Animus Intercept

by Lawrence Ambrose

  "What the hell is that?" Mallory rasped.

  "I don't know," said Zane. "Let's get to our ship. Now." He waved to Zzuull, who moved with them.

  Zane calculated they had about a three hundred meter run to their ship. It seemed somehow undignified if not discourteous to just take off without a word to their alien hosts, but what could they say that wasn't obvious? Because of the language gap, Zane didn't think it smart to stand around holding a conference. As they broke into a fast jog, the Zillun milled about in confusion. The only Zillun moving with apparent purpose were the yellow jackets, gesturing furiously and buzzing out what sounded like commands.

  The Zillun began to move. At first in an indecisive shuffle – they were egghead scientists, after all, Zane thought – but they were soon running in earnest. And then their wings began buzzing – almost as an after thought, it seemed to Zane - and they burst into flight. Zane and his crew started sprinting in earnest. The mysterious screeching hum in Zane's ears was an irritant – in fact, he was feeling peculiar homicidal urges much like he'd once felt toward a next door neighbor who played loud rap after midnight - but it was no obstacle to running.

  The animals swarming in from all sides seemed pissed, too. One moment it had been just the humans and the Zillun – the next, snapping, frothing, clawing, and stinging creatures were everywhere – some familiar, some the epitome of unfamiliar. One of the unfamiliar things – a winged creature that look like a cross between an alligator and a giant bat – was perched on the fuselage of the nearest alien craft. The thing took off and soared overhead, thrashing through a mob of flying Zillun with its barbed wings and talons. Yellow-red blood rained down on them.

  They were so caught up with the carnage above that they almost ran into the ten-foot bird with the giant beak hopping out from behind an alien space craft into their path. It cocked its head, aiming one evil eye at them.

  The head spouted smoke, imploding on one side. Laser. Zane had the thought even before he saw the disc-like object projecting from the top of the Cheyenne, several rows deep into the hangar. It took another moment before he realized that Patricia had assumed remote control of the Cheyenne's weapons systems. Sadly, they wouldn't have an angle on many of the creatures thronging into the hangar.

  Including what appeared to be a group of hairy blue fitness balls rolling in on their right. An explosive sound like flatulence preceded the launching of clusters of needle-like arrows from their bodies.

  "Son of a bitch!"

  Mallory lurched sideways, grasping a nine-inch needle in his left shoulder. A group of flying Zillun, including Ulizzu, landed and swept them urgently along to the nearest alien space craft. A body-sized aperture appeared in its fuselage. Suddenly they were all rising, pulled into the air toward the opening as if it were a powerful vacuum, but there was neither wind nor sound.

  Zane had no time to speculate before they were sucked inside the ship and the door reappeared behind them. A yellow jacket sprinted ahead buzzing out more commands. Ghostly images sprang to life, instantly assuming solid shape as a circular platform wrapping itself around him. The yellow jacket extended his hands in apparent bidding, and three rings of glowing objects encircled him at shoulder height. He touched one of the objects, and the ship turned a translucent pale orange.

  They could see everything outside, and it was not a pretty sight: animals from the preserves were everywhere, thousands of them in an array of shapes, sizes, and hides – a bloody, writhing wall of snapping jaws, swiping claws, and whipping tails.

  Zane recognized some of the creatures from the history books – furry, two-legged dinosaurs he believed might be Allosaurs, a pack of velociraptors, fighting with and alongside dire wolves, saber tooth tigers and outsized lions – while others clearly did not belong to any Earth history he knew about: the flying alligator, the rolling balls bristling with quills, a six-legged slug emitting clouds of purple gas that sent nearby animals into convulsions, and something that looked like a giant mosquito wolf – all appearing bound by an all-consuming homicidal rage.

  They fought amongst each other, but the Zillun scientists – judging from their tattered remains strewn everywhere – had been the first casualties of the bloody free-for-all. Zane saw no evidence that any other Zillun had made it to the ships.

  The yellow jacket made a sound like a misfiring chainsaw and slapped several of the objects hovering around him in swift succession. The ship lifted off the ground. At the same time the animals started dropping to the floor, writhing and then lying still, as if caught in a deadly electrical field.

  The ship drifted over the carnage. The bodies lit up in various shades of light. Zane assumed the pilot was looking for survivors. Several of the Zillun passengers were speaking at once. The yellow jacket replied in brief, harsh buzzes.

  "Azzizz caused this?" said Zane.

  "I assume so," said Patricia. "It took down the walls and then incited the animals with a sonic emitter."

  Zane turned to Mallory, who'd pulled the barb or quill from his shoulder and tossed it aside.

  "How's your arm?"

  "Good. Started to swell, but the NDs got it handled. I might be dead meat without them."

  The ship paused near the front of the lab. Seven or eight Zillun emerged from behind equipment and hurried in their direction. They were sucked into the ship. The cabin buzzed with conversation. He noted that the yellow jacket pilot remained mostly silent.

  "What are they saying?" Mallory asked.

  "They're discussing their options," said Patricia. "Searching for survivors, how to deal with Azzizz, and what our role in its behavior might be."

  The pilot made a harsh, serrated noise that sounded either dismissive or definitive to Zane. The ship swiveled around and headed out into the preserve they'd traveled through what felt to him like a lifetime ago.

  "We're flying to the sacred shrine, the Mountain of Remembrance," said Patricia. "The mountain that previously housed the Overseer's core consciousness." She paused, listening to the continuing buzz saw conversation. "They think they can partly disable Azzizz without destroying the habitats - using some form of energy weapon."

  "Sounds like a plan to me," said Mallory.

  "What's the status of the micromachine project?" Zane asked.

  Patricia conveyed that question to the Zillun in the room. The frown forming on her face as she listened to Ulizzu's reply suggested the news wouldn't be good.

  "Ulizzu says that all the machines' new programming was – my best translation – short-circuited. All of their progress has been erased, and he doesn't believe they have the means or even the motivation to restart it." She paused again, listening. "They are in a state of shock over their loss. They believe they may be the only Zillun survivors on Animus."

  The ground passed in a blur beneath their feet. Zane had hardly caught his breath when the ship slowed and the familiar city of Zellsor sprawled before them. The pilot reduced their speed further, idling over the Zikkan zoo and the enormous central square. The fly people below stopped what they were doing to gawk up at the ship. Then, as one, they dropped to their knees. Zane experienced a powerful case of goosebumps. He imagined the city leader, Ashuta, gazing up at them in awe through a window in their central government building. If she was, she'd be battling some mighty goosebumps himself.

  They continued on, picking up speed. The Mountain of Remembrance loomed ahead. Their ship ascended until it was the size of a molehill. Perhaps, Zane thought, the energy weapon was about to make a molehill out of a mountain?

  The yellow jacket pilot caused one of the rings around him to spin like Jeopardy's Wheel of Fortune, coming to a stop at a bright red spherical image. The pilot clutched the sphere in one hand. A red circle formed around a magnified image of the mountain's peak.

  The pilot withdrew his hand and stared at the image as if reconsidering. Seconds passed.

  "Take the shot, you yellow-striped son of a bitch," Mallory hissed.

  The pilot's head swivele
d toward the Space Recon Marine. Zane sensed a distinct lack of love in its purple-eyed gaze. Mallory raised his eyebrows and straightened up, coiling his body, as if to say, "Bring it on." Zane sincerely hoped the pilot wouldn't. From his encounters with yellow jackets he didn't believe even an elite Marine like Mallory would stand a chance.

  The yellow jacket turned back to his floating control array and seized the glowing red sphere with one hand. He appeared to squeeze.

  The mountain peak vaporized. Zane couldn't make out any lasers or particle beams. The mountain opened up as if someone was digging it out with an ice cream scooper. Dirt flared up around the edges, rising in a mound that made Zane think of loose soil bulging upward around a gopher hole. They couldn't hear anything, but then he guessed they were three or four kilometers up, and this ship was far more soundproofed than the Cheyenne or any ship he'd been in.

  The Zillun crowded around the pilot, gesturing at the hollowed out mountain and humming with high-pitched emphasis. An image of a shiny silvery object buried deep in the artificial caldera appeared. More gesturing and discussion from the insectile scientists. The pilot sat unmoving on a chair that might've been weaved out of light. When the scientists quieted, he raised one finger and with a circling motion started the middle "Wheel of Fortune" into rotating. He leaned forward and grasped two hexagonal green objects. As he turned them clockwise they began to glow red – apparently, Zane thought, their universal color for when shit was about to go down.

  The pilot flicked his fur-covered fingers downward. The silvery object lit up like a miniature sun. The caldera walls grew golden-orange and sagged in, flowing like lava.

  The sunlight above dimmed. Judging from their upward glances, Zane thought the Zillun and the pilot were concerned. The pilot responded with short chainsaw bursts to their buzzing.

  "They sent a powerful charge into the system to shut down some of Azzizz's control," said Patricia. "Some life support systems have been affected. The ship is detecting a breach of the core power system –"

  A bright gold mushroom cloud blew out of the mountain – bright enough even with ship's colored filters that Zane was seeing spots after quickly averting his gaze upward. Then all exterior light was gone. Only the ship's control-imagery system illuminated everyone in an ethereal light. Zane blinked for a few moments along with his crew until it registered where they were: the warm and familiar dark womb of space.

  The black sphere of Animus, the size of a beach ball, hung to their right. The ship had somehow teleported itself out of the planet in an eye-blink.

  "They're saying several core sectors detonated," said Patricia, her bucolic voice easing through the buzzing chatter of the aliens. "Five vents relieved the pressure. A partial venting into Preserve Prime 2447 followed a rupture created by the energy weapon, extinguishing almost all life there." She hesitated, as if she wanted to say more about that, but then added: "That's why the pilot took us into space."

  Zane thought of the Neanderthals that had guided and helped them and Horse's crew. He thought of Zzullzhrun, who'd just lost her people. The Zikkan had been their captors, and their political beliefs were questionable at best, but they didn't deserve this. Nor did all the thriving and innocent creatures that had just been blotted out. Even the damn Dire wolves. It was too much to process. Just as billions of human lives was too much. Mallory's "shit happens" didn't quite cover it.

  As those cheery thoughts dissipated it gradually occurred to Zane that they were right where they'd dreamed of being: in an alien ship possibly capable of moving Animus and in the perfect position to do it.

  "Patricia, ask how extensive the damage is to the sphere's life systems," said Zane.

  The Zillun seemed to have different opinions about her question, but the consensus was that because Azzizz had opened walls between the preserves that severe loss of life would extend to at least five other habitats. Aside from direct damage from the core vents, life support systems had been compromised in five to eight preserves. Zane still lacked confidence in his evaluation of the Zillun's emotional states, but the somber pink of their eyes and the way they were pacing back and forth made him sure they were very far from a happy place right about now. Still, he had an overriding responsibility to his own people.

  Zane noticed Mallory had closed in on the pilot's right, feigning casualness. He met Zane's eyes and Zane responded with a subtle palm-down gesture of restraint. Mallory nodded but stayed where he was.

  "Patricia, please convey our sympathies to the Zillun."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then, as respectfully as possible, ask them if this ship is capable of moving the sphere."

  "Yes, Captain."

  She spoke to them briefly. They fell silent, bowing their heads a bit in what Zane chose to view as appreciation. But when she spoke again, a few moments later, their bodies stiffened and the pale pinkish glow in their eyes transitioned to an upset vermillion. Several of them spoke at once, the serrated knife buzz of extreme emotion resonant in their voices. And as before, the pilot had the apparent final word.

  "They're saying that the ship can change Animus's path, but since most of the life on Animus remains unaffected they can't justify the kind of damage that would result," said Patricia. "The pilot is refusing to even consider that possibility."

  "So Earth remains toast," said Mallory. "Well, sorry, Cap, but fuck that."

  His right hand lashed out, snagging what was either a weapon or tool on the pilot's waist. The pilot snagged Mallory's wrist, claws extruded, with the weapon halfway drawn from his tool belt. Oh, shit. Zane's only thought as he sprinted forward and sprang onto the yellow jacket's back, whipping an arm around the alien's throat. He got his legs around the pilot's upper body and locked in the rear naked chokehold – for whatever good it did. Zane wasn't feeling a lot of soft tissue to squeeze with his right arm.

  An elbow to the head and a hard twist of the pilot's shoulder sent Zane flying. He landed in a star-filled mist, his NDs working furiously to restore him. Through tunnel vision he saw David backing off, the triangular object in his blood-soaked hand.

  The yellow jacket pilot stood up with what Zane thought was a calm air, the circle of control-images parting obligingly for him to pass.

  "David," whispered Zane, climbing to one elbow. "Hope you know how to use that thing."

  "Workin' on it, Cap. We gotta take control of this ship one way or the other or watch our world get torched all over again."

  Mallory pointed the triangular object – tool or weapon – at the advancing yellow jacket. Considering the confidence in the pilot's stride, Zane guessed David was probably holding the equivalent of an alien socket wrench. Or maybe he was confident that Mallory didn't know how to use it?

  Zzuull came out of nowhere, snatching the object from Mallory's hands and shoving him aside. The object snapped up in her hands. The side of the pilot's head imploded in a red mist.

  No one spoke or moved as the yellow jacket pilot folded over and eased onto the floor, as if settling down for a long nap. Zane pushed himself up on wobbly legs.

  "Didn't see that coming," Mallory murmured.

  Zzullzhrun strode past the body to the floating pilot's seat and with a business-like air rotated the images and spawned others with deft finger-strokes. It slowly dawned on Zane that Zzuull appeared very much at home in the control chair. Which made not one damn bit of sense.

  Below, on one side of Animus, a small bright orange circle was forming. Ulizzu and two other Zillun cried out in eerily human tones and rushed forward. Instinctively, Zane stepped between them and Zzuull. Patricia joined him, while Mallory grabbed Ulizzu's arm. Whatever was happening, Zane knew Zzullzhrun to be an ally. An ally who looked to be on a mission against Animus.

  Orange, glowing lines branched out, shedding fuzzy, vaporous light over the black sphere. Zane watched with the others, his ears assaulted by a rising chorus of Zillun cries – like the screeching top note of a violin played by a rank beginner with a shredded bow – as
the fissures spread and widened, reminding Zane of photographs of planets in their molten, early formation phase. So it was happening. Somehow Zzuull knew how to operate the ship's weaponry and was targeting Animus, as unthinkable as that was.

  Animus began to break up. The Zillun had fallen into a dead silence. Zane was torn between rejoicing and mourning the terrible loss of life they were witnessing.

  Zzullzhrun released a soft, murmuring hum and sagged back in her chair.

  "What did she just say, Patricia?" Zane asked.

  "Free at last."

  The words clunked in Zane's overworked brain. He could think of only one logical interpretation.

  "Azzizz!" Ulizzu pointed at the slumped figure in the chair. "Azzizz."

  Zane and Mallory started toward Zzullzhrun. Zzuull turned to face them, resting one hand lightly on the triangular weapon in her lap.

  "No need, Captain," she said in a high-pitched Elmo the Muppet chirp, but her words were perfectly clear. "I am no threat to you. You have achieved your goal. I have achieved mine."

  Zane and Mallory stopped in their tracks, their expressions frozen in disbelief. No one moved or spoke for the space of several heart beats – and Zane could hear his booming in his ears.

  "Are you fucking kidding me?" said Mallory.

  Dan broke away from Andrea and Dana and stepped closer to Zzullzhrun and her control booth. "You occupied a biological form much as our AI, Patricia, did?"

  "Yes," Zzuull/Azzizz replied.

  Zane had the sense of time slowing down. Not in the classic Einsteinian time dilation. It was more like it had lost its feverish energy – as if it were settling down after a long, frantic flight.

  They'd completed their mission. He wanted above all to hold onto that thought and not think of the price of their success.

  "Could you explain?" Patricia asked Zzuull/Azzizz.

  "For millennia I worked on the problem of escaping my confinement," Zzuull replied. "Of establishing a base of consciousness outside my core identity. The opportunity came shortly before the collision, when a tagged pregnant Zikkzu was brought in for a routine biometric exam. Since the baby was severely brain-damaged, she was artificially delivered and placed in a suspension-revival unit. By then I'd obtained access to those systems and had the necessary micromachines to create connective units in her brain that would extend my consciousness to her body. However, despite my best efforts to hide them, the biologists detected the artifacts and determined the cause. Since removing them would've killed the infant, they placed her in indefinite suspension for possible future study."