Escape 3: Defeat the Aliens (22 page)

“Will do,” Jane said. “The four Trident subs are right on your heels. They’re firing their lasers now. They’ll be your backup if you have to use a pod to escape.”

“Thanks.” Escape was the least of the things on his mind as he did his best to emulate a flying squirrel darting through tree branches. Four laser beams hit the
Fear Arrives
. The ship staggered in its forward flight, then steadied. But large amounts of air, water and some isotope fuel were spewing from its midsection. Or so his sensors reported. His scope actually showed tiny silver sparkles from the gaseous globules. Which quickly disappeared as they turned to vapor. Ten new green laser streaks shot past Bill, which meant the fire control panels on the four subs were being coordinated with the laser fire from Jane and Stefano’s ship, and the four surviving subs. Star Traveler had to be doing that. It had created the Magfield control tablets used by every sub out there. That tablet cross-linked to the other sub controls. It seemed his ship’s AI was able to override whatever a sub sailor was trying to fire on by orienting its laser fire in coordination with laser fire from the other ships. He grinned. It was ten, no, eleven lasers against the two on the
Fear Arrives
!

“We’re coming for you, you bastard!”

In the scope image, green flares showed at two spots on the enemy ship. More air and water spewed out. Then two green lasers shot past Bill. His system graphic screen showed Stefano’s transports were now gone.
Fuck!

“Bill?” called Jane. “The four subs are adding their laser fire to yours and ours. It’s wounded. You’re getting real close now. Get onboard, plant that nuke bar and get the hell out!”

“Will do.” Bill tapped his missile fire control panel. His transport shuddered four times, as one after the other, the four missiles in the belly of the transport shot out and ahead toward Death Leader. Maybe one of them—

Two yellow flares showed in his scope screen. Two dots vanished from his system graphic. Two more yellow flares. Two more dots vanished. His last two missiles were now vapor. And he was within the 400 mile target range of Death Leader’s spine-mounted plasma battery. Which now fired at him.

“Blow the nuke warheads!” he yelled as he jigged the nav hand-grip to one side, letting the yellow plasma ball sweep past. Another plasma ball came flaming out of the battery. He jinked. It missed.

“Detonating all but the x-ray laser warheads,” Jane called. “No way are we going to fry you!”

His true space screen went orange, then yellow, then golden, then near white as more than 1,300 thermonuclear warheads detonated. They plasma balls spread out, combined with other nearby warhead blasts and created a miles-wide front of radiation. Which now sleeted his way. His helmet ear buds squealed as the radio band was overloaded. He crossed his fingers that 4,000 miles of distance was allowing his transport’s metal frame to absorb most of the gamma and x-rays emitted by the blasts. This was the moment when the enemy’s sensors should be overloaded.

“I’m heading in,” Bill said, hoping his neutrino comlink’s passage through an alternate dimension would allow his words to be heard by Jane.

Bill twisted the hand-grip, causing his transport to move to one side of the enemy Collector ship. Its nose lasers and antimatter projector could not swing wide enough to get him. Those weapons had maybe a ten degree angle movement. He was beyond their angle. And they weren’t firing anyway. Clearly their targeting sensors were overloaded by the nuke blasts. But another plasma ball came at him from the spine battery. A second quickly followed from its belly plasma battery.
Fuck this
. He aimed his nose laser and killed the spine battery. A jink on the hand-grip and he dodged both plasma balls. He touched his laser’s patch. The belly plasma battery went red molten, then yellow, then it became dispersing metallic vapor.

“Contact!” he yelled as the
Talking Skin’s
belly touched down on the rear end of the
Fear Arrives
. He tapped on the magnetic clamps. Just in time. The ship rolled, trying to dislodge him. Giving thanks for the gravity plates that kept him stable, Bill got up from the pilot seat, grabbed his backpack, snapped shut the holster cover for his .45, then grabbed his laser and taser tubes and ran toward the midbody airlock. He touched a patch. Its hatch opened. He entered. It closed. He touched the outer airlock Operate patch. It opened. Nothingness greeted his eyes. Which of course made sense. The enemy’s hull was as invisible to his eyes as it was to all normal sensors. “Leaving the ship.” He jumped out, aiming toward the belly hull of the
Talking Skin
. Which was of course quite visible. Two black streaks along the transport’s side testified to how close he’d come to dying. Well, that only counted in—

“I’m on the ship!” he yelled as his tube suit boots made contact and their built-in mag clamps came on. Which way? Didn’t matter. “Star Traveler, can you override this ship mind’s control of its outer hull? Can you create an opening for me to enter?”

Humming sounded over his helmet’s comlink. “Unable to override local ship mind control,” the AI said.

“What would it take for you to override it?”

“Its death,” his ship mind ally said.

Well, killing another AI was not something Star Traveler had ever done. Unlike humans, who were very good at killing other humans. And nasty Aliens. “It’s okay. I’m arming a yellow demo ball. It should create a decent hole. Stepping away.”

Bill walked back to the hull of his transport, putting ten yards distance between him and the demo ball. Which he’d set on a five second delay. Which now ended.

“
Kaboom!
” came the sound of the demo ball exploding.

What the hell?
He was in vacuum. How could—

“Regrets for transmitting my acoustic monitoring of sensory output from the
Fear Arrives
comlink circuits,” Star Traveler said. “While I cannot override its ship mind’s control of ship functions, I do receive all inputs from its autonomous ship systems. Be aware the ship mind Dexterity will respond according to Emergency Protocols the same way I did when you and Captain Jane put on tube suits.”

He shook his head. The ringing from the blast subsided. His eyes showed him a gray metal ring that glowed redly against black space.
Yes!
He walked quickly toward it. The ring rim began slowly closing as the ship’s flexmetal tried to seal the rupture in its hull. He tried running. Not good. He kept walking fast. Faster. He got to the gray metal ring when it was three feet wide. He bent down, grabbed the ring edge and pulled himself into a room. Half gee gravity grabbed at him. Falling head first towards the room’s gray metal floor, he twisted in midair the way he’d learned in free fall chute jumps, twisted and landed on his right hip.

“Thunk!” came over his tube suit’s external com.

Which meant the hole above him had now sealed and some air was refilling the air lost from the room. He rolled over to his knees, put gauntleted hands against the floor and slowly stood up. Red light shone down on him. He looked around. Large blocks of metal, some tables, some automated metal grinders and cutters, and other powered mech told him what he needed to know. He was in this ship’s Factory Chamber. Which meant he was on the left side of the enemy ship and close to the cross hallway that led to the Engine chamber. Reaching back, he pulled his taser and laser tubes out of his backpack, turned and walked toward the eight foot high oval outline that was the door which gave access to this ship’s left side hallway. It would open on sensing his bodyheat.

“Jane, I’m in. In the Factory Chamber. Heading out.”

♦   ♦   ♦

She heard the good news of Bill’s survival and entry into the enemy ship. Cheers came from up front as Bill, Bright Sparkle, Wind Swift and Lofty Flyer gave vent to finally hearing good news. The death of the transports from Stefano’s ship as they closed on the bastard had put her heart in her mouth, or whatever meant severe fright. She’d faced fear during the SERE survival training she’d taken with other Air Force officers. Surviving in the Southwest desert by eating insects and getting your water from ripping open cacti and sucking their innards had not been fun. Or easy. In her time in SERE she had felt fear that she and her fellows had been forgotten by the people in charge. Now, she was the one in charge.

“Good job,” she replied, trying to sound matter of fact.

The last thing Bill needed was any sign his commanding officer was uncertain, afraid or fearful. He’d told her how he and fellow SEALs were trained to suppress fear, suppress worry, suppress any feeling that got in the way of accomplishing the mission. Well, she wasn’t a SEAL. Nor had she ever had the spec ops training of his saloon buddies. But she had more live fire experience in space combat than any other human now chasing the homicidal maniac who wanted to kill her home world. Why hadn’t Death Leader turned away and headed north of the ecliptic, aiming for the system’s magnetosphere and escape from death at the hands of humans? Was it some crazy Mokden fixation on punishing humans? Or was the creature simply focused on hurting humanity before it died? At least her world was safe from total destruction. One Collector ship could not turn Earth into a radioactive cinder covered with antimatter scars. Still, millions would die if she and Bill and Stefano and the four subs did not finish this job. She scanned her system graphic holo, then her true space holo.

“Stefano, keep firing on Death Leader’s ship. That will force the creature to focus on jinking his ship and keep him off Bill’s back.”

“Firing lasers,” called the SEAL.

“Also firing our laser,” called the captain of the Trident boomer
USS Tennessee
.

“The
USS Kentucky
is firing too,” called its captain.

“We’re firing also!” called a raw voice full of Northeast twang as the
USS Maine
fired its laser.

“Uh, our reactor’s steam output is showing blockage. Ensign! Is the Magfield engine glowing? We gotta—”

The
Wyoming
captain’s female voice vanished as Jane’s true space holo showed a yellow plasma ball spreading over the blackness of deep space.

She thought it was a sad image, appearing just to the right of Mars’ red ball.

“Subs! Cut back to 14 percent of lightspeed. Now! And maintain a live monitor on your Magfield engines! If anything looks different on their tube hulls, cut power! Immediately. Or you’ll go up like the
Wyoming
just did.”

Acknowledgments came from the captains of the three surviving subs.

Jane took a deep breath and focused on the tactical situation showing in her holos. The system graphic showed the enemy ship dot with Bill’s transport touching it, 4,000 miles plus of open space, the three surviving subs and just behind them, her
Blue Sky
and Stefano’s
Neil C. Roberts
ship. Clearly the sub captains still aimed to ram the
Fear Arrives
if Bill’s effort failed. She checked the distance to target readout on her Weapons pillar panel. It showed her and Stefano’s ship were at 4,913 miles out. At least the sub captains were obeying her and had dropped their speed to 14 percent. Which could still kill them. And hers and Stefano’s ship. What was happening with Bill?

♦   ♦   ♦

Bill walked fast down the left side hallway. He had called ship mind Dexterity and demanded it open the Factory Chamber’s door. It had complied, citing a Protocol Seven directive. The scream of Death Leader that it should increase hallway gravity to a hundred gees had been refused by its citation of Protocol Eight. Which forbid any change in ship gravity levels that would cause deadly harm to any bioform. He slowed his run down the hallway as he arrived at the cross hallway opening in the left side of the main hallway. He lifted his white taser tube, poked it around the corner of the wall that gave entry to the cross hall, and then leaned forward.

Empty. Red light shone along the hundred or more feet of the cross hallway. A brighter red glow at its end showed where it joined the right side main hallway. He lowered the taser and ran as fast as he could in the ship’s half gee toward the short hallway in the center of the cross hallway. It opened to his right and gave access to the ship’s Engine Chamber hatch. He stopped just where the cross hallway met the junction with the Engine hallway. He poked his taser’s nose past the wall edge, swung the taser outward, then pressed the button at the end of the tube. A coherent red electric beam spat out and disappeared from his sight. He was taking no chances on an ambush. He poked his helmet just past the wall edge and looked to his right.

Empty also. A red glow showed on the flexmetal wall to the left of the Engine entry hatch.

“Star Traveler, any chance you can get Dexterity to open the Engine Chamber hatch?” he called over his helmet comlink.

“Trying. No response,” the AI hummed.

With a last glance back the way he’d come, then ahead to the other end of the cross hallway, he ran around the corner and stopped before the hatch. Pulling his backpack around to the floor in front of him, he laid down his taser and laser tubes, opened the backpack, pulled out a black dome and box magnetic disruptor, tapped it active, then placed it to the left of the hatch. He reslung his backpack, picked up his taser and laser tubes and stepped back to the junction with the cross hallway. Looking out briefly he saw no crew.

“
Kazap!
”

He looked back and saw the magnetic disruptor block had killed the hatch’s electronic controls. The hatch had opened. The red lit Engine Chamber lay open to him.

“Jane, I’m going inside the Engine Chamber. No opposition yet. Cross your fingers for me!”