The Best Defense (near-future HFY) - One Giant Leap 20: Natural Prey
Holm Dar
Date: 15.7.3.6.218 HC
Location: Librarian survey ship Curious Observer, under unregulated attack
“He did what?”
“He has officially requisitioned the use of Subject Eight for the purposes of defending the ship,” Nna repeated over the communications link.
Holm’s ears felt painfully stiff. “I was aware of what you said. I simply was unable to process it. Is the Farmer damaged in his cranium? I saw how quickly the primitives subdued him on the observation feed. I would have ordered the entire cargo area gassed if we did not have so little supply left.”
“It is well. I successfully convinced them we had more than we do.”
“You should still remove yourself from the cargo area. You are unprotected.”
“Healer Senior Journeyman Kolcant refuses to leave without examining Subject Two or convincing her to accompany him to the Healer lab. Regulations are clear, and I would not wish to order another Librarian to oversee this situation. It is . . . volatile.”
An alarm sounded on Holm’s console — a priority alert from the Spacer contingent. “Old friend, it is about to get more volatile. That boarding pod — it just split in two. The second pod has anchored itself to the hull before being thrown away by our spin. There is only one viable target.”
There was a pause of barely a tick. “Understood.”
Knizz Porzt
Date: 15.7.3.6.218 HC
Location: Transport Pod 1 of acquisition ship Blood of Our Ancestors
Knizz tucked his antenae closer to his skull, betraying his irritation to anyone who knew how to read a klint’s body language. Not that he cared. Everyone knew how that void-spawned Tinan Shont micromanaged everything like he was still a ranking member of a Guild. These were Librarians, for stars’ sake! The Hegemony lived and died by their stars-blasted regulations, and that meant everyone knew a Librarian ship caught alone was a pushover. Maybe a few light security drones, which were less effective while a ship was under spin since they had to expend so much effort to maneuver against the centrifugal forces; just about any fortunate hit would take one of those little toys down. The rest would just be scientists. Oh, yes, so dangerous. Scienists playing soldier.
This was why he had abandoned the Hegemony Compact. He’d heard the whispers, that it had simply been that he had been demoted too many times, or that he hated the regulated system. He wasn’t insane. Regulation was important, even if he wasn’t a klint with all those archaic instincts not yet edited out of the genome. Anarchy was impossible in space. What Knizz hated was stupid regulation. So it was the life of an unregulated acquisitions specialist for him.
“Subversion successful!” Plenaril Varn stepped back from the hatch. She was both their pilot and their digital subversion expert, and was one of the few of them who had been born outside the Hegemony.
“That took too long,” Knizz hissed. He lifted his weapon. “Send the drones in first.”
This caused some mutterings among his crew, but Knizz ignored them as Plenaril launched two drones through the hatch the moment it opened. The drones immediately started a randomly-generated search pattern. Perhaps he was being overly cautious, certainly. The lights were off in the cargo bay, which normally meant it was unoccupied. That was another stupid regulation, where so-called work areas had to be lit when occupied. It could be overridden, though, and even though no one on a Librarian ship should have a combat override, it was best to be —
A bolt of plasma lit up the stacks of vacuum-sealed crates, traveling across the cargo bay in less time than a twitch of an eye-membrane. It barely missed one of the oscillating drones, which immediately adjusted its position in response.
“Contact!” snapped one of the crew. Knizz didn’t bother determining who.
The eager raiders all quieted. Either there was someone on this ship high-ranked enough to override Hegemony safety regulations, or there was a combat specialist present. Either way, their easy prey had just become decidedly less easy.
“Spread out,” Knizz ordered. “Stay in cover. Plenaril, can you set a drone to disruption mode?”
“One of them,” she answered, ears drooping. She pressed a few buttons and one of the drones dropped into cover. “And it will take a few minutes for the device to warm up. Remember, your plasma weapons will be disrupted, too.”
“Of course I am aware of that, hatchling,” Knizz snapped. “Everyone armed with plasma, fall back when disrupted. Electrical weaponry will hold until then.”
There was a loud crack, but different from the sound of a plasma bolt and with no accompanying flash.
“What was that?” one of the other crew muttered. “Did a seal break?”
“Drone one is detecting two heat sources,” Plenaril reported, “but one of them is– this can’t be right.”
“What?” Knizz demanded.
“The species identification. There is a partial match based on the heat signature and physiological appearance, but –“
Another crack, and the lead drone spun wildly, sparks flying. It crashed into a bulkhead and fell to the deck, its engines still trying to keep it in the air but soon shutting off.
Knizz hefted his prized laser rifle — an expensive and energy-intensive weapon, but immune to most disruption tech. “Get that disruption field running, and repair that drone if you can. You three, with me. This is only a momentary delay.”
Lance Corporal Peter Baines
Date: Probably not relevant
Location: Alien hoarder room
Pete found the maze of piled crates and shelves confusing. From what he could tell, though it was hard in the dark and with all the clutter, this room was effectively identical to where he and his fellow abductees were being held. There was a little bit of what Pete assumed to be emergency lighting, but mostly everything was a confusing mass of shadow, piled high in what would be described as a haphazard manner if it weren’t all so squared-off.
“You boys got the Ark of the Covenant in here or something?” he muttered as he followed Harpa.
“Know not what is that. Suspicions nonexistent.” Harpa pointed vaguely at the piles on either side of them. “Supplies for journey. When brought you on ship, Third Cargo emptied with quickness.”
“So this isn’t what it normally looks like.”
“Negative.” Harpa hesitated. “Mostly negative.”
Pete nodded. “I hear ya. Cargo’s cargo. Only makes sense to the ship’s quartermaster.”
“Experience we share. Gratifying.” He paused again, tilting his head. it was a little different from human body language, but Pete was certain that meant Harpa was listening to something. “Breached hatch they have. Follow.”
Pete heard the sound before Harpa’s translated voice stopped coming through his earpiece, a mechanical clank accompanied by a slight pop. It didn’t seem that far away, but it was hard to tell with all the boxes. Then, a louder noise — one Pete had just heard less than half an hour ago. A sound like an angry electrical bee.
“Drone,” Harpa said softly, though the translated voice came through at the same volume.
The alien leveled his weird sci-fi rifle and pulled the trigger; but instead of the electric arc that he’d fired before, it spat a small orange dart of . . . something. It flashed across the room, reminding Pete of a tracer round for a moment. Except whatever that was, it burned a lot hotter than a tracer’s magnesium payload. Pete could feel the heat from several feet away.
The dart hit the far bulkhead, but the flash of light let Pete see what Harpa had been aiming at. It was another of those flying drone things with the weird little engines. Harpa’s shot had barely missed it. Pete couldn’t read Harpa’s expression in this darkness — not that he’d really trust it in full light — but Harpa seemed unperturbed.
“Evasive programming,” he grunted. “Two drones. One low . . . assume I to it be reconfigure for disruption magnetic.”
“Is that . . . bad?” Pete watched the faint form of the drone. It was moving erratically, changing direction at random times, though Pete thought it was always staying focused in their direction. He couldn’t see a second drone.
“To plasma disruption.” Harpa hefted his rifle for emphasis. “Disables plasma all.”
“Oh. Huh. So . . . you want them to disable your weapon because it will affect them, too?”
“Disable plasma singularly. Advanced weapon. Functions many.”
“So their weapons aren’t multi-function?” Pete took a slow, steady breath, not looking forward to shooting a gun in an enclosed space without ear protection. The translation earpiece wasn’t going to be much of a barrier, either, even if he had two of them. Oh well. The Corps never claimed he’d have perfect hearing when he got his discharge.
“Unlikely. Also, unpleasant is plasma.” He looked at Pete. “And species yours less affected stun by.”
“Thanks, I think. But I’d prefer not getting tased again.” Pete was still watching the drone. He couldn’t find a pattern, but there was a consistent pause as it changed direction. It was only for a moment, but . . . “Hey, Harpa. Can they disable gunpowder?”
“Unaware am I of such possibility.”
“Cool.” Pete aimed at the drone. The thing was flitting back and forth over the stacks, creeping closer. Maybe twelve or fifteen yards. Not an easy shot, but not terrible either.
“What point in temperature commentary?” Harpa asked, studying Pete’s stance with interest.
Pete fired just as the drone paused. He missed, though. “Fuck. Overcompensated.” His ears were ringing — a sharp, sudden shift he distinctly remembered from the one time he had been careless with his ear pro in an indoor range.
“Good.” Harpa nodded approvingly, then rubbed the ear-like ridges closest to Pete. “Loud.”
“Yeah. Sorry. But I missed it by a mile.”
“Know not that measurement. Projectile close. Only quarter-mark.” Harpa held up a finger and thumb just over an inch apart. “Much close.”
“You can see that?”
“Affirmation.” Harpa tapped the edge of one eye socket, indicating his implant. “Told Librarian accuracy yours underestimated.”
“Thanks, I guess?” With a shot that close, Pete actually felt more irritated at the miss, not less. Though . . . Ricardo had demonstrated the way the ship’s rotation changed the angle of something in the air. A bullet was a lot faster, so it shouldn’t be affected as much — but the drone itself was higher off the deck, so didn’t that mean it wasn’t moving at the same speed as Pete? “Ugh. I hate math. This is why I never wanted sniper school.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Mathematics? This has what to do with calculations?”
Pete fired again, this time a hair’s breadth to one side. This time it hit, and the drone went down in a shower of sparks. Over the mild whine in his ears and the crates in the way, Pete could just barely make out some surprised and very, very alien-sounding people.
Harpa looked at him, silent for a few moments. Finally, he said one word.
“Accurate.”
Jessica Richards
Date: The craziest day yet
Location: Pirates? Seriously? In freaking space?
“Hurry.” The spider-like alien, Nna, buzzed the command. “Time grows not.”
“We can’t all fit in there!” Jessica protested, looking at the airlock leading into the rest of the ship. It was pretty big, but not big enough for the whole crowd. “Just open the other door!”
“Cycling of this airlock is necessity.” Nna’s Microsoft Sam voice was calm but annoyingly robotic. Why did the aliens have to pick that voice, anyway? Even those TikTok AI voices would have been better. “One door open only at one time. This is why hurry we must.”
“Who designs this shit?”
“Bureaucrats,” Katherina answered, walking into the airlock like she owned it.
“Engineers,” Nester said at the same time, not quite stepping inside but very interested in what he could see.
“Concentrate thoughts of yourself,” Nna broke in. “Not long will it be before open hatch.”
“They possess not access codes,” Kolcant protested.
“They need not them possess. Third Cargo hatch disabled is.”
“Completely?” Kolcant raised his fox-like ears in what seemed to Jessica to be pure shock. “Why?”
“Prevention of tampering internal.”
Kolcant stared at him.
“Expect not did we the appearance of unregulated raiders.” Nna’s body language seemed nonexistent, so Jessica had to assume she was imagining that he sounded defensive.
“Entire purpose this for hatches to be secured.” Kolcant bared his teeth, which were flat like a horse’s rather than a clear carnivore. It looked weird on his more canid features. “Idiotic Librarians.”
Nna folded his arms together, almost like a praying mantis. “It within regulation was.”
“Just go already,” Jessica snapped, pushing Ji-min into the airlock. “Cycle your damn airlock. Don’t worry, Ji-min, you’ll be fine. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“I will stay,” Thando announced calmly. “I take up enough room for two. And if their weapons are as good as those . . .” He jerked a thumb at the two broken drones, which Nester was examining.
“Plasma will they have,” Nna warned. “Unlikely to be gentle as we.”
Jessica snorted. “Gentle. Right. Whatever. Ricardo, Chris, you get in too.”
“No.” Chris’ face took on a stubborn expression. “As you Americans say, ladies first.”
Jessica suppressed a growl of frustration. “Ji-min needs help. You speak Korean, just in case something happens to these earpieces.”
“Very little, and Japanese is not a great comfort to Koreans. She likes you. You should go with her. I will stay.”
“And do what?” Actually, Jessica was tempted, but now that Katharina had gone first . . . well, it was probably stupid, but she did not want to be following the German woman’s example.
“Keep you safe.”
Jessica scoffed. “How exactly?”
“By you being on that side of a large door.”
“Primitive rituals of mating inappropriate in this moment,” Nna observed. The door began rolling closed. “To waiting here, remaining subjects.”
“What?” Jessica stared at the door as it shut.
Hua laughed and put an arm around Jessica’s shoulder. “I think he said, ‘get a room,’ little sister.” The Chinese woman grinned at her.
“We are not mating!” Chris was blushing heavily, looking everywhere but at Jessica.
“He is an alien.” Thando patted Chris’ shoulder reassuringly.
“Right.” Chris nodded. “He gets a lot wrong about humans.”
“Well, no. I was thinking he could probably smell your hormones.”
Chris looked worried. “You . . . think he can?” He looked at Thando, then frowned. “You are gagging me.”
“If that means what I think it means, yes.” Thando patted Chris’ shoulder again, a little more firmly this time.
Jessica shook her head and turned away from the awkwardness. Nope. Not going there. “Nester, what are you doing?” she asked, spotting the Russian kneeling over one of the broken drones. She hadn’t realized he’d stayed behind.
“Looking. This is a very interesting propeller.”
Chris leaned over him, the pudgy Japanese kid looking excited. He probably wasn’t that much younger than Jessica, but he sure acted like it. “Ion engine! I saw something like this on YouTube.”
Nester nodded. “I don’t know what that is, but it is a propeller. Same function. Break it, it tumbles. I fixed a drone for a businessman that had damage like this. Little computer was not so smart, so when one propeller was shot, it fell out of the sky even though other three were working.”
“Someone shot a businessman’s drone?” Nash asked, scratching at the several days’ growth on his chin.
Nester shrugged. “He did not say. His men . . . discouraged questions. But I know what a bullet hole looks like.”
Nash nodded. “I had an employer like that.”
Jessica eyed his tattoos again. “I knew you weren’t a chef.”
“I am a chef.” Nash paused, then added, “Now.”
“Time for this later,” Thando broke in. He eyed the window in the outer hatch, which now had some kind of light shining through it. “Nester, can you fix it?”
“Of course not.” Nester rolled his eyes. “No tools, no parts, very unfamiliar design. But . . .”
A clang sounded at the door leading to space. Jessica jumped. Over the last several days, she’d gotten used to there being nothing there. Nothing but empty space that gave her vertigo looking at it. Now, there was empty, vertigo-inducing space . . . and something was in it.
“Hey! Spider-guy!” Jessica yelled into the air. “How long does it take you to open a damn door!?”
“Subject Nine to wait,” the Microsoft Sam voice said in her ear. From the looks on the others’ faces, they heard it too. “System reset/reboot/toggled.”
“What the fuck?” Jessica tried not to hyperventilate.
“Don’t worry, little one,” Thando said gently, moving to stand in front of her. “All will be well.”
Nash just grunted, but gestured to Hua to join Jessica. Hua nodded, looking much more serious than she had had ever since they finally had translation devices. The Nash headed for the outer door, but swung wide to avoid being seen through the window.
“Nna,” Thando said quietly, tapping his earpiece. “Now would be a good time.”
“Time neither good nor bad,” the alien voice responded. “It simply inconvenient is. Authorization required.“
“Why?” Jessica demanded, though she raised her voice. She couldn’t help it, but at least it gave her something to focus on. “And who puts the airlock on the inside of the ship, anyway? I’m no sci-fi nerd, but come on. And why the fuck does a door need rebooting?”
“Well, I am a sci-fi nerd.” Chris looked up at her. The chubby little Japanese kid was probably only a few years younger than Jessica, but his height and attitude made him seem fifteen to her. “And you’re right.”
Jessica blinked. “. . . I am?”
“But we don’t have big spaceships, so I guess they often need to transfer cargo in a vacuum, or need direct access in space.” Chris shrugged. “Who knows?”
“The American space shuttle had a cargo bay outside the airlock,” Ricardo pointed out.
“Ah, yes!” Chris nodded enthusiastically. “I had forgotten! I was only seven when they stopped using those.”
Jessica managed to look away from the impending light of doom in the window to frown at Chris. “Wasn’t that, like, twenty years ago?”
“2011,” Thando answered after thinking for a moment. “My nephew very much liked the space shuttle. It was all he could talk about that year. He is studying engineering now. He wanted to go into space, but . . .” He shrugged. “Not much opportunity for that.”
“You’re twenty-four?” Jessica ignored Thando’s family update. She could have sworn Chris was seventeen. Maybe nineteen, tops.
Chris nodded. “Twenty-five in next month.” He thought about that for a moment. “Or in Fourth Month, anyway. I don’t know what today is.”
“Fourth month? You mean April?”
“Yes, April. I always forget the English word for it.”
Hua grinned. “You’re older than she is.”
“I am?” Chris looked as surprised as Jessica felt. “I thought you were both big sisters.”
“Just me! I am senior to both of you.”
“Inconvenient information,” Nna said over their earpieces. “Unable am I to cycle airlock. With disabling of outer hatch, computer registered presence of external vehicle as breech.“
Jessica scowled. “And what does that mean, ET?”
“Cycle interrupted. Computer requires venting of atmosphere. Unable am I to override. This requires senior Spacer or Engineer authorization.“
“You mean you can’t authorize your own ship?” Jessica turned to stare in disbelief at the airlock door, like the spider-alien was standing behind it. Maybe he was. “Who designs your shit?”
“It means,” Thando said in a low voice, “we are on our own.”
“Mostly.”
They all turned to look at Nester, who was standing up holding one of the drones. He’d removed one of the panels and had a finger inside. He pointed it across the cargo bay and flexed his finger. It spat a thin bolt of lightning that reached maybe twenty feet.
“You got it working!” Chris grinned and hopped in place once. “You are amazing!”
Nester shook his head. “The gun was working. Only the engine was broken. The casing was loose, and the wiring inside . . . well, it might be alien, but a battery is a battery, yes? The equipment is complicated. The configuration is not.”
“So we have a tiny stun gun,” Jessica noted, not feeling very encouraged. “In a really awkward shape.”
“I suspect not so tiny,” Hua reassured her. “Not for aliens. They seemed surprised earlier.”
“And they seem not so tough.” Hua stretched languidly.
“They plasma weapons likely have,” Nna warned them. “Resistant you may be to stunning. Flesh yours still burns.“
With a clang, the outer door opened.
Lance Corporal Peter Baines
Date: Probably not relevant
Location: Alien hoarder room
An alarm beep sounded on Harpa’s rifle. The alien soldier nodded. “Disruption field active is.”
“Roger.”
Harpa looked at him quizzically. “Possess you one word for such concept complex?”
Pete frowned. “What?”
“Translator mine rendered word communication yours accepted entirely and comprehended completely.”
“Yeah, sounds right.” Pete really wanted to ask how an alien starship trooper didn’t already have a word like that, but figured this wasn’t the time for linguistic trading card swaps. “Look, this is your battlefield, and you see better than me. Tactically, you should go first. But I understand if you don’t want me at your back.”
Harpa studied him, either trying to read Pete’s body language or just trying to parse whatever word-salad the translator had delivered. “Agreement. That is not desired. However, it necessary is. Follow.”
Pete followed, his gun down but ready. The cargo bay felt like a maze, with only a few feet of clearance between stacks. He had no idea how anyone found anything in here, even with the lights on. Between the darkness and the relative cold compared to their makeshift prison cell, Pete had to suppress a shiver. He really wished he had some NVGs. Or full gear. Or his platoon, while he was at it. Figures, he thought. Two years in the Corps and it took an alien abduction to see combat.
Harpa snapped up his rifle to aim, sending a stream of electricity down between two stacks. It briefly illuminated a single figure as it ducked behind the crates on one side.
“Keep him pinned.” Pete changed directions before Harpa could respond. Three stacks down and to the left, he thought to himself. The stacks weren’t all the same size or depth, so he had to backtrack once, but soon wound up behind a figure he could make out in the shadows. The guy had a rifle of his own, but different from Harpa’s. It still shot electricity back toward Harpa’s position, though. Didn’t any of these aliens use bullets? Between shots, the alien seemed to be saying something.
Pete aimed at the head, but hesitated. He didn’t know anything about this species. Would a headshot even kill him?
And even if it did . . . did he really want to do that? All he had was the word of his captors that these guys were worse. And besides, they were using those stun weapons. That could mean they wanted prisoners, like Harpa said. Or maybe they were law enforcement, like Pete had wondered earlier.
After a moment, he crept closer, keeping an eye behind him in case someone tried doing the same thing to him. Back in their oversized cell, Pete had been bored enough to test how close his translation earpiece had to be work, and . . .
His translator came to life. “See not the other. Possess you location his?”
Right behind you, asshole, Pete thought.
“Affirmation.” The alien — Pete couldn’t make out its features, other than it clearly wasn’t human — tapped something on the side of its head, then continued. “Ship this is acquisition good. It possesses many supplies, if this extramental-heart damages them not.”
Extramental-heart, huh? Guess that’s alien for shithead.
Another voice from further down the stacks answered, but Pete wasn’t close enough for his translator to work.
“That would preferred to be. Ship previous possessed no useful enslavement. Even lack of sufficient practice of aiming.”
Okay, bragging about trafficking and using crew for target practice. Sounds like a pirate to me.
Pete had never been much of a history buff, but the Corps encouraged it. And one particular bit of history that every Marine knew was that the Corps had founded its reputation on the bodies of pirates that European kings preferred to pay off. And under international law, pirates were fair game, no matter where they were found.
Including space.
Two .45 ACP rounds tore through the alien’s skull. Assuming it had a skull. Since it didn’t explode like a watermelon would, it had to have had something reasonably tough, which meant evolution definitely came up with some kind of protection for something important there. It still made a mess, though. Pete grimaced. Whatever that thing used for blood, it smelled.
An alien voice yelled something, and Pete looked up in time to see some kind of grey-green-skinned humanoid with a too-wide mouth bare its teeth at him. The rifle it was holding seemed to come up in slow motion, and Pete barely ducked behind a pile of crates before a lightning bolt zapped through the space he’d just vacated. “Missed me, ET!” he shouted. “Come get some!”
“What language that is?” the alien demanded, stepping closer. “Surrender to receive better enslavement category.”
“You need to work on your sales pitch.”
Pete didn’t want to waste a bullet with a test shot, so he just waved his 1911 out past his cover. He was rewarded with another lightning bolt, but over a second later than he’d expected. Did this guy have bad reflexes or something? Well, if something wasn’t wrong with him, he wouldn’t be a pirate and slaver. Pete popped out around the corner, taking a moment to make sure he had the alien in sight, and fired another two rounds, center mass. The alien staggered, clutching at its chest, but didn’t go down. Instead, it struggled to raise its rifle at Pete.
It turned out just one bullet to the head did the trick on this species.
Pete eyed the corpse. “Well, at least I found the literal little green men.”
