Escape 2: Fight the Aliens

by T. Jackson King

  “No bioform ever asked that question,” the ship mind hummed over his helmet comlink.

  “Give me access to the hallway below!” A thought hit him. “And return hallway gravity to half-gee normal.”

  “Providing access. Gravity resuming.”

  Below Bill’s boots the invisible hull metal puckered open, making a hole three feet wide. He pointed his taser tube down as local ship gravity pulled him below at half an Earth gee. He bent his knees and prepared for an impact similar to a chute drop.

  “Thunk!”

  Ahead of him was the wide hallway that led to the Command Bridge. At the point where it curved there stood a two-legged vulture with black wings, a pair of chest-arms, a yellow beak and two red eyes. It had been looking away from him toward the bridge entry. The vibration of his boots hitting the floor made it look back. Those eyes locked onto him just as fast as he had fixed on the vulture. Its chest-arms swung a red laser tube toward him.

  “Got you!” Bill called as he fired his taser at the vacsuited form of the Alien crew-critter.

  The vulture person’s red eyes went wide. The red laser tube fell from its grip. Its entire body began to shake, tremble, jerk and then fell to the floor. He stowed his taser tube in a belt loop of his vacsuit, then pulled his laser tube from his backpack. With the laser aimed ahead, he ran along the hallway, past the Alien he’d tasered, past a green praying mantis Alien who was also having the taser shakes thanks to Stefano, and up to the spot where his team had blown a hole through the hallway ceiling. That hole was now closed as the silvery flexmetal of the hallway roof resumed its smooth appearance. Ahead of him, just five feet away, stood two robots that resembled trash cans on caterpillar treads. The treads of the front two were welded to the metal floor. Behind them stood two more robots. Which now swung their head lasers toward him. He fired his laser at one, killing its laser as he hit the floor and rolled toward the nearest welded robot. Its laser resistant body blocked the second rear robot from firing at him. But its pincer arms now lowered to grab him. Reaching back he grabbed a disruptor block and dome from his backpack, tapped in the code hurriedly, then slammed the block against the barrel body of the robot. Yellow electric arcs flared. The robot’s two pincer arms stopped an inch from his shoulder. He rolled back, grabbed his laser, sat up carefully and aimed.

  “Zirzap!” came the sound of his laser hitting the laser tube on the second rear robot. Black smoke rose from where the laser tube had been. That robot was not welded to the hallway floor, nor was its partner. He fixed that, using his laser to fire between the two nearest robots at the two on the far side. In seconds their treads were stuck to the hallway floor.

  “Bill?” called Stefano.

  “I’m in. As Diligent surely knows from his spyeyes. Bastard just tried to laser me. From the other two robots. He failed.” Bill stepped back from the still active pincer arms of the three active robots blocking access to the Command Bridge door. He reached out and touched the silvery metal of the hallway wall. Beyond that wall lay the circular Command Bridge. “Stefano, are you and Bob and Cassandra in position?”

  “We are. Tasers at the ready,” called his fishing buddy.

  Now came the moment of exact timing. “Soft Glow, create a human-size wall opening in front of me please.”

  “Opening wall before you,” the AI’s melodious voice said.

  Bill stepped to one side as a basketball size hole opened in the silvery flexmetal wall. It gave him a view of the command pedestal in the center of the room. On top the pedestal sat the brown barrel body of Diligent Taskmaster. Who now shot the laser he had aimed at the wall opening.

  “Zirzap!” came as the green beam missed him and hit the hallway wall behind, its impact vaporizing metal. That metal impact made the telltale sound he associated with laser use.

  The opening grew to be four feet tall. “Soft Glow, open the floor beneath the three humans in the room above the bridge!” he yelled as he jumped low into the large room. As he hit the bridge deck floor he rolled toward a control pillar that lay between him and Diligent’s elevated seat. But the pillar did not shelter him from an elevated shooting angle. The black eyes of Diligent fixed on him. The Alien’s red laser tube held steady. He twisted to one side. A green beam shot out.

  “Zirzap!”

  “Ouch!”

  Three red taser beams shot down from the ceiling, hitting the upper shoulders and head of the giant cockroach whose laser had just burned a hole through Bill’s left arm.

  The brown exoskeleton of the critter jerked out of its seat, its four arms flaring wide. The laser tube went flying as it fell to the floor. From above there now dropped the vacsuited shapes of his three buddies.

  Bill dropped his own taser tube and gripped his left arm where Diligent had hit him with a laser shot. Red blood seeped out between his gloved fingers.

  “Bob!” called Stefano. “The boss is bleeding. Tend to him. Cassandra, stand guard.”

  Sitting up slowly as he held out his left arm for attention by ex-Marine and lifelong cynic Bob, Bill watched as Stefano completed the mission.

  “Soft Glow, please lower the command pedestal seat.”

  “Seat is lowering,” called the AI over the suit comlink.

  Stefano sat in the seat, laid his arms on its two armrests and looked down to where Bob was wrapping first aid gauze around Bill’s left arm. The man had already zapped his wound with a painkiller injection. “Soft Glow, I claim control of this ship as the primary bioform in charge among the bioforms in this room. Do you accept me as the interim ship captain?”

  “I accept you as interim ship captain,” the AI hummed low, sounding like a breeze through the trees. “Ship control granted to you.”

  “Good.” His fellow SEAL gave him a wink and a half smile. The man had always been emotionally reserved, except when catching a trout or winning at Scrabble. Now, he seemed truly excited. “Discontinue any offensive actions that might have been ordered by the prior captain.”

  “Launch of two MITV torps at landscape below is halted,” the AI hummed.

  A chill hit Bill as he realized Diligent had aimed to kill a lot more people than those living in Kiev. Which reminded him the giant cockroach was still twitching on the floor below Stefano.

  “Soft Glow,” his SEAL buddy called to the ship AI. “Please send in a hover bot to transport the former captain of this ship to one of the empty containment cells. He will be comfortable there. Oh, where is the Nokten navigation crystal for this ship?”

  “Bringing in hover transport,” the tuneful ship mind hummed low. “The Nokten crystal is embedded in the right armrest of the command pedestal seat.”

  Stefano looked pleased by the AI’s quick response. “Soft Glow, move this ship up alongside the ship which contains Star Traveler,” Stefano said. “And raise up control pillar function posts for Weapons and for Navigation. Cassandra, you’ve got Weapons. Bob, you’re at Navigation, if you feel up to it.”

  “Shit yeah,” growled Bob over the comlink as he moved to sit to the front right of Stefano, the white gauze over his left shoulder showing red from leaking blood. “Got worse wounds than this during pirate ship takeovers off the coast of Somalia.”

  “At my station,” called orange-haired Cassandra from the Weapons control pillar to the front left of the SEAL who had led his team to victory.

  “Ship is rising to join ship Blue Sky,” the soft-voiced AI said. “Captain, what name do you wish to assign to this ship?”

  Stefano gave Bill a nod, then looked up at the ceiling. “I name this ship Seafloat, after the floating firebase SEAL teams created in 1970 off the Ca Mau Penninsula of Vietnam. We did our job right in Vietnam. We’ve done it right up here.”

  Bill licked his lips. He’d never heard Stefano make such a long statement, let alone a speech. But the man was right. He and his team had gone onto the Collector ship captained by the nastiest cockroach in the universe, had battled, had disabled all crew and had finally taser zapped its cockroac
h captain after Bill provided the necessary distraction by diving into the room. Stefano had known what Bill intended even without comlink chatter, which would have been heard by Diligent. They both were trained to place the survival of the team ahead of personal survival. This time everyone survived. Which felt good.

  “Jane,” Bill called over his suit comlink. “Please advise General Poindexter that all six Collector ships are now secured. She can let the president know that the invading enemy is defeated.”

  “I will, Executive Officer of mine.” She sounded relieved. “You oughta get back here ASAP so we can get you into a healer and get that arm wound fixed up.”

  He felt a bit shaky from the blood loss and after action adrenaline rush. Nothing new there. Wounds were normal during any mission. “We’ll be alongside you shortly. When we get there I will come aboard via a boarding tube. I’m sure Star Traveler will make an exception.”

  “That I will do,” hummed the AI who had become almost a friend during his and Jane’s nine months of occupancy aboard the Blue Sky. “Your return is most welcome.”

  A thought occurred to him. “Uh, Soft Glow, how many collector pods returned to this ship with human captives?”

  “Nine pods returned with Human captives. They occupy containment cells,” the AI said.

  Better than twenty containment cells filled with humans. “Are they recovered from their tasering?”

  “Yes, I administered wake-up shots to them in preparation for their departure from this ship,” the AI softly hummed. “All nine humans are awake and most have discovered they are inside a containment cell.”

  That would not do. “Soft Glow, open a comlink from me to every cell occupied by a human. Provide translation to whatever language is spoken by each captive.”

  “Comlink established. Translator ready.”

  “People of Earth, I’m Bill MacCarthy, a former captive of the nasty Aliens who sent white pods down to your home to capture you and others,” he said, standing and walking toward Stefano’s command pedestal. He stopped and leaned against the silvery pillar that supported Stefano’s seat. “Well, your captors are now taser zapped and we control this ship! We are four members of American special operations forces. I’m sending hover bots to guide you along a ship hallway to the Command Bridge of this ship. We . . . we would like to meet you, and learn what place you call home. Come to us!”

  Cheers sounded over the comlink. Stefano looked down.

  “XO, I like this freeing of the captives. But how do we return them to their homes?” his buddy asked.

  Bill grinned. “Oh, I think Builder of Joy of the Tall Trees might be willing to transport these nine folks down to wherever in Eurasia they call home! He’s on his way here.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Stefano said, grinning back.

  “Jane!” Bill called over the ship to ship comlink frequency. “Advise General Poindexter what we are doing here. If she wants to let the world media know about the returning captives, that might give us some nice videos and stories.” He sobered. “It might also give some solace to the widows, widowers and children of the vets who died on the Port Royal, Carl Vinson and Theodore Roosevelt. And provide solace to the families of the Lightning pilots who died and the survivors of the attacks on our space launch bases.”

  “I will contact the general,” Jane said, her tone somber. “And I look forward to seeing the faces of the nine captives when they arrive in your Command Bridge!”

  “They will arrive here within three minutes,” Soft Glow hummed. “I have deactivated the guardian robots outside the entry door of this chamber. The robots have freed each other from where their treads were partly melted to the floor. They are all heading to the Factory Chamber for repairs and reprogramming.”

  Bill felt good at that news. The captives would be able to enter the bridge the normal way, through a door. The wall hole he’d entered through, and the ceiling hole through which his team had dropped, were vanished as the ship’s flexmetal healed itself. Too bad he and Jane had not known Star Traveler could do this wall opening thing when they were first taking over the Blue Sky. Now they knew. And soon he, Stefano, Cassandra, Bob and his pilot Builder would have a chance to meet the people they had fought to liberate. While their official objective was to enter and take over the six Collector ships, every one of the 18 people who’d spent 35 hours with him doing Op Force training had realized entry into a Collector ship would also involve the freeing of human captives. So it had happened here. So it would happen on the other five ships over the next few hours. In the meanwhile, he and Jane and the team leaders who now served as Collector ship captains would await their orders from Poindexter and the president. For America was still at war. And the Alien threat was not ended. Not with an Alien Market world lying just two days journey from Sol system!

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The nine captives who entered the Command Bridge were a mix of ages, genders and nationalities. Four looked to be Chinese. They included an older woman and three men in their thirties. A fifth male captive looked Japanese and wore something like a monk’s robe. The four other captives were Slavic in facial features, and were likely Russian or Ukrainian. Among the Slavic four were two younger women and two men of different ages. Each had a translator disk affixed to the left shoulder. Standing beside Stefano’s command pedestal, he waved at them with his right hand.

  “Welcome,” he said, still inside his vacsuit, as were his team members. “I am Bill MacCarthy from Denver, Colorado, in America. Above me is Stefano Cordova, also from Denver. We are SEALs. Up front are Cassandra Welsh from our Air Force and Bob Milley, a Marine. Both also hail from Denver. Behind me is Builder of Joy, a friendly Alien who is part of my crew.” The nine listened attentively, looking around the circular room, but also acting tentative. The three women clustered together, as if feeling the need for mutual support among so many men. “No one will harm you! Food and water will be provided to you if you wish. Uh . . . Star Traveler, project a big true space holo to one side.” The holo appeared. In it were the curving green forests, purple mountains and blue lakes of Eurasia. The black space included an image of the distant Moon. The captives gasped. “As you can see, we are in space. You were captured by slave-taking Aliens. They planned to sell you to other Aliens at a distant star system. You would have had to do forced labor on mining asteroids in order to eat, have air and a place to sleep. You would never have returned home.” Somber expressions now filled the faces before him. “Soft Glow, raise seats for these folks where they now stand. They can sit and relax.”

  “Raising seats,” the AI said as, to the evident surprise of the captives, silvery metal seats with curving backs rose before each of them. Another wonder of the flexmetal floor. “Would you like a seat for yourself?”

  “Uh, yes.” Bill walked a few paces and sat at a seat newly risen from the bridge deck. He smiled at the now seated captives. “Please share your names with me, and where you come from. We have a small transport ship that will soon take you home, but we need to know where to take you.”

  A middle-aged Chinese man looked at Bob, then at Bill. He spoke. “Mr. MacCarthy, I thank you for my freedom. You and your Bob friend are wounded. I am a doctor. May I offer assistance?”

  He almost said no, recalling that the healer clamshells on Blue Sky could fix any injury. Then he remembered this encounter was being watched by Jane, Richardson, his Alien crewmates, General Poindexter and maybe the rest of the world. He nodded and gestured for the man to approach. “Yes, your medical help is appreciated. I have a first aid kit in my backpack, down by my feet. Uh, what is your name?”

  The man, dressed in a brown tunic and wearing sneakers, walked toward Bill. “My birth name is Li K’ê-jan. My parents named me after a famous Chinese painter. I come from Harbin. May I remove this bandage?” the man said as he knelt beside Bill’s seat.

  “Yes K’ê-jan, of course. Use the kit as you think best. Bob gave me a painkiller shot, so I feel no pain right now,” he said.


  “Good to know,” the man said in birdlike tones of Mandarin that came to Bill’s helmet earphones as English. The doctor pulled the kit out of his backpack, opened it, grabbed scissors and began cutting away Bob’s bandage.

  Bill looked to the eight seated captives. “Your names please, and where you come from? We really do wish to get your home to your family and friends.”

  The older Chinese woman gave a long sigh. “I am known as Huang Biyu. I was gathering wood in the hills outside my home in a village close to Guiyang.” The woman paused, looked around the room, then showed a shy smile. “Commander MacCarthy, I am known as a teacher of flower arrangements. I would gift your home with one of my arrangements. If you wish.”

  Bill understood this was the woman’s way of saying thank you for her rescue. “Madame Biyu, you are as precious as the stone that is your personal name. I thank you. I accept your offer.” He looked at the other captives. “Who else will speak?”

  A Slavic man in his forties who wore a thick black mustache frowned, then nodded quickly. “My name is Anatoly Burakin. I am an electrical engineer. My home is in Irkutsk. Thank you for this rescue.”

  “You are welcome, Anatoly,” Bill said, choosing to ignore how the Chinese doctor was threading black thread through a needle as he prepared to stitch the gaping hole in his upper arm. “Everyone? No need to be so quiet.”

  A younger Slav man whose brown hair was crewcut and who held himself at formal attention, with shoulders braced back, fixed brown eyes on Bill. “Commander MacCarthy, I am Sergei Arkady Alexandrovitch. I am a captain with the 12th Aerospace Defense Brigade at Vladivostok. My Sukhoi PAK FA crashed after I fired on an Alien collector pod. On the ground, another pod hit me with a red light beam that felt electric.” Bill noticed now that the man wore a green jumpsuit similar to that which would be worn under a pressure outfit. “I request a return to Vladivostok.”

  Bill nodded quickly. “Captain Alexandrovitch, the valor of the Russian Aerospace Forces during their fight against the collector pods sent down by the Collector ships is known and appreciated by me and my team. I am glad you survived your encounter. Of course you will be returned to Vladivostok, along with all of your personal belongings.”