Ally or Alien: A Sci-Fi Novel (27 page)

eLoom, lost in space.

Gone forever.

Bellrock's glance froze in utter disbelief. His body paralyzed, apart from the cramp that rendered his arms useless. He just stared at the damaged section, now being sealed off from the rest of the station. One second, eLoom was there, and in the next, she wasn't.

Poof.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Rao said, well, stuttered. 

"Did this really happen? Tell me this didn't happen."

The scientist nodded with closed eyes. 

The silence cut like a tactical knife.

Dr. Rao looked up again, his eyes seemed watery. 

“Sir…we have to leave this section as well. It doesn't seem safe."

"He's right."

The young female voice broke Bellrock's perplexity. He reversed and found eKazumi standing behind him. She offered her palms flat open and expressed the most random service smile imaginable. 

"Please follow me to a safe space inside the ringstation. Our droids are already repairing the damage."

Bellrock tried to collect the onslaught of thoughts whirling through his mind.

"eLoom...she just got sucked into space."

"I know. Unfortunately we have lost her signal—she has been disconnected from the network. eLoom is out of the Exec's reach. There is nothing we can do about it."

Same intonation.

"Please follow me. eVax wants to talk to you."

Dr. Rao was the first to react to her demand. He joined her side and waited for his captain to do the same. Bellrock twisted his head around and looked back through the transparent gate in front of his nose. Construction droids already worked on the boulder-sized hole of the neighboring section which had blown out eLoom. The robots crawled around the sharp edges of the opening and sealed it.

That was it?

A Newtype life lost, and everything went back to normal?

Couldn't be.

Wasn't supposed to be.

"Captain Bellrock."

eKazumi again, this time more pressing.

He decided to follow her.

eVax better have a response to this tragedy.

Or else...

67

They traveled through the plastic-looking corridors. Each section seemed to be a 3D-print copy of the previous one. An endless maze of slick pathways, all connected via the tube system. 

"Why don't we take the pipes?" Dr. Rao said to eKazumi.

"It is too dangerous with the ongoing attack of the biomorph. I hope it does not bother you."

"We'll manage. We have to," the scientist said, his voice a few levels lower than usual. 

Bellrock staggered behind them like a bum drunk on confusion. He still couldn't compute what had happened only a moment ago. The saying was right—a few minutes could really change your life.

For the worse.

The three arrived at the destination—a technical room, reminiscent of a strategy chamber back on Earth. White, slick, and circular with some kind of technical projection device in the middle. eVax and three other Newtype awaited them with their hands crossed behind their uniformed backs. 

Before the shell could even open his plastic mouth, Bellrock dashed forward and entered the Newtype's private space.

"eLoom just died."

The Newtype tilted his head sideways but kept his ground.

"Well, she did not die in the original meaning of the word. She did however make a wasteful decision.” 

Another throw-away line that was reason enough to hammer another fist into that plastic face. Anger mixed with pain. Pain lead to explosive rage.

"She was torn-apart. A goddamn shuttle impacted our section and blew a hole into the wall which sucked her out."

eVax seemed unaffected by the harsh tone in Bellrock's voice.

"I know, human. We are linked to every part of the station. We see everything, hear everything, and know everything."

Flat expression.

Zero emotion.

Bellrock moved closer until he was only one breath away from the artificial face.

"Your friend lost her existence in space, and that's all you have to say?"

"She was being careless. But do not worry, the Exec copied her conscience before the body gave way. Her experiences and knowledge will be forever stored in the network."

Didn't change a damn thing that eLoom just dis-bodied in front of his eyes. 

Losing her limbs, and her conscience. 

Her smile and then her body.

Was every shell in this ringstation beyond reason and compassion?

Time to set things straight for the plastic dummies. 

"Listen up, Vax. The biomorph is breaking your platforms apart like a goddamn piñata filled with metal confetti. The alien is killing your people, and you're standing in front of the hull, watching it like some late night show. Fire everything you got."

The Newtype wrestled with his mouth, probably pondering the appropriate reaction. Bellrock wondered whether it was their version of showing anger.

Or disdain.

Properly the latter.

Always the latter.

"Please keep your macro-aggressions to yourself, human. We have not yet exhausted every non-violent method."

Bellrock pushed his face into eVax' visage. 

Only a fist was more triggering.

"How much do you have to lose before some fucking sense creeps into your plasto-brain? That creature is down on the surface firing everything it can corrupt, and you give me your bureaucratic BS peace talks?"

He wanted to shake up the shell till his artificial blood splattered against the hulls of the corridor. 

Beat the sucker with his own limbs, like back in the station.

Oh, the temptation.

But Bellrock was better than this.

"This creature is going to exterminate your race and us with it.”

eVax pushed his arms away from his face.

"Let go of me. Your point comes across without the physical threat."

"Not sure about that," Bellrock said as he did let go of the Newtype.

After all, he and his synthetic 'allies' were the only hope now. eVax cleared his throat, or that's how it sounded like.

"As long as we have one functioning Newtype, our entire race is safe. Our network works like a hologram that, even when shattered, works to the full of its abilities. All it requires is a single operative unit."

"So you're going to wait till everyone of your kind gets blown apart?"

"As you remember, we chose the peaceful way a long time ago. eLoom's goal was to communicate with the biomorph, not to cause its extinction. Eventually, the life form will run out of ships it can abuse as projectiles. We don't have many shuttles left on Mars."

Newtype logic, going full retard.

Bellrock pressed his lips. Blood leaked from them and rivered down his tunic.

"You know what we say on Earth—if you want peace, prepare for war."

eVax waited with his response and eyed Bellrock with his blue orbs.

"What do you propose, human?"

"You had a facility filled with Separatist War firearms and a frigging droid army. Tell me you have something similar in space that could deal serious damage to the alien."

Pause.

"The same thing that blew up the climber shuttle."

Bellrock eased his voice, took control of his temper.

"We've ran out of other options a long time ago."

Bellrock pushed eVax toward the transparent hull that offered the 180 degree view of the cosmic carnage. The Newtype ringstation and its adjacent mobile platforms looked as if a scatter missile storm had taken them apart. Dr. Rao's voice echoed in the back, but he ignored it.

Bellrock added attitude to the situation.

He wanted to set things straight, now or never.

"Since you seem to be immune to logic, let me give you another future scenario. Earth will hear about this incident, and when they realize the biomorph just wiped out half of the Newtype species, they will not stand idle. The AC and their allies will gather their troops, launch their space fleet and arrive at your territory with the most impressive weapon arsenal your plastic face has ever seen."

He paused for dramatic effect.

"Which means your inaction will launch another interplanetary war. Do you want that? Do you really want to be the reason why we shoot the shit out of each other again?"

Bellrock burned with determination, if necessary, he'd hammer the sense into their sustainable heads till sparks spat out of their openings.

eVax finally said,

"I disapprove of your violent language, human, but I begin to see merit in your words."

His voice as chill as ever. 

"Would you mind stop pushing me against the wall? I propose an idea."

Bellrock let go of the shell and tried to behave. Hard, when excess testosterone flashed through his body like a hyper-sonic jet. 

"Spit it out."

"We do have an effective solution against the biomorph."

His statement iced the moment.

"But it will violate our WMD treaty from the Separatist War."

The words lingered on Bellrock's mind. 

But better break the peace, than to break into pieces. He took one heavy breath of artificial air.

"Show me what you got."

68

"We have what you would call WMDs, although we choose not to use that loaded term. They are still remnants of the Separatist War, now refurbished as anti-asteroid arms to protect our station."

Bellrock's anger mixed with confusion, an unpleasant place to be.

"What are you mumbling about?"

"I guess I will have to show you. Please, look out the wall."

He watched as the remaining turrets fired at the debris, aided by droids of various sizes. Hardly WMDs, but then mobile platforms hovered beyond the station. Bellrock had seen them before and thought they were some kind of mobile comm relays, or maybe independent facilities with thruster-abilities.

But these weren't normal satellites. 

Compared to the segments of the ringstation, each platform resembled a mid-sized cruiser. Ten in total, extracting their giant solar panels and hovering into an algorithmic pattern around the red planet.

Bellrock swallowed.

It couldn't be. 

But they were...

MODs

Modular Orbital Disintegrators.

AKA the Cosmic Killers, as they were dubbed by the troops back in the day. They had caused horrendous losses during the war. Casualties included mid-sized battle ships and even carriers. And now they were fully operational and linked via the Newtype network.

eVax rotated his grinning head and said,

"They are quite capable, I can tell you that."

Those bastards, Bellrock thought. Peace up their plastic butts, these satellite cannons were capable of vaporizing Dreadnoughts with a single load.

"They are fully operational and require one command to unleash their power. Since you are the highest ranking representative from Earth, I will need your confirmation to overwrite our treaty because of this special occasion." 

"It's your weaponry."

"But this is a diplomatic endeavor between our races. We are not going to allow a military measure that threatens our peace."

eVax.

Suddenly trying to come across as the peace-keeping fellow.

It reeked of hypocrisy, but Bellrock pondered. 

If the shell hadn't the balls to take responsibility for the action, he had to. 

D. Rao moved closer to him and whispered.

"Sir, this treatment has enabled piece between our races for over a decade. If you give the command now, Earth will hear of it, and then we're back at war."

Bellrock shoved his bitter-tasting spit down his gamut. 

"What's the alternative? Let the biomorph destroy the ringstation? The AC’s intelligence will know about this. And then they'll launch their fleet anyways."

Dr. Rao pressed his face and looked at the orbital destruction.

"This isn't right."

"The creature almost killed you. It killed eLoom."

Anger escaped with every word.

"We're going to finish that threat, once and for all."

The scientist collected his spit but seemed too scared to swallow it down.

"It's your decision, captain."

And what a decision it was, certainly one Bellrock had never anticipated to make. But with Earth and the AC so far away, and no time to send a message back and forth, he had to act like a soldier cut from central command. 

There was only one way of minimizing damage.

Bellrock addressed eVax who waited like a statue with time to burn.

"I grant you the permission to use your satellite cannons."

They probably filmed his approval via their synthetic eyes to have a video statement as proof. Not that anyone on Earth would ever sue the Newtype, which was impossible, since they had no jurisdictional system whatsoever.

eVax nodded and gazed at the hull with the majestic view. The orbital cannons extracted devices from their rear and used their solar sails to float into the right position. 

Bellrock swallowed as he recognized the mobile platforms shifting into their assault mode.

Modular Orbital Disintegrators.

Not even one of them should have been operational...

"Who is controlling them?"

eVax answered,

"The Exec, of course. They can remote-control every device from within the network's range."

All the Newtype in the section looked at the transparent hull, like dolls watching a compelling movie. 

Bellrock and Dr. Rao were the only one sweating as the giant satellite platforms moved into their programmed eclipses, strategically directed at the Martian atmosphere.

eVax sounded like a bureaucrat again.

"Human, I grant you the honors of giving the final go."

69

Of course. 

Typical Newtype fashion, always make someone else do it.

Ah, what the hell.

The creature looked like a mechanical parasite and would destroy every piece of civilization it came in contact with. If eLoom was right, and the creature was indeed fabricated, it should be treated as a smart weapon.

The Newtype were too soft for the terminal decision, but Bellrock wasn't.