Hollis stared in shock as the impossible happened. The body whose splintered neck he held looked like it was evaporating, blue mist rising off to coalesce into a shapeless...thing on his arm that took on definition and a somewhat consistent form. It moved down his immobile arm as he kept staring, panting hard in fear, unable to move, to speak. It reached him, extended an armlike appendage to his face. At its touch he found his voice again, trying to scream through the muffling protoplasm that wormed its way between his lips, around his teeth, over his tongue, through his nose. His eyes wide, pupils ragged, nostrils flared in distress, the motionless Marine ripped his mouth open in a last, desperate scream. It was choked off as the thing forced more of itself to fill the new opening, and the air he had expended he could ill-afford to lose. Nearly out of oxygen from his adrenaline-fueled heart, tunnel vision began to set in. The world went gray, his ears roared with rushing hot blood. Numbly, he felt a tiny shard of pain as his esophagus was ruptured in several places. A greater pain as the roof of his nasal cavity was bored into, the questing blue sending part of itself straight into his frontal lobes. The world died for Hollis then, as his gray matter was integrated in a matter of seconds with the blue there. His spinal column underwent a similar contact and all sensation stopped. All that was Hollis was locked away in a tiny box, to be opened when needed.
It withdrew from the shell's face. It would be incredibly wasteful to cause its expiration before it could see use. The Incubi, on the other hand, had accomplished its goal. It retreated up the arm and struck a pose, as though it were moving on the shell again. That of it which had taken the shell woke up and prepared itself accordingly. All were to play a role in the coming deception.
"I heard Hollis yell from the engineering bay. After starting the power-up sequence I wasn't really needed on the bridge until it was time to lift off. That was a good three or four minutes away, so I detached myself from duty there and started heading back. I ran into Jones as I did so."
"Commander Mathers, the ship is secure." As they were both indoors, Jones did not salute.
"Excellent. Did you encounter any resistance?" Mathers kept moving, but his attention was on the Marine.
"That's the funny thing. I didn't." Jones looked baffled, and Mathers slowed his pace, turned, and studied his face.
"The ship was deserted?"
"No. They were all dead before I got to them." It was Mather's turn to look baffled.
"Dead how?" Jones pantomimed pointing a gun at his head and pulling the trigger.
"Looked like every last one of them either got a bullet in the skull or a knife in the ribs. The determinant on which was whether they were wearing some kind of body armor or not. I didn't see any marks on the walls, so it must have been a low-velocity expanding round from close range." Mathers shuddered. There wouldn't be anything left of those people's brains to examine.
"And the knifed ones?"
"Stabbed between the ribs at a perfect angle to cut the trachea close to the branch, then stabbed with a second knife in the left eye and stirred. It...it's not very pretty, sir."
"I stopped talking and looked at Jones. He looked back at me, then we both sprinted down the corridor. I kicked in the door and stared at the thing on his arm, moving towards him. Jones shoved his rifle over my shoulder and unloaded his clip in a thunderous procession of lead, each hit taking a part of the monstrosity and splattering it on the wall beyond. When his weapon was dry, I brought my own to bear as he readied his plasma torch. We moved into the room, Jones sterilizing any fragments while I stood ready to blast the living hell out of it if it so much as twitched again. When all was said and done, we looked at Hollis, who was panting as hard as we were.
"Get...get me out of this. I need to move. I gotta get out of this room!" I nodded and started peeling off his armor.
When I got to his left arm, he stifled a scream, and that's when I noticed the telltale bulging and bullet hole. "****. We've got to get him to the autodoc stat! Otherwise this arm's as good as amputated." I didn't voice my thoughts that it already was.
"We got him situated and Jones stayed to keep an eye on Hollis and Mason. I headed back to the bridge. Johnson glanced at me, but I just shook my head. "We'll talk once we're out there." I jabbed my finger out towards deep space. The Reliant would, God willing, be about three hundred and fifty klicks out from Fairbanks. It was a risky trip with this small of a crew in a gunboat, but we really didn't have any choice in the matter. Juneau would certainly be sending reinforcements as soon as the crew of the gunboat didn't respond. I took my seat and began manipulating the controls, bringing the repulsors and thrusters up to operating levels. Johnson moved over to the gunnery chief's console and brought the main gun online. We didn't have anyone to open the bay doors for us, so we'd have to, ehm, open them the hard way. It's also the expensive way.
"Fire one, Mister Johnson." We both grinned, then blinked as a lance of energy slammed into the massive doors, reducing a very large portion of it to so much flash-burned steam and smoke being sucked out through a hole large enough for two gunboats. "That may have been excessive."
"My mistake, then. Let's get the hell out though. I want to sleep in my own bunk when we get time to sleep again." I could certainly relate to that. I lifted the ship and sent it sliding through the hole we'd just made, then pulled into a spiraling evasion pattern to put distance between us and that station's guns as fast as possible while still making a hard target to hit. Johnson's console blinked, and he walked back over.
"Tightbeam from Reliant. They're at -277836, 63468, -105283. Damn, that's a ways out there. Best get moving then." I nodded, then punched in a path that would avoid the sun, known patrol paths, stationary listening posts, and other undesired contact points, and activated the autopilot. Johnson busied himself with disconnecting the antennae and hypercom relays so we couldn't be interfered with, then headed back to check on the others. Thank God this chapter was over..."
"The autodoc confirmed what I anticipated, and it recommended amputating Hollis' arm as soon as possible. I knew that the medical facilities aboard the Reliant were up to the task of replacing it, but it still felt...I don't know, a bit perverse. Letting a machine--a very smart one, but still a machine--slice a part of a friend, hell, a mentor, away as calmly as if it were carving a ham just smacks of irreverence to me. Sergeant Hollis was in a lot of pain, even with the knockout meds. His vital signs were clear on that. He relaxed once it was done, thank God, and the station said he was sleeping very deeply. I decided to let sleeping heroes be and after checking the captain's IV, I quietly left the room."
Hollis
The machines are simple to fool. They believe their sensors. Their scanners. They cannot see us under the skin, in the eyes, in the mind. It could have been repaired, in time, but such an expenditure of energy is pointless now. Better to plan...and wait. The body must heal at its own pace, lest they suspect something amiss; a pity and painful, but necessary for this deception to reach fruition. For now, the pain is endured, distributed, shared until it is the barest pinprick amongst us all. Perhaps we can gain them all before the rendezvous...perhaps not. Either way, time is on our side.
***************
We decide to awaken as our craft nears the halfway point to take stock of the happenings. Eyes slowly open and ears register beeping sounds that keep pace with this heartbeat. When a given threshold is reached, a soft chime is let off, alerting the other in the room of the awakening.
"Hollis, I'm glad to see you're awake." It's Stevens, sitting in a small chair. Watching. We must sit up, remembering to fumble somewhat, as if we don't immediately remember or notice the missing arm. "Ah, be careful..." His voice trails off as we move the other arm to massage the air where it should have been.
"Oh...I remember now." A careful, downcast expression. "I wish it had all been just a nightmare..." A shrug is slightly harder to achieve without two arms, but an approximation is made. "At least I'm alive though, right?"
"I'm alive too, thanks to your efforts. I still can't believe you managed..." A short gesture gives him pause.
"It wasn't without cost though, sir, but every last one would be willing to do it again, and die again. Myself included." He nods slightly, a distant expression on his face.
"I'm sorry, Sergeant Hollis. Who were they?" Memories. Faces. Names.
"Too many to list here and now, sir, but they were all good men and women. I can't believe so many of them are gone..." Break down into tears. Play on human emotions. He moves to the bed, sits, places one arm around 'me'.
"Grief is natural. Just let it out, man. It's okay. It'll all be okay." He pats the good shoulder. Under cover of sniffling, a slow smile creeps across this face.
There will never be a more perfect chance, an easier take. How best to incapacitate him, though? There are So many debilitating strikes that can be performed, but one must be chosen that will not leave permanent harm or visible marks. The close proximity would allow mental domination without actual contact, but to be sure, the remaining hand is clamped upon his forehead. Surprise flickers on his face, followed by shock, then by a blank, drooling moron.
Unpleasant though it is, an extrusion is called forth from the mouth in this face. Forged at its tip is a needle-sharp self, ready to begin. It is placed at the entrance to the ear canal and slowly inserted until the eardrum is reached. A slight bit more, and the self flows through itself, inside out, then back again, to slice its way through the intervening matter. It quests inwards, breaching the membrane holding the buoyant fluid supporting the body's living brain. The brain we currently hold prisoner. The self connects and merges. It ripples and undulates its way through the gray matter to the brain stem, where it welds irrevocably. The extrusion is melted, the hand is removed. And we are two, here.
**************
Mathers headed for the med bay to check on Hollis, passing Stevens as he did so. "How's he doing, Ensign?"
The younger man shrugged slightly. "Not worse. Not a whole lot better, but he's awake and doesn't seem to be in much pain right now. All the same, I'd keep any visit fairly short. He definitely needs sleep." Mathers nodded and palmed open the door.
The former Stevens smiled and entered the cockpit where Johnson was sprawled in the command chair.
**************
As Mathers crossed the threshold into a darkened medbay lit only by blinking status lights, a steel instruments tray slammed into the side of his head and when his stunned body hit the floor, he saw stars, followed by a pair of smoldering bluish-purple orbs that descended towards his prone figure. "Goodbye, Commander."
Johnson never even saw the thing that ended his existence as a human being.
We were four, now. Soon to be six.
**************
Mason was in the stateroom. Two went to secure him, while two of us went after Jones. The lights in Mason's room go on, and we file in.
"Captain?" One of us speaks this to the sleeping form, which stirs and half-rises from the bed.
"Yes? What is it, Johnson?" The other of us pulls the door to, then steps to the side of the bed.
"Sir, we've had a...revelation, I suppose." He quirks an eyebrow, seeking more information. The other of us responds. "An enlightenment, if you will." "You would honor us by sharing it."
Mason nods slowly, uncomprehending, then he shakes his head.
**************
Jones was in engineering, keeping an eye on the cruise engine levels when ex-Hollis and ex-Mathers arrived. Mathers held a pipe wrench.
"Sir, wha..." was all he got out before the universe exploded. Shortly after, his mind followed his universe into oblivion.
**************
Something just didn't strike me right about Johnson and Stevens right then. I don't know what it was. Perhaps it was the way their eyes glinted in the dim lights. Perhaps I just had a sort of deja vu. Whatever it was, it made me uneasy. I sat up straighter, reached one hand under the pillow to find that my service pistol was now in Stevens' hand. Pointed at my head.
"What the hell is this, Stevens?" He smiled. Fired.
The three of us in the engineering bay got to work cleaning up the messes left by our actions, then resumed operation of the gunboat as if nothing had happened.
For us, nothing had. A more than fair trade. One shell, in exchange for six new ones, and possibly, just possibly, an entire spacegoing city's worth.
**************
A last-second movement pulled the muzzle away from Mason's head and centered the emerging projectile on the ceiling light, which promptly imploded as the superheated plasma burned home. The already-dim room faded into utter darkness as the spent plasma cooled. Two sets of eyes flared, flickering light across the darkness, causing shadows to speculate where they really should be at, and left them constantly darting around. Mason's face was lit in the fearsome glow, his features leaping and changing with the shadows' antics.
They spoke as one. "You died that day, in the face of something greater. You let fear guide your actions. You failed your men. Your House. Your honor. You were set free, but for what? Would you have been a benefactor of humankind? Of course. Would it be right? That is something altogether different.
"You would have hunted beings of great majesty and power. Beings to whom humanity is like nothing more than an incredibly painful and damaging anthill. Dangerous tools. A threat. On that day, that time ago, these beings won, against you and your kind. A small victory, but an important one, perhaps. See now before you the vanguard of a victory against your ship and crew.
"See what you would have tried to kill. Become what you would have destroyed."
It had been three weeks, four days, seven hours, and thirteen seconds since Mason's last thought. The new owner of his body mused that it wasn't darkness that had claimed him. Quite the opposite, it was the light. It pondered with greater minds about the future of the shell and the craft it had come in. By far, the largest vessel their human agents and shells had ever taken, and it had not even been planned on. Things just...happened that way. Fortuitous, indeed. But the ship was old. It would not see much service to the light before falling to the human's weapons. This was of concern to the minds. After all the work that went into its procuration, losing it in such a casual manner seemed wasteful in the extreme. Unlike a similar case, the Tundra, the Reliant was not infested, but rather the crew aboard it. This meant that upgrades would have to be made the old-fashioned way. Mason brooded from the bridge as the crew worked perfectly in utter darkness, utter silence aside from soft pinging from a console or sensor array. It was more efficient this way, and none of the controlling minds cared for aesthetics.
Plot a jump to Omicron Delta
Jump laid in....now. Ready on our mark.
Mark.
Jumping now...
The massive vessel gathered titanic energies deep within its cavernous reactor, crouched, and hurled itself across the void. Light-years flashed past as the ship leaped to the domain of another star, questing towards what would be its home.
Altair. A place of legend, shrouded in drunken lies, cloaked in enigma, hidden in a fog of speculation and wild tales. And also entirely, fearsomely real. A forgotten research station, deep in the Omicrons, built to study the K'hara. The only problem is that the K'Hara now control it and use it to study humankind. They rather prefer it forgotten. Over the years, the once-small station has been adapted and expanded until all that can be seen of the original station are the secondary cargo handling docks and the main airlock battery. The rest of it has been embedded in a massive chunk of rock that should be a small planet in its own right, were it not a station. It was with this monstrosity that the Reliant docked, sliding into a drydock hanging below the station like some kind of perverse tentacle. The docking clamps descended and locked into fixtures protruding from the ship's hull, holding it steady as the docking tubes moved into place. The swivel-locks spun around their axes, burrowing into the waiting latches. With a hiss of pressures equalizing, the ready lights on the respective airlocks blinked on.
Reliant was home.
Plans had already been drawn up for what must be done to the ship. A new reactor, based loosely on an amalgamation of the current reactor and the power cells that operated the drone craft in the Omegas, only on a far larger scale. New cannon that lashed with raw, focused energy. Adjustments that would need supplies and time to see completed.
"Unidentified vessel, this is Naval Forces Patrol Aoi-3, please transmit your codes and registration." The lead pilot of the Chimaera patrol prepared to load the scanner results as soon as the imagery was resolved. Almost done. Now. She let out a hmmph, then pulled up the unit comms. "Hai, Seiji, look at this. It carries high-temperature alloy."
"That is on the list, is it not?"
"Hai, it is. What do we do, Fujiwara?" The third, Hitoha Aono, spoke in the same monotone as the other two did amongst themselves.
"What else? It must be returned to Family, of course." She again opened the channel to the Big Dragon they were hanging nearby.
"...rom Yukawa Shipyard to Nansei Research Complex. Is all in order?" Fujiwara smiled.
"Nearly so, there is merely a form you will need to sign. Let me send it to your console."
"Hai, Aoi-3, channel open, awaiting download." Perfect. By opening the data link, part of the control board was blocked by a window with higher priority.
"Very good. Now!" This last was not to the transport.
Instantly, all three fighters exploded their formation in a scrolling lotus, two breaking left, one, the leader, driving straight home, cannons blazing. The transport failed to return fire for a full three seconds, in which time its shields buckled. By the time it tried to track the first fighter, it had already screamed past, and the second and third were already swooping in to destroy the reactor and bridge. The Big Dragon had been doomed from the start, ever since it had been noticed by the Hanta--or Aoi--Iseijin.
"Seiji, we have incoming escort fighters. Scans say...two Griffins. Please assist Hitoha and eliminate them." The escorts, realizing that their cargo was not with them, had turned about at the next tradelane nexus and dropped out near the scene. Seiji and Hitoha acknowledged and charged towards the new contacts.
"What in the name of all my ancestors! Mai-Lin, with me! We must destroy those bastards!" The first Griffin nosed towards the rushing Chimaeras and engaged his thruster. His wingman, a split second behind. They lacked the flawless coordination and grace that were the hallmarks of their opponents.
The first was disabled by a Razor to the reactor core. As the antimatter ball burned its way through the ship's armor and systems, sections flickered and went black. Electricity arced across the gaping hole in the side, as a brilliant flare erupted from it. A heartbeat later, the antimatter breached the reactor and annihilated itself against the core, loosing all of its power in a single blast. Mai-Lin didn't even get to scream.
The other took shot after shot, pinpoint accurate. First the thruster was shot off, then the shield, then all of the fighter's weapons, one by one. Fujiwara opened a video link to the ship. "To set the record straight. I am no bastard. And you are no longer alive."
Seiji fired into the cockpit.
"Hai, Korekuta, we are ready..."
Reality bent around a single point in space near the ruined transport, a violation of all things Einsteinian, as a Raba faded into view. No words were exchanged. The transport merely locked tractor beams on key structural points of the Big Dragon, hugged it close, and warped out of existence there. The fighters were alone.
"We are done here. Let us go." The patrol made their own vanishing act amidst the ice fields.
Jeff Markey's bomber lay dormant deep in the mists of Gamma, the man himself in a deep sleep near hibernation, awaiting the signal that would call him to action. It was this signal that came now. A faint pulsing, reverbrating through the very fabric of space. It seemed almost alive itself, the way it surged here, quested there, rolled and faded through the stellar vastness to find its target. As it touched the appropriate reciever aboard the bomber, it left the data the Spectre would need to complete his mission. The reciever beeped twice and flashed green, sending a signal of its own to the hardware maintaining Jeff's body as he slept. The machinery acknowledged: He must waken. Mist rose from the canopy as the ice that had formed over it melted and was sucked off into the void. Heat returned, slowly thawing stiff joints and allowing muscles to act again. The device that had functioned as Jeff's heart for the past year jolted the real thing on-line again, then retracted its needles and tucked itself into the compartment near his right elbow. The oxygen tube retracted, snaking its way out of the man's lungs and coiling behind his head, like a viper waiting to strike again. Several other needles in his left forearm slowly fed a chemical soup into Jeff's cardiovascular system. The result was dramatic as they reminded his organs to function again.
Jeff screamed.
After an interminable moment, his long-unused lungs defied him and reduced him to a choking cough as a war was fought in his throat. On one side was fresh air, wanting in. On the other was stale air from his lungs, wanting out. Jeff's eyes flooded as his tear glands remembered to water them. He alternately shivered and baked as his body attempted to regulate his temperature for the first time in many months. Muscles cramped in painful ways. Bones creaked as they were used as fulcrums again. Heart and head pounding, Jeff lived again.
Once he had sufficiently recovered, Jeff loaded the message his ship had recovered for him.
L-047, acquire the following.
After this was a list of specifications for a set of four devices. Jeff read it, memorized it. A few commands loaded the details to his scanner, then erased all mention of the transmission. A flurry of hands across the console brought the reactor back to life and readied the engines for use. Shields flickered and held, weapons swiveled and charged. Jeff Markey's Living Void left a trail of ice shards in its wake as it burned its way starwards.
The first of the four was still where it ought to be, buried deep in an ancient asteroid. Cracking the rock carefully took some time. Each shot had to be delayed until the dust had cleared so as to not hit the device itself. Device in hold, Jeff sought the remaining three. The SpectreNet reported one in Bretonia, held by an eccentric collector on Douglas Station. A bit off the beaten path. One was currently aboard a smuggling vessel in Rheinland. The last was somewhere in the wreckage of another Spectre craft, D-223's ship in Orkney. None were getting any closer. Rheinland, then.
Jeff landed on Kreuzberg Depot in New Berlin. There had been a minor...incident with two members of the esteemed Rheinwehr, but as far as matters went, it was fairly low on the list of concerns. He hopped out of the cockpit without waiting for a ladder, at the same time flicking a button on his wristband. With that touch, the canopy of his Upholder smoothly lowered and locked, and a small antipersonnel turret under the chin descended and began staring down any Junker that dared get close.
"Wass der teufel? Liberty Navy, here?" A startled mechanic emerged from the engine manifold of a unique mongrel of a ship that only its owner could love. Unfortunately, he had a wrench in his hands when he waved them above his head. Jeff instinctively dropped to one knee, unholstered his pistol, and created three new holes in the man's chest. Before the body hit the floor, Jeff was walking towards the bar as if nothing had happened, leaving a stunned deck crew and pooling blood behind him.
"Bartender. Where can I find this man?" Jeff slid a sheet of paper across the bar towards the be-paunched man cleaning a glass with a smudged rag. It stuck just past halfway there on an as-yet uncleaned spill of liquor. The man squinted, set the glass down. Tucked the rag in his generous belt, in front of a grimy apron that strained to cover the entirety of his rotundity. One ham-sized hand stretched out and grasped the sheet by a corner in fingers larger than most bratwurst. He handled it with surprising dexterity, given his physical condition.
He took out a pair of reading glasses with his other set of meaty fingers, and perched them on his bulbous nose. On the sheet was a single name: Albert Horner. "Mein herr, I do not know this man." A patent lie. The tiny beads of sweat that formed on his bald pate were not simply the heat. Jeff leaned against the counter, and those who listened closely could hear a faint click. The bartenders eyes widened.
"Your assessment is correct, mister Heinkel. Under your counter, now pointed at your head, is a .357 Magnum chambered Detroit Arms PD-16. It currently has, in its chamber, a round designed specifically to penetrate a hard surface, such as this counter, then impact a soft target with the mangled remains. It's proven very effective in urban combat. Mister Bullet wants to play chicken with your face, and the only thing that's gonna make him not play is your mouth moving very very quickly and saying what I want to know. Clear as mud, right?"
"Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu..." Jeff rolled his eyes and pulled the trigger. In the silence that followed, a fly's heartbeat could be heard.
"Where. Can. I. Find. Albert. Horner." Nobody moved a muscle. Jeff was getting ready to speak again when he saw one of the patrons reaching into his coat. The .357 found a new friend, and suddenly everyone seemed to want to help the Spectre.
****************
Jeff caught Horner just as he was entering the queue for the Bering jumpgate.
"Attention smuggling vessel, drop your artifacts and I might let you live." Jeff loosed a Supernova burst against the ship's shields, collapsing them instantly.
"Woah, woah! Hold fire, HOLD FIRE, DAMMIT! Who told you we were smuggling? If it was Heinkel...It was, wasn't it? I'll kill that bastard!" Jeff allowed the captain to rant, then suppressed the shields with his pulse cannons.
"Five seconds to comply, sir." He cut the smuggler's tirade short. "I'm not in the mood for this. I've got places to go, people to kill. You're very close to being on that list."
The smuggler gulped and quickly began punching buttons on his console. Jeff enhanced his end of the image and caught "...apons Cons..." at the top of the board. "My dear sir, you're not trying to activate your weapons, are you?"
In reply, the vessel erupted in cannonfire, the hodgepodge of scavenged plasma, laser, pulse, and tachyon weapons leaving a multihued trail across the sky. Jeff merely noted the green light on his Supernova.
Flicked the safety cover off.
Blew the ship into a billion flaming bits.
beep...
beep...
beep...
...beep...
beep...
...beepbeep...
.....beeeeeeeeeeeeee
The scanner located the artifact amongst the debris and fed the data to the tractor beam. A brief flash of transfer, and two of the required devices were now possessed.