Binary Pair

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “Good job!” I shouted as I toggled over to one of the plasma guns on the front of our ship. Eve and Paula had already sent a half dozen plasma orbs toward the pair of frigates, but my attempts to make them explode near the enemy hulls all missed.

  “All four drones are deployed,” Kasta said excitedly.

  “Good! Get this fucker off us!” Z shouted as Persephone rocked again.

  “Do you know how much damage our shields have taken?” I called out over my shoulder as I took choked the trigger on my controls and sent a spray of red plasma lines toward the frigate on the left.

  “No, I haven’t read the damn manual ye--”

  “The shields are at ninety-eight percent, Captain,” Paula interrupted.

  “How do you know?” Z asked as she had to twist Persephone away from a plume of plasma fire, and we all gasped from the extra G forces caused by the intense speed.

  “I… Read… Manual…” Paula panted as soon as we came out of the turn, but I didn’t think that Z heard her.

  My stomach was really tight as well, and it felt like my suit was trying to squeeze my spine. The pressure was keeping me focused though, and I squeezed the trigger on my control stick when the frigates swung back into view. My aim was true this time, and my beam sliced into the port side of the one on the right. I didn’t think my single shot would take the ship out, but the vessel seemed to lurch when I hit it, and the trail where my plasma touched began to glow a bright red color.

  Then the ship split into two pieces. The rear half began to melt like a candle under a flame thrower, and the forward part spun free like a discarded cigarette butt. The dying ship made one complete rotation through space, and then a red ball of plasma smashed into it. Then the rest of the ship began to melt like the rear portion.

  “The patrol ship has sustained a good deal of damage from the drones,” Kasta said. “It appears they will-- no, their ship is falling apart.” There was an orange glow on the top half of my rear terminal display, and I guessed it was coming from the melting hunk of metal that had once been the patrol ship.

  “Focus fire on the last--” I started to say, but the women had already launched their plasma balls at the final frigate.

  It appeared the enemy ship was trying to retreat, but one of the plasma balls smacked into the stern. The globe of red energy didn’t make the patrol ship melt, but it did knock a big chunk of metal off the back end.

  My next two plasma beams missed the retreating ship, but my third punched right up its ass, and the metal by its thrusters began to superheat and glow like a sun. Then the back opened up, one of the thrusters shot free with a spray of light, and the rest of the ship broke apart like an expensive fireworks display.

  “Woohooo! We did it! Yeeehhh!” Z shouted and then did half a dozen fist pumps from her seat.

  “Yeah,” I said as I let out a long sigh. Then I got out of the gunner seat. Paula raised her hand to me, and I returned her smile as we gave each other high-fives. Then I did the same with Kasta before I returned to the captain’s chair.

  “You don’t look that happy,” Z said to me with a raised eyebrow.

  “He is worried they were just defending their planet,” Eve said before I could reply.

  “I doubt it. I know assholes, and that woman was definitely one.”

  “Z, descend into orbit. I’m looking for a large city on a coastline. Eve, can you see if there are any communications coming from the planet now?”

  “Yes, I will perform a scan for them again,” the vampire said before she turned back to her controls.

  “You know what I realized,” Z said as she tilted Persephone slowly through space. “Our flight suits have pressure pads to help fight against g-forces. We might have passed out otherwise.”

  “Yes, it is what the ship’s manual said,” one of the twins said as they sat on either side of me.

  “You read the manual?” Z turned over her shoulder and shot the other blonde woman a look of disbelief.

  “Yes, it was very interesting. I’m surprised that you--”

  “When did you read it?” Z asked. “We’ve been partying non-stop since we brought the Children of Rah their-- oh wait.” The blonde hacker frowned. “I forgot. Android.”

  “I’m Paula,” the woman who said she read the manual replied with a shrug.

  “I’m Kasta,” the other women said with a smile.

  “Oh, for the love of--” Z said.

  “No,” Eve said as she smiled at the twins. “They are trying to fool you.”

  “Awwww,” Paula groaned and then started to giggle.

  “Wait. So the androi--I mean Kasta was the one who read it?” Z asked.

  “Of course!” they both said.

  “I don’t get drunk or need much sleep. I studied it while Paula was passed out drunk,” Kasta said as she pointed to her sister, and the other woman shrugged again.

  “You are doing it again,” Eve smiled, but then she covered her mouth to hide her laugh.

  “Awww. This really isn’t that much fun with Eve seeing through our tricks,” the one who I had thought was Paula said. I was getting really confused about their identity now, and I leaned to my left to inhale her scent. She smelled only of her perfume, so I did the same to the woman on my right. She also smelled of the perfume, but there was a faint trace of alcohol, skin oil, and body scent that confirmed she was Paula.

  “This is Kasta,” I said as I pointed to the woman on my left.

  “Can you style your hair differently or something? Or maybe hair bands or bows or something?” Z asked as she rolled her eyes. “I keep trying to compete with a machine here.”

  “Compete?” Kasta asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Uhhh, never mind.” Z’s face turned red. “I’m going to fly the ship now.”

  “We can wear bows in our hair,” Paula said. “Adam, would you like us to wear bows in our hair?”

  “Or maybe we can wear a choker like Eve,” Kasta said as she pointed to the vampire woman. “It looks very sexy.”

  “That would look very nice on each of you. It would accentuate your--” Eve started to say, but Z interrupted.

  “I don’t see why you need to ask Adam his preferen--”

  “Let’s just get in orbit and find this city,” I ordered. “You all can talk about your wardrobe another time, and without me.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the four women replied, and then they turned back to their controls.

  It took Z a few minutes to put Persephone in orbit around the planet. Its similarities to Earth were more apparent when we got closer. Y-114-a seemed to have the same amount of ocean covering, landmass, and green foliage as our species’ home world.

  “I see a city down there,” Z said.

  “That’s not it,” I said as I looked at the screen. “The one Persephone showed me was on the coast.”

  “Well, maybe she could do us a favor and show us right now?” The blonde hacker raised her voice a bit when she spoke. “What do you think, Persephone? Do you want to help us out again?”

  “Are you trying to talk to the ship?” Kasta asked.

  “Uh, yeah?” Z snickered.

  “But--”

  “Okay, the girl who built a twin android can’t ask me why I’m trying to talk to our spaceship.”

  “I’m Kasta,” the twin said. “We just went over this.”

  “That proves my point even better, thanks.” Z laughed, and the twins joined her.

  “The cities look somewhat modern,” Eve said, and the other three women stopped laughing to look at the zoomed in screen. The distant city looked to be made of concrete, and I saw roads with cars on the road.

  But the cars weren’t moving, and our magnified image didn’t show anyone walking around on the streets.

  “I’m getting a bad feeling in my stomach,” Z said. “Where is everyone?”

  “It does not look like there was any warfare. The buildings are all intact. As are the roads.

  “The city on the le
ft!” I said as soon as I saw the familiar coastline on the expanded view of the screen. “That’s it.”

  “I will zoom in on it,” Eve said as the zoom shifted over.

  The five of us watched in silence as Persephone's camera slowly panned across the buildings and streets. There were plenty of parked cars, but no one walking outside of the buildings.

  “The cars are parked neatly,” Paula commented. “There is no trash either. Do you see how organized the streets are?”

  “Yeah,” Z said. “The cars are all parked. It doesn’t look like they were attacked, or anything weird. Seemed like they all planned to go at once.”

  “Anything on the communication scanners?” I asked Eve again, but the woman shook her head.

  “Alright,” I said. “Let’s take her down and land on the outskirts of the city. It looks like there is a field on the south end.”

  “You sure?” Z asked. “Maybe we can do a quick fly over to see if anyone comes out and waves at us?”

  “What if they wave at us with a rocket launcher?” Paula asked.

  “The shields will handle many rockets,” Kasta said.

  “Ahhh, good to know,” replied her twin.

  “Okay, Make a slow fly over,” I said. “Keep scanners open and let’s see if anyone pops out. If not, we’ll land and see what is going on.”

  “Aye, Captain, but I just want to go on record and say that I have a bad feeling about this.” Z let out a long sigh and then began to drop Persephone to the surface of the planet.

  “Yeah, me too,” I replied.

  Chapter 2

  Our slow fly over didn’t reveal any living people, but it also didn’t reveal any corpses, signs of war, or anything that would have hinted at why the city was abandoned. Kasta knew how to use some of Persephone’s advanced scanners, and the android twin gave us instructions on accessing them while she leaned over Eve’s chair.

  “Scanners are picking up power usage at four points in the city. I will put them on the map.” Eve pressed some buttons on her control terminal, and the front screen displayed a zoomed out blueprint style map of the city. The map showed four glowing points at each corner of the rectangular shaped city. They looked to be deep under the streets, and the skeletal structure of power lines spread out like an ant hill.

  “Bunkers?” Z asked.

  “Looks like it. Land at the field by the bottom right one,” I said as I pointed to the map on the screen.

  “Okay, listen, Captain. You sure you want to do this? There has to be a reason that the whole population of the city is in a bunker a hundred meters under the city.”

  “They might have been hiding from the ships in orbit,” Eve commented.

  “True,” Z said with a sigh. “Maybe I’m over thinking it. This shit is creeping me out. They should have some sort of communication open to contact us.”

  “What about the other cities?” Paula asked. “Should we check them to see if they are--”

  “I can review the footage here,” Kasta said. She was almost laying on Eve’s shoulder as she pressed buttons on the vampire’s terminal. “This is a replay of Persephone’s scanners from when we flew over earlier.”

  “Also looks deserted,” Z sighed after we watched the feed for a few moments.

  “I can think of only two scenarios,” Eve said. “They could be hiding from the ships in orbit, or from a bioweapon on the surface.”

  “Maybe those fucks in the ships launched some sort of disease and were waiting for it to kill everyone on the planet. Assholes.” Z spat the words.

  “The scanners don’t detect anything in the air,” Kasta was almost sitting in Eve’s lap now, and the vampire woman scooted over so the android could share the copilot’s seat.

  “Maybe we need to be closer to the ground?” Paula asked.

  “Z, land in the field,” I ordered.

  “Aye, Captain,” she said as she turned Persephone back around. Less than a minute later we were on the ground, and Kasta shook her head.

  “Still nothing. Air looks clean. A bit of pollution, so I would guess they are using some fossil fuels, but the scanners aren’t picking up any signs of bioweapons.” The android tapped her chin with a long finger and then leaned into Eve. “You are comfy.”

  “Thank you,” Eve said with a sincere smile. “I like being close to people.”

  “I like being called people.” Kasta laughed.

  “Let’s head outside and see what is going on,” I said as I stood.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Z said. “I’ll stay here with Persephone and make sure no one tries to steal her.”

  “I thought you put the security lock on her so that no one else could get through the ramp door?” Eve asked.

  “Shhhhh,” Z put her finger to her lips and shot the other woman a glare.

  “We will go with you, Captain,” Paula said. “Z can stay here.”

  “Hey now, I don’t--” Z started to protest, but I raised my hand.

  “We are all going. Suit up in the armory,” I ordered, and the five of us walked to the elevator, took it down to the bottom level of Persephone, and then walked into the armory.

  I attached the armor plates to my flight suit, threw an ammo vest over my chest, and then threaded my arms through my webbing rig. My two heavy pistols were already attached to the harness, but I also attached my massive chrome revolver to the front. Z and Eve had also bought a few boxes of field medkits. They were the size of shotgun shells, and I slipped a few in my pockets just in case one of my friends got injured. After I equipped my sidearms, I turned to the rack of long weapons on the wall and deliberated for a few moments.

  The double-magazine auto-shotgun that Juliette gave me was on display, and I made a mental note to thank the redhead next time I saw her. The weapon wasn’t as comfortable in my hands as the drum-magazine shotgun I had carried on Trappist-1e, but it was a fine piece. I almost took one of the two shotguns, but then the GKS multi-caliber assault rifle caught my eye. I’d taken it from the corpse of one the bushwhackers who tried to kill John Sampson back on Gliese 876-C-ii, but I’d never had a chance to use it. The power pack on the stock indicated it was fully charged, so the weapon was ready to go.

  “I’ll take this,” I said to no one in particular as I grabbed the multi-caliber assault rifle. The ammo bag was resting on the table beneath it, and I checked to make sure the magazines and spare power pack were full. I attached the bag to the front of my chest webbing under my revolver, inserted one of the magazines into the weapon, and then looked for the charging handle. There wasn’t an obvious one I could see, but there was a button on the side rear of the slide, and I pressed it with my left pointer finger. The gun made a whispered humming noise, kicked a bit, and I heard a round slide into place. The bottom of the holo-sight mount had a small red glowing light that pulsed briefly, and it turned green when I flipped on the safety. It might have been a bad idea to take the untested weapon into a potentially hostile situation, but I’d seen the weapon in use before I killed the man who shot it at us, so I knew it worked.

  Eve and Z finished putting on their armor plates, and they were helping the twins attach the pieces to their back sides. I’d been focused on my weapon selection and hadn’t been paying attention to them. Z, Kasta, and Paula were giggling as they shot me sideways glances, but Eve was smiling broadly, and her red eyes made contact with me from across the room.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Z said, and the twins let out another giggle.

  “Take rifles and a sidearm,” I said to them as I began to load a few of the weapons. They nodded, finished putting the armor on the twins, and then stepped to the weapon counter.

  “I saw you both use sawed-offs on Queen’s Hat, but have you shot a rifle before? How about a pistol?” I motioned for one of the twins to step toward me as I held up an ammo belt with a pistol holster on it.

  “Yes,” she said with a hesitant smile, and my nose told me she was Kasta.

/>   “Both?” I asked as I handed her the belt.

  “Just a pistol,” she said as she took the belt from me. Then she looked down at it, frowned and looked into my eyes. “Can you help me adjust it? I’ve never worn a gun belt before.”

  “Yeah. Turn around and hold your hands out a bit.” The android followed my instructions, and I wrapped the thick belt around her hips. I had to reach around her front to snap the lock in place, but the belt was still too large, so I took it off, shortened it with the various loops, and then re-attached it.

  “Thank you. It is nice and tight.” The corner of her mouth upturned in a slight smile, and I heard Z let out a loud cough. The blonde hacker was putting on her own belt, and she shot Kasta an icy stare.

  “Test the pistol draw.” I checked one of the handguns to make sure that the safety was on, and then I handed it to her.

  “It feels fine,” Kasta said after she tried pulling the weapon out of the holster a few times.

  “You’ve got a full magazine in the pistol and two in the pouch next to it. Here is a rifle,” I said as I handed her one of the nicer rifles that Cynthia Jayhee’s men had carried when they tried to steal Persephone from us. “Just look through the sight, put the dot on the target, and squeeze the trigger. Eject the clip with this button, safety is here, and load a round into the gun with this lever,” I said as I yanked on the charging handle.

  “Got it,” Kasta said with a nod. Then she slung the rifle over her shoulder and looked at Paula. The other sister had her pistol belt tight around her hips and was reviewing the functions of a matching rifle.

  “Paula, any questions?”

  “No, thank you,” she said to me, and then she turned to her sister. “I left my controller in our room. Can you fly the drones?”

  “Of course,” Kasta answered with a smile, and then both twins turned to face me.

  “Everyone else ready?” I asked Eve and Z. My friends nodded as they held their rifles, and we exited the armory ready to take on a small army.

  A half dozen tiny hovering dragonfly looking drones met us in the hold. I recognized them as the same ones who escorted Byron and me through the dark parts of Queen’s Hat station, but I didn’t see how either of the twins was controlling them.