The Mothership (10 page)

“Understood.”

Beckman headed into the forest, followed by
the others. He hadn’t gone far when he saw Cougar standing on a narrow strip of
hard packed red earth. The track was scarred with trenches cut by wet season
rains and overhung by trees providing cover from the air. A tree lying across
the track had been cut apart by a chain saw to allow a vehicle to pass. Judging
by the weathering of the wood, it had been cut a long time ago.

Hooper paced out into the center of the
track, looking up and down it.

Beckman joined him, checking his compass.
“It’s heading in the right direction.”

The sergeant rubbed the line of an old scar
on the left side of his face thoughtfully. He’d picked that wound up in the Hindu
Kush, years before, and had a habit of running his index finger over it when
thinking. “The main road is closed for a reason.”

“This isn’t the main road. There must
hundreds of tracks like this out here. They can’t be watching them all.”

“You sure about that?”

Beckman hesitated, realizing Hooper was
right. He had no idea what alien technology was capable of. He studied the
decrepit state of this track, thinking it hadn’t been graded for years. “We’re
still a long way out, and it doesn’t look like there’s much traffic through
here.”

“It’s faster than punching through the
forest,” Hooper conceded.

Beckman pointed down the track to the
northwest. “That way. Spread them out and be ready to take cover.”

Hooper turned toward the team members now
filtering towards them through the forest and bellowed, “Alright ladies, form
columns either side of the road!”

“Who you calling a lady, Sarge?” Vamp
called out mischievously.

Hooper grinned. “Excuse me! Ladies and …
women of ill repute. Form up!” He strode down the center of the track. “Now
that we’ve got this beautiful highway at our disposal, we’re going to pick up
the pace.”

Muted groans filled the air as the team
formed into two dispersed columns.

“Come on, Sarge,” Nuke moaned, “In this
heat?”

“This ain’t hot, Lieutenant, it’s just a
little toasty!” Hooper removed his helmet and let the sun beat down on his
shaved head for a moment. “Ah! Feel that sunshine.” He pulled his helmet back
on and turned to the team with a knowing glint in his eyes. “Now that the good
Lord has provided us with this fine roadway, we’re going to pick up the pace,
people. Double time, if you please! Move out!”

In short order, they were moving forward
with a purpose. At the rear, Markus fell back, pausing at a bend in the track.
When the team had marched out of sight, he pulled out his burst transceiver and
typed in a short message. He knew there was a chance the transmission would be
detected, but he judged the intel important enough to warrant the risk. He hit
transmit, then not waiting for an acknowledgement, and remembering the fate of
the patrol boat, he pocketed the device and jogged after the troops.

Far to the south, the DSD listening post at
Numbulwar detected the encrypted burst signal, and immediately relayed it via
Shoal Bay to Fort Meade:

Survivors confirmed. Small craft sighted.
Type unknown. Intent unknown.

Nemza’ri was
starving.

Before taking the pre-flight sleep drug,
twenty hours of fasting had been required to purge her body of waste material.
With no food or water after revival, she’d been hungry even before being sealed
inside the hull bubble. She’d been trapped there alone in the darkness for days
while her data connect to the ship remained strangely silent, depriving her of
the connectedness she was so accustomed to. Self diagnostics reassured her that
her cerebral implants were fully functioning, indicating the link had been
severed by the ship itself. That could only mean the Command Nexus had disabled
ancillary functions to free up capacity to focus upon the emergency.

Nemza’ri remained calm, even though she was
trapped in a tiny space with no light and no fresh air, and the ship had for a
time shuddered and trembled around her. Never in all the centuries she’d served
aboard had she ever sensed movement. Internal acceleration fields always
perfectly offset inertial effects no matter how violent the ship’s maneuvers
were. To feel the actual motion of the ship was truly shocking.

Before the vibrations had ended, the ship’s
gravity failed. It was then she knew the great vessel had been truly stricken
by disaster. Artificial gravity was as basic as food and water, and for it to
terminate meant a catastrophic malfunction. It filled her with dread, knowing
if the ship accelerated, she would be instantly crushed to death. While the
Command Nexus would try to protect the lives of everyone aboard, it would not
hesitate to sacrifice her to save the ship. The realization triggered a primal
fear that started her oversized pulmonary glands pumping hormones far more powerful
than adrenalin through her body. The survival hormones filled her with
strength, and an urge to move fast, yet all she could do was wait.

Hours passed, but the crushing acceleration
did not come.

Nemza’ri began to wonder if the ship was
adrift in space, and if she would be entombed in her tiny bubble forever. With
no power, the hull’s quantum geometry could not be altered to reform the access
tunnel she’d crawled through, sealing her inside a solid wall of metal. Without
power, the ship’s sensors would not know she was alive, and rescue parties
would be unable to locate her. She wondered if there was even enough power to
revive the crew and power the repair drones.

For the first time in her life, she faced
the prospect of death.

With a clear mind, she calculated her best
chance of survival, directing her autonomic implants to lower her metabolic
rate. She could not self hibernate without drugs, but she could slow her
consumption of the limited air supply to the bare minimum necessary to sustain
life without causing brain damage. It would give the maintenance drones time to
carry out repairs and discover her presence in the outer hull. Moments after
instructing her implants to change her body’s settings, she fell into a shallow
artificial coma.

A long time later, her implants roused her.
For a moment, she was confused about her surroundings, then she smelled the
fetid air. She had consumed much of the oxygen in the small bubble, turning her
meager air supply into a thick and musty vapor. Nemza’ri emitted her equivalent
of a cough, then realized why her implants had roused her. She was lying hard
against the cold metal hull.

Gravity had returned!

A wave of relief washed over her. It would
only be a matter of time before internal sensors reactivated, and the Command
Nexus regained control over the hull’s geometry. Her main fear became her air
supply. It was rapidly running out. Without a moment to spare, she directed her
implants to send her back to sleep, and not wake her again until the air’s
oxygen content increased. She would either die in her sleep, or awake to fresh
air.

Days passed before her implants roused her
again.

She took a deep breath, smelling moist,
thick air. Her olfactory implant told her it was an oxygen nitrogen mix with
unusually high concentrations of carbon. It had been almost eight million years
since her species had used carbon based fuels, so it did not occur to her that
this was the atmosphere of a world dependant on burning such fuels for energy.
She opened her eyes, noting the strange yellow tint to the light. She knew at
once it was the light of a main sequence yellow star, rather than the cooler
glow of the orange star her kind preferred. Turning her head, she found the
access tunnel had reformed, opening the way through to the outer hull and to
the world beyond. She stared out at a blue sky, feeling a comforting warmth in
the air. She had no doubt the Command Nexus would have already determined the
atmosphere was breathable before ventilating the ship. She had no concern for
alien microbes, because her immune system implants would instantly destroy any
harmful organism. It was the fact the ship had landed on such a world at all
that shocked her. Their destination had been a system with a yellow star, but a
world considerably cooler than the one outside.

She wondered if the ship had crashed, and
if so, how had she survived?

Lying just beyond her head was a silver
line on the tunnel floor, the remains of the maintenance drone that had been
crushed when the ship had sealed itself. She looked past her feet, finding the
access tunnel back into the ship had also reformed. The maintenance passageway
beyond was now illuminated by a weak flickering light. Her curiosity inclined
her to crawl to the end of the access tunnel and look out at the world the ship
had landed on, but her duty told her she had to make herself available to help
with the repair work. After a last glance at the blue sky outside, she crawled
back through the hull to the passageway.

When she emerged, she expected to see a med
drone waiting with food and water, ready to subject her to a full bioscan. What
she found was an empty corridor lit by a single flickering emergency light. She
stood on wobbly legs, surprised and dismayed, searching the corridor for any
sign of aid. The Command Nexus had to know she was suffering from starvation
and dehydration, yet it had done nothing to assist her other than allowing her
back into the ship. She tried reestablishing her mind link with the ship, but
while the implant was fully functional, the ship-wide network failed to
acknowledge her. She walked stiffly to the grav lift, pinging it with her
biosonar. She planned to go straight to her quarters to clean up and devour a
protein pack or three. Strangely, the sonic sensor did not respond, then when
she stepped on the grav lift, it failed to activate.

Nemza’ri leaned against the wall weakly,
instructing her autonomic implants to trigger survival responses throughout her
body. Hormones flooded her system, giving her a temporary boost in strength,
but her implants warned that her organs would not survive further artificial
stimulation. She ignored the warnings, certain she’d have to find her way out
of the damaged section alone. Nemza’ri triggered a memory implant, bringing up
the ship’s schematic. It showed the ship in its undamaged state, because with
the data connect down, her memories had not been updated for the damage the
ship had suffered.

She zoomed the schematic in to the nearest
bulkhead, then plotted a course to the closest transit artery. In an emergency,
the main cargo lifts would be powered to enable damage control drones to move
heavy equipment through the ship. Nemza’ri pushed off the wall, inhaled the
alien air deeply, then forced her short, tired legs to work.

It was a big ship, and she had a long way
to go.

“No movement,”
Cougar reported over the short range radio. He knelt beside a tree, peering
through his rifle’s telescopic sight, tracking from one side of the destroyed
research station to the other. “Looks deserted.”

“Vamp, you got anything?” Beckman asked.

Vamp lay under cover, waiting for Cougar to
complete his recon. She worked the crystal ball’s settings from short to long
range. As soon as she zoomed out, the device detected multiple contacts in the
forest, but she’d already discovered she was picking up the local wildlife.
“Nothing close.”

“OK, move up,” Beckman ordered.

Cougar crept towards the edge of the
forest, while the rest of the team followed at a distance, spread out in an arc
behind him. When he reached the edge of the forest, he paused for a final look.
“I count six buildings, all destroyed. Two are burnt to the ground.”

“Bodies?” Beckman asked as he approached
Cougar’s position.

“None visible.”

Beckman knelt beside Cougar, drawing his
field glasses. It was late afternoon, and the shadows from the surrounding
trees almost spanned the research station’s grounds.

“Looks like a tornado hit it,” Cougar said.

“Or a bomb,” Beckman replied, then thumbed
his mike. “We’re going in.” He rose and headed for the remains of the main
house. “Keep an eye out for bodies. There’s supposed to be a man and a woman
living here.”

“Nuke and Timer, go left,” Hooper barked.
“Xeno and Virus, take the right. Everyone else provide cover.”

Beckman smelled the stench of death as he
reached the ruins of the house, then he spotted a swarm of flies buzzing around
the mangled crocodile carcass lying alongside the wrecked surveyor. “Doc, got
something for you.”

The scientist eagerly hurried out of the
forest, while Markus followed more slowly, studying the collection of shattered
buildings warily. Whereas the scientist couldn’t wait to reach Beckman, Markus
took time to survey the area, looking for clues.

“What’s that smell?” Dr McInness demanded
as he reached Beckman, placing a handkerchief over his mouth. When he saw the
headless remains of the crocodile, he winced, then his eyes opened wide when he
spotted the surveyor. He made a feeble attempt to brush away the flies swarming
around the crocodile’s naked flesh, then retrieved the insect repellent from
his pack. He sprayed it in a wide arc at the flies, who barely noticed its
presence.