the dash, the night's winter tranquillity had been ripped apart by the non-stop thunder of weapons fire, of all calibres. Jack hadn’t been in a shootout this loud since his army days. Hitting the wall furthest from the robot, Jack quickly took a knee, brought the weapon up, flipped the safety off, and fired two well-aimed rounds at the machine. Jack could tell the bullets hit home, but with almost no effect.

  Dropping the barrel of the rifle down, Jack brought his right hand down from the pistol grip to the radio that was on his chest-rig and quickly switched from his team radio to a channel he could contact higher headquarters from.

  “Control!” Jack ran his tongue over his lips, and he was in luck, comms were back up. “What is the status of support?”

  The radio came back to his earpiece a bit garbled. “Air suppose en-route…..21 RPB………Tornados.” The channel cut out.

  Jack brought his rifle back up and got another good sight picture of the robot and fired off another two rounds.

  The machine was still moving away at a steady pace, and Jack knew that there were a few options for where it could turn next. If it turned left, it could head to a group of residences centred around the Windmill Pub, if it turned right it would cross over the Common and eventually reach a more residential area, and if it continued straight, the best option, it would carry across the greens until it reached the South Circular, the opportunity that offered Jack and the other operators the most time to figure out a solution to tackle the threat, but at the moment, it was chaos. There didn’t seem to be any real order among the armed police. They were all firing and manoeuvring at their own discretion. It was a free-for-all.

  It finally dawned on Jack that he wasn’t contributing to the fight. He never thought that he was wasting his time, or that his life was more valuable than another’s, but he knew that right then and there that him putting a few more accurate rounds down range wouldn’t change much. What was required at a time like this was salvation because nothing in the arsenal of SO19 was going to stop that rampaging machine.

  Looking to his right, Jack spotted the Common skate-park which had good lines of sight across the greens for a few hundred metres. He knew his best chance was getting into a good position and calling in some form of air support, which he had to hope was on the way.

  Flipping the safety back on, Jack started moving towards the basketball court that was between him and the skate-park, just as he could hear the approaching sounds of the Metropolitan Police Service helicopter. Its faint whisper getting louder every second, and just barely audible over the sound of gunfire.

  Quickly looking to his left, Jack could tell that the Sentinel had stopped and was laying down suppressive fire in the direction of the police that had surrounded it, but they had been wise enough to keep their distance from the alien machine.

  Reaching the end of the basketball courts, Jack entered the skate-park and climbed on top of the closest ramp and took up a prone firing position, but instead of bringing his rifle to bear, he got control back on the line. It was time to find out where their support was.

  7

  International Space Station, Orbit

  16 January

  “Holy mother of baby Jesus.” It was all Scott Bader could manage to say. He had survived a close call with an alien spacecraft that almost crashed into the ISS six months earlier, and since then he had watched countless other ships jump in, most of the time at a stand-off distance from Earth, but that day was different.

  Scott was currently the only crew member on the ISS that had been present on that fateful day when the Epsilon had arrived and dragged Earth into the middle of an interstellar war and was scheduled to get off the station in March, but he reckoned that the events of the day would change all of that.

  Doctor Maria Esperanza, a former naval helicopter pilot from Colombia, was the first South American to reach space and was without a doubt the hottest woman that had ever gotten into space, but that was just Scott’s personal opinion.

  “Something change?” She asked in response to the mission commanders outburst.

  All communications with the ground had been cut the moment the fleet of ships had jumped into the system, a large contingent of which had jumped in dangerously close to the space station, and while everyone on board had seen alien spacecraft by now, they knew that something serious was happening.

  “A small vehicle is approaching. Just launched from the larger of ship’s that are closest to us.” He said dryly. Scott knew that a regime change would mean that life on Earth, and on the ISS could change rapidly. His greatest fear was a new power would simply take one look at the old space station that was floating around Earth and vaporise it.

  Scott had his face as close to the station's window as possible without being pressed against it. He couldn’t see much detail on the small vessel until it got to within one hundred metres of the station. It was rather bulbous looking with a large rounded front end, and a tail like structure coming off the back.

  The ship, which Scott decided looked more like a pod than a proper space-faring vessel came right up to the window he was looking out and stopped only a few metres from the hull. It hung in space, motionless, almost as if it was giving Scott the chance to get a better look at it. Scott couldn’t see any view screens or anything that looked like a bridge, which he knew were not visible on some types of craft. The only distinct markings on the ship were in red, and there were a series of small antenna protruding from around the spherical object that continued to hang outside the viewing port.

  After a few more minutes of inactivity, the pod finally started to move slowly along the side of the station, and out of Scott’s view. Quickly moving to the nearest communications panel, he hit the station-wide broadcast button.

  “Possible scan of the ship underway.” He wasn’t sure that that was actually happening, but he assumed that it was. He hoped that whoever had just arrived in orbit and scared off the Alliance realised that the ISS wasn’t a threat, and didn’t act to remove it from orbit.

  Pushing himself back from the comms unit, Scott drifted until he hit the wall behind him softly. He was lost in thought. Things were changing, and he needed to be ready for whatever happened next. Of course, his options were limited. The crew return vehicle could only hold three people, which meant someone would be left behind, and he very much doubted that the pod would reach the surface of Earth if the aliens had hostile intentions they’d just blow it out of the sky. He just had to wait and see what happened next. And Scott hated waiting.

  Scott toggled the intercom. “Anything?” He asked.

  There was a pause before he got a reply. “Negative. Alien probe just moved past window five.”

  Scott rubbed his chin. If they hadn’t been blown to bits yet, perhaps they were in luck. Looking back out the window to his front, Scott could see that the probe was making a return run to the larger ship that it had originated from. Moving closer to the window, Scott watched the small probe disappear from view, only to be replaced by a larger vessel that left the ship and started moving towards the station.

  Looking at the craft, Scott could see that there was a clear bubble on the front of the vessel, but the area behind the front of the ship was darkened, and from what Scott could tell, the ship was heading straight towards the ISS’s main airlock.

  Scott hit the comm system. “Crew, we might have a visitor.” Scott looked back out the window as the ship went out of view, then started to move towards the airlock, Esperanza right behind him.

  Scott reached the main airlock quickly and looked out the small porthole and saw that the alien ship was coming straight towards the station. When the pod was just five metres away, a collar-like extension extended from the area just behind the bubble-shaped front and moved towards the airlock and came into contact with the ISS.

  Scott put his ear to the hatch and touched it with his left hand. The hatch was constantly cool to the touch, but Scott could feel it start to warm-up. The umbilical t
hat had moved forward from the pod had lit the hatch area in a bright blue light, and he was fairly confident that the space was being pressurised.

  After two minutes without any movement, the bubble hatch on the pod opened forward revealing a small cockpit with two seats, and a single humanoid looking being dressed in an all-black, topped off with a black helmet that had a single band of red light running vertically down the face of the mask.

  When the pilot stood up, Scott could see that they were carrying a doughnut-shaped object in their right hand and stepped forward out of the pod and moved through the zero-gravity umbilical to the ISS hatch. The creature looked through the porthole at Scott, and after another minute of inaction, knocked on the far side of the hatch four times.

  Scott blinked a few times but finally gave the alien the thumbs up sign, almost more by habit than anything else. Looking down, Scott hit the safety release mechanism and started to unlock the door.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Esperanza asked, floating just a metre behind Scott.

  Scott turned and looked at her. “I think that if that thing really wanted to get in here, it would, I might as well save them the trouble of forcing the door open.”

  Scott started to open the hatch and felt a warm rush of air from inside the umbilical, and once the hatch was fully open, Scott floated back into a position near Esperanza and watched as the black-clad alien slowly floated into the ISS.

  The creature, whatever it was, paused when it reached Scott, and pulled out a small pen-shaped device from a utility belt on its waist, and pointed the object at Scott. A small beep was emitted before the alien put the pen back where it came from.

  “Greetings.” Scott said to the stranger but got no response. He looked at Esperanza and shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps you should try.”

  “Hola.” She said in a quiet voice, but the creature made no notice of them and proceeded away from the airlock into the station.

  Scott quickly moved to the comms unit. “We have a visitor. Please show it all courtesies.”

  Bader watched as the alien started to move into the next section of the ship, pausing every so often to look at a panel or something else. No special interests were paid to the mice that were kept on board.

  “I suppose we should follow him.” Scott said and pushed off the bulkhead and started drifting after the visitor.

  Over the next ten minutes, Scott and the rest of the crew of the ISS watched as the visitor in all black continued to conduct a tour of the station. Every computer terminal was given some interest, but not too much. In fact, Scott felt rather offended that the alien didn’t stop to have a closer look at the station's wares. After the creature had toured the entire facility, it started to move back to the hatch that would lead it back to its craft, followed by Scott and the other members of the team.

  When the alien reached the airlock, it turned around and handed the doughnut-shaped object it was carrying to Esperanza, but she put up her hands, to show that she didn’t want to take the object, but the alien moved closer and put out the device again towards her.

  “Hey.” Scott said, and pushed himself in between the alien and Esperanza, only to succeed in getting the aliens attention, and having the doughnut-like object shoved towards him, which he cautiously took.

  The item was heavy, almost ten kilos, and warm to the touch. Scott spent a moment looking at the object, then back to the alien, who pointed to Scott’s neck.

  “I think he wants you to put it on.” Commented Commander Sullivan, one of the other Americans on the station.

  “Yeah.” Scott said dryly.

  Looking for a clasp, Scott found what he assumed was the section of the device that could open, and slowly pried the object open, which it did with little resistance, just enough to slip around his neck. The object was tight at first, then loosened up.

  Scott looked over to Sullivan. “How’s it look?” He asked with a forced smile.

  “Great. Suits you.” The commander replied. “Scott.” Sullivan pointed towards the alien.

  Scott turned back to the alien. It had already moved out of the station's airlock and was standing inside the umbilical, waving at Scott to follow it.

  “Scott.” Esperanza said with a worried look on her face.

  Scott let out a laugh. “I don’t think this is a request.”

  Touching the wall, Scott pushed himself towards the open airlock.

  “Sully, she’s all yours.”

  Once Scott passed through the open hatch, the alien pulled it closed.

  Within a fraction of a second of the hatch closing shut, a forcefield was emitted from the collar around Scott’s neck and did two things, provided him with a heads-up-display in Universal, which he’d seen before but could read, and it started pumping in fresh, breathable oxygen for humans which was a necessity.

  The alien moved over to its pod and sat down in one of the seats. Scott looked back at the closed hatch and could see that his crewmates were craning to see him through the small porthole. Turning to look at the alien, Scott looked at the empty seat and started walking towards it.

  As soon as Scott sat down, the front of the pod closed quickly, and then the umbilical began to retract away from the ISS, and ten seconds later, the small craft was pulling back from the station and turning towards the ship that it originated from.

  Rubbing his back on the chair, Scott took a second to look around the small cockpit he was sitting in. Behind the seat he was in there was nothing besides dark coloured panelling. Overhead were several nobs and switches. All back-lit in blue. The front of the pod had a holographic image on the canopy itself, showing various pieces of information on the ships that were visible, any space debris, including satellites in orbit of Earth. Basically, everything in view had distance, information of vectors, speed, and lots of other data, all of which was written in Universal, and illegible to Scott. Looking to his right, Scott noticed that the pilot was flying the craft using a holographic flight control that was floating below its right hand. It seemed like a marvellous piece of technology.

  The flight allowed Scott time to have a better look at the pilot. Scott was fairly sure that the visitor to the ISS had been an organic lifeform, and not a robot, and one of the male sex. Scott had watched enough science fiction films in his time to expect a variety of body types and shapes and instead got nothing more than bipedal creatures that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Earth. Perhaps his expectations were a little high, but he was left with the reality that of all the colonised planets in the galaxy, the dominant species resembled humanoids in one way or another.

  Looking back towards the front of the pod, Scott marvelled at the spacecraft they were flying towards. Scott had been one of the very first humans to ever see an alien spacecraft, but he had never been able to get off the ISS to go down to Paraguay or Lasqueti to actually see the Epsilon in person. Even if he had missed out on the chance to see the Epsilon or one of the Alliance ships up close, he knew that the ship he was approaching was massive compared to the ship that had buzzed the ISS months ago.

  From what Scott could see, the ship he was approaching was almost burgundy in colour and had a massive hangar-bay tucked into the underbelly of the ship, which the pod he was in made a straight-line flight towards.

  Scott rolled his neck around for a moment, and then remembered that he was wearing a none too subtle collar. He looked down at the device wrapped around his neck and tried to see if any features stuck out to him, but there were no switches or buttons. Scott didn’t know, and couldn’t see where his oxygen supply was coming from, and he wasn’t sure where the projector for the heads-up display was either. He hated being baffled, yet the collar he had put on was doing an excellent job of surprising him.

  The ship they were approaching appeared to be twice the length of the Epsilon, so Scott estimated that it was at least four hundred metres in length, a had a much more elaborate design than the flat and squat Epsilon. The ship also looked like it had
several emplacements that looked like turrets. There also appeared to be a tower on the top and bottom of the ship in the centre that reminded Scott of a submarine conning tower, but in this case, on both sides of the vessel.

  In front of the underside conning tower was the hangar where Scott could see a few ships entering and departing. The pod flew underneath the ship, then pulled up into the well-lit belly hangar, passing through a thin beam of energy that ran across the breach, which Scott reckoned was in place to keep the cold vacuum of space outside, and breathable air inside.

  Once the pod came level with the hangar floor, Scott got a view of the massive hangar which stretched almost all way to the rear of the ship, where Scott could see ships departing and arriving. Looking up he could tell that there was an identical entry port on the top side of the ship as well. It was an impressive display of engineering, perhaps it didn’t help the structural integrity of the ship, but it made shuttle traffic easy.

  Looking down to the deck that the pod was passing over, Scott could see numerous creatures moving about, most of them not too dissimilar from the aliens he had seen from the Epsilon. Most were wearing very basic looking uniforms, and very few of them looked like they were wearing the same kind of suits as his pilot had on.

  When the pod finally started to descend to the hangar’s deck, the bubble hatch on the front began to open slowly, and Scott could feel what he assumed were landing gear drop out from below the underside of the pod. The pod finally came to a halt, and all the holographic imagery quickly disappeared from view, and Scott watched the pilot flip a few switches and nobs, completing what he suspected were post-flight checks. When the alien stopped moving, it looked at Scott, then took one long stride out of the pod from its seat, beckoning Scott to follow.

  Scott pushed himself out of his chair and was able to step down from the pod with a single stride. The hair on the back of his hands tingled as he left the pod, and he felt a sudden gust of heat hit his body. Looking around, he could see various ships lined up down a smartly kept row that the pod had just landed in, and could tell many of them had their engines on, perhaps causing the temperature in the hangar to be so warm which must have been almost two hundred metres long, and thirty metres high at points.