Silent Star, page 14
“We might be able to reverse the process if the controls hadn’t been turned into scrap,” Link said.
Link toured the rest of the UNOB, including the stored bodies and the unconscious prisoners. Wrapped in the film that the rodents used like bandages they looked like sausages.
“Let me show you something,” Gains said, pulling one of the bodies off of the stack of corpses.
“This is the alien that escaped from our UNOB,” Gains said. “He was in the cavern when his buddies transported in and then we followed. His tissues and organs look like they were put through a blender. The cellular damage is fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The alien’s exposed skin looked like chewed meat and his features so distorted as to be unrecognizable.
Somewhere in the stack are more aliens that our transport killed when we jumped to this UNOB,” Gains said. “My advice: Stay out of the cavern during a transport.”
Link gathered his team, discussing the situation. Then Link realized Riley wasn’t wearing the backpack bomb.
“Where’s the bomb?” Link asked.
“We weren’t sure where we were going to end up,” Riley said. “I left the bomb with Scooter. He’s got the code.”
Link doubted that Scooter could press the trigger if needed. Remembering the stacks of bodies, Link was struck by the size of the force they had overcome.
“Westbrook, give me your tactical analysis of the enemy,” Link said.
“Assuming they are an enemy,” Westbrook began. “The aliens are of two types, one large in size but inferior in rank or position to the smaller aliens. The smaller aliens command and use mechanical assistance for locomotion. The large aliens exhibit regimentation, a hierarchical command structure and admirable courage. They fought to the last man—or woman—and demonstrated discipline and skill characteristic of an efficient and experienced military culture.”
“Skill?” Riley interrupted. “You and the Captain took out most of a platoon before we got here. The five of us wiped out the rest with only two casualties and no fatalities. If a squad can take out a platoon, a brigade could conquer their planet. Sir, we’re kicking their ass.”
“What about you, Gains?” Link asked, listening, taking it all in.
“Riley’s overstating it, sir, but he’s essentially right. Their energy weapons are formidable but only five years ahead of our technology. Energy storage for effective, portable, lasers has been the technological barrier we haven’t cracked. If we can get a weapon back to Earth we can reverse-engineer the battery and build our own. The technological wonder on the UNOB is the transporter and frankly it seems out of place. The rodents managed to interface our technology with theirs with little effort, suggesting virtually no technological gulf. Unless I’m underestimating the technological hurdles to shoving mass through space/time, the transporter seems incongruous.”
“There’s something else,” Ramirez said. “The aliens are too different. It’s possible the rodents and warriors could be from the same planet but the commanders have. These species seem too different to come from one planet.”
“A planet could evolve more than one intelligent species,” Gains said.
“Could it?” Ramirez challenged. “The odds of any species developing sentience are stupefying, let alone it happening three times on the same planet.”
“What are you suggesting?” Link asked.
“I think this is a coalition of species,” Ramirez said. “Earth is at war with three planets, not one.”
Link longed for the clarity of the transport where his mind had been supercharged. Link was sure they were missing something important—but what?
“Ramirez, what did you experience when you were transported?”
“Sir?” Ramirez asked.
“When you were disembodied, what happened in your mind? Westbrook felt close to God and I saw our tactical situation with amazing clarity.”
“It’s personal, sir.”
“You’re among friends,” Link said.
“I have some unresolved issues with my mother. I think I understand her better now.”
“Good enough,” Link said quickly, letting her keep her privacy. “Gains?”
“Before I left, my team was working on a project dealing with the adsorption of hemoglobin to silica. Now I know what we’ve been overlooking. I think I solved another problem too.”
“What other problem?” Link asked.
Gains looked away, embarrassed. “I know how to fix the toilet on the Interceptor.”
“At least it was time well spent,” Ramirez said.
Link hesitated, but asked Riley what his mind had focused on.
“Let’s just say I’m renegotiating my Pepsi endorsement when I get back,” Riley said.
“Sir, what are you getting at?” Ramirez asked.
“Nothing, I just want to make sure what is happening is real. We think we were transported but something also happened to our minds.”
“Your injuries are real,” Gains said.
“What’s your sit-rep, sir,” Ramirez asked.
“The enemy is reckless, almost panicky,” Link said. “Brave? Maybe, but to me they seem desperate. We’ve had the advantage of surprise and that means they underestimated Earth’s level of development. They expected to find our UNOB empty and Earth an easy target. I agree with Ramirez that this is an alliance of species but it is not an alliance of equals. The rodents and the warrior species are clearly subservient to the commanders and show complete obedience. Perhaps this was drilled into them from birth or maybe the commanders bred the other species to be obedient. The commanders, those pudgy aliens in the exoskeletons, have no fear of the other species, although both are more nimble and could easily over-power them.”
“There’s something else,” Gains said. “I examined the teeth of the aliens—the blobby aliens don’t have any by the way. The big ape-like aliens don’t have incisors and their molars are large and ridged. Their lips are thick and muscular, almost prehensile.”
“Herbivores?” Westbrook asked.
“Give me a few minutes to cut one open and I’ll see how many stomachs it has,” Gains said.
“Don’t,” Westbrook said quickly. “You might violate a religious taboo.”
“Who cares what they eat?” Riley asked. “They are wearing armor and carrying weapons. We kill them before they kill us.”
“Think about it, Riley,” Ramirez said. “Do you know any predators that are vegetarian?”
“Yeah, one of my ex-girlfriends,” Riley said. “She was vegan.”
“Eco-terrorists are often vegetarian,” Gains said. “But it’s not natural for vegans to eat just vegetables. It’s a decision of conscience; human are omnivores. If those big guys are vegetarians it would be like sheep or cows deciding to conquer Earth.”
“Even herbivores fight,” Riley said. “They’ll protect the herd and they sure as hell fight over mates. If there’s a female worth fighting for,” Riley finished with a subtle nod toward Ramirez.
“Our most pressing problem is that we came to destroy one UNOB but now there are two, and maybe more,” Link said still holding Ramirez back. “We need to decide where to do the most damage and buy the Earth as much time as possible to prepare. To do that we need to go forward, following the stepping stones to wherever they lead.”
“Absolutely,” Riley said.
Gains looked thoughtful and Westbrook concerned.
“Sir, so far this has been a small arms engagement,” Ramirez said. “If it escalates…well, sir, we didn’t bring a tank with us.”
“We’ll have to improvise,” Link said.
“We’re kicking ass, Ramirez,” Riley said. “Let’s keep the roll going.”
Westbrook said nothing, eyes on the floor.
With the rodents busy with repairs, Link put his people to work, exploring this new UNOB and its load of equipment. They found spare parts for the smaller ships, modules that looked like the guts of the transporter console, packets of granular material in a rainbow of colors, tanks of water and other liquids, and bin after bin of unidentifiable objects, and substances. One obvious difference with the first UNOB was that there were no racks of liquid. There was an armory but it held only the rifles the aliens took into combat. The only larger weapons were mounted on the ships in the bay. On the lower level, machinery hummed, providing the ship with power.
“Gains, strip one of the suits off a warrior,” Link ordered after sorting through the alien gear. “Riley, bring one of the alien weapons.”
Rigging a rack, they hung the suit in the cavern and then Link took one of the alien guns. Shoving his hand inside the butt, he felt a loop. Putting his finger through it he pulled and the weapon fired a bolt of red into the suit.
“No kick,” Link said.
“Light doesn’t have much mass, sir,” Gains said.
Ramirez walked to the suit and examined the contact point.
“The suit’s warm but there isn’t a hole.” Ramirez reached lower, putting her finger into a hole in the suit. “Bullets punch right through it, though.”
Calling Ramirez back, Link experimented, shooting the suit multiple times with his XM8. He also tried a sustained beam from an alien weapon. Both penetrated the suit.
“It may be laser resistant but it isn’t bullet proof,” Riley said.
“They didn’t expect to face inferior technology,” Gains said.
“Inferior my ass,” Riley said. “For all you know the frogs, or gorillas, or whoever is in charge, never even invented gunpowder. Projectile weapons may be a whole new technology to them.”
“They skipped from bows and arrows to lasers?” Ramirez asked, incredulous. “That makes no sense.”
“It makes sense to me,” Westbrook said.
Everyone turned to Westbrook, who had been silent.
“Native Americans went from bows and arrows to flintlocks without the metallurgy to produce their own. Their knowledge of chemistry was even more rudimentary, but they didn’t need to know how to synthesize gunpowder to use guns.”
“You think someone armed the aliens?” Link asked. “The command aliens?”
“Maybe. Whoever it was played the serpent.”
“Don’t go religious on us,” Riley said.
“The important thing is that they aren’t prepared for our weapons,” Link said. “Let’s get prepared for theirs.”
Link ordered alien bodies stripped and then the protective translucent material peeled off. Next they began attaching it to their body armor. A rodent appeared, watching, interested. When Riley left to relieve himself, the rodent scurried over, snatched his gear, and retreated. Thirty minutes later the rodent returned, Riley’s body armor neatly coated with the translucent material.
“Whose side are they on?” Riley asked, looking at the neat work.
One by one, the rodent modified all of their suits, coating chest, leg, and arm pads, and the helmet. Satisfied with the work, Link checked on the progress in the control room where he found the wall screen working. Much of the front console was functional, but the back two rows of consoles were still in pieces. Rodents worked diligently, ignoring Link and the others. Link played with the controls he had accessed before and found the imaging devices working. Flicking through them, he found one of the storeroom where they put the bodies and the prisoners. They were still where they should be. Link pushed that image to one side to keep an eye on the prisoners. Next he surfed the images, finding nothing on the ship out of the ordinary.
Next he played with other controls, most of which did nothing. Finally, he touched a pad and a new symbol appeared on the side of the screen. The symbol looked like a blue spider.
“That looks like the UNOB,” Ramirez said, pointing at the symbol.
Link tapped the pad again and a second spider appeared above the first, this one in orange. A third tap brought another spider-like symbol that was larger and colored gray. This one was below the orange spider. A fourth tap and they all disappeared. Link brought the three symbols back up and then tapped the blue spider. Nothing happened. Then Link tapped the orange spider and the panel next to them lit up.
“That’s the one that controls the transporter,” Gains said.
They set up the diagnostic computer and replayed the alien manipulating the controls. With the Orange spider selected, the now familiar whine of the transporter began. While they all agreed their UNOB was the most likely destination, it was not certain.
Link gave orders, leaving Westbook, Ramirez, and Riley to hold this UNOB and prepare to move forward if the rodents could repair the necessary controls.
Link and Gains stood in the center of the cavern, listening to the power build up. Suddenly, he was disembodied again and his mind raced through the tactical situation. He arrived in the original UNOB with a plan, and a powerful longing for the disembodied state.
“Man, I love that,” Gains said.
“Yeah,” Link agreed.
They moved into the control room.
“Where’s Scooter?” Gains asked. “We carried him here.”
Scooter’s computer sat on the console, still running. In the low gravity Scooter could have dragged himself all the way back to the Interceptor but with the rest of the team transported to the unknown, Link expected Scooter to be diligently deciphering the controls. Link accessed the internal imaging controls and shuffled through the images. Even with experience, Link barely understood the controls so he had to work through the images systematically. When Link was sure he had seen all the compartments twice, he stopped.
“He must be back in the Interceptor,” Gains said.
“Have we seen everything?” Link asked.
“Yes,” Gains said.
Link thought through the two UNOBs he had toured.
“Not the rodent warren,” Link said.
Studying the symbols arrayed on the panel, he looked for one that resembled the rodents—finding nothing.
“Look for something that looks like the rodents,” Link said.
“Tap this one again,” Gains said.
Link did, and some of the control indicators changed. Link had seen this happen before, but always returned to the original set of controls. Scanning the new symbols, Link spotted three circles stacked inside a pyramid.
“That reminds me of the rodent nests,” Link said.
Link tapped it and the rodent warren came on the screen. Now Link could use the controls to change views of the rodents’ bunkhouse. As Link flicked through the screens, he saw tools and components inside the tubes they called home and many disassembled parts. A couple of rodents sat, busily reassembling components. Some rodents were sleeping—another human trait. Then a new room appeared. This was round, like all the rodent rooms, but larger than most. Lying spread eagled in the middle of the room, seemingly floating in mid air, was Scooter. Wrapped in some material, Scooter was face down with his arms and legs stretched wide, tethered to the walls. Scooter’s back was cut open from neck to buttocks and two rodents were digging inside. Then a rodent pulled a long, gray, fiber from Scooter’s back.
“They’re dissecting him,” Link said, grabbing his rifle. “They wanted to know what makes us tick and they’re using Scooter as the guinea pig.”
“Captain, I think he’s alive,” Gains said. “He’s breathing.”
“Then let’s get him back,” Link said.
Gains said nothing, but continued staring at the screen.
“Back me up,” Link ordered, pulling Gains away.
Gains followed, glancing over his shoulder as he did. The hatch installed by the rodents was still there and Link used it to access the core. Leading Gains up the ladder, Link moved boldly, his rage growing. He was responsible for his crew and Scooter needed his protection the most. They reached the top but Link did not see any cubicles like the one Scooter was in. Rodents peeked from the edges, studying the humans. They exhibited less fear of the humans and more curiosity. It was all Link could do to keep from killing them.
“Over here, Captain,” Gains said.
Gains stood in front of a translucent wall. Shadows moved inside. Link could see Scooter’s form, hanging suspended. Link pulled his knife, ready to slice through.
“Sir, hold up a minute,” Gains said.
“They’re cutting up our friend,” Link said, angry at Gains’ reluctance. “He’s one of us.”
“Sir, this looks like a sterile room.”
Link paused, trying to see through the film.
“I don’t think this is a dissection, I think it’s an operation.”
“You didn’t say anything about Scooter being injured,” Link said.
“He wasn’t when we left.”
Gains pulled his own knife.
“Let me, sir,” Gains said.
Gains poked a small hole in the material and held his hand over it.
“Positive pressure,” Gains said.
Gains looked through the hole.
Impatient, Link started to make another hole.
“Don’t, sir,” Gains said. “Scooter is vulnerable. We can’t risk reversing the pressure. Look through this hole.”
Link took Gains’ position. A large and a small red rodent hung from the ceiling by their back feet, front limbs busy, working inside Scooter. Two brown rodents watched from the floor, reaching in occasionally, and sometimes handing tools and materials. All of the rodents glistened as if they were wet.
“Do you see the wire?” Gains asked.
Link saw a long filament stretched out by one of the brown rodents and then laid along Scooter’s exposed back.
“What are they doing?” Link asked.
“They fix things, Captain. I think they’re rewiring Scooter.”
Chapter 25: Update
UNOB
Earthbound
Dr. Baum watched an SBX (Space Based X-band Radar) module moved into its orbital position. The SBX was the last component of the planetary defense system. Using radiation in the frequency of a microwave oven, the phased-array radar could track a needle through the Threat Zone. In practice, it would track ships, warheads, decoys, and debris, and serve to guide outgoing missiles and projectiles. The SBX was the linchpin in the defensive system. With the UNOB approaching the Threat Zone, it was essential the SBX go operational.
