The Colony Ship Warren #1-7, page 167
part #0 of Colony Ship Warren #1-7 Series
“The air pressure and air composition of the hangar bay is marginal,” Monitor replied. “Your RAM suits should keep you safe for a short while.”
Sora and Beth had dropped from their seats and were heading toward the hatch. They undogged the latches and expected the hatch to open. It only made a negative function noise and shook a bit.
“Stuck in that foam!” Beth cursed.
“I am taking defensive actions,” a different mechanical voice added.
“That is AI Geronimo, you can trust those instructions,” Monitor affirmed. “Help is being summoned.”
A crane in the hangar bay shifted position and dropped a jawed bucket down onto the Jellie nearest to the shuttle. The bucket’s jaws bit down, squeezing the Jellie with a strong force. The Jellie wrapped numerous tentacles around the sides of the bucket and pulled at it.
“Escape now,” Geronimo advised. “The crane’s mechanisms are overloading. The enemy is too powerful for this industrial equipment.”
Two more blue automacubes rushed out from charging docks heading for the crashed shuttle and the jammed hatch.
Teewank!
One of the Jellies launched another white sphere which destroyed an automacube. The other two Jellies were wrestling with the crane’s bucket, using tentacles to pull at the jaws of the bucket and release the caught Jellie.
The crane retracted the cable and lifted the captured Jellie up toward the ceiling of the hangar bay, but smoke was pouring from the crane’s engines as they whined and fought against the strength of the Jellies.
The blue automacube reached the edge of the foam and sprayed liquid out which splashed all over the hatch, melting down the foam which was jamming it closed.
Teewank!
The automacube exploded as yet again, the Jellie launched another white sphere.
Beth, Sora, and Allen shoved hard at the hatch and the foam groaned as it melted and broke away from the hatch, yet the hatch still did not open enough for them to get out.
The Jellie lined up with the hatch, and through the viewport, they could see the tip of the Jellie turning white as another sphere was about to launch.
Allen shoved the others aside and stuck his arm out past the hatch.
“I cannot aim, but take this!” Allen screamed out as he hoped he was pointing the winxy pistol toward the Jellie.
Just as he was squeezing the trigger, other sounds drowned out his firing of the winxy pistol.
Blam-Blam-Blam-Blam!
Crack-A-TAT-A-TAT-A-TAT-A-TAT
A staccato of loud snapping noises echoed through the hangar bay, and were coming from two separate locations.
Looking through the viewport, Beth and Sora saw bullets rip into the nearest Jellie with devastating effects. It jerked about, toppling around, and the white sphere detonated against the floor. That discharge knocked the Jellie back the other direction, where it wobbled and sank downward. Foul liquids were oozing from multiple holes in the Jellie’s exterior, and the tentacles flailed about in obvious anguish.
Ka-thump!
A grenade exploded right on the wounded Jellie. Its external carapace was shredded by the fusillade of shrapnel. The body inside the carapace was gravely wounded and as the fluids spilled all over the deck, the Jellie inside the suit flopped about as it died.
Two humans in dapple-colored body armor darted out from cover and one of them headed right for the shuttle’s hatch. The other took a position behind a storage crate and aimed a rifle toward the Jellies who were wrestling with the bucket jaws of the crane. Their movements were extremely quick.
“Allen! There is someone, like soldiers or space marines, in the hangar bay!” Beth warmed.
Allen pulled his hand and arm back in. He had fired three times, but did not know what he had hit, if anything. He rammed his shoulder against the jammed door, trying to get it to open more.
“Stand back!” a man’s voice commanded from just outside the jammed hatch. “The vibration saw will cut most anything! Look out!”
Just then, from across the hangar bay, there was a loud crack.
The cable connecting the bucket jaws to the crane snapped and its frayed end crashed down onto the hangar bay’s deck. The three Jellies were free.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
The marine fired at the Jellies whose outer surfaces seemed to glow even more with the irritatingly purple iridescence.
“Get them out, Sparks!” Gunny commanded as she tossed another grenade toward the three Jellies. “Move faster!”
A stream of liquid shot out from one of the Jellies and engulfed the grenade. When it exploded, there was a distinctly muffled sound. The liquid contained the shrapnel, only allowing a few pieces to get through it, and the grenade failed to injure any of the Jellies.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Teewank!
Gunny fired and dove as a white sphere detonated into the crate she had used as cover.
“Monitor?” Geronimo’s voice came through over the top of the raucous sounds of the skirmish. “I can open the thruster fuel tank and spray those enemies. I have an ignition source ready on your approval.”
“I am unsure what fire will do to the enemies. Security forces are nearby. Marines are nearby and in the hangar bay,” Monitor replied. “Be prepared to release the thruster fuel, but wait on ignition.”
“Understood,” AI Geronimo replied. “Standing by.”
Robotic arms moved several hoses on the large thruster fuel tank and the valves rotated, directing the nozzles toward the Jellies.
“You must leave the shuttle,” Monitor ordered.
“We are trying!” Beth yelled as she and Allen both shoved against the stuck hatch. “Deploy full RAM suits!”
Sparks was busy chopping the foam away with the vibration saw, and it sliced a corner from the door, just missing Beth’s legs.
Sora, having activated the hood, goggles, and the rest of the RAM suit, squeezed in and together with Beth and Allen they all shoved on the hatch.
The last of the foam jamming the door popped away and the hatch flew open.
Sparks did a backflip to avoid getting hit by the hatch, but when he landed, he already had put the vibration saw away and had his rifle out and was firing in full automatic at the Jellie.
Crack-A-TAT-A-TAT-A-TAT-A-TAT
The Jellie shook under the combined impact of the bullets from Gunny and Sparks. Its carapace split and foul liquids spurted out, but the Jellie retreated as the others took its place.
Teewank!
A white sphere detonated just behind where Sparks had been, and showered the area with the blasted foam. The shuttle groaned as its weight pulled it downward.
Beth, Allen, and Sora leaped away and sprinted behind a wall of equipment.
The Jellie which had retreated away, leaking the foul liquids, backed up against a pressure door.
That door opened, and Colonel Landcaster fired his shotgun from only a meter away.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
As that was happening, the Jellie tried to whip about, as if it had a front and back, and a tentacle spun out, narrowly missing Colonel Landcaster who ducked behind as the pressure door slid shut.
The explosive shells ripped into the Jellie and exploded inside the carapace. Killing the thing inside of it, splattering purple and blue tissue and unidentified chunks of goop all over the deck.
“Time to exit!” Gunny commanded. “Sparks lead the way. You others, move fast! Go! Go! Go!”
Sparks laid down some more fire. His rifle burped out barrages of bullets which directly struck the surviving Jellies, but their carapaces glowed ever more brightly. The bullets did strike the Jellies, and they rocked from the kinetic energy of the projectiles impacting them. But the bullets did not penetrate, rather they caromed off, or made odd thudding sounds and just dropped impotently to the deck.
The surviving Jellies had changed tactics and were using some countermeasures which protected them.
Beth, Allen, and Sora rushed behind Sparks as they darted between the thruster fuel tanks and some cargo containers. Allen looked at the nozzles on the fuel tanks and saw they were pointed toward the Jellies, but nothing was coming from them, yet.
“Hold here!” Gunny commanded as they found some limited cover. “You run when I tell you!”
The distant pressure door opened, and Colonel Landcaster, along with two other marines began sniping at the Jellies. The Jellies spun about, as if surprised that they were being attacked from that direction, despite the dead Jellie being splattered all over the deck in front of that door.
One Jellie charged toward Colonel Landcaster’s position, its tentacles whipping out and striking near the door.
Another Jellie marched toward the other humans as they hid between the storage tanks and cargo crates. It launched another white sphere, but that just struck the wall over the tanks and did not injure any of the humans.
“Help has arrived,” Monitor announced.
Another door on the sidewall opened, and two red security automacubes rolled into the fray. They sped right at the Jellies. Their triple-barreled muzzles firing.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Both Jellies spun toward the attacking automacubes, as those bullets smacked into them from a low angle and seemed to cause them more distress. The glowing purple color of the Jellies’ carapaces were blotching and fluctuating. It grew very bright where the bullets were striking, but faded in other areas of the carapace.
“Vary your targets!” Colonel Landcaster yelled out, his voice resounding through the mil-spec sets, but also coming from speakers in his combat armor. “Randomize where you hit them!”
Beth, Allen, and Sora attempted to take aim with their winxy pistols, but Gunny put out a restraining arm.
“Handguns will do nothing! Stay back!” Gunny ordered.
“We can fight! These are—” Beth argued, but Gunny pushed her back and cut off her words.
“Stay put!” Gunny commanded.
“These are powerful!” Allen tried to take aim again, but this time Sparks pushed him back as well.
Teewank!
A white sphere detonated right where Allen had peeked out. It rained icy shards down upon them, but did not penetrate the combat armor of the marines, and only caused minor scratches on the RAM suits.
“Later,” Gunny barked out. Between her forceful personality and that detonation, it ended any further attempts by Beth, Allen, or Sora to engage the Jellies. They were crammed into the tight space where there was some limited protection.
The marines tried firing again.
Deliberately spraying some kind of liquid up and outward, the Jellies created a sort of curtain between themselves and Colonel Landcaster’s position. The sprayed-out liquid hardened when it reached the height of about three meters, and the spray covered an even wider area sideways. The Jellies had somehow ejected it as liquid, but it turned to solid making a safeguard around them.
That obscured the view Colonel Landcaster, Gunny, Sparks, and the other marines had of the Jellie’s locations, but the marines kept firing anyway.
The noise was deafening.
While the marines were unable to see exactly what was happening, the Jellies shifted about slipping around their defensive curtain, altering their own shapes dramatically, and with their tentacles, violently attacked the security automacubes. The weapons firing from the automacubes did some damage to the Jellies, punching some small holes through the nearest appendages of the Jellies, but not enough to stop their malicious attack. The Jellies bizarrely used their own appendages as shields, and while that part of the Jellie was damaged, it absorbed the majority of the projectiles and then just sloughed off. The damaged sections of those Jellie’s appendages, fell to the deck carrying the slugs with it. The amputated end sealed over and other appendages, forming new tentacles, squished out from the main parts of the Jellies and grabbed onto the automacubes.
The automacubes were overwhelmed.
Those newly fashioned tentacles slapped, shoved, and battered the automacubes causing them to topple over, making their weapons useless. The machines attempted to right themselves, using their wheels and manipulation arms, but the tentacles were relentless. Wheels were ripped from axles, the manipulation arms were fractured, and thick globs of white goo were shoved into the barrels of the automacubes where it hardened.
Ka-blam-boom!
One of the automacube’s had continued to fire, and since the muzzles were obstructed, the weapon had a catastrophic internal failure. The permalloy of the automacube could not contain the energy released, for the malfunction caused the rest of the ammunition inside the automacube to explode in secondary blasts. That automacube danced up and down as its munitions destroyed it from inside.
The other automacube was out of action as well, since its wheels had been ripped off, along with it being muzzled by the icy-hard white globs coating its front. But it did not attempt to fire again, it just let out a shrill whining siren and flashed yellow and red emergency lights.
The two Jellies shrank back for a moment, perhaps in some eerie response to the lights on the automacube. Additionally, the last of their hardened barrier finally succumbed to the nonstop firing from the marines. It crumbled around them.
“Go!” Gunny yelled as she could see a pathway to the exit. “Run now!”
Beth, Allen, and Sora rushed ahead, but as they did, Allen turned and aimed his winxy pistol at one of the Jellies. It was the one he could see the clearest.
Piff. Piff. Piff.
The Jellie shuddered as the extremely high-speed projectiles pierced its outer carapace and then brutally tore through the being inside. Those projectiles did not stop with ripping the insides of the Jellie apart, but exited through the opposite side of the Jellie’s water suit. The projectiles carried with them fountains of shredded flesh and foul fluids which gushed out. The carapace split and dropped, as the Jellie deflated and its glow dimmed rapidly as it died.
Sparks let out a string of appreciative obscenities as he watched the damage which the winxy pistol had done.
The remaining Jellie shot out tentacles which sprayed fluids and it spun about quickly. It had again cast a defensive barrier as it retreated back toward its ship.
“In here!” Colonel Landcaster commanded and gestured to the open threshold.
Beth, Allen, Sora, along with Sparks and Gunny rushed through and out of the hangar bay.
“Now, Geronimo!” Colonel Landcaster yelled out. “Fry them!”
“Proceed,” Monitor affirmed. “The automacubes are all beyond hope of salvage. I have ended their consciousnesses.”
“Overriding storage tank safety procedures,” AI Geronimo replied. “Overriding all safety protocols for this hangar bay.”
The thruster fuel nozzles opened and fuel jetted out into the hangar bay. It splashed all about, soaking down the decks and the other items.
“Fire suppression systems, off-line,” AI Geronimo added. “Ignition in three, two, one.”
Several sparks shot out from a welding set which was hanging next to an ESRC.
An inferno consumed the inside of the hangar bay with immense heat. Warning lights flashed, but then melted.
“Temperatures reaching climax,” Monitor announced.
There was a display screen in the hallway which was showing a view from the observation deck in the hangar bay. The humans were standing by that, watching the brilliant yellows and oranges of the immense flames.
“Fry! Fry and die!” one of the marines yelled out.
The purplish-blue glow intensified as they watched, and was very irritating to their eyes. That glowing irritant moved inside the hangar bay and then pushed right up against the pressure door through which the humans had escaped.
“The fire will cause severe structural damage if left unmitigated,” Monitor announced. “I am ending this skirmish.”
The external hangar bay doors opened, and decompression of the hangar bay was swift. In but a moment, the cold and vacuum of space extinguished the inferno. The walls, ceiling, and deck were charred and black, and anything not made from permalloy had become crumbly ash which was sucked away into space.
“The fire is out. The hangar bay’s egress points are secured,” Monitor said, but with melancholy in its voice.
“It is still alive,” a marine said in amazement. “How is that possible?”
Gunny scowled, “The fire or explosive decompression should have killed it… tough bastards!”
Sparks was still amazed at the power of the winxy pistol and was about to ask Allen about it, but Colonel Landcaster stepped between them.
Colonel Landcaster had checked over all the other marines and seeing no immediate injuries or issues, he turned to Beth and Allen, and asked, “Do you know a tant? I think we need to talk.”
14 Unification
“Tant? Uh… Yes,” Beth replied and wondered how much to say.
Allen nodded, and looked at the marines around them. “But who are you? And thank you for getting us out of there!”
Monitor’s voice came to them, “These are people who were in suspended animation and have special training for combat.”
“But you abhor violence!” Sora uttered in shock.
Some purple tentacles slapped against the clear permalloy, distracting everyone’s attention.
“Gunny, any suggestions on what to do with that Jellie inside there?” Colonel Landcaster asked.
“Jellie?” Gunny queried. “It does not seem to be able to get through the pressure door. Wait! It is leaving!”
They all looked and saw on the display that the Jellie had rearranged the spacecraft in some manner by modeling its configuration and it hovered for a moment in the hangar bay and then just zipped away, flying past the charred exterior doors.
“Gunny, put us into a defensive position. Gather a full situational report from Monitor and Geronimo, access all the feeds from our people, and collate it into a report on our combat effectiveness. We have to refine our tactics. I must speak with these people,” Colonel Landcaster ordered.
