Salvage Merc One: The Daedalus System

by Jake Bible

  We needed to find a way to defend ourselves. Weapons, insecticide, a flamethrower, whatever. If the ants were coming in then we planned on making them regret it.

  “I’ve got nothing,” I said, throwing my hands up in defeat. “Not even a frying pan to smash them with. These people were not prepared for their trip.”

  “It’s a rental,” Mgurn said. He was holding a printed manifest. “They had meals prepackaged and catered. An extra charge, of course. They were only going to be gone for two days. A weekend it looks like.”

  “Great. We get stuck in the ship that is not even close to prepared for interstellar travel,” I grumbled. “These privileged asshats deserved to die.”

  “Joe, that is not a very nice thing to say,” Mgurn chastised. “Maybe they had limited time and funds. Maybe this was the one trip a year they could take. There are hard-working families that scrimp and save for half their lives just to go for a weekend trip like this.” He swallowed hard and looked around. “Well, not exactly like this, but you know what I mean.”

  “No, that’s terpigcrud!” I shouted. The groaning got louder. “Oh, fo you!”

  I could feel the change coming on. There were sharp sensations of not quite pain in my hands and feet. The top and sides of my head were on fire. I began to pace, grunting and snorting, my neck bent and my head swaying back and forth.

  “Uh, Joe, perhaps you should sit down and relax,” Mgurn suggested.

  “You sit down and relax!” I roared at him.

  He staggered back at the force and violence of my voice. If you could call it my voice. I did not sound like me. I sounded like a monster, a creature from some horror vid that stalked half-naked coeds on summer camp planets.

  “Joe,” Mgurn said quietly. “Do not lose yourself. Do not give in to the animal.”

  “Give in? Give in!” I yelled. “I never give in! I’m the Minotaur!”

  The ship groaned more, and I roared at it. It was a deep from the belly roar that echoed up through my chest, amplifying until it was so loud that Mgurn had to clamp his hands over his head. I watched him writhe in pain, and I smiled. It felt good to roar. It felt good to do damage with only my lungs.

  “Leforians,” I snarled. “So weak. So empty. You are followers. Nothing but sycophants hiding as assistants. How did your race survive all these eons? How did they not get wiped out by every invading force that found your pathetic planet?”

  Hoo golly, it was such a rush to just give into the rage that had been locked away. Such a rush.

  For one small moment, I considered crushing Mgurn’s skull. Or perhaps squeezing his carapace until his insides squirted up from his neck. I considered it, but the small voice in me that hadn’t been completely buried by the Minotaur objected just loud enough that I decided against it. Too messy.

  More groaning from the ship’s hull, and I whipped my head around to face the airlock.

  “You want to come in and say hello?” I growled. “Then come in and say hello!”

  I slammed my fists against the airlock door. They were no longer fists. I barely gave them a second look.

  I slammed my hooves against the airlock door. It crumpled, but did not break. I slammed again and again then threw my whole body into it. The airlock door popped free from its moorings and was sent sailing out into the night.

  A gazillion ants crawled across my body, and I welcomed them. I stood and welcomed them as my enemies. I welcomed their infinite numbers, for I was infinite in rage. We would see which would win.

  I was betting on rage.

  Thirteen

  The transformation did something to me. I guess that’s why they call it a transformation. I was transformed. But you get that.

  The hooves, the horns, the long, bullish snout, the huge teeth, the thick, hairy hide, and the nose ring (seriously?), that was all physical. I could have paid a crud ton of chits to an alloy surgeon and been transformed the same way. Even my battle legs had become flesh and bone, which made no sense at all, but it was what it was.

  No, the big transformation was my mind. I’d been dealing with the anger, the rage, the irritation at Mgurn, the annoyance with every single damn thing that was set before me. Life, and all its inhabitants, were gnats. Infuriatingly small and constantly buzzing around my brain. They got in my eyes, my nose, my ears, my mouth. They never stopped, an unceasing assault on my soul.

  All I wanted was peace, and the gnats wouldn’t let that happen.

  I wanted to hide away somewhere, a place of calm and stillness. The anger in me was set to boil, a rumbling, never ending conflict within. It was exhausting. I felt that. My brain—my Minotaur’s brain—just wanted it to all go away.

  That was the key: for it all to go away.

  As the transformation took me, I had an epiphany. It was short-lived since a bull’s attention span is not exactly on the scale of a marathon, more like a very short sprint. My epiphany was that all of my bull anger centered on the fact that I couldn’t find peace. I couldn’t get away from the irritations and mental gnats. I couldn’t flee my own mind, but was forced to rethink every single thought, over and over and over. Probably because of the short attention span, so each thought was new again in like thirty seconds.

  It all came down to the fact that bull Joe, the Mighty Minotaur, needed alone time, and no one would let him have it. No one would let me have it. I couldn’t hide even though my soul sang out for sanctuary from life and everything that went with it.

  How was this a transformation? How was this different than person Joe? From Salvage Merc One Joe? Because I had all that as Salvage Merc One. I had isolation and peace. No one remembered who I was. Only Mgurn and the Bosses knew me. As far as the rest of the galaxy was concerned, I didn’t exist. I was a non-person.

  Joe Laribeau was dead, and Salvage Merc One was a legend told over beers and dismissive laughter.

  The Minotaur wanted what I already had, and it would not be stopped. It dug into my psyche and nested itself right there, taking root and establishing its territory. Not that Minotaurs have roots or anything; they don’t. It was a metaphor. A bad one. There’s a reason bulls aren’t storytellers.

  Joe and the Minotaur. The Minotaur and Joe. It was an epic battle for supremacy, and that battle took place all along my synaptic highways and byways. Peace and solitude versus friendship and camaraderie. But did it have to be a versus thing?

  My brain didn’t have time to sort all that out. The entire realization that my mind was transforming happened in a microsecond. It was a blip that had to be shoved away because whether or not I wanted what the Minotaur mind wanted was irrelevant.

  There were foing ants to deal with.

  A quadtrillion zillion ants covered me. Quadtrillion is a thing, right? It better be because that’s how many ants I was dealing with.

  Pros and cons of having a Minotaur’s body: Pros being super strength, stamina, and very thick skin. Cons being it was hard to think past the rage, and I had no fingers, so plucking ants off my hide was not an option.

  I threw myself at the closest piece of wreckage. I killed ten thousand ants just by rubbing my skin up against the pock-marked hull of some long-forgotten cruiser. It looked like its heyday was the early years of the War. There was a story there, but Minotaur brain didn’t care. Minotaur brain just wanted some ants to die.

  Their tiny bodies were pulped as I rolled along the wreckage, making sure some part of my skin had contact with the broken hull at all times. I wriggled about, crushing as many as possible. Thousands of ant corpses fell from me, only to be replaced by thousands more.

  I killed, and they fought. They fought to get up my nose, to get in my eyes, to get in my ears, in my mouth and down my throat. Many made it.

  I swatted at my ears, two perky hunks of hide that stood up from just outside my horns, their tips slightly floppy, but never folding completely over. I could hear the ants crawling and biting. I felt them too, but damn if that Minotaur hide ain’t some tough stuff. The biting hurt, sure,
but not as much as it could have if I was thin-skinned Joe.

  Up my nose they went, a row of ants marching in lockstep to assault my sinuses. I sneezed constantly. Huge globs of bull snot went flying everywhere. My Minotaur’s body seemed to have an endless supply of bovine mucous. A thousand ants would enter, a thousand ants would be expelled forcefully. They took a ride on the snot express whether they wanted to or not.

  They ones that really bugged me (ha!) were the ones that went for my eyes. That’s just not cool. I don’t care what species or race or whatever you are, don’t go for someone’s eyes. Personally, I’d say that’s worse than going for the genitals. Eyes are off limits. Or that was my rage thought as I stopped swatting at my ears and ground my hooves into my eye sockets, desperate for relief.

  The foing things were under my lids. I could see and feel them as they tried to bite my eyeballs. I was blinking like a moron. I’m sure if someone was looking at me they’d think I was having a fit or something. Which I sort of was. A fit of rage!

  Okay, sorry, that was awful. I apologize.

  I pressed my hooves into my eyes and squished the ants that had broken the lid barrier. I ground them in then blinked some more and sent their carcasses tumbling down my cheeks. More and more ants crawled up my body to get at my face, but I scraped at them, keeping them from my precious, precious eyes.

  For some stupid reason, I glanced back at my butt to see if I had a tail. It was instinctive. The bull part wanted to use the tail to swat. The Joe part just wanted to know if one was there because how cool would that be? A tail!

  No tail. Both parts were bummed.

  But I did see something else that surprised me.

  The Minotaur didn’t see the relevance, but Salvage Merc One did. Minotaurs are incredible warriors, fighters extraordinaire. But it’s all fists, I mean hooves, and feet, nope, all hooves. It’s hooves kicking and smashing and punching. Horns goring. It’s all crushing and stomping and mutilating. No thought of finesse.

  Salvage Merc One was still inside me, because I was Salvage Merc One, also I was Joe, and the Minotaur, but we’re talking about Salvage Merc One, so this is what that part did.

  Phew. Bull brains are exhausting when you are trying to put together a coherent thought.

  Salvage Merc One saw an ion grenade clipped to my belt. The belt was about all that was left of my environmental suit and uniform. Turning into a Minotaur is hard on clothing. Even though an environmental suit is designed to handle some serious wear and tear, it couldn’t stand up to my body almost doubling its muscle mass. What? Okay, turning into the Minotaur may have tripled my muscle mass. But not because Joe body was scrawny or anything. Minotaurs are big things.

  So, there was the ion grenade, just hanging there, looking lonely and forgotten. The Salvage Merc One part knew exactly what needed to be done. That grenade would decimate the ants. It would turn their bodies into microscopic bits of dust. If there was any sand left in the ground, and it wasn’t all ant bodies, then that sand would fuse into glass, cutting off the ants’ avenues of attack.

  Of course, I only had hooves and didn’t have hands and fingers to pluck the grenade from my belt, activate it, and throw it. I may have been able to throw it if I gripped it between two hooves, but that didn’t solve the getting it from my belt and turning it on dilemma.

  “Think!” I yelled at myself. It came out as more of a grunting moo than words, but I knew what I was trying to say.

  A few hundred ants streamed into my open mouth, and I spat and spat until I only had a few dozen left. Not sure why, but the Minotaur decided to swallow them down. Big muscled monster needed the protein, I guess.

  Think, I thought. Use your mind and figure out how to get the grenade and blow some ants to Hell.

  The battle with the ants continued as my mind struggled for a solution, I rolled against the ship, I ground my hooves into my eyes, swatted at my ears, spat from my mouth. I felt quite a few down in my nether regions, and I rubbed my legs together to keep them from chomping my bull parts below.

  Which I’m not going to describe. That would be crass and obscene. Bull parts below are not part of this narrative. But, you know…hung like a and all that.

  Sorry.

  What is part of the narrative is that I figured out how to get the grenade. It wasn’t going to be fun, it wasn’t going to be easy, and it meant swallowing a whole bunch of ants.

  As I rubbed against the broken ship’s hull, I angled my body so the belt would snag on a twisted bit of metal. I had to be careful not to impale myself since that twisted bit was about a foot long and sharp as all fo. But with a little work, and some careful choreography on my part, the belt began to slide around my waist so the grenade was situated in front and no longer above my well-toned bull butt.

  Not going to describe my bull butt, either. It was a magnificent thing to behold, though. Some serious gluteus to the maximus. Another time perhaps.

  With ants all over me, their never-ceasing attacks to my person getting seriously annoying, I managed to wriggle my belt up high enough that I could bend over and detach the grenade from its clip using my bull teeth.

  It immediately fell into the ant sand and was instantly swallowed up. Lost from sight. Bye bye ion grenade.

  Son of a gump!

  I dove at it, ignoring the searing pain of being covered entirely in ants. Even my bull hide couldn’t protect me from those numbers. The ants had volume on their side, and they were using it.

  My hooves swept left then right, back and forth until one clanked against the carbon alloy of the grenade. I didn’t have time to grip it and pull it to the surface. I had to take care of business right then and there.

  I positioned the grenade close to my mouth, opened wide, and chomped on the grenade’s detonation pin. I yanked back fast, and the pin came free, starting the countdown. I had maybe five seconds to get clear of the blast, or I was going to be as dead as the ants were about to become.

  I left the grenade where it was, buried a meter under the surface, and clawed (hoofed?) my way up. I was swallowing ants by the liter as I shoved up onto my feet and put my Minotaur leg muscles to good use. Sprinting to the small ship where Mgurn still hid, I tried counting off the seconds. My bull brain kept getting distracted, and I had counted to one five times when the ion grenade went off.

  Luckily, there was a metric ton of ants covering it when it detonated.

  The blast was still strong enough to send me flying through the broken airlock of the small ship where I proceeded to slam into the far wall with enough force to create a Minotaur-shaped dent. Pain exploded from my head, and I roared with the full force my bull lungs were capable of.

  Blood streamed down my face, and I was only faintly aware that I was missing a horn when I saw the chain reaction the ion grenade had caused. Much of the ground outside the small ship was glassy and black, a quadtrillion dead ant bodies fused into one hunk of yuck. But beyond that was something remarkable.

  It was an ant retreat.

  The entire area was clearing out. Whether it was some hive mind warning, or the ion grenade produced a pulse that the ants couldn’t handle, either way, it had the same result. Every ant in the area was fleeing. The ground was a flowing carpet of alien insects. For as far as my bull eyes could see, there were ants running on their tiny, tiny legs, all headed away from where I lay. Away from the small ship. Away from the spaceship graveyard.

  It was awesome.

  Then it stopped being awesome.

  “Joe!” Mgurn shouted as he sat at the flight controls. His eyes were wide with fear. “What did you do?”

  I wanted to answer him. I wanted to snap back with a sarcastic retort, as is my way. But the Minotaur only snarled and grunted. I did manage to raise a hoof and try to flip him off, but it didn’t translate.

  “Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my,” Mgurn muttered as he swiveled back around to the flight controls. “I have been working on getting this ship operational, and you go and do that. Why, Joe? Why!”<
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  His words had meaning, I know, but bull brain didn’t care. Bull brain saw the enemy was defeated and retreating. Bull brain saw triumph and glory. Bull brain saw…

  Uh-oh.

  With the live ants fleeing the area, there was nothing to hold up the dead ant carcasses that passed for sand on the stupid planet. The structural integrity of everything started to crumble before my bull eyes.

  Ship debris began to sink immediately. Hunks of old freighters, the frames of cruisers, tail sections, wings, separated cockpits, all of it was disappearing faster than I could comprehend. And we were next.

  “Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my,” Mgurn muttered over and over. I had to fight the urge to slam a hoof into the back of his skull. Bull brain did not like the muttering.

  I got to my feet and looked around the small ship. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I felt that if I saw it, I would know what to do. I didn’t see it. It was just the stupid insides of a small ship that some stupid family had taken on a stupid joyride one day and never came back from because they were stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!

  “Joe!” Mgurn yelled. “Strap in! I have the engines running, and I can lift off from here, but it will not be pleasant!”

  Strap in? The insignificant Leforian wanted me, Mighty Minotaur Joe, to strap in like a common weakling? It was not going to happen! I was strong! I was powerful! I was not some tiny human that whimpered and cried whenever the ground shifted!

  I was also falling on my bull butt then rolling towards the open airlock as Mgurn lifted off. Mighty Minotaur Joe was an idiot.

  No hands. That was a problem again. Hard to grab onto things when you have hooves instead of fingers and palms. Especially when you are rolling right at an open airlock, and the ship you were in was already twenty meters off the ground.

  I scrambled to wedge myself against something, but I had already rolled past everything big enough to keep me from falling out. My body twisted as I hit the airlock, and I jammed my legs against one side and my back against the other. For a brief instant, I was safe. I was pushing hard enough that I could hear the airlock frame groan from the pressure of my incredible strength.