by Steve Perry
“I know,” Billie said. She reached up with both hands and caught his face. It was smooth, his beard depilated so close that his skin felt softer than her own. She urged him to her, kissed him. Slipped her tongue into his mouth.
The heat of his passion flared, and he circled his arms around her; she could feel the power of him even though he held her loosely. The kiss grew more intense. Billie felt her heart speed up, her breathing turn ragged.
He slipped one hand under her shirt, cupped her breast.
Oh, yes!
Eagerly she tugged his coverall tabs open, the critch of the cro separating loud in the quiet room. Felt his hairless chest, the thick muscles bunched under her touch. Slid her hand down, and found a different kind of hardness.
He moaned, a soft, wordless sound of desire.
He slid his mouth down her neck, pulled wide the tabs on her shirt and pants, moved farther down, kissing his way over her breasts and belly and beyond.
“Oh, yes!” she said. She could hardly breathe.
After another moment she didn’t worry about breathing anymore.
* * *
Afterward, Billie and Mitch lay in a tangle of arms and legs. She was sweaty and her pulse had slowed some, but she wasn’t tired. Just… fulfilled.
There had been others. Even in a hospital they couldn’t watch you all the time, and Billie had been with a male patient once, and another time an orderly. And there had been a couple of women, too. But nothing like this. It had never felt so good, seemed so right, been so joyous as this linking with Mitch.
Mitch said, “I’ve never done this before.”
She smiled. “Really? Could have fooled me. You were terrific.”
“Was I?”
“Well, not that I have all that many guys to compare you to myself, but, yeah, you were.”
He laughed softly. “Good. I wanted to be, for you. I—well, I love you, Billie.”
Billie drank it in, the feeling, the touching, what he said. Yes. She’d been waiting her whole life for this, had never expected it to happen, never really believed such a thing was possible for somebody like her. But here it was.
“I’m glad. I love you, too, Mitch.”
He shifted slightly and she felt his renewed interest poking at her. “My, my. Potent, aren’t we?”
He bit at his lip. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.
“Showing is better than telling,” she said. “Why don’t you show me how this works instead?” She touched him lightly with one hand. “We can talk later.”
“Okay. I take your point.”
“No, sweetie, I’ll take yours…”
* * *
Jones was taking her turn at the proximity sensor board. Ten minutes into her tour, a bogie began blipping at her.
“Well, shit,” Jones said. She wasn’t deep in this kind of work but since the computer did most of it, all she had to do was ask. “What do we have here, folks?”
The computer ran a crawl across the hologram.
Jones shook her head. “Can’t be, pal. There ain’t supposed to be another ship out here.”
“Problem?” came a voice from behind her.
Colonel Stephens stood there.
Jones said. “Sir, the PS says there’s a vessel out there only a hundred klicks back and closing. The thing musta blown a circuit or something, right?”
“Could be an echo, that happens,” Stephens said. “Run a diagnostic.”
“Affirmative, sir.” Jones touched a button.
The image gridded, words sprayed across it, and the result came up almost immediately: DIAGNOSTIC CHECK COMPLETE, ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL.
“Damn,” Jones said. “Excuse me, sir. There is a ship out there. I’ll sound General Alert.” She reached for the red button cover, started to flip it up so she could reach the alarm control.
“No,” Stephens said.
“Sir, if that’s a ship we have to assume it’s hostile to our mission, that’s SOP—”
By now, Jones had turned enough to see that Stephens had drawn his side arm. An issue softslug pistol.
“Sir!”
He shot her. Through the left eye. Gore spattered on his coverall as Jones’s head snapped back and smashed into the sensor board. She slid from the chair, dead before she reached the deck.
“Sorry,” Stephens said, reholstering his weapon. The colonel waved his hands over the com unit. “Stephens here,” he said. “We are go for mating.”
“Copy that,” came Massey’s voice from the com. “We are on the way.”
* * *
Wilks was in the rec room working out on the myoflex full range-of-motion gear when the ship shook. He didn’t know what, but something had hit them. Damn! Anything smaller than an asteroid should have been deflected by the shields!
Wilks jumped from the machine and grabbed his clothes.
There was a General Alert button near the door. Wilks broke the cover and slapped it with one hand, hardly slowing as he ran.
* * *
Billie was putting her shirt back on over tender breasts when the vibration rocked her hard enough to knock her from her feet. She hit one of the hex cartons and bounced off, managed to land on her butt without doing any damage.
Mitch absorbed the rocking with his legs and stayed up.
A klaxon began screaming, reeh-aww, reeh-aww, over and over.
“That’s General Alert,” Mitch said, tabbing his coverall shut.
“It’s a drill, right?” Billie said, getting up.
“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t think so. Something hit us.”
“Maybe it was an engine going out?”
“No, we’d all be atomic dust, that happened. I can’t believe they’d run a drill this close to the destination. Something is wrong.”
He started for the exit, then stopped. “Listen, Billie, stay here, okay? Until I see what it is.”
“Wait a minute—”
“Please? This is a pressurized area, if there are leaks anywhere, you’ll be okay here. Please. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Billie nodded. “Okay. Listen, Mitch, be careful!”
“I will. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He grinned, then turned and sprinted away.
* * *
Ramirez came out of the shower wrapped in a towel as Bueller ran past. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Got me,” Bueller said. “We’ve got to get to the armory and load up; our stations are next to the APC; we’re supposed to be locked and loaded in a GA.”
“I know, I know.” Ramirez grabbed a coverall hanging on the door and tried to run and put it on at the same time. He didn’t manage either very well.
“Jones is on watch, right?” Bueller said, glancing at his chronometer.
“Got me, man.”
Mbutu stepped into the corridor ahead of them and started toward the armory.
“You seen Wilks?” Bueller yelled at her.
“Nah, ain’t seen nobody, I was sleepin’,” she hollered back at him.
They reached the armory. Chin had armorer duty and had already lifted the kleersteel covers. He started handing out weapons. Half of 2nd Squad was there, most of 3rd. Bueller didn’t see any of 4th or anybody else from his own, 1st.
“Shit!” somebody from 3rd Squad said.
“What?”
“This piece is missing the feed ramp, asshole!”
Chin looked at the carbine he was about to hand to another trooper. “Sah! So is this one! Weapons check, marines!”
It only took a few seconds.
All of the carbines were missing the feed ramps.
Electronic feed ramps were critical. Without them, the only way anybody was going to do any damage with one of these pieces would be to whack somebody over the head with it.
“Oh, shit,” Chin said. “We got a big problem.”
“What about the grenades?” somebody asked.
“Buy a brain, stupid,” Chin said, “
you want to set off a fucking grenade on a starship?”
Somebody else waved a handgun. “These are rascaled, too. Somebody don’t want us to be shootin’ nothin’.”
Bueller said, “You got hands and feet, marines, you been trained to use them. Get moving.”
The intercom came to life. “This is Colonel Stephens. All marines report to the aft loading bay immediately. Repeat, I want all marines to report to the aft loading bay immediately.”
* * *
Wilks still had his unregistered civilian stunner, and he had it in hand when he heard boots clattering through the lock. Company coming, and not anybody he was expecting. He lit the target laser. The first few through the hatch were his. He took a deep breath, lined the laser’s dot up on the hatch at eye level, and waited.
“Put your weapon down,” came a voice from behind him. “Try to turn around and you’re dead.”
Stephens!
Wilks said, “Sir, we’re being boarded!”
“I know all about it. Drop the stunner.”
Whatever this was all about, Stephens had him cold. He’d never get around in time. Wilks dropped the weapon.
The hatch slid up and assault-suited men sprinted through the opening, splitting into two groups, one heading fore, the other aft. Two of them brought their hardware to bear on Wilks: these were automatic shotguns that fired frangible epoxy-boron-lead pellets. They didn’t have much penetration, but against an unarmored human target, they were deadly enough. They didn’t call them splatter-guns for nothing. Wilks raised his hands.
The last man sauntered into the ship proper, an antique 10mm recoilless Smith DA-only pistol in one hand. He waved the gun at Wilks. “Hello, marine. New in town?”
“Right on schedule, Massey,” Stephens said.
“Of course. I’ve got him. You can put your piece away.”
Wilks felt his guts twist. Stephens was a traitor. He didn’t know who this Massey was or who he represented—one of the war cartels, maybe, some corporation—but Stephens had sold them out.
Wilks turned. “You killed Easley, didn’t you?”
Stephens was holstering his sidearm. “It was necessary.”
“Bastard.”
“Life is hard, Wilks. A man has to do things to get by.”
The one called Massey grinned. “Glad to hear you say that, Colonel.” He pointed his gun at Stephens. “Move to the side there, would you, Sergeant?”
Stephens blinked, his mouth gaping in shock. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“A man who would sell out his command can hardly be trusted, wouldn’t you agree?”
“W-w-wait a second! We had a deal! You need me!”
“The deal is off. And I don’t need you anymore.”
He fired the pistol.
The gun made a loud whump! in the corridor. Wilks’s ears rang with the noise.
Stephens grew a crater in his chest. As he fell, the crater turned bright red. Arterial blood from the shattered heart, Wilks knew. Dead meat.
Wilks looked at Massey.
“No, don’t worry, Sergeant, I’m not going to kill you, unless you do something foolish. You and your marines will be useful. You know anything about, ah, fishing?”
Wilks stared at him as if he had turned into a giant lizard.
Massey laughed. “If you want to catch a fish, you have to have the right kind of bait.”
Massey laughed louder, as if at a private joke, but Wilks understood exactly what the man meant.
Because Wilks knew exactly what the aliens ate.
19
After waiting for an hour, Billie crept to the comp panel inset next to the storeroom’s door and carefully switched it on. She managed to activate a monitor after a little effort, and what she saw was three marines being herded down a hall by two strange men with guns.
Billie sucked in a fast breath. What was going on?
A few minutes with the computer gave her very little more. The ship was in the hands of some invading group. Who were they? Why had they attacked the ship? How had they managed to overcome a military vessel full of armed marines?
What about Wilks and Mitch?
She couldn’t find Mitch, but some switching did give her an image of Wilks. He was being held at gunpoint by a tall, fair-haired man.
Oh, gods! What was she going to do?
* * *
The man talking to Massey was strange, Wilks saw, and after a moment he realized why—the man was an android, one they hadn’t bothered to do a full cosmetic on. Must be an expendable. And, Wilks also realized, one that didn’t worry fuck-all about the First Law for robots and androids, never to kill a human. How in the hell had the pirate managed to pull that one off?
“Is everybody accounted for?” Massey asked.
“Yes, sir,” the android replied. “We lost two units during the operation. Four marines died as a result of wounds incurred during takeover; two more are seriously injured. Two marines were killed by Stephens previously. We have all the remaining marines and ship’s crew in custody, cross-checked and matched, although there is an anomaly.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The initial marine head count after hypersleep arousal shows plus one.”
Massey turned to look at Wilks. “Well?”
“Stephens miscounted. He was a stupid asshole.”
Massey said to the android, “Double-check the names and ID numbers. We don’t need any loose cannons onboard.”
“Sir.”
“You got balls, whoever you are,” Wilks said. “To attack a government ship. What’s the point?”
“To keep a greedy competitor from stealing my company’s money.”
“Competitor? If you represent a company you should know the government doesn’t compete with private concerns.”
“Sure it does. They want to round up some of these valuable aliens and develop them as weaponry. You don’t think they’ll sell the results to anybody with the money to pay for them?”
Wilks shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re fucking with here. These things have wiped out a couple of colonies.”
“I know more than you think, Sergeant. You see, we already have one of these things. On Earth. Our mission here is to make sure nobody else gets one before we can exploit our advantage. That, and gathering whatever information we can to help things along. Their favorite food, lighting, environment, like that. For all we know, these things aren’t the top dogs on their world. They could be like mice.”
“You have an alien? On Earth?”
“Yep. I haven’t seen it myself, but I understand it’s an ugly beast.”
“Buddha!”
“He can’t help you, Sergeant. I’m your god now.”
* * *
Billie huddled against a crate, thinking. She could probably hide here for a long time without anybody finding her. She wasn’t listed on the crew or marine manifests. Somebody might tell the invaders about her, of course, but maybe not.
Then again, staying here wouldn’t help things. Mitch could be dead or wounded—she’d seen bodies being spaced last time she’d tried the monitors. Sooner or later she’d have to find water and food.
If they didn’t know about her, she might be able to do something to help. The ship’s ventilation system was big enough in places for her to move through it. She had experience in hiding, from when she was a kid and the aliens had taken over the colony. If you were quiet and quick, you could survive. She’d done it before.
And she had to find out what happened to Mitch. If he had been killed, then nothing mattered anymore. If he was still alive, she could find out, could do something to help him.
She stood. Yes. She wasn’t going to spend whatever remained of her life cowering in the darkness waiting to be found and eliminated like some vermin. At the very least she could go down fighting.
* * *
In the APC bay, Massey and Wilks watched the landing craft being loaded. The marines were herded into the vessel by th
e guards, all of whom were androids.
“You’ll stay here,” Massey said to Wilks.
“Why?”
“Because I wish it so. We have enough worms for our hooks.”
“You’re sending my men to be slaughtered.”
“Yes. But my forces will cover them from the air pods as best they can. They’re already down there, buzzing around, setting up cover patterns. Live bait works better than dead, according to my information.”
“Bastard.”
“Not true. Both my parents stayed alive until I was nine. Then I killed them.”
Wilks watched the squads marching onto the drop ship.
“The atmosphere is marginal down there,” Massey said. “Little short on the oxy side, long on the C02 and other trash gases, got some methane and ammonia that’ll probably make eyes burn and noses run. Extended exposure will be fatal, but I doubt anybody’ll be there that long.”
Wilks said nothing. They were in deep shit. The only bright spot seemed to be that Massey and his thugs hadn’t found out about Billie. They would, eventually, when they strained enough of the ship’s logs to get to Stephens’s personal stuff. And she was probably on a monitor recording. Sooner or later somebody would ask the computer the right question and it would give them Billie.
He hoped she found a good place to hide and stayed there.
* * *
Inside the APC, Bueller sat at his station, waiting for the ship to drop. He’d been prepared to meet the aliens, but not like this, not unarmed and marched across the ground by enemies in air pods. They wouldn’t have a prayer against those things, even if only half of what Wilks said was accurate.
Still, there was nothing to be done about it. A direct confrontation with the androids guarding them would mean a fast death. As long as they stayed alive, there was a chance they might be able to do something to survive.
He thought about Billie. He hoped she kept hidden. If he could be sure of that, then dying wasn’t so bad.
Amazing that somebody like him could fall in love. Amazing, but true enough.
The whine of the repellors cycling up and lifting the ship free of the grapples for the drop interrupted Bueller’s thoughts. I love you, Billie, he said to himself.
Good-bye.
* * *
Billie crawled through a stacked-plastic tube only a few centimeters bigger than she was. It was hard, slow, rough on her hands and arms as she dragged herself along. But it wasn’t as if she had a whole lot of choice.
