Star Fire, page 6
part #1 of Stars End Series
“Thanks,” she says, opening it and taking a careful drink. And then, “Well, I guess we’re still alive.”
“And stuck in here,” I reply, allowing the frustration to creep into my voice. I take a water pack of my own and enjoy the cold rush of water down my dry throat.
“Spindle?”
“I don’t know.”
“They probably didn’t make it.”
The statement bites into me. She’s young and hasn’t learned that sometimes there are things you don’t say, even if everyone knows they’re true.
“No,” I spit back.
Her eyes start to tear, but only for a second. She remembers her training and the emotion vanishes. “What was that thing?”
I shake my head. “Some kind of alien spacecraft.”
“I know. That isn’t what I mean.”
“Yeah.”
I know that isn’t what she means. How do you encounter a hostile alien craft and keep your mind from running with it? Who are they? Where did they come from? What do they want? Those are the fine points of Aliens 101. Then comes the second level. What do they look like? Are they human? How long have they been spacefaring? Stuff like that.
“The ship was huge,” I say. “In terms of our level of technology and construction capabilities, anything that size is a negative return on investment. A waste. So they must have some serious resources.”
“Unless that’s why they’re here. To capture more.”
“Warrick’s got some minerals, but not enough to make it worth attacking. That’s why I’m out here.”
“You’re out here because Admiral Drake wants the universe to forget about you, Odin Longknife.”
Sometimes I forget Joie knows my history almost as well as I do. “You know I hate that. Besides, I want to forget about the past as much as he wants to forget about me.”
“That’s what you say. But you can’t let it go completely, or you would have retired.”
“And then what? You would have stayed unmatched and we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.”
She laughs first. I join her a moment later. Our situation isn’t funny, but it relieves a little tension.
“Do you really think it’s aliens?” she asks, her laughter fading. “I mean, we’ve explored nearly a thousand light-years past Earth with no contact. And our drones have gone further than that without finding anything.”
“There are billions of AU worth of unexplored territory inside those light-years and infinite more outside of them. The science guys think if there were other intelligent life forms out there, we should have found at least one of them by now, but I’m more inclined to go with my eyes. It attacked both the Commune and us with technology I’ve never seen before. Whatever hit us was moving faster than a starfighter, maneuvered better than a starfighter, and shrugged off the impact like it was nothing.”
Joie’s quiet again, another tense calm building between us. She takes another drink and lifts her head, wincing as she does. Then she looks at the small hole in the blast cover, changing the subject. “I take it the door isn’t an option?”
“We’re tilted enough that it’s wedged closed. I tried jumping on the bow, but we probably have dirt piled on us from when we hit and dug in.”
“We shouldn’t have come down so hard.”
“Tell me about it. Landing thrusters must have failed. Emergency chute must have failed. Today’s our lucky day. I’ve spent the last hour making that hole over there. I figure another three or four and you’ll be able to squeeze out. Do you have pain in your neck?”
“I have pain everywhere, but more in my neck.”
“I’d take a look, but I’m no doctor. Unless there’s blood or bone, it’s all the same to me.”
“Me too.”
“You hungry?”
“No. A little dizzy. A little nauseous. You must be starving.”
“I lost my appetite.” Losing your wife and two of your kids to a surprise attack does that.
“I’m sorry, Gray,” she says. “I probably sound like a cold bitch.”
“No. You sound like someone who just went through a traumatic experience. Maybe hit her head. We don’t have any secrets, Tia. You know that.” She holds her hand out to me. I take it and give it a squeeze. “I’ll get us out of this can. We’re on Warrick, which means there are people who can help out there somewhere. We just need to get to them.”
“Copy that. I’m just thankful that if I have to be here, I’m here with you.”
“That’s sweet. Because I’m like a father to you?”
“No, because you’re Odin Longknife. If you can’t get us out of this and back into the fight, nobody can.”
I smile at her response. I like her attitude, even if I don’t like the call sign. “I’m going to get back to hitting this thing mercilessly. Use the opportunity to rest. We can trade-off in another hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
I pick up the SMG and return to the hole. I cock back the weapon, ready to piston the stock into the bent metal for the thousandth time.
I’m interrupted by a loud clang against the hull.
From outside.
Chapter 13
I reach into the pocket of my flight suit and grab one of the SMG’s magazines, slapping it into the weapon and bringing it level. I’m nearly knocked off my feet when the hull clangs again, the force of the blow against it shaking what’s left of the Skirmisher like a cocktail.
“What the—” Joie starts to say. I put a finger to my mouth to quiet her. Then I point to the other SMG. She drops off the chair to her knees and scoops it up, taking the safety off and bringing it into a ready position.
I join her on a knee, stabilizing myself for the next blow. Whatever’s out there hits the blast cover, denting the metal inward. I pivot the rifle toward it, holding steady and waiting. Joie does the same.
A fourth blow comes, denting the shield a little further. I notice the strikes pulling up the edge of metal I’ve been working on as they dent the rest of it inward, increasing the size of the gap. Whoever’s pounding on us has done two hours of my hard labor in about ten seconds. I’d love to thank them, but a quick mental inventory of the equipment on Warrick leaves me convinced nothing that belongs to the Alliance can do this.
A fifth strike shatters more of the already cracked transparency, sending large pieces of it falling inward toward us. The stuff is too thick to hold a sharp edge, and it slides across the floor and gathers at the rear hatch. The blast cover itself is suddenly open enough for Joie to fit through if there were any sanity in the idea. We’re either under attack or about to be rescued, and neither option leaves me eager to abandon ship until I know what’s out there.
Me and Joie wait for the sixth hit. The one that might pierce the cover and leave us exposed. We’ve got our rifles up and ready to fire, and I don’t need the mesh to know Joie’s nervous.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, the biggest hand I’ve ever seen appears at the edge of the metal and grabs it.
The hand is wrapped in armor of some kind, dark and hard like the shell of a cockroach. The coloring immediately reminds me of the patina on the alien starship, only a darker purple instead of green and bronze. The sight is enough to jump to conclusions, and the fact that the thing has four long four-knuckled digits seals the deal.
My level of oh-hell-no kicks up a notch, and my finger slides to the trigger of the SMG.
“Don’t shoot,” I say softly.
Joie hasn’t fired yet, and I don’t think she will. It seems we understand one another just as well outside the mesh as inside it. I’ve had it happen before, but it usually takes years to get that close. We’ve managed inside of just two.
My heart’s about to climb my throat and hurl itself from my mouth, but the rest of me is calm. I keep it all under control, years of experience preventing the panic that’ll fog my head and get both me and Joie killed. I wait while the hand begins peeling back the blast cover.
“Get ready to run.”
I glance wistfully back at the emergency rations and water packs, and then at the locker with the sidearms and additional mags still inside. I should have packed all the gear into the included duffel, but who would expect an alien giant to come along and force us out of our shell?
The metal makes an awful screeching noise as the alien pulls it back. The thing that worries me the most is that it hasn’t shown any sign of hesitation or worry, like it either has no idea I’m carrying the SMG loaded with AP rounds and can likely blow its damn head off if it has one, or it just doesn’t care.
I really hope it isn’t option two.
“Go!” I snap, getting to my feet.
Joie is already bouncing forward, and I lunge just ahead of her. I dive through the hole, rolling off the front of the ship to the ground, where I manage to pivot and come up on my knees. Joie is right behind me, though her landing is hardly graceful and she winds up on her stomach.
The alien sees us, and it lets go of the escape craft, turning our way. The first thing I notice is the armor is covering the entire thing, including its head. It’s all the same dark purplish color, hardened like a carapace and wrapped tight against a frighteningly humanoid frame. There are protrusions on each leg and on the back of the arms, and a large one across its back. The armor stretches with the bend of its joints, covering the knee that’s planted on the ground while it leans over the Skirmisher. That’s the second thing I notice. The aliens are enormous—nearly six meters at least.
I don’t have time to get a better look than that. I grab Joie’s arm and pull her to her feet while I start shooting with the SMG in my other hand, bracing it against my side. The bigger they are, the easier they are to hit, and I watch my rounds smack into the alien’s chest, the bullets scuffing the armor but failing to penetrate.
Oh-hell-no hits threat level red.
“Move!” I growl at Joie.
She’s slow to rise, but I know it’s not her fault. She woke up dizzy, and for all I know she’s got internal bleeding or some other invisible damage slowing her down. But we don’t have time for me to be gentle. We don’t have time for much of anything. The alien is getting to its feet, and how the hell are we supposed to outrun it, anyway?
I pull Joie behind a nearby tree, sparing a split-second to take in our surroundings. The Skirmisher came down in a sort-of clearing, hitting the dirt and sliding to a stop. The hundred-meter trees behind it have deep gouges through their huge trunks, suggesting the craft ping-ponged off them to its final resting place. The immediate area around us is more of the same—large trees, decently spaced. I catch a hint of salvation further back where the forest gets more dense, and the canopy’s so thick it looks like midnight during midday.
I start guiding Joie toward it, but she stumbles on a root and falls to her knees.
“Gray, just go,” she says, her tone defeated. “I can’t do this.”
I pull her up again as the giant closes on us. “Not a chance,” I reply, pivoting my torso and pointing the SMG. I start shooting the moment it gets into the line of fire, hoping the effort at least slows the thing down.
It does, but not much. I nearly empty my magazine into it at the same time I drag Joie onward, heading for the dense forest ahead. If we can make it into that tightly packed foliage, we can use the alien’s size against it, forcing it to find another way around.
We reach another tree, and when Joie starts to stumble again I pick her up, cradling her and running as hard as I can, thankful I kept up with my conditioning. Too many Astros get lazy. It’s easy to do when all of your value is tied up in your brain instead of your physique. But like my pops always said: the one percent’ll get you if you ain’t ready for it.
I’ve always tried to stay ready for anything, even at the ass-end of the galaxy stuffed as far away from the real front lines as the military can put me. I don’t think there’s any practical way to prepare for exactly what I’m in the middle of, but being able to carry Joie and make it to the next line of trees ahead of the alien is a small victory of its own.
I’m not going down without a fight.
Of course, I know I’m only alive because the thing either doesn’t have a ranged weapon or is choosing not to use it. I take cover behind the next huge trunk, expecting bullets or lightning balls or something to follow after, but it doesn’t.
We’re thirty meters from the thicker woods ahead. The alien is close behind, slowed just enough by the trees to keep it honest. Joie is looking up at me with angry tears that blame me for being stupid when I have a chance to escape. It isn’t stupid to me. Joie may be the only family I have left in this part of the galaxy.
I try to look up and get a glimpse of Spindle. The foliage is too thick to get more than a few shreds of sky, and neither the station or the enemy starship are in them. That’s all the opportunity I have before dashing for the next tree, heading point-to-point toward our hopeful escape.
I glance back, surprised to see the alien isn’t running. It's just standing there, motionless, arms slightly bent and in my mind still completely unconcerned. What harm can we do anyway? I put my eyes forward again, just as a second alien swings out from behind the tree I was running for This one’s carrying something in its arms, and if it isn’t a weapon then I’m not a pilot. It lowers the object in our direction.
I come to a stop, pulling Joie in a little tighter against me and turning so that if it shoots I’ll get the brunt of it.
The alien doesn’t shoot. It advances toward us, keeping the weapon pointed. The barrel is surprisingly small, as though it was designed for use against humans instead of its own kind.
I get a better look at the alien, capturing details I missed before. The helmet reminds me of an ant’s head, with rounded protrusions running from the mouth area to the sides. Even more strange: there’s no break in the hardened material anywhere on the head protection, suggesting that either the carapace stuff is see-through, the alien’s eyes aren’t on its head or the thing is blind.
Not fully blind. It clearly knows we’re here. But maybe it’s using other senses to locate us?
Its legs are much thicker than its arms, which are almost a little too narrow and long for its body. It’s hard to tell how much of the thickness is armor and how much is the actual alien. For a moment, I entertain a thought that the thing isn’t wearing any armor and that what I’m looking at is a giant, naked, genderless non-human.
It comes to a stop a couple of meters away, aiming its weapon down at us. If it wants us dead it can do it any time. It obviously doesn’t want us dead.
Yet.
I try to use that reality to hold out hope for Spindle. If they want us alive, maybe they want the people on the station alive too. Then I realize that’s probably not a good thing, and the sense of loss and hopelessness I keep burying starts rising again from the depths.
I’m more aware of the SMG in my hand, resting in the bend of Joie’s knees as I hold her in my arms. Only I’m not thinking about trying to use it on the alien again. It’s already proven its armor is impervious to the powerful rounds.
I’m thinking about using it on Joie and me instead.
I hate the idea. But not only is it military protocol in situations like this, it sure beats the hell out of the scenarios that run through my head. Torture, experimentation, imprisonment, enslavement. I’d rather be dead than go through any of those, and I know Joie would agree. In fact, I can’t think of any outcome that isn’t worse than putting a couple of rounds in our heads right here and now.
“Joie, can you stand?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. I look down at her face and realize she’s out cold. I begin sliding my hand out from under her legs and switching my grip so I can hold her up long enough to put a bullet in her brain. I would prefer a chance to for a proper goodbye, but it isn’t in the cards.
The alien doesn’t move when I let Joie’s legs dangle to the ground, holding her tight around the chest to keep her upright while I shift the muzzle of the SMG to the side of her head. It stands there, still and silent, observing the entire ritual without action or expression. The whole thing nearly unnerves me, and for a moment I wonder if any of this is real. Am I asleep? Unconscious? Did I die in the crash and this is hell?
The last one feels like the most likely.
My finger moves to the trigger. Joie’s too young for any of this. Definitely too young to die. It’s incredible how fragile life is and how quickly things can change.
“Sorry, kid,” I say. “I’ll see you on the other—”
My words are cut off by a sudden crackle from somewhere in the woods. I shift my finger off the trigger and look up as the ambush hits the alien in front of me, the rounds sending out splinters of carapace as they punch through the armor. The alien cries out, its voice muffled behind its helmet as it stumbles to the ground, dark blue blood spreading from its wounds.
“Don’t just stand there!” a hard voice snaps from the trees. “Let’s go!”
Chapter 14
I don’t hesitate, dropping the SMG to get a better grip on Joie, lifting her into a fireman’s carry and breaking in the direction of our savior’s gunfire. The wounded alien stays down, and unless it can heal itself I don’t think it’ll be getting back up. The other alien retreats, taking cover behind one of the large trees.
They aren’t impervious to bullets after all.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
I can’t see the man who saved us, but I hear his gruff voice—it’s familiar—and angle my path toward it. I put a few more trees between the remaining alien and us, but it seems it has no interest in getting involved in a fight.
A new sound reaches my ears. A sudden thumping in the distance, getting closer with each report.
“Hurry!” our savior shouts.
I’m already running all out, but fear kicks in the adrenaline and gives me another burst of speed. I lunge over tree roots and smaller vegetation, diving into the brush near the dense trees where our savior is hiding. I nearly run right past him, except he reaches out and grabs my arm, pulling both Joie and me toward his position behind one of the tree trunks, throwing us to the ground.
