Shadows

by Brian Whiting

  Alex smiled wide when he looked over at Annunen’s display screen, which pulled up an image of a duck. Within a few moments the duck disappeared, and he began reviewing the sensor telemetry.

  Due to the FTL being inoperable it would take several days before the ship neared the space station, despite the great acceleration and deceleration curves the antigravity drive afforded them.

  This gave Alex time to become greatly concerned with the status of whatever was going on back on Earth. During the trip to where they were currently located, they stopped every three weeks to send and receive subspace messages to and from Earth and Humani, elaborating on the status of their journey. At first the council responded rather quickly; Cindy would most often be the one to respond via video transmissions. But then Cindy stopped sending video transmissions, and instead they started to receive written emails, which over time became shorter. Earth hadn’t responded to the last two subspace messages Alex had sent, and the infrequent emails he received didn’t paint a good picture.

  Alex pulled up the most recent email.

  (Alex, it’s good to hear that you’re still OK. You should return immediately. You are desperately needed. Things are not looking good for the UEF right now; I fear only you can straighten things out. Do not delay; return as fast as possible.)

  Nothing could have been more cryptic, Alex thought. He couldn’t even know who wrote the message. Now with the end of the subspace messages from Earth, he was truly worried. It was more important than ever to return with something useful.

  Alone in his cabin, Alex would often converse with Symboli as he continued to keep this advantage a secret from the crew.

  “I agree with Annunen. It is not worth the risk to dock with the station, and the latest response from Earth indicates your presence is required,” Symboli said.

  “If we return now, the only thing we will gain is a truth I already knew to be true. It’s not enough.”

  “You’re adding objectives to the mission, and you advised me to warn you if you ever decided to do this.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Alex lay down on his bed to think.

  “I think it’s Earth. If they are in trouble, then we need to return with more than ‘They are coming,’ we need to return with something extraordinary. Something that will turn things around.”

  “You do not know what problem needs to be addressed. How can you identify the correct solution?”

  “I’ll just know it, but we won’t discover anything if we turn back now.” Alex changed the subject. “How’s the FTL redesign going?”

  “Poorly. I am unable to polarize the waveform and prevent the heat buildup at the same time.”

  “I was thinking, what about disposable cores? Can you create some kind of modular system to allow for a quick exchange?”

  “I will reprioritize my processes to that possibility,” Symboli said.

  “I also want to see if you can retrieve some of the classified information.”

  “Are you sure? That is also risky, not just to me, but to the ship as well. If they have a defense against such intrusions, then it could cripple the ship.”

  “Go big or go home,” Alex muttered.

  “Your prolific use of irrelevant expressions is disconcerting.”

  “Uhh…thanks?”

  Symboli began to lay out the schedule to repair the FTL engine, but Alex promptly fell asleep.

  ***

  Days later, the FTL system was still not operational, but Tulie was hard at work. The Dauntless approached the space station, which looked like a teardrop, with the blunt end pointed toward the nearby planet. The planet itself looked temperate, with forests, mountains, and snowcaps, but little observable surface water.

  Several docking rings encompassed the teardrop near the large bulbous end. Alex began to feel uncomfortable about the dock they were heading toward; it looked cramped. Large towers were erected nearby, and the dock next to it held an obviously destroyed ship of some kind. The opposite side of the docking ring looked clean, even pristine.

  “Message the station, advise we are going to dock on the opposite side,” Alex said.

  It was one of the few times Annunen didn’t argue or offer a point to consider. He simply changed course to his desired docking location.

  Finally they received a response: “You may dock wherever you prefer.”

  Annunen brought the ship to the other side of the station and backed the conjoined ship rear first into the docking ring. As soon as the ship came to a halt, the station responded. The viewscreen focused on a large thick pole that was extending toward and below their ship.

  “What is that?” Alex asked with alarm.

  They changed the camera angle to a bottom view. The pole had stopped extending about halfway over the length of the ship. Then it began to rotate, and it unfurled a thick cloth-like material that began to encompass the rear half of the ship.

  “Should we leave?” Alex began to panic.

  “It’s likely this race’s docking system. I understand your early adaptation was something similar.”

  Alex felt embarrassed, because he did remember fitting a rubber sock over the USV Surprise.

  They continued to watch as the cloth encompassed the entire ship. Then a modest electrical current passed through the fabric and it constricted tightly around the vessel. The ship jolted just once as the fabric snapped tight.

  “We just lost the rear camera,” Annunen stated calmly.

  “It’s just covered by the fabric,” Alex responded.

  “Captain, we are not getting any data from the camera. It likely has sustained damaged,” Ga Jute Pae said.

  The bottom camera, which was not obscured, now displayed a tiny arm extending from the thick pole; it had several joints and continued to unfold toward the constricted fabric. With a mere touch of the extended pole, the localized area of the taut fabric relaxed somewhat. The tiny pole touched three other areas, all of which relaxed slightly as a result.

  “Sir, the hull is warming up,” Annunen responded.

  The Gothans were frantically speaking to each other in their native tongue. But Alex knew what they were saying. They were theorizing that the fabric was heating up to allow comfortable connection between the ship and the docking ring.

  “Tulie is busy with the FTL, and the Gothans are too small. Annunen, arm yourself and join me. Let’s go explore a bit.”

  There was an explosion of noise from the Gothans. When they finally calmed down Ga Ra Tor managed to say, “We are sworn to protect you. Where you go, ga will go!” Ga Ra Tor unbuckled gatself from gat pole, holding gat weapon, and jumped from the supported balcony to the deck at Alex’s feet.

  “Can you tell if we can support the air without suits?”

  “The tunnel is pressurizing now,” Annunen responded. Alex waited and stared at the Gothan at his feet, until Annunen said, “There is sufficient oxygen; however, there is a toxic amount of carbon dioxide. Everyone needs to wear a suit.”

  Alex, looking a bit dejected, left the bridge with Annunen and Ga Ra Tor as they made their way to the EVA suit room. Roughly twenty minutes later they stood before the rear loading ramp.

  “Tulie, please note that Annunen, myself, and one Gothan are leaving the ship.”

  “Understood,” Tulie said, as some kind of mechanical device was grinding away in the background.

  Alex toggled the ramp to open, and a gust of air escaped into the cavern of brown fabric that waited at the end of the ramp. They walked down the ramp into the tunnel of fabric, which felt warm enough. The cavern led to a set of doors that opened on their own. They stepped into a room the size of a garage.

  The second set of doors opened on the far side, and yet another gust of air rushed from the small room into the large space. It was obvious this new area was meant to be a logistics depot. Lying around were supply piles of huge solid beams, likely used for construction, plus a huge tank that held some sort of liquid.

  “What do you think, water or f
uel?” Alex asked aloud.

  “It matters not. Unless we are to go deeper into the structure, there’s nothing here to investigate,” Annunen said.

  “I’m going.” Alex stepped forward and began walking toward a huge tunnel that led from the ring toward the teardrop. There were many of these tunnels connecting the trio of rings to the structure. The flooring was like a metal grate, but below the grate was solid decking. Up until they reached the tunnel, everything was some shade or another of gray. The tunnel was blood-red, and the lighting was pink. Once Alex crossed the threshold, a service bot disconnected itself from a not-so-distant wall and made its way to the group, coming to a stop off to the side. It hovered, with no arms or legs. It looked like a board for advertisement.

  “May I assist you with anything? What do you desire?” the bot vocalized in passing English.

  “We want to purchase some technology.”

  “Follow me.”

  Alex went to step forward, but instead lifted his weapon at the ready as the ground he stood on rose about three feet off the deck. The bot and the deck they stood on accelerated at a constant pace down the long tunnel.

  “Can you still hear me?” Alex was actually asking Symboli, but both Symboli and Gs Port Tha, still on the ship, advised that they could.

  “Alex, be advised that a slow-moving heat plume is making its way toward our location.”

  “Can you tell what it is?”

  “No, it’s faint. We can’t really scan the interior of the structure.”

  “How long until it reaches our location?”

  “Twenty-two minutes to you, thirty-one minutes to the ship.”

  Alex was distracted by what looked like overly large coffins. They were all connected by a thick string of cables and pipes.

  “What are those to our left?” Alex asked hoping the service robot could hear him.

  The upper half of the robot twisted around completely. “Those are civilians. They are going to ride out the invasion in the pods.”

  “Do you mean suspended animation? Stasis tubes?”

  “I do not understand,” the robot advised.

  “Those citizens, are they sleeping, dead? What is their status?”

  “They are frozen. They will unfreeze once the threat has passed.”

  “Stop this thing,” Alex yelled at the robot, and the decking slowly came to a stop. Then he said to Annunen, “Go check those things out, see if you can obtain some technical specs on the tubes.”

  “If you would like to purchase a tube for yourself, they are readily available. Only 355 credits,” the robot said.

  Annunen stepped off the deck and looked underneath. Aside from the four-inch deck itself, and a thin webular tubing wrapped around the bottom portion of the deck, there was no evidence or hint of what allowed its movement.

  “Please continue to take us to the technology,” Alex said, and the decking picked up speed again as it neared the entrance to the tunnel, leaving Annunen behind to investigate. The deck began to drift to the left and into an even large tunnel system. Along the wall were what looked like the stalls of various vendors; it reminded Alex of a street market. They all appeared to be unoccupied; indeed, the entire station seemed deserted. After another minute the deck came to a stop in front of a closed vendor. The stall was darkened, but there were no doors or anything to prevent Alex or Ga Ra Tor from entering and looking around.

  As they entered the alcove filled with wares, they were careful not to touch anything. Alex could not have guessed at the function of much of what he looked at.

  “Do you feel that?” Ga Ra Tor asked.

  Alex stopped himself from picking up an object and resolved to pay closer attention to himself. “No, I don’t feel anything.” But within seconds he forgot his pledge of not touching and picked up a donut-shaped object. It was solid metal except for a small two-by-two-inch piece of what to Alex looked like glass directly in the center of the donut. He shook the object, but nothing happened, and he returned it to the shelf.

  “I definitely feel something, that’s getting stronger.”

  “Alex, ETA of heat bloom arriving at your location is eight minutes.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Alex, I advise that we leave. It feels like a storm is coming. We should go,” Ga Ra Tor said.

  Try as hard as he could, Alex couldn’t feel or hear anything.

  “Can you tell us what any of these objects are for?” he asked the robot.

  “I apologize for the delay. The owner has been notified of your arrival but must be delayed. Please be patient.”

  “Alex!” Ga Ra Tor said.

  Alex turned to look at his guardian Gothan, who now lay prostrate on the ground, for what reason Alex couldn’t be sure.

  “We need to leave!” the Gothan repeated more harshly.

  “Annunen, you hear this?”

  “I’ve heard you two but nothing else. I believe I have what I need. I’m waiting for pickup.”

  Alex began to grab all sorts of objects and placed them on the deck. Boxes, poles, weird tablets, tubes, a collection of round balls, and another of cylinders. A clear rectangle of faintly gold liquid.

  “We don’t have time. Let’s go, Alex,” Ga Ra Tor said from the deck as ga waited for Alex to join. Alex now noticed a slight vibration in the decking as he stepped onto the elevated deck.

  “OK, take us back to our ship.”

  “How do you intend to pay for your selections?” the bot said.

  “Uhh…”

  “Suggest a physical exchange at your ship,” Symboli offered into Alex’s earpiece.

  “A physical exchange,” Alex relayed to the service bot.

  “Excellent. Port Authority has been notified and will meet you at your ship for the exchange.”

  The elevated deck retreated back the way they had come, without having to turn around. Instead of leading them, the service bot now followed them from behind.

  “We need to retrieve our companion we dropped off earlier,” Alex shouted.

  The hovering deck began to slow as Annunen came into sight. Alex reached out with a hand and hoisted him onto the deck. Alex sat down on some of the materials he had gathered, since there was nowhere else to stand; the deck was not large enough.

  It was then that Alex noticed a growing dark line that seemed to be morphing from the direction they had come from. The decking began to accelerate slowly toward the ship as the line grew thicker.

  Alex shouldered his pulse rifle and through the scope could see countless alien octopods dashing across the deck at frightening speed. They were crushing each other, sprint over themselves they acted like a tidal wave. Fearing for his life, Alex began firing into the rushing crowd of aliens.

  The weapons fire alerted Annunen and Ga Ra Tor to the threat, and they added their own firepower to the approaching aliens.

  “We’re not going to make it!” Annunen yelled over the repeating fire of his Humani energy weapon.

  Alex noticed the hover deck was starting to slow down. He turned back to see that they were approaching the double doors.

  “We can’t afford to slow down,” Annunen yelled.

  Alex aimed his weapon at the service bot, unsure if that would help or hurt their situation, then fired. The service bot exploded into pieces, while the rest melted into the deck.

  The deceleration stopped; however, the double doors were getting awfully close. Alex rapid-fired multiple rounds into the doors. He made sure to destroy the doors completely so as to leave enough space for them to zip through without interference. A rush of heat buffeted them as they passed through the smaller passageway into the open docking ring. The small tunnel was now a conduit for the escaping atmosphere of the entire station, which shoved them into the open as they passed through.

  The tunnel forced the alien octopods to bunch up at the opening as they reached the small tunnel seconds after Alex and his group zipped through it. But the aliens had no fear of the vacuum of space and continued t
o pursue them.

  “Tulie, we are coming in! Hot prep the ship for launch.”

  “The ship is prepped and ready, sir,” Gs Shlee Bek stated. Alex smiled as he pointed his weapon at the smaller fabric tunnel that led to the ship’s cargo bay. He fired only twice, not wanting to damage his own ship.

  “Hold on!” Alex shouted over the repeated fire from Annunen’s weapon.

  They were rapidly approaching the doors of the ship. Alex wasn’t confident they were going to clear them. He crossed his arms in front of his helmet and braced for impact even as Annunen continued firing. Alex was sure he saw a red beam flicker in his vision before his body, all the collected materials, and his crewmates were launched into the tunnel.

  Alex felt great pain but opened his eyes, fairly confident he had not passed out. He found himself under the ramp to the Dauntless’s cargo bay. Several of the alien items were scattered around him. A terrible warbling sound reverberated inside Alex’s helmet. His weapon was gone, so he grabbed a few of the alien items, stood up, and slipped out from under the cargo ramp.

  Two Gothans in suits were laying down fire toward the tunnel entrance, which was partially blocked by the hover deck wedged in the door frame. After four or five tentacles wrapped themselves around the deck, it was forced free from the opening. They continued their mad dash toward the ship. Tentacles flailing, the aliens propelled themselves at incredible speeds.

  As soon as he leaped onto the ramp, he heard one of the Gothans say, “Depart now!” as the others continued firing. Alex ran up the ramp, avoiding scattered items that had been flung onto it from the hover deck.

  Once he touched the actual deck of the Dauntless he turned to see two of the aliens clinging to the ramp and to the side of the ship as the Dauntless lifted away from the station. The fabric, still attached to the large, thick pole, finally tore away from the ship.

  Both Gothans fired repeatedly toward the nearer alien on the right, blowing tiny holes into various locations along the tentacles and torso of the alien itself.

  The alien on the left managed to enter the cargo bay and curled into a tight ball. The moment the alien on the right was dispatched from the ship, they pointed their weapons to the left.