by S D Tanner
Judge nodded. “I get what you’re saying. We need a base.” Looking around the Bridge, he added, “And the Extrema is too vulnerable. We can’t defend her.”
Grinning at Judge, he was relieved he understood the problem. “Exactly.”
“How do you see this playing out?”
They didn’t have enough intel for a step-by-step plan, not that any amount of information would have helped. Battles were about adapting to an evolving situation and exploiting everything. The war would only be theirs by winning more fights than they lost. He wasn’t a General, or even remembered much about his training to be an officer, but wherever he led his army now would decide whether he was a good leader or a bad one.
“I don’t want those arks in the desert taking off.”
Judge had pulled a notebook from his pocket and was scribbling in it. “Ok.”
“We need to hit multiple cities concurrently.”
“Uh huh.”
“The civvies are another army. I need them organized to disrupt enemy locations.”
“Yup.”
“I want control of a fleet of beacons.”
“Sure, why not.”
Narrowing his eyes at Judge, he asked sharply, “Are you drawing pictures in that little book of yours?”
Judge’s mouth twisted downward and he shook his head. “Don’t be a jackass.”
“You’re not adding value.”
“I’m listening, Tag. So far you haven’t said anything I disagree with.” Nodding at him, Judge added, “Keep downloading.”
Feeling encouraged, he leaned even further forward in his chair. “We need to use the enemy’s strength against them.”
“How do we do that?”
“We take control of the arks we can find. We steal their beacons and bomb the floating cities we don’t want.” Leaning back into his chair, he watched while Judge continued writing in his notebook. “And we need to use our strengths.”
“Do we have any?”
He tapped his prosthetic arm. “We have comms.”
Looking up from his notebook, Judge nodded appreciatively. “True and they have some serious reach. Joker set up a signal amplifier so I could talk to Rok and Ash on the ground.”
“I want the Dead Force focused on the main battles. We’ll use the civvies to bring the combat power to the secondary fights.”
“What do you want them to do?”
“They can disrupt the loading of the arks. I want the Dead Force focused on taking five floating cities.”
Judge nodded. “We should pick the cities based on what they supply to the enemy.”
“That’s true. Jack said one of them was used to build the beacons.”
“I’ll find out from Jack which one that is and add it to the list.”
Flicking his forefinger at Judge’s notebook, he said, “Write that down.”
Up until now Joker had been monitoring the teleportation screen, but now he spun his chair to face them. “Use the arks like bombs.”
“Against what?” Judge asked.
He grinned at Joker. “The floating cities we don’t want.”
Judge made a note in his book and then looked up at him. “Should we waste the arks that way?”
“If I had the Mother of All Bombs then I wouldn’t, but we’re short on them.”
Snorting, Judge studied his notes. “What about Merc?”
“Roll his army into the civvie one, but put Dead Force commanders over the top of it. Have Merc share his weapons with the civvies.”
“I don’t think the civvies will take orders from the Dead Force.”
“Then we’ll use Brook to run comms between the civvies and our guys.”
“Do you think she will?”
Brook liked him in the same way Lolo was into Judge. By borrowing her reputation, he was leaning on a relationship he’d done nothing to earn, but he was confident Brook would follow his lead. “Yeah, she’ll side with the stronger army and that’s us.”
There was one more thing he wanted to do, but he wasn’t sure how Judge would take it. When he didn’t speak, Judge looked up from his notes. “Spit it out, Tag.”
Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he eyed Judge warily. “We need psyops.”
Judge tilted his head at him, narrowing his eyes skeptically. “I’m all for breaking down enemy leadership, but I don’t see how we can.” He waited for the penny to drop and when it did, Judge pointedly closed his notebook. “No way, Tag. You can’t use Lolo that way. Firstly, I don’t know how to talk to her. Secondly, you’ll get her killed.” He shook his head firmly. “No way, no how, are you doing that.”
Clearing his throat, Joker pursed his lips. “You can talk to Lolo through Jessica.”
Judge’s jaw dropped open in shock. “Are you with Tag on this?”
“Whether you like it or not, she’s an asset, or at least she should be.”
With his mouth twisted downward, Judge shook his head. “Being a hybrid doesn’t make her any more disposable than anyone else.”
“No one said she is,” he replied curtly. “But if I have to call it then Jessica wins.”
“I know where you stand,” Judge replied, sounding bitter.
Joker leaned toward Judge. “Tag’s right. Without Jessica, we wouldn’t even be aware. She’s done more for this mission than Lolo ever could. If I have to call it then Jessica wins.”
Rising to his feet, Judge replied sharply, “I don’t agree, but we are where we are.”
“Where are you going?” He asked.
Bending forward at the waist and jutting out his chin, Judge’s face was the picture of restrained anger. “To brief the troops…sir.”
Walking across the Bridge with his head bent and legs striding purposefully, Judge disappeared through the main doors. Once Judge was gone, he swiveled his chair until it was facing Joker. “What do you think?”
“He’ll follow orders.”
“I need more than that.”
Joker leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “What do you expect? The man still uses a notebook and a pen.”
Although he’d recognized both, he hadn’t seen either on the Extrema. “Where did he get them?”
“He told me Rok lifted it from some doctor in the city.”
He remembered the dirty hospital bed and large boxes in the old medic’s office. It didn’t surprise him the doctor had something so out of time, or that Rok had stolen it. On reflection, he shouldn’t have been surprised by Judge’s loyalty either. It was something he’d come to rely on, yet this was the first time he ever remembered having to share it. More than anything, he wished Judge hadn’t fallen for Lolo, but if he hadn’t then she wouldn’t have helped them find the Dead Force. Judge was right, there was no way they could get onto the same page when it came to Lolo, and even if he accepted they were together, their relationship was only something he would exploit.
“I gotta talk to Flak and Hawk about stealing some beacons.”
Joker nodded. “You need to talk to me too.”
“About what?”
“Alien tech.”
CHAPTER FIVE: Mech Tech
“What is it?”
Joker had been busy, and pieces of technology he didn’t recognize were laid out on the floor in the engine room. The domes were outside the gravitational field created by the hoops around the ship, making it impossible to analyze the strange pieces of equipment. Joker had worked with the Defensors on the Extrema to move samples of the gear into one of the few places with space, which happened to be the engine room. Like the ark in the desert, a floor to ceiling cylinder dominated the center of the room. Inside were gossamer threads that sparkled with endless energy. If he broke the container then the threads would escape, which would leave the Extrema without power.
Lifting an oversized harness, Joker slid it onto his shoulders. Once worn, it became obvious it was a gun, but not like any
he’d ever seen before. The frame hung low on Joker’s hips suggesting it was designed for a larger body. An elaborate relief had been embossed onto the straps and chest plate, but he couldn’t tell if it was needed for the device to work or merely decorative. Joker slid his arms into hollow metal tubes on each side, then moved them until both pointed at his chest.
“Steady on. How do you know that isn’t armed?”
Pointing the tubes at the wall, the heavy harness barely moved when Joker shrugged. “I don’t.”
“Is it a weapon?”
Joker pulled his arm out from the tube. “Feel inside.”
Pulling off his glove, he put one arm around Joker’s shoulders and slid the other inside the tube. At the end of the cuff were hooks he could wrap his fingers around. Shaped like half hoops, his fingers seemed small compared to the flat surface inside each one. When he gently squeezed, the hooks moved much like the trigger on a gun and, if the weapon was loaded, then he might accidentally blow a hole in the wall of the engine room.
“I see what you mean.”
As he gently pulled his arm out of the tube, Joker nodded. “I can’t test anything while I’m on the ark because I don’t know what it’ll do.”
“How many of these did you find?”
“Sixty or so, but there could be more. It’s not easy taking inventory inside the domes. There’s no gravity and we’ve no idea what we’re looking at.”
“What else did you find?”
Joker pointed at a KLAW lying on the floor. “At least twenty KLAWs with two hundred thousand rounds, plus a hundred standard EMC-8s with fifty thousand rounds.”
It was barely enough to keep his squad supplied, much less an army of twenty thousand. “The enemy must be making them somewhere. We need to find the floating city manufacturing them.”
Hunkering next to a collection of ribbed metal tentacles, Joker lifted one so that it hooked over his hand. “Found a lot of these too.”
Unable to make sense of the puddle of metal, he raised his eyebrows. “What are they?”
“I’m not sure, but look at this.”
Lifting something out of the pile of gray metal, eight tentacles dropped to the floor like legs. The main body was egg-shaped, but he could see how the legs might move to support it. “Is it a robot?”
“If it is, then I don’t know how it powers up or what it does.”
“Is it armed?”
Letting the egg-shaped body drop to the floor, it became lost in the puddle of metal legs. Joker rolled his eyes at him. “How would I know if I can’t power it up?”
Walking along the row of metal objects reminded of a flea market full of broken pieces of something that had once been whole. Although the harness with hollow arms made him think of a gun, for all he knew it was used to fly. The tentacled metal robot might be able to run on the eight legs, but who knew what it was meant to do. Lifting another scaly piece of metal, it turned out to be another tentacle, only three times as thick as the ones on the robot. Unwinding it from the floor, he held the tubular limb high in the air.
“What’s this?”
“We think it’s an attachment.”
“For what?”
Taking the metal limb from him, Joker bent it at different angles, showing it was both flexible and tough. “I’m guessing it could be attached to maybe a shuttle or even a beacon.”
“To do what?”
“I dunno. Grab shit? Smack aliens around the head?”
“Why would it be on the ark?”
Joker dropped the limb onto the floor, making the others shift and clatter. “Wrong question.” When he said nothing, Joker asked, “Why don’t we know how to use this stuff? We’re the ark’s Defensors, right, so who else on board would have used this gear?”
“Maybe we do know, but it’s locked up inside our heads.”
Leaning down, he picked up a shiny metal ball. It was about the size of a baseball, but weighed a hundred times more than one. Holding it in his hand, he jiggled it inside his palm.
“Woah!” Joker exclaimed, and he grabbed the ball from his bare hand. “Don’t do that without armored gloves.”
He was about to ask why when the answer became obvious. A sharp pointed spike sprung from the center of the ball, at least three inches long and one inch in diameter. “What the hell is that?”
Joker shook his head, eyeing the spike with interest. “I don’t know, but it made a hell of a hole in one of our guys.”
No one had told him a Defensor had been wounded, and he looked at Joker in surprise. “Is he ok?”
“We’re dead, Tag. If that’s ok then he’s ok.”
Frustrated, he slowly scanned the rest of what he now thought of as junk spread across the floor. “Why doesn’t any of this gear work?”
“That’s a very good question and one I’ve asked Jessica.”
“What did she say?”
“She wasn’t clear, you know how she gets when we push too hard, but I got the impression it’s not as simple as not having power.” When he said nothing, Joker used the spike on the metal ball in his hand to point at the cylinder in the middle of the room. “I think we might be looking at the answer.”
Following Joker’s gaze, he flicked his chin toward the cylinder. “Cogless says that’s a lifeform. We freed one on another ark and it wiped out the Defensors.”
“Yeah, I know, I saw the footage. In fact, I’ve seen all the clips, and the aliens don’t used tech the way we do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at us. We’re part machine, part man. In other words, we’re biomechs.” Using the metal ball to point at the brilliantly lit cylinder again, Joker added, “Even the ark is part machine, part lifeform.” He tossed the metal ball onto the floor with the others. “I don’t think any of this stuff works without its bio master.”
“Does that mean we should be able to use this gear?”
“Only if we’re its master, but if we are then we don’t know it.”
It was another gridlock, just like everything else he was dealing with. The clone couldn’t talk, Jessica couldn’t be freed, and he had an army with no weapons. Nothing was as it seemed and no problem had an easy solution. Eyeing the cylinder, he couldn’t help admiring the brilliant sparks of light endlessly flashing across the fine tendrils. Cogless had described it as a lifeform and he’d witnessed its intelligence. Although he needed the lifeform to power the ship, there was something disgusting about keeping it captive. Like Jessica, the lifeform was pinned inside a cylinder, forced to serve against its will.
Pulling an armored glove from his belt, he slid his hand inside, clipping it shut so that it merged with his suit. He walked across the room until he was standing in front of the cylinder and placed his hand on the smooth surface.
“I need your help, but I won’t hold you prisoner.”
“Umm, do you think that’s a good idea, Tag?”
He didn’t know and nor did he care. Drawing back his arm, he slammed his fist into the cylinder, hearing a loud crack. It wasn’t enough to shatter the tube, so he punched it again. This time he felt something shift under his fist. In slow motion, cracks ran from where he’d hit the cylinder, splintering and creaking until they reached around the circular structure. The sparking light trapped inside the column oozed and weaved toward the cracks. One tiny and brilliantly white thread poked through a fine line on the cylinder, wriggling and weaving until the transparent surface shattered. More joined the first and teardrops of glass dripped to the floor.
A tendril, no thicker than a strand of hair, curled around his face, trailed over his ear and teased his lips. Joined by more delicate strands, the web thickened and began wrapping around his body.
“Tag?”
“It’s checking me out.”
“You better hope it likes you or the ship will drop like a stone.”
“I’m a likeable guy.”
“No, you’re really not, Tag.”
He felt his mouth curl upward as the sparkling strands wove around his head and body. They gave him an energy he could feel even through his armor. There was something peaceful in the light, as if it were heaven sent. Glass was shattering on the floor as more of the column collapsed and the lifeform escaped from its prison.
Joker’s voice sounded resigned, as if he’d just done the one thing that would destroy them. “Fuck me, Tag. What did you do that for?”
The tendrils pulled away from his body, still spinning an ever-thickening web, until everything in the room turned from gray to white and hummed with energy. It spread across the floor and covered Joker’s toys, drifting up the walls and across the ceiling. When the tendrils found the vents at the top of the wall, they pushed through the slats, but not all of them left. While part of the lifeform explored the ship other parts remained, feeding it with the energy it needed to function.
He nodded at the sparking, white column still standing in the center of the room, only now it wasn’t held in place by a transparent barrier. “Thank you.”
When he turned to leave the room, the spidery web covering the floor in front of him peeled away. He grabbed Joker’s shoulder, directing him toward the exit. “Next time you come to the engine room remember to knock. This room belongs to the lifeform.”
Joker shook his head and walked ahead of him. “That was risky, Tag.”
Although he’d taken a chance on the lifeform, it hadn’t been the first alien he’d freed from their enemy and he didn’t believe it would be the last. Earth was so overrun by the enemy aliens, if he didn’t have allies, then they’d were guaranteed to lose. They might not speak the same language, but the aliens inside the floating city had been on their side. Perhaps he’d taken a risk, but all he could do was choose between two dangerous options. Patting Joker on the back, he glanced over his shoulder at the now glowing room. It was a beautiful sight in more ways than one. A lifeform so filled with energy it could power a ship was an ally he needed to have.
“Let’s get ourselves some air support.”
