Escape 2: Fight the Aliens (7 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

“Listen up,” Bill called to the 18 spec ops folks gathered in the high-ceilinged Collector Pods Chamber. They were all dressed in green camo Army BDUs, wore backpacks like the one he now wore, and all had on bullet-resistant chest and back plates. Plus sod-breaking boots, none of them looking new. Even his saloon buddies had understood the need to be prepared for bad terrain. His buddies stood to his right. Behind them, filling half the chamber, was a three-tier rack that supported the 24 collector pods carried by the
Blue Sky
. The rack stretched from one end of the chamber to the far end. Each tier held eight pods.

He focused on the new arrivals from MacDill, who formed a line to his left. He counted four Army Green Berets wearing their distinctive headgear, two Air Force pararescue folks wearing the maroon beret that went with being a PJ, and three SEALs, who wore the standard floppy green all-weather hat favored by their instructors at Coronado. One Green Beret was a stocky Hindu woman with tied back hair, but he was startled to see a woman among the SEALs. While it had been a few years since all combat posts had been opened to females, still, he was amazed to see a woman in his old unit. While the movie years ago about a woman SEAL had been partly accurate in its depiction of their training regime, still, being a SEAL graduate was commonly viewed as signaling an alpha male. Or so his saloon buddies had remarked whenever he or Stefano had visited a new bar. The swarming of sheilas around them offering to buy drinks had been a mild source of jealousy among his buddies. No matter. What was important was that these nine were combat-blooded, they understood the mission was all important and they were all volunteers.

“People, the mission is simple. Capture the Collector starships,” Bill continued. “To do that, three person teams enter the pods behind you, travel to a Collector starship, arrive at a chamber identical to this one, you taser zap the Alien crewman sent to gather your supposedly unconscious body, grab the red cube from the Alien, use it to enter the main hallway and then laser-seal the access door to the Weapons Chamber of the Collector ship,” he said, scanning each volunteer and noting the names of the MacDill nine as shown on their chest tabs. “That chamber is directly across from the exit door for this chamber. You will be luckier than Jane and I were when we first began our ship takeover. We had to run from the opposite side of the ship to this side, in order to arrive before the three Alien crew got to this ship’s Weapons Chamber.” He paused, wondering if any of them would yield to curiosity and ask stupid questions. No one did. “You’re all trained for hostile boarding, strong point takeovers and working in scuba suits. But taking over a Collector ship will not be easy.” He nodded at the Asian-looking SEAL woman, who had leaned forward, her manner showing a wish to ask a question. “Yes Janice?” he said, reading her name tag.

“Sir,” she said in a melodious soprano. “What is your order of training for this operation?”

A reasonable question. “To begin with, we go by first names. And fuck rank. Second, in a few moments you will view a holo of mine and Jane’s takeover run of this ship, how we learned its layout, how we got the aid of its ship mind, and how we eventually accessed the Command Bridge and captured the SOB cockroach who was its captain.” He ignored the curious looks of most of them. “In that holo you will see five Alien bioforms, how they fought, how we defeated them, and how we later stored them in cells in the Containment Cell Chamber of this ship. Third, I’ll show you the innards of one of the pods. Think of tight quarters aboard a UH-60 Black Hawk copter. Fourth, each of you dons a vacsuit and keeps it on until you get a sleep break 12 hours from now.” Bob the cynical Marine grinned and gave him a wink. “Fifth, we’ll cross over to this ship’s Weapons Chamber, get laser and taser tube weapons and explosive balls, then return here for target practice. Sixth, we will break into three person teams and spend 30 hours doing Op Force combat runs up and down the hallways of this ship. One team will imitate the Aliens trying to zap or kill you, while a second team will be the boarders trying to get past them.” He looked around, meeting each of them eye to eye. “What makes this a hard row to hoe is that you cannot
kill
any of the Alien crew, even if they are trying to kill you. The reason has to do with gaining the help of the Collector ship’s AI—you will hear how Jane and I discovered that wearing vacsuits created an Emergency response from this ship’s AI. And how the ship’s Emergency Protocols kept the ship captain from killing us with super-heavy gravity. Or similar deadly adjustments of ship systems.” He scanned the personal weapons worn by each volunteer. “You will see that I’m wearing a Fed Ordnance .45 semi-auto. It’s what I took fishing when I was captured by a collector pod like those behind you. You can use your personal arms against any robot or control device on the enemy Collector ship. But use your laser only to wound or disable the crew and captain.” He grinned. “Taser zapping the captain allows the ship AI to move ship control to the team leader, who will identify himself as the prime leader of your boarding team.”

His Coast Guard buddy Joe raised a hand. “Bill?”

“Spit it out,” he said calmly.

The chunky man patted the chest plate he wore atop his green BDUs. “What are these plates for? And who will be the team leaders?”

Bill reached over his shoulder and pulled a white tube and a red tube out of his backpack. Holding the white tube in his left hand, he lifted it and aimed it at Joe. “Hold still. This will hurt a bit but the plate will keep you from being knocked out.”

Joe lifted a black eyebrow, then nodded. “Ready for whatever,” the man said as he grimaced.

Bill pressed the button at the end of the slim white tube. A red beam shot out and hit the center of the bullet-resistant vest. Red sparkles flared. He let up on the button. The beam vanished.

Joe groaned. “Fuck that stings!” The man lifted shaking hands up to touch the black burn spot on the vest. “So that red beam is what knocked out you and captain Jane?”

“Yup,” Bill said, scanning the faces of his saloon buddies and the MacDill folks. “People,
this
is your primary weapon for disabling the Aliens who will be sent to capture or kill you. It shoots an electrified beam of red light that looks like a laser. Ship mind tells me the power cell in this tube is good for a hundred twenty taser shots like the one you just saw.”

“One hundred twenty-one shots,” the AI hummed from the high ceiling of the chamber.

“Mouthy AI!” He stowed the white tube in a loop of his leather belt, then moved the red tube front and center, holding it with both hands. He lifted it. “This laser tube is similar to but different from the taser. You can see that it has a flat box at the butt end and a flat box in the middle, where a clip might be on an AKM-74.” He looked up at the yellow-glowing ceiling. “Ship mind, move one of the hover bots in this chamber so it hovers just above me.”

“Complying.”

A silvery ball floated over from where it had hovered above the top tier of collector pods. Bill lifted the red tube and aimed. He tapped the button on the tube’s butt end. A green beam shot out and hit the ball. Which blew up in a yellow burst of electronics and tiny silver fragments. As the fragments rained down on him and his boarding volunteers, he faced them with the red tube weapon held upright. “Joe asked what the chest plates you now wear are for. Well, the titanium plate in your front and back vest slots are tough enough to block a taser shot. And they are dense enough to briefly block this laser beam . . . if you move the hell out of the way very fast! You’ll get burns on your arm or leg, but better than standing still and letting the beam burn through the plate and zap your heart.”

“Damn,” Alicia muttered. “That’s a nasty weapon.”

“Looks like a portable version of the Navy’s LaWS,” Stefano said softly. “How similar is it to the system on the
USS Ponce
?”

All of the volunteers looked very awake and very alert. The MacDill people followed every movement of the red tube laser weapon as he lifted it and stowed it in his backpack. “It’s different and more powerful. The LaWS is a solid-state laser array that shoots out an infrared beam with a top energy of 30 kilowatts. This thing shoots a carbon dioxide beam with a five megawatt energy level. It will cut through most metals. Jane and I used it to melt the caterpillar tracks of a robot sent to kill us. The robot’s frame was laser resistant, but its tracks were just steel. Which could be made to partly melt so as to immobilize it.”

“I like it,” said Janice Watanabe, her black eyes watching him closely.

“You will
all
like it. It also worked to kill the laser tubes atop the robots sent against us.” Bill pulled out a black square with a dome on it. He showed it to everyone. “This is a magnetic disruptor. Tap the top of the dome three, one and three times. Then stick the square against a robot or an access door. It will zap the electronics of whatever it’s stuck to.”

“It does more,” Star Traveler said from the ceiling speaker. “The magnetic disruptor is suitable for disabling the magnetic controls of a transport ship, a local gravity plate or similar devices that rely on the interaction of electromagnetic fields.”

Bill gave the finger to the ceiling. Which brought chuckles from most of his buddies and brief smiles from the MacDill crowd. “This ship mind is a vital ally to me and Jane. But its fixation on being exact in whatever it says can be tiresome.” He put the box and dome back into his backpack and faced the two lines of volunteers. “Joe’s second question was who will be the team leaders. I’ve thought about that.” He pointed to his right. “Alicia, Frank and Stefano are team leaders for the Denver crowd. They pick whomever they want for the folks who will board a pod with them.” He nodded at the nine spec ops people who’d arrived with the admiral. “You MacDill folks are active duty. I’m sure you have your own ideas. Well, I’m biased. Your three SEALs will be your team leaders. That’s Janice, Jake and Mack.”

“Yes sir!” called the three SEALs, who did not salute him as was common SEAL practice. In the field and on a mission, no SEAL indicated who an officer member of the team was. Nor did team members rely on rank. Experience and whomever had the right abilities to carry out a function was all that mattered on any SEAL team.

“Willing to serve,” called Alicia, her amber eyes bright.

His Gunnery Sergeant buddy showed a sober expression. “Ready and willing,” Frank said in a low voice.

His fellow retired SEAL Stefano did not look surprised at Bill’s selection of him to be a team leader. Instead, the man nodded slowly. “When do we start the Op Force training? And how much damage can we do to the hallways and such of this ship?”

Bill felt his heart race and his nerves go tingly. This moment reminded him of what all the crazy times at Coronado, Kodiak, San Clemente and Mount Laguna had been about. There was no need to share the details of his fifteen combat tours with these people. His IED nightmares would be old news to most of them. They each had their own history and superb training. No one here had anything to prove. Everyone was already into mission focus. Which, since they had just 46 hours left before the Collector ships arrived, meant they would go short on sleep and food. That was something he could handle. Now, time to find out who could be the sneakiest of the two groups!

♦   ♦   ♦

Bill, now wearing his vacsuit with backpack and vest over it, led the way through the Collector Pods Chamber airlock room and out into the high-ceilinged hallway of the right side of the ship. His volunteers followed him. He walked across the wide hallway to an eight foot high oval door on the opposite side. He gestured at it.

“That’s the way into the Weapons Chamber.” He pointed his small red cube at the door and pressed its button. Nothing happened. “As you can see, the red cube door openers do not work on this doorway. Or on the Engines doorway. On
this
ship, only the touch of the hand of a ship officer will open it.” He turned and faced the vacsuited volunteers. “As you saw in the holo of our takeover, I used the claw hand of an Alien crewman to open this door. You will have to do the same using the hand or claw of whatever Alien greets your collector pod. For other ship doors, use the red cube carried by your greeter Alien.” He hoped everyone was paying close attention. Gaining control of the Weapons Chamber of a Collector ship was vital. “Unlike us, you will arrive armed with lasers. So use them to spot-weld this door shut so the Alien crew cannot gain lasers! Now, follow me inside.” He touched the door surface.

“Whoosh!” The door slid to one side faster than he could follow.

Beyond lay a chamber as big as the pods chamber. Five bright yellow spots shone from its ceiling. Ten low walls stretched before Bill, receding into the chamber’s distant back space. On top of each waist-high wall was a series of round basins. Inside the basins lay objects of different shapes. Bill saw three white tube tasers. Next in line were three red laser tubes. Beyond the two tube weapons, sitting in larger basins, were black boxes with a dome on top of them. Lettering covered one side. The golden letters had weird shapes, like the pictographs he’d seen while studying Mandarin Chinese. The same grouping of three weapons types were repeated along the wall in front of him and on top of adjacent walls. Beyond them, to the right and left, dumpster-like boxes with slanted lids were lined up against either wall. He gestured.