The Deadly Pact

by Michael Freeport

  “I don’t care, Commander. Even if Captain Halon comes back, we have to take aggressive action to get out of here. The crabs tortured us! We have to break out of here, kill the crabs and get back to Lashmere. We simply cannot cooperate with our captors.”

  Hanlon couldn’t see the speaker, but she could see Watkins shaking his head before responding. “Lieutenant Murphy, I won’t repeat myself again, so you’d better listen up. Despite the fact that you’ve assembled a martial arts team, we-“ He broke off when Adler tapped him on the shoulder and pointed towards the door. Watkins turned and said, “Captain! I’m so glad to see you back safely. After so long, we were beginning to worry.”

  “What? I’ve been gone less than an hour.” How long had she been lying on that floor?

  “You’ve been gone for more than a day, ma’am.” He started to say something else, but his eyes locked on to Tolon. “We were having a slight disagreement on how to proceed, ma’am.”

  Hanlon looked over at Murphy and saw Kelper standing behind and to his left with a look of cold hatred in her eyes as they rested on the Ulef. “Well, I’m back. We’re not going to engage in an escape attempt at this time. Tolon and I are in the midst of negotiating our release. While their leadership and I are working towards an understanding, we certainly don’t want a violent attack to derail our efforts.” Her last words came out sharp and her eyes locked with Kelper’s.

  “Until and unless the possibility of a diplomatic solution becomes untenable, we will not resort to further violence. Much blood has been shed by both our species up to this point. If we can stop it and begin speaking rather than killing one another, that is exactly what we’ll do. I’m as angry with them about being tortured as any of you are, I assure you. Need I remind any of you that the Alliance is the real enemy here? They’re the ones who nearly destroyed humanity with their plague.”

  Hanlon stopped, hoping that Tolon heard her speech as well as her crew. She turned to the Ulef and said, “I hope we can find a way to look past what’s happened between us and forge ahead towards cordial relations between our peoples.”

  Hanlon heard her crew moving around behind her while she stared at Tolon. After a moment, he said, “We will tell you of our decision soon, Captain.” He turned and walked out of the room.

  Murphy wasn’t done making his case. “Captain, I don’t think making peace with the crabs is going to get us released.”

  Kelper, who was still standing behind him said, “He’s right, ma’am. If they wanted to make peace with us, they would have released us by now. Whatever they’ve done to you, it’s affecting your mind. Are you sure you’re making rational decisions?”

  Before Hanlon could respond, Watkins said, “Lieutenant! You’re way out of line. For your information, I back Captain Hanlon’s decisions completely. Making wild accusations is completely unacceptable.” Watkins waved his hand between himself and Kelper and shook his head.

  Kelper’s dark eyes rested on Hanlon’s. After a moment, the younger woman turned away and headed to the far side of the chamber. Murphy stood for a few seconds longer before following Kelper to where she sat.

  Hanlon sighed heavily. “It looks like I missed a thing or two while I was away. Was I really gone for more than a day?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I think it may have been as long as two days, actually. The situation here developed pretty rapidly. I think Lieutenant Kelper is trying to form a group around her to attack the Ulef at the next opportunity. Lieutenant Murphy is definitely with her. I think two or three others, mostly from the martial arts team have formed a small group.”

  “We’ll have to stop that before it gets out of hand,” Hanlon said. “I can’t have them challenging my authority, and I need everyone here to back me up when I give an order. Have you heard anything about their plan other than just a general idea to attack?”

  “No, ma’am. They’re still practicing martial arts, and some of them have been working on learning to attack and act like the crabs might so they can work on defending themselves.” Watkins shook his head. “It’s unfortunate because it’s the only productive thing we had to keep us occupied. I’m not sure we should try to stop it.”

  “All that would do is give potential mutineers the opportunity to rally around a central cause. No, we’ll let the classes continue. Work on making sure that Kelper and anyone willing to act on her beliefs is kept away from the door anytime the Ulef come back.”

  “It’s hard to blame them, ma’am. They want to get out of here, just like everyone else.” Watkins held up his hand to forestall Hanlon’s retort. “I’m not saying I think we should do what they want, all I’m saying is that the situation is incredibly difficult. They’re not right, but their reactions are understandable. I’ll keep working on pushing the positive points of a diplomatic solution.”

  “Good,” Hanlon said. “I hope we hear back from them soon. We probably can’t hold everyone in line for a lot longer.”

  “The real issue is whether or not they’re able to convince others that your judgment has been compromised while you’ve been away talking to the Ulef.”

  “There’s no way to convince them to the contrary. Either they trust me to lead them, or they don’t.”

  It was about two days later when Tolon returned to the cell. The door opened and Tolon, who was accompanied by two other Ulef stepped into the room. Hanlon, who had taken up the habit of occupying the bed nearest the door, jumped up and checked where Kelper and Murphy were at. She saw them leaning against the back wall talking with their heads together. Hanlon turned to face Tolon.

  “Captain Hanlon, you will come with us,” Tolon said and turned to move back through the door.

  Hanlon nodded at Watkins and started to follow Tolon into the passageway. She heard Watkins shout something, and she was knocked to the floor when someone ran into her. The area erupted into a flurry of movement and sound. Hanlon levered herself up to her knees and turned to see Murphy and another of the engineering staff dragging one of the Ulef by its feet. The rod used to incapacitate the humans was lying on the floor.

  Tolon backed against the wall and watched the developing scene without reacting further. Hanlon turned and saw the third Ulef was pitching wildly back and forth. Kelper had somehow leaped onto its shoulders. Her legs were locked under one of the creature’s arms, and she was repeatedly slamming the end of a torture rod into the shell just above the eye ridge. The Ulef got a couple of its tentacles wrapped around her waist, but it didn’t seem to have the leverage to dislodge her. The tentacles in its other arm couldn’t quite reach her.

  “Kelper! Get down, now!” Hanlon shouted at the top of her lungs. She took two quick steps and snatched the torture rod up from the floor. She turned and aimed the rod at Kelper. Seeing the ferocity of her attack, Hanlon hesitated. As she watched, Kelper switched tactics and suddenly plunged the rod into the Ulef’s eye. Apparently, the socket was a weak point, because the rod plunged into the creature and orange ichor flooded out.

  Kelper flung the rod aside and bent forward, reaching her arm deeply into the Ulef’s body. Her shoulders worked, and her hand came out covered in orange and blue gore. She shrieked primally as the Ulef staggered and collapsed to the floor. She took a step towards Tolon, but the leader slammed her in the stomach with a closed claw, knocking the small woman three or four meters backward into the cell.

  Hanlon ran in front of Tolon, who was now advancing on Kelper. “Tolon! Please, don’t let this violence continue!” The Ulef didn’t respond, but he knocked Hanlon casually aside and continued to march towards Kelper. She shouted from where Tolon had knocked her down, “Tolon, I won’t allow you to kill her. You must stop.”

  Watkins interposed himself between Tolon and Kelper. Hanlon turned and saw that Murphy and the other engineer had both been incapacitated by the torture rod that Tolon had picked up from the floor. The rod Tolon held was still dripping with orange fluids. The two men were writhing on their backs, their faces twisted in agony. “Tolon, stop
!”

  Watkins was swept aside as easily as Hanlon had been. Tolon stopped, looming over Kelper. She was struggling to her feet, holding her stomach, where Tolon had hit her with his claw. She stared up at the huge being with defiant eyes. “Go ahead, monster. Kill me,” She ground out between clenched teeth.

  Hanlon took another step towards Tolon and raised the torture rod, still clenched in her right hand. “Tolon! Stop!” She raised the rod and pointed it at Tolon, grappling with the controls. Nothing seemed to happen. Tolon turned and regarded her for a few seconds. Just as she thought the situation would move back from the brink of violence, she saw the other Ulef step into her field of view. It raised one massive claw and tried to snatch the torture rod from her grasp. Hanlon tried to evade the move and ended up with her right wrist held by the creature. With only the slightest hesitation, the claw snapped closed, and her hand, still clutching the rod dropped to the floor with a wet thunk.

  Hanlon reflexively snatched her arm back and started to scream. Blood spurted from the stump. Her left hand moved of its own volition and grasped the now handless wrist, squeezing tightly, despite the pain. Her scream slowly trailed off as she ran out of breath. Her gaze went from the stump to her hand and back several times, and she screamed again. The Ulef who had cut her hand off drew back, its claws wide, intent on finishing her. Tolon moved quickly to its side and knocked it back before the it could kill her.

  She heard Tolon, as if from a great distance, say, “Enough. Blood has answered for blood here. Leave them locked inside. Take Captain Hanlon for medical treatment and make sure she survives. She may be the only way we can continue.

  Chapter 14

  Marli Simmons was still resting her back against the door which would lead into the galley after a few more hours of repair. Her suit beeped at her. Exterior pressure and oxygen were now just barely into the acceptable zone. She walked back up to the bridge and checked on the status of the ship. Connections had been made with the large section of the ship that was being reintegrated by the repair drones. Power conduits were reattached, and the reactor was producing plenty of power.

  One of the lateral sensor arrays was still intact and was soon reattached. Simmons did her best to concentrate on the newly completed sections of the ship coming online. She desperately needed distraction from her insane hunger. She still couldn’t believe she’d almost vented her atmosphere just to get into the galley sooner.

  She tapped back into the cooling system and sucked down a half liter of the metallic tasting water. Her headache was starting to lessen, but she worried that this was because her body was giving up on the idea of being hungry. While she felt a little better, that also meant she was losing ever increasing amounts of ability to use her mind for rational decision making. She kept returning to thoughts of food, and she found herself repeatedly checking the doors to the escape pods, hoping that one had somehow not launched. She knew and had confirmed several times, that all of the escape pods were gone.

  She checked the status of the repairs. Another thirteen hours and the section would be air tight and ready for her to enter. She turned her attention to the intact section of sensors. It was a part of the navigational array and was well suited to checking the surrounding system.

  Data fed obediently onto the small screen at the ops station. The system was not the one where she’d intended to go. The star was the wrong type, and there was no gas giant. She checked the status of the reactor. There were some remaining isotopes, but the storage tank, while present, was now nearly empty. She might be able to pull off a single short jump with what she had. Before she could do that, she would need to know where she was.

  The sensors she had wouldn’t do well for determining her current location. She’d need to rebuild the long-range sensor suite, which had once lived in the forward end of the hull. Fortunately, she was able to use the sensors to locate another section of the Loki, still tumbling away. It was the rest of the ship from aft of the reactor to the stern. Other parts of the ship were visible, but they were all blown into sections too small to be useful. She decided it would be better to gather them up with the manufacturing ring and have new sections of the ship manufactured and attached as she could.

  She checked the time and found that less than an hour had passed. She ground her teeth in frustration. She thrust herself out of the chair and went to the rebuilt cabin, determined to sleep off the time left until she could eat. She couldn’t concentrate on anything else for long. The suit was not the most comfortable thing to try to sleep in, but she managed to drift off into a fitful sleep for a few hours. When she awoke, she passed the remaining hour by pacing just outside the door to the galley. Finally, her mouth was watering so much she was actually drooling into her helmet, the status panel indicated the area was airtight and pressurized, albeit only at seventy-five percent normal.

  She flung the door open and ran into the galley. She opened cabinets until she found a row of shiny packages of ready-meals. She snatched one from the shelf and jerked the helmet off of her head. Her ears popped painfully at the sudden pressure change, but she hardly noticed. She tore the food open and crammed almost a third of it into her mouth in a single bite.

  She chewed noisily and swallowed, her whole being suffused in the pleasure of finally getting food into her stomach. She finished the small meal in quickly and then went on to eat two more. Her stomach was positively bursting full by the time she sat, looking at the mess she’d made. She rubbed her protruding belly through the pressure suit and made her way back to the bridge.

  The air was still a bit stale, but she risked leaving the helmet off. With her stomach now uncomfortably full, she was able to concentrate on repairs to the ship. She detailed the drones to drag back the aft section of Loki. She would have been able to do that earlier, but she’d been so focused on getting food that she’d neglected to follow through. She watched the drones move slowly across the small screen and intercept the tumbling piece of the ship. The drones got it under control and then started the much slower trip back to Loki. A few hours later, the ship was now roughly half complete. The outer hull was still a complete wreck, and many of the compartments near the outer hull were still open to space.

  The damage control bots scurried through the new section, connecting the computer to damaged subsystems and restoring control. They also sucked up debris, transforming it into usable materials for rebuilding destroyed structures. As the computer received updates, the status display was refreshed. It showed the ship’s aft two thirds were now structurally present and under control, but with massively damaged sections. She would have gravity slope drive in a few hours, making the rest of the repairs relatively trivial from a logistical standpoint. She could sweep up the remaining sections of the ship and rebuild them.

  She would usually need a crew of at least three or four people to maneuver utility shuttles to get the armor plating back onto the exterior hull. Since she was alone, she’d need to design a new drone attachment that would allow them to perform the task. Combat drones were fine for combat, of course, and were also fine for towing things around, but no consideration had been made for them to be used as damage control devices.

  She tapped out a series of parameters into the main computer. She took the modular design of the drones and worked up a new design that would maximize their ability to make large repairs on the exterior of the ship. The utility module would use both slots on the drone, leaving it helpless in the event of an attack, but the drones would now exceed the ability of a human controlling a utility shuttle. She input the new design for construction after running a few simulations to see that it would work.

  The design looked serviceable enough, and she decided it was sufficient. She returned her attention to the sensors. The star system she was in had five planets, all of which were rocks, orbiting a dim brown dwarf star. None of the planets had much of an atmosphere, but she might be able to salvage what she needed for breathable air from the sun’s corona and partially from the f
rozen gasses on the fifth planet.

  The fifth planet was small and had layers of frozen methane in a belt around the equator. The methane could be harvested, thawed and reprocessed for the carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. There were also a large number of asteroids in the system that would yield more than enough raw materials to complete the ship in manageable sections.

  She pulled up the original design specifications of the Loki. The ship had been designed with highly capable sensors and multiple lab spaces for scientific teams. None of that space would be used for anything on her mission. She pondered the situation. She didn’t know what was going to be waiting for her when she arrived. Perhaps the forward sections could be rebuilt to supplement the weak armament the ship carried.

  She considered a larger series of emitters for the pulsed plasma canon. The weapon design was immensely powerful and quite destructive at medium to long range, but it took a tremendous amount of power and couldn’t be used effectively from the cover of stealth. What she needed was something that would work well at very long ranges and would allow her to maintain stealth.

  She considered the types of weapons being used. Torpedoes were already a part of the ship’s standard compliment. Mines were deployed from the same launch tubes as torpedoes. The drones resided in their launch bay at the bottom of the manufacturing ring and were already as powerful as she could make them.

  She pulled up the design specifications of the Behemoth. She’d been particularly proud of its design, but the entire process had taken a matter of weeks, not the years normally devoted to a new ship design. The rest of the ship had been simple adaptations from the designs already in Aeternum’s database.

  The railgun was a massive weapon intended to hurl a huge slug of iron at cee fractional speeds, resulting in catastrophic damage to any object in its path. The weapon was intended as a last resort, capable of destroying small planets in just a few shots.