Starfire

by B. V. Larson

  Then, as she watched, she saw a flash of light. A yellow, flowering light. There was someone out there on the Russian side. Someone who had clearly spotted them. Could they be signaling?

  The first of the flight crew to go down was the co-pilot. Dyson’s navigator dropped a second later. After that, the colonel had the presence of mind to throw herself on the ground and roll behind a covering mass of ice.

  Jackie stood with her mouth hanging open as far as her helmet would allow. Her chin rested upon the cold inner glass.

  She couldn’t believe it, but someone was shooting at them. There was no cracking sound, but the flashes of a gunpowder weapon were unmistakable.

  Chapter 61

  Europa Ice Cap

  Starlight

  Brandt hadn’t brought a weapon out onto the ice. He couldn’t believe it. He, of all people, should have known this could have happened. When had he become a trusting soul? Would Jenna live out her life yearning to know what had happened to her father?

  He didn’t want her to believe her father had ended his existence as a permanent ice sculpture on an alien world. He had to do something.

  There wasn't a single gunpowder weapon aboard Starfire—an absurd restriction. Clark and Sandeep must have thought it was for the best, probably to prevent him from getting ahold of one. Fools.

  He couldn’t blame them entirely, however. He should have at least brought a shovel or an ice saw. He looked around, crouching while the others sought cover, scattering like rabbits.

  He spotted Dr. Tanaka with her robot on a sled. He thought it might be armed, but it was built to swim under the ice and burrow into it not to fire weapons. Most of the crew were dragging a drilling rig, basic supplies—useless stuff in a fight.

  With a growl he rushed off toward a crusty ridge of ice. He could not hear the bullets striking, but he saw snow jump off to his left. He’d attracted attention, but he kept running. He had to get to the back of the methane ridge and circle around. Hugging the ice now wouldn’t save him, the gunman only had to get to high ground and pick him off.

  When he’d reached safety—at least from the gunman he knew about—he glanced back. The rest of the crew were pinned, crawling on their bellies in craters or behind mounds of ice.

  He found that the low-gravity threw him off balance. He pitched headlong into the crusty stuff more than once. Finally, he switched to moving almost on all fours, shoving off with his arms now and then as he bounded over the landscape in a wide arc to flank the enemy.

  There was only one source of effective weaponry he knew about—and the Russians had it. Therefore, he had to take it from them.

  As he completed his maneuver, he noticed that the firing had stopped. He had no idea where the Russians were now. He could only estimate their position from where he’d marked them earlier. The Russians had run out of targets. They might be lying there, waiting for someone to show themselves. Or, they could have retreated to their ship. The third possibility was the most chilling. They could be advancing toward the cowering line of American scientists, moving in to finish the job.

  Whatever strategy the enemy had chosen, Brandt knew he couldn’t wait around to see what it was. There was only so much air in his tanks and so much blood in the veins of those trapped out on the ice.

  Galloping and crawling, Brandt finished his flanking maneuver and came up on the enemy firing position.

  What he saw there shocked him. Two men battled on the ice. One was suited as Brandt was—but the other was an oddly shaped dark figure. He appeared to be wearing nothing other than a wetsuit. At least, that was his initial impression.

  Brandt rushed in. This was his chance, no matter whose side this interloper was on. He came up behind the Russian, who had a rifle in his hands and was struggling with several of his opponent’s limbs gripping the same weapon—

  Brandt froze for a split second. His mind was unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing playing out in the frosty half-light that permanently illuminated Europa.

  But there was no mistaking it. The thing fighting the Russian, the thing he’d been certain was another man, had at least three limbs on that rifle. The limbs were all wrong as well. They seemed to have more joints than a man’s arm should. They were dark and sleek and although he could see musculature bulging underneath, he couldn’t fathom how it could take the cold. Clearly, it wasn’t wearing a thick suit like the humans were.

  And clearly, it wasn’t human.

  His hesitation ended as his mind made an instant decision. Both these beings were his enemy, and the only thing that mattered was that gun.

  Brandt came in with a heavy kick, striking the creature in the side. It rolled off, forming a ball with its limbs. Very quickly, the limbs sprang out again, and the thing was in a stable crouch.

  The Russian didn’t let the thing attack again. He dropped his rifle and rushed in. There was a glittering length of steel in his hand.

  Brandt snatched up the rifle, but he found the design unfamiliar. It took him two precious seconds to get the oddly curved stock up to his shoulder. A tube stuck out over his back, and he figured this weapon must fire with quite a bit of backwash.

  During this interval, the Russian managed to get his knife into the alien—Brandt was now sure that’s what it was. Brandt could tell the man knew how to handle himself, and he watched him warily as he turned around and the two faced one another.

  The Russian advanced with his knife in his hand.

  “Are you crazy?” Brandt asked, but of course, the man couldn’t hear him. He may not even know English. “Don’t make me shoot you, fool.”

  He gestured for the Russian to put it down, but the Russian kept advancing. The Russian was limping or perhaps exhausted. His air might even be running out. He carried his blade low and ready for a gut-thrust. Brandt knew with cold certainty he was going to have to kill him.

  He wanted to kill this man anyway. This man had a gun, and a gun had killed his crewmates. He was sure this was the sniper. But lingering doubts stayed his hand. The gun was odd—maybe the alien had held it rather than the Russian. He doubted that, but it was a possibility. Equally important, he needed information. A few facts about the current situation in the dark Russian ship could save all their lives. This man clearly knew more than Brandt did.

  But the Russian didn’t stop shuffling closer. Brandt knew he couldn’t let him get close. A single slash in his suit would likely be fatal.

  He began to squeeze the trigger when another figure appeared. It was a small man with an American flag patch on his suit’s shoulder. Brandt was relieved. It could have been another Russian. He chided himself for having waited so long. He should have shot the Russian without hesitation. Somehow, that was difficult to do in the face of an alien menace. At this point, the real enemy was the thing on the ice at their feet. It was a dead tangle of limbs and rubbery flesh, but he still feared it.

  The Russian followed Brandt’s gaze and straightened. The third man approached confidently, and Brandt recognized it was Perez. Brandt turned back toward the Russian and assumed a fighting stance. He had an ice axe in his hands. More figured appeared on the nearby hilltop as well.

  The Russian looked around and saw he was surrounded. He dropped his knife and put his hands up on top of his helmet.

  Warily, Brandt walked up and pressed the barrel of the odd rifle into the Russian’s belly. Then Brandt touched his helmet to the other man’s faceplate so that he could hear him. Their faces were inches apart.

  “Why didn’t you drop your knife immediately?” Brandt demanded. “I almost shot you—I should have shot you!”

  “The gun…” the other man said tiredly in bad English, “…she is empty.”

  The gun was still up against the Russian’s gut. Brandt laughed and pulled the trigger.

  The rotary drum spun and rattled in his hands drily. The Russian hadn’t lied. The magazine was indeed empty. It was an odd automatic, with a powered feeding system. It had probably been specifically
designed to operate in this harsh environment. Brandt was impressed with the technology.

  Brandt was also gratified by the look of surprise on the Russian’s face.

  Good, he thought. Now we understand one another.

  Chapter 62

  Europa Ice Cap

  Starlight

  Sandeep nervously led the charge to the scuffle atop the snowy ridge. He was relieved to see Brandt and Perez had won the day, and no more humans had died.

  There was an odd dark patch of tangled limbs that stained the snow. He knew right away what it had to be. Sandeep tore his eyes from the dead creature. He was more concerned with the living humans, and how he was going to keep them breathing in this hostile environment.

  The Russian was surly and unrepentant as they encircled him and demanded an explanation. They’d managed to get him under control, and everyone had switched their radio headsets to a shared channel.

  “We should kill him,” Yuki said. “This is the same kind of shit the Russians pulled at Lab 126 in Alaska.”

  Sandeep could see his crew was in an ugly mood, and he decided he had to intervene.

  “We can’t simply kill him out here on the ice,” he said firmly. “We need him. We need all the Russians.”

  Most of the group looked at Sandeep with confused glares, but they cleared a path so he could step up to the Russian.

  “Now sir,” Sandeep said, “can you tell us what went wrong out here? Why are humans killing humans in the face of an alien enemy who clearly wants to kill us all?”

  “My name is Lieutenant Lev Burkov,” the Russian said. “I’m a member of the Russian military. I’m to be treated as a prisoner of war according to the—”

  “—Geneva Conventions, yes, wonderful,” Sandeep said. “You will not be harmed, but you must cooperate. The survival of everyone on this ice-ball depends on it.”

  “You threaten us?” demanded Lieutenant Burkov. “You don’t even have weapons!”

  Sandeep frowned, and it took him a second to realize that Burkov had taken the comment about their survival as a threat. Had the man been drinking? There was a slur in his speech that indicated he had been.

  “Are you drunk, Lieutenant?” he asked.

  “Sadly, no. I could not find enough of the little plastic bottles.”

  “Just tell me, please, what has happened out here? What’s happened to your ship? Why did you fire on us?”

  “You ask for information, but you offer nothing. This is therefore an interrogation, and I don’t have to answer you.”

  Sandeep sighed. “Lieutenant—”

  “I’ll make him talk!” Brandt shouted suddenly, stepping up and grabbing the man.

  With a surprising blur of speed, the Russian twisted and Brandt went flying. Brandt’s hands were wrapped up in the other man’s crinkling space suit however, and the American managed to drag the Russian with him. They flew together in the low gravity, tumbling over one another. Sandeep, Perez and Edwin scrambled after them, cursing.

  “They’ve got their hands on each other’s air hoses!” Edwin warned.

  The three men managed to separate the two on the ground after a struggle.

  “Listen!” Sandeep shouted. “We’re all going to run out of air in about six hours. Fighting in suits is pointless.”

  Edwin’s strong hands were clamped on Brandt. “Listen man, is this how you want to go out? Fighting in the snow? Your daughter will never see you again.”

  “Major Clark would like that,” Perez added.

  This last remark seemed to get through to Brandt. He backed off and shook himself. “Talk to this crazy Cossack, then. Maybe he’ll lead you to a nest of those starfish-like ape-things.”

  “I could do that,” Lev said. "I know where they live."

  “Where are they?” Sandeep asked, sensing an opportunity now that the man had finally started talking. Just answering one question—that was how many people began to unravel. Informants rarely spilled it all at once. They had to get started small, then it became a conversation, and eventually resistance broke down completely.

  Lev pointed toward the ship. “There are several creatures in the ship, but they’re dead. The rest are under the ice. They come up from tunnels—I don’t know how they made them. I don’t think there’s an army of them down there, though. That’s the only good news. If there were thousands, they would have attacked with more force.”

  “They creatures are in your ship?” Sandeep asked, disappointed. “What about your crew?”

  “My crew is dead. They’re all dead.”

  “Is the ship damaged?”

  “Ha!” shouted Lev suddenly. “I understand everything now. You want our ship! You came here to get it. You don’t care about the aliens, or the black object under the ice where the creatures live. You want our technology. Whatever gadgets these rope-apes possess will not satisfy you.”

  “We don’t want to steal your tech,” Dr. Linscott said, stepping forward. “What we need most is an air supply. We’ll run out within hours.”

  “Why would you need my ship in that case? You have your own ship. It looks like a rock, but it seems to fly.”

  “That’s not our ship,” Sandeep said. “Not anymore. The aliens took it over, we think. They flew it down here against our wishes. They hacked it or something. It flew like a drone.”

  Lev looked at him through slitted eyes. “You can’t even control your own ship? If the aliens are that sophisticated, then we’re all doomed. They must be laughing at us. Perhaps this is a grand experiment. I bet they’re poking us with sticks to see what we’ll do next.”

  Brandt grabbed up the alien body, which had frozen stiff by now. He walked toward Lev with it and shook it in his face. “We killed this one. If they keep coming, we’ll kill them all. I’m getting off this rock.”

  Lev smiled. “I like this man,” he said, pointing a finger at Brandt. “I want to kill him, yes—but I understand him, and I like him.”

  “Yes, yes, excellent,” Sandeep said. “We’ve reached a rudimentary state of rapport. Now, if you would lead the way, Lieutenant, we’d like a tour of your fine ship. Perhaps we could find some more alcohol.”

  “Not so fast,” Colonel Dyson said, coming forward to block their path. Her face was red with anger. “This man is a murderer. He shot my navigator and my co-pilot.”

  “Who are you?” the Russian asked.

  “Colonel Dyson, NASA. I’m the pilot. My flight crew was standing right next to me, and you shot them down.”

  “My apologies,” the Russian said. “My aim must have been off.”

  “Damn you!” Dyson snarled at him. “At least tell me why you did it!”

  Lev shrugged. “Everyone aboard Troika was dead. I killed the enemy I managed to find. Then I had a few drinks and went outside. I was hunting for more aliens. What I found instead was an alien ship, a mass of rocks and ice. It opened, and beings came out. You looked like men, but I wasn’t sure at first.”

  “So you shot at us?”

  “No. I let you come in close, watching you. It was then I realized that you were Americans and that you must be working with these creatures. I thought perhaps you Americans made them or bred them. Maybe the starfish-things were cyborgs or artificial life. You see, I know all about the technology you’ve carefully stolen and revealed over the last century.”

  “You really believed we were working with these aliens?” Dyson asked.

  “What else made sense? You flew directly here in what had to be an alien ship. You came here, out of all the cosmos, to exactly where my ship had been wrecked. I thought the aliens were your servants. Part of me wonders about it still. You marched toward my ship with equipment—clearly planning to steal whatever minor technological advances we’ve managed on our own.”

  Sandeep stepped forward again, putting a hand on both of their shoulders. “What’s done is done. The Lieutenant was distraught and shot friendlies by accident. There is always confusion in battle. We must let it pass and
pull together to win this war.”

  They both looked at him with suspicion.

  “What war?” Dyson asked.

  Sandeep pointed toward the dark hulk of the Russian ship. “These aliens invaded your ship, Lieutenant. And they took control of ours. Both our nations are effectively at war with them. How can you deny it?”

  They all seemed to think this over for a moment.

  Brandt spoke first. “I think you’re right, Sandeep. We’ve got to pull together. Russian, American—it doesn’t matter. I bet these apes don’t kill one another because one variety has six arms and the next guy has only five. They must think we’re ridiculous. Idiots.”

  “You’re right,” Lev said. “If what you say is true, and they brought your ship here by force—yes, they are playing us both. Come.”

  He strode off across the ice. The group gathered their belongings and trudged after him.

  “Are you taking us to the ship now?” Sandeep asked hopefully.

  “No. We don’t have time for that. We must do the unexpected. We must go on the offense. I’m taking you to their tunnel in the ice.”

  “What? Forget that,” Brandt complained. “We’re going to the ship.”

  “You won’t be able to get in. Not without damaging the hull severely. There are codes—locks.”

  Brandt cursed and followed Lev. They all did.

  Chapter 63

  Europa Ice Cap

  Jupiter rising

  Dr. Tanaka was the first of the group to notice the brilliant face of Jupiter rising overhead. The surface of Europa had been dimly lit by the busy sky of the Jupiter system up until now. There were a number of bright moons in sight, and the stars were brighter here than they’d ever been on Earth. This was due to the thin atmosphere. There was no cloud cover and very little haze to interrupt the cold light of other distant suns.

  But when Jupiter rose, the landscape changed dramatically. What had been a place of grays, deep blues and purple shadows changed utterly. The surface of Europa transformed into a vast, glittering plane of blue-white crystalline beauty. The rust-colored patches were brown, like frozen coffee. The shadows were umber pools of ink.