Hope
Jack looked around the ruins of her ship, trying to clear the fog from her mind.
‘Talk about everything going according to plan,’ she thought.
At that moment, the alien craft following her passed overhead and slowed, circling to take a better look. Jack feigned injury, hoping to give herself some time before it came to finish the job. She noticed her pressure suit had ripped and a piece of the canopy had embedded itself into her leg, the blood dripping down the exterior of the tight suit. The cut was small, but sufficient for what she had in mind. After pulling out the piece, she slowly rubbed the blood from her wound around her arms and legs, hoping the alien in the craft circling above wouldn’t notice the movement. She knew it would want the fighter intact, but would destroy her immediately if she posed any threat.
As the ship circled, Jack looked the terrain over, hoping to find something that would provide any escape. She spied the opening of the ant colony about 200 meters ahead, the source of all this gravel, but that was the last place she wanted to go in case the colony was still active. Looking everywhere else though, she could find no cover. Two hundred meters was too long a dash and she would be cut down long before she ever reached the hive entrance. She looked at her sidearm and stifled a laugh, thinking it would take some wild shooting to take down an enemy fighter with a sidearm.
Continuing to feign injury, she stood as still as possible while she pulled her sidearm off the magnetic clip and brought it up to her lap. The alien ship had come in for a closer look, now circling only 50 meters away. Jack wondered if it would continue to circle or land.
Slowly unclamping her restraint, she feigned serious injury, dragged herself out of the pilot seat and slumped over the edge of where the canopy used to be. Half her body drooped over the edge, concealing her sidearm.
Her pursuer came in for a closer look, its ship now hovering twenty meters away. She could clearly see the effect the powerful gravitic drive was having on the surroundings as ionized soil was suspended and trapped underneath the craft. Jack knew she couldn’t miss the shot, so she waited patiently, knowing that the alien wouldn’t risk damaging the onboard computer if it could avoid it.
After what seemed like forever, it landed and she was surprised to see another human carefully exit as it watched her. As it grabbed its sidearm, she took a shot, but the bullet narrowly missed and hit the ship. Her enemy, surprised at the movement, brought its own weapon up, but Jack’s second bullet tore through its arm and it dropped the gun, howling in pain. Her third tore the kneecap off and it slumped to the ground.
She jumped out and ran towards the now writhing human, pulling off its helmet once she reached it. It lay there watching her, and a wave of psionic animosity poured out so strongly it shook her to her core.
She looked down with revulsion at the traitor who had somehow decided to team up with ants. The unnaturally white complexion and the head devoid of all hair spooked Jack as she looked into soulless and colorless eyes.
“Do you like what you have become? Is this somehow better than being a real human?” She bent down and grabbed it by the flight suit. Staring into the horrible eyes, she added, “How do you feel, being a traitor to your own people?”
It didn’t answer, but instead sent out a telepathic yell for help. She kicked herself for forgetting about that and calmly shot it through the head.
Turning to the alien craft, she looked the prize catch over as it idled. “I might not need you after all, Scratch.”
She ran back to her fighter, set the defective self destruct grenade and dumped it onto the seat, ran back to the alien fighter and jumped inside. This ship was completely new to her, which was a surprise. All ant technology was copied in some way, and they hadn’t seen anything new since they found that alien craft being built on Beta-9 and the stealth craft she crash-landed in. Yet here was a new ship, sophisticated, with atmospheric control surfaces and jump capabilities.
Once inside, the simple appearance of the controls were at odds with the exterior complexity. Four thrusters, six cannons including two aft, plus a body large enough to hold ship to ship missiles, yet inside were basic controls - a simple display screen and damage lights, plus the eject lever and canopy release. No yoke, no foot pedals, no Targeting, nothing.
The display screen lit up as she entered. A detailed electronic horizon appeared and three green circles. It took only a second for Jack to realize that what the craft considered ‘Friendlies’ were coming in. She couldn’t see anything, but knew she had only a few seconds to figure this out. Snapping the canopy shut, she mentally pictured the ship powering up, and she could feel the turbo spoolers start to spin as they charged the thrusters, but something was wrong. The ship kept querying her for a clearer command. She concentrated as hard as she could, but her thoughts weren’t transmitting. The three enemy fighters were only a few hundred meters away now as they circled to see what was going on. She powered down, knowing they would soon see the body of one of theirs on the ground outside.
Jack shrunk into her seat and watched as the three fighters eventually landed to inspect the circumstances. Once again, humans came out of each of the three ships, but instead of going directly to where Jack was, they went to inspect the dead body. She could hear their mental thoughts, but only in bits and pieces. They probed the now dead human’s memory, and Jack could see brief glimpses of its vision of her as she shot it, walked up to it and killed it. Sensing no more thoughts, they then walked over to her destroyed fighter, and she sensed confusion coming from them. Next they looked around, apparently trying to find her, and when they had no success she felt an overpowering mental scan. She was shocked into clearing her mind but it was too late. They had found her presence, but they didn’t know where she was. Jack tried furiously to concentrate on her breathing, struggling to avoid giving any clues as to her whereabouts.
The scan persisted for a good ten minutes, with no end in sight as they continued to physically and mentally search for her. Jack was growing weary, and started thinking about Scratch and where he was. She hadn’t noticed that they had spread out, each one taking up a position on the corner of an imaginary triangle. She gave herself a mental shakeup and went back to concentrating on her breathing. This action was all the three needed, and they immediately started walking over to the craft she was in.
“This is it,” she said as she watched the three coming from three different angles, all with their weapons loaded. “Might as well go out with a bang!” and she yanked on the canopy release.
At that moment, Jack couldn’t believe her eyes as she saw the one human closest to her explode in mid walk, heard another bang behind her, and after that a loud thump and a tremor as the earth shook. Looking around, she found the second human writhing on the ground, and a Maxon 5 suit walking over to the third human, grabbing it midriff, and throwing it a good 50 meters. It then walked to each of the three alien spacecraft and after grabbing one of the thruster nacelles, tore it off and tossed it aside like trash.
Walking over to Jack, the blastplate opened up to reveal a smiling Scratch. “Your ship or mine?”
“Late again to the party, I see.”
“You kidding? I knew you wanted some down time with them, and I’m not the jealous type.”
“Uh-huh. You kill Albino?”
“No, he’s still breathing. Wanted to though. What’s up with them being all humans?”
“Dunno. Surprised me too,” Jack replied.
“Is everything all set? Dummy grenade…damaged computer?”
“Yup. Where’d you park?”
“Well, Mike parked itself just over the ridge, about 2 K’s away. I happily dropped.”
Jack laughed and got out, but before she could drop down, Scratch picked her up and cradled her as he ran towards the Klinger sitting idle. With the Maxon 5, it only took a few seconds. Jack had never been carried by a suit, and watching the land go by as she sat cradled but exposed in the Maxon’s arms excited her to no end.
“How come you didn’t do this when we got married?” she said.
Scratch knew this was a loaded question, and thought fast. He said as sweetly as he could, “Because everyone does that, but I was waiting for a very special moment.”
Jack, impressed with his reply, nonetheless smacked him on his crystanium arm.
“Liar,” was all she said, smiling.
***
The alien looked around in confusion as it tried to get up. Where there had been three consciousnesses a moment ago, now there was only his. Its memory of the event was foggy as it quickly listed the damage it could account for on its body. Concussion, broken or cracked ribs, and a broken left arm. It knew pain would be intense if it moved, but the circumstances dictated immediate action and contact with Prime on what had happened here.
Grunting with the pain, it slowly got up to its hands and knees, and with a final effort raised itself up. It sent out a mental call for help, and then looked around to see three damaged ships, the remains of two dead companions, the fourth original companion that called for help also dead near the idling but damaged ship, and a damaged stealth attack fighter, obviously one of their own but possibly brought in by the enemy.
It walked over to the stealth drone and inspected the external damage, working the clues in reverse order.
Obviously crashed, damaged in flight, and possibly attacked by them. That means the ship had been re-designated for human use, and thus valuable. It wondered why the pilot hadn’t destroyed it, as per usual custom whenever a ship crashes or becomes inoperable. Looking inside, it immediately flinched. On the pilot seat sat a grenade, the illuminated counter stuck at 2 seconds. In a panic it grabbed the grenade and threw it as far as it could, which wasn’t very far considering the broken ribs. It reeled in pain and its vision went black but it didn’t faint, and felt satisfied when the mild concussion from the exploding grenade reached him.
Once the blackness receded, it once again looked at the instruments. All equipment was shut down, but he could clearly see the housing where the ship computer was installed in one piece. Its hopes elevated as it thought about the valuable information inside and it calmly waited until members of the hive arrived to remove it.
***
Prime sat in her usual spot, waiting as the techs poured over the computer information.
A human drone had relayed the coordinates of the crashed human ship, and once they arrived, they destroyed the severely damaged drone.
As usual, her mind wandered until processing information was needed. Her subconscious kept tabs on all local members of the hive and the regular information was processed without her intervention being needed.
Something unusual was happening among the techs, and this elevated her mental status. While she waited, she thought of her responsibility here. The few ants left on this semi deserted planet also reported to her, but they were of little concern. The real work was being done by the techs, and progress was going well on the human computer.
She thought of requesting more drones. The techs, standing at a higher consciousness, were kept busy with the important work, but drones were expendable. She found them boring. Mentally castrated, the drones had no desire except that given them, to defeat their enemy and protect the base. ‘So simple, and so…expendable,’ she thought to herself as she waited for the techs to come to a conclusion.
The report finally came in from a nameless and uninteresting tech drone. “Extracting the encrypted information has been hampered by the usual. We have accessed most of the data base, with nothing unusual to report. The human came here to assess the value of this planet, primarily because they have Intel on our occupation here. The human was to use the ship to locate our base, reconnoiter, and then dock with the carrier ship and return.”
Prime put out a mental query to alert planetary defenses as a precaution, but she knew they would be long gone by now.
“Is that all?” Prime asked.
“There is one packet that is particularly encrypted, the algorithm of which we have never seen before. It is very powerful. We have so far analyzed the amount of information that is held sequestered, and it seems trivial. However, because of the unusual degree of protection surrounding this packet, we need to know if it is worth the resources needed to extract it.”
“How much time do you estimate?” Prime asked, already having decided to spend any resource necessary to make this information available.
“Uncertain. Much work is needed.”
Prime knew that was all she would get as an answer. The humans were good at coming up with imaginary figures to impossible situations, but the much more advanced, liberated and organized human hive would only comment on facts, not guesses.
“Put all resources on this immediately,” Prime said.