The Mothership (38 page)

“Ow!” He cried as he dropped it, rubbing
his scalded hand.

The others gathered round curiously. The
container had landed on its side and a thick yellow liquid with small pink
cubes had spilled onto the deck. A column of steam and a pungent odor rose from
it.

Slab sniffed, wincing. “Is that food?”

“Looks like something my missus would
cook,” Wal said, “only better!”

Bill prodded one of the cubes with his
fishing knife. It was spongy to the touch and released a thin pinkish fluid
that might have been blood. “It’s some kind of meat.”

Cracker knelt down and put a finger into
the yellowish stew, then brought his finger up and cautiously tasted it with
the tip of his tongue. He made a face and spat. “Tastes like shit!”

Bill went to the next storage cube and
opened it, finding it had exactly the same contents as the first. They started
moving down the corridor between the stacks of storage cubes, opening them
randomly. They all held food containers filled with stew like contents, but
nothing that resembled vegetables or dried food.

“If it’s food, there’s no variety,” Cracker
said. “It’s all the same.”

“Like McDonalds!” Wal added.

“They remind me of ration packs,” Bill said
thoughtfully. “Like I had in the army.”

Slab had advanced a little ahead of the
others. The symbols on the storage cubes had changed subtly. He opened a cube
to find it full of long, thin rectangular containers. He retrieved one, pressed
the symbol on the side and the top vanished to reveal a dark cold liquid. He
sniffed it, but it was almost odorless. He took a small, experimental sip, then
spat it out, tossing the drink container away in disgust.

Slab winced. “Jeez! How’d these bastard get
here drinking crap like this?”

“No wonder they nicked our beer!” Wal said.

A metal shriek sounded behind them. They
turned as one to see the transport shudder and jerk backwards half a meter.
Something was pulling the transport back into the hangar.

Nemza’ri attached
a fusion torch to her heavy lift suit, then sealed the pipe linking the clone
tank she’d just repaired to the amniotic storage vat. She was sure the vat was
sterile, but wasn’t so confident about the clone tank itself. She’d had to
salvage parts from seven damaged tanks to construct one functioning unit, with
no way to test her work.

A day ago, she’d known nothing about clonic
insemination, a process her kind used to clone genetic material for
reproductive purposes. What she knew now was pure download, force fed into her
cerebral implants from the ship’s science base. She regretted having to purge
her memory implants of the engineering knowledge she’d acquired over more than
two centuries aboard ship, but there just wasn’t sufficient capacity in her
cerebral implants to keep it and master reproductive genetics.

She instructed the clone tank’s
consciousness to drain the amniotic vat, then waited as the tank’s level
indicator rose to full. It was a near miracle that enough parts had survived
for her to assemble even one clone tank, as most of the equipment in the
genetics lab had been damaged or destroyed.

Lying unconscious on operating tables near the
tank were the two myrnods she’d captured in the cargo hold. Tubes extending
from their chests drained the precious growth hormone she was using to
accelerate the cloning of the genetic material harvested from the male
survivors. When she was finished with the myrnods, the med drones would attach
them to the two most viable males to accelerate their recovery.

Clonic insemination was a process she’d known
little about before the crash. She’d been freed of reproductive
responsibilities because of her shipboard duties, but now it was necessary to
reverse the sterilization process and begin replacing those who had lost their
lives in the sleep chamber. It was not something she desired or dreaded, it was
simply her duty.

Nemza’ri climbed out of the heavy lift suit
and approached the cylindrical clone tank, now almost full of translucent amniotic
fluid, heated to the ideal temperature. A med drone floating nearby held a
sealed sphere containing the cloned male cells, while a second med drone
floated ready with the sterilization antidote. She peeled off her one-piece
crew suit and activated her pain suppressor implants. Once her body had gone
numb below the neck, the second med drone inserted a long needle into her lower
back, guiding it perfectly into her reproductive sac. If her nervous system was
still active, it would have been excruciating, but with the pain signals to her
brain being intercepted, she felt nothing. Her body was flesh and blood, but
she had as much control over it as over any machine.

The med drone injected the antidote, then
when the needle was withdrawn Nemza’ri returned her nervous system to partial
functioning so she could walk. She assigned a diagnostic implant to monitor her
reproductive sac, finding it was responding as expected, then she approached
the clone tank.

The tank’s side dissolved, revealing a wall
of synthetic amniotic fluid held in place by a pressure field. She took a deep
breath, compressing air in her complex lungs, then stepped through into the
fluid. Control fields lifted her off her feet and guided her into the center of
the tank. She could hold her breath underwater for a very long time, but chose
to minimize the risk by shutting down most of her bodily functions. If this had
been a properly supervised operation, she would have had an air supply, but
she’d been unable to find all the necessary parts for a breathing system. She
knew exactly how long the procedure would take, and considering her species’
adaptation to aquatic environments, there was little risk.

One of the med drones passed the
fertilization sphere into the tank, then the tank wall materialized, sealing
her in. The sphere was captured by a control field and moved to a position in
front of her hips. Nano machines swarmed invisibly through the amniotic fluid,
penetrating the sphere and collecting the precious cells stored there. The
control fields gently separated her legs, allowing nano machines to swarm into
her body in anticipation of her reproductive cycle commencing.

Nemza’ri felt nothing but the warmth of the
amniotic fluid and the gentle press of control fields holding her in place. Her
diagnostic implants gave her constant updates, monitoring every cellular
process with precision. She knew exactly when the sterility antidote brought
her dormant eggs to life, and when the nano machines extracted them for
fertilization. The nano machines flowed out of her body to combine her
unfertilized eggs with the genetic material cloned from cells harvested from
the males. Throughout the process she received a running tally of viable eggs.
They would mature in the clone tank at an accelerated rate due to the stimulus
of the myrnod growth hormone, which would not fully dissipate until they
reached adulthood. When the nano-fertilization process was complete, she left
the tank, leaving the fertilized eggs to develop in the expert care of the
tank’s awareness.

Nano-fertilization was the technological
equivalent of her species laying unfertilized eggs in the rivers and estuaries
of her homeworld, which had once been externally fertilized by the males. Her
species had begun using the clone tanks to control the reproductive process
millions of years ago. The eggs would incubate rapidly in complete safety, then
the hatchlings would be provided with nutrients laced with the myrnod growth
hormone to continue their accelerated development. Nano machines would begin
inserting implants at infancy and the downloads would begin. With a constant
supply of the growth hormone, the hatchlings would become fully functioning
adults in a few years, and the losses of the sleep chamber would begin to be
recovered. It was a process she could repeat every few days, for as long as
required, as she could clone her own eggs if ever she needed more than she
carried naturally.

When she stepped from the clone tank, her
implants informed her that more than fifty thousand eggs had been successfully
fertilized. All would be hatched. All would mature. Nemza’ri was well
satisfied, for she knew the ship no longer needed an engineering technician to
maintain inertial accelerators. It required personnel.

It required a breeder, which was what she
had become.

Beckman glanced at
his watch, estimating the stealth field power packs had only minutes of life
remaining.
We can still make it
, he thought, but he knew it would be
tight.

He glanced up at the
dark gray wall rising before them. Even in the shadow realm of the stealth
fields, the severity of the ship’s wounds were clearly apparent. What had
appeared as black pinpricks from a distance were in reality ominously dark cavities.
Many ragged holes pockmarked the hull hundreds of meters above the valley
floor, while one hull breach touched the ground a short distance away. It was
that ground level opening that Bandaka was now racing for,
across a sea of ashen tree trunks
.

Suddenly, Bandaka stopped, although his
monotonous tapping continued.

Beckman halted beside him. “What is it?”

“Fireflies,” Bandaka replied uncertainly.

Beckman realized the over powering bulk of
the ship and a concern for hostile flying machines had kept his attention
focused on the sky. He dropped his gaze to the ground ahead, where he spotted tiny
points of brightness forming a perimeter around the ship. They circled each
other, constantly changing direction, darting back and forth at knee height, simulating
insect behavior to deceive intelligent motion sensors, yet following the same
preprogrammed path. They were the size of small marbles, although their glow
indicated they were large enough to generate their own propulsion field.

Detection or defense?
Beckman wondered, already anxious about
lost seconds. “Find the biggest gap you can,” he said loud enough for the
others to hear. “We’ll go through single file, time our runs to avoid the
fireflies.”

Bandaka’s keen eye had already spotted a
small gap. He quickly headed off to the right, moving over the rough terrain
with a fleetness of foot that forced the others to jog to keep up. Several
times, Beckman heard someone stumble and fall, then curse as they picked
themselves up. When they drew near the fireflies, Bandaka halted just long
enough for the others to catch up.

“No more tapping,” Beckman said. “Once you’re
through, get to that hole on our left.” They were two hundred meters from the
ship’s outer hull now, but the power packs would start failing any minute now.
“Nuke, if this doesn’t work, detonate here.”

“How did I know you were going to say
that?” Nuke said.

“Sound off before you go through, so we
don’t all go at once. Bandaka, you first, then me.”

“I go now,” Bandaka announced, then the
sound of the aboriginal hunter’s soft footsteps faded rapidly as he loped
towards the fireflies.

Beckman counted slowly to ten. “I’m moving
out,” he said, then started after Bandaka, as several small points of light
darted across in front of him. They flew in short fast circles, then when they
shot away to his left, he ran through the perimeter. Once on the other side, he
jogged straight for the ground level hull breach.

He checked his watch, dismayed to discover
another valuable minute had been consumed.
This is going to be close!

The ghostly gray world flashed white as a
wave of heat washed over his back. Beckman looked back at the firefly perimeter
where a pillar of flame clawed skyward. When the inferno died, he recognized
the long barreled sniper rifle with its unmistakable telescopic sight, now
white hot, fall from charred hands. The blackened corpse crumpled, as bones
turned to ash and gave way under their own weight.

It’s Cougar!
Beckman realized, suppressing a sickening feeling
rising from his stomach. He hadn’t seen what had fired, but he guessed Cougar’s
stealth field had been penetrated by a firefly.
Now they know we’re here!

Markus saw the fireflies swarm around Cougar’s
ashen remains and took his chance, sprinting through the gap, the fourth to
cross. If he was lucky, the fireflies would close the gap, once they’d finished
studying Cougar, blocking the others from crossing and putting an end to
Beckman’s insane plan.

Beckman felt his legs tiring as he ran. He wondered
if a counter measure existed that could be launched against their stealth
fields, unmasking the remaining members of the team and catching them in the
open. He heard a chorus of boots crunching charred trees and clicking on fused
ground behind him as the others slipped through the gap, one by one, and ran for
the ship. Tucker, being the strongest and fittest, was the last to cross.

 Knowing the power packs would be dead
soon, Beckman focused on the hull breach ahead. It was an immense cave, dark as
night two meters above ground level. This close to the ship, there were no
longer any tree trunks to worry about, only powdered ash which he kicked up as
he ran. When he got to the hull, Bandaka’s slender arm reached into his stealth
field. It was a strange apparition of an arm with no body, groping blindly for
him from a ghostly world.

“Help me up,” Bandaka said, easily locating
Beckman by his scent and labored breathing.

Beckman placed the hunter’s hand on his
shoulder, then cupped his own hands beneath the hunter’s leathery foot and
launched him up into the hull breach. A moment later, the tip of Bandaka’s
spear appeared in front of Beckman’s face. He grabbed the wooden weapon and
walked up the side of the hull to the opening. Once inside, he checked his
watch again.
Two minutes left!

“Three are close,” Bandaka’s voice
whispered from an empty space to Beckman’s right.

“How can you tell?”

“I see their tracks.”

Beckman heard approaching footsteps, but in
the shadowy stealth world, he saw no sign of the other team members. He turned
to examine the hull breach, finding a gradually sloping tunnel had been blasted
through the triple layered hull, far into the ship’s interior. The breach cut
through many decks, a few lit by flickering lights or electrical short
circuits, most immersed in darkness. As he tried to make out the details, he
realized the strength of the light reaching his eyes was slowly increasing.

My power pack’s failing!

He heard a grunt and quick footsteps as
Markus clambered up to them at the end of Bandaka’s spear.

“Only just made it,” Markus declared. “I
can see color!”

Beckman looked back out over the blasted
landscape to the escarpment, discovering hints of red and orange among the ash
streaked cliffs, a sure sign his stealth field was powering down. On the
approaches to the ship, the ground blurred in several places where stealth
fields were losing their ability to bend light, while another distortion
appeared below the breach.

“What a hike!” Nuke declared as Bandaka
pulled him up, “Especially with this thing on my back!” He took a few exhausted
steps into the tunnel, then slipped out of his pack and flopped onto the deck,
breathing hard.  A moment later, Bandaka hauled Xeno up into the ship.

“Get up the ramp,” Beckman ordered.

Markus and Xeno clambered up the tunnel’s
slick metal slope while Nuke lifted his pack and carried it in one hand after
them. Satisfied they were safely inside, Beckman watched anxiously for Tucker
and Virus. He spotted a single smear of twisted light racing toward the ship,
but could find no sign of a second. Slowly the approaching blur betrayed a hint
of dappled green that grew in size.  

Tucker and Virus together?
he wondered as he realized the blur was
wider than a single man.

Bandaka’s translucent form began to appear
beside him, then twenty meters from the ship, a ghostly silhouette of Virus
with his arm across Tucker’s shoulders started to take shape. Virus’ stealth
field was scarcely functioning at all, its power pack had failed prematurely.
Now Tucker’s was close to collapse.

Beckman cursed himself for letting Virus
come.
Hurry, God damn it!

Incredibly, Tucker and Virus stopped.
Beckman bit off an urge to yell at them, to order them to run faster, but they
turned as one to face the perimeter. Virus balanced his M16 on his hip, angled
up forty-five degrees. He fired his M203 grenade launcher at the fireflies
buzzing the perimeter. A moment later, a phosphorus grenade exploded in a cloud
of white hot embers that the fireflies found irresistible.

Tucker slung Virus over his shoulder and jogged
toward the hull breach. His footfalls were heavy, carrying the weight of two
men and their gear. Behind them, fireflies swarmed toward the phosphorus cloud,
drawn by its heat, while in the sky far to the south, a black speck approached
at high transonic velocity. Tucker reached the ground below the hull breach as
his stealth field failed, then he hurled Virus up to Beckman like he was
tossing a sandbag. Beckman caught Virus and pulled him back as Tucker grabbed
Bandaka’s spear and hauled himself into the entrance.

“Go, go go!” Beckman yelled, dragging
Virus’ up the tunnel slope.

In the sky outside, the black speck grew
into a wedge-shaped striker. It fired at the burning phosphorus, turning the
area into a boiling lava pool, then swooped toward the movement it detected
near the hull breach.

Tucker charged up into the tunnel, with
Bandaka close behind him. Beckman was halfway up the slope when his stealth
field gave out. It was like turning on a light. In a glance, he saw the swath
of destruction inside the ship clearly, the ragged decks, the twisted debris
and the pools of recently molten metal. He was stunned to see the extent of the
destruction, a calamity beyond anything he could have imagined. Light exploded around
them and a wave of heat rolled up the tunnel as the striker bombarded the
entrance. The blast wave knocked them off their feet, then they were up and
racing for the interior of the hull.

“Incoming!” Beckman yelled as he emerged
from the tunnel and threw his back against the bulkhead. He found himself in the
remains of a shadowy compartment lit only by a single flickering light near an
open passageway to the right. Filling the chamber were rows of metal
latticeworks reaching from floor to ceiling. Explosive decompression had almost
sucked the room clean, except for a handful of dark shapes hanging in the
lattice near the flickering light. Hidden amongst the shadows, the faces of his
team peered out expectantly, weapons ready.

Beckman stole a look back down the tunnel
as the striker swooped into the entrance and came to a sudden stop to assess
the situation. Its sensors immediately detected Beckman’s face watching it,
then it nosed up, angling its wingtip cannons at him. Beckman jumped back as
two brilliant orange streaks flashed past and followed the tunnel up through
four more levels before striking a bulkhead. The heat from the blasts startled
him with their intensity, warning him that even a near miss would be fatal.

Tucker circled around to a position
opposite the tunnel exit, then hurled a grenade into it. The grenade clanged
hollowly on naked metal as it bounced down the slope towards the mouth of the
tunnel. The striker immediately scanned it, but failed to match it to any of
the millions of weapon profiles it had on record. It guessed correctly that it
was an explosive device, although it assumed it to be hundreds of times more
powerful than it was.

To evade the shockwave, the striker
accelerated up through the tunnel, leaving the grenade to explode harmlessly
near the entrance. It shot out of the hull breach into the storage compartment
at high speed, then darted left, away from the only light source in sight. It
relied on design schematics to plot a course through the storage lattices, but
the schematics hadn’t been updated for damage. The striker careened off a
collapsed bulkhead and crashed into a partially melted lattice, cracking its
sensor strip and wrapping lattice strands over its leading edge, obscuring its
vision. It tried to stabilize itself, and recharge its shield as Beckman,
Tucker and Xeno opened up with specials from three sides. The striker’s
weakened shield collapsed, then super heated particles smashed through its
lightly armored skin, triggering several internal explosions. The striker
lurched sideways, crashed through an intact lattice and fell tail first onto
the deck. They continued firing for several seconds, carving it into pieces,
remembering what had happened to Cougar.

“Cease fire!” Beckman yelled.

He stood as the others emerged from their
hiding places. Only Virus remained on the deck propped against one of the
lattice frames, his face white and dripping with sweat. Beckman approached him,
noting his sickly complexion. “You don’t look so good.”

“I just need a minute,” Virus said weakly
between sips from his canteen.

Beckman turned his attention to the
compartment they were in. There were at least twenty rows of rectangular, wire
frame lattices, standing side by side vaguely reminding him of a locker room.

“Major,” Nuke called from the far end of
the compartment. He stood beside dark blue metallic suits over a meter and a
half tall, hanging within the lattice. They were bipedal, disproportionately
wide at the chest and hips, with oversized elongated helmets. The sides facing
the hull breach were scalded black, while their distant position in the lattice
had saved them from being sucked into space when the compartment had
decompressed.