We got the renderer into position and flipped the switch. The humming started up and we wheeled her off with me at the helm, Dee at my side, and a hundred men and women bringing up the rear. About as stealthy as a late-stages palsy victim in a bell factory. But that wasn’t what we were going for. I wanted them to know we were coming, to be frightened of us for once. To back them into a corner knowing that death was sweeping down the hallway towards them. Resistance wasn’t even light; it was non-existent. I paused. This was starting to get a lamb to the slaughter vibe. We were most definitely on camera, so they knew where we were and what we were up to. The radio crackled to life; Tracy wanted to know if she should proceed on her mission.
“Uh, hold off for now. Something’s not right. We’ve yet to encounter anybody, which should be good news, but…”
“Are you still on deck five?” she asked.
“We are.”
“Can you leave?”
I didn’t know where she was going with this. The ship was huge, which meant each level was huge, clearing this level would take hours, it made no sense to run right off of it and onto another. “Haven’t even tried.”
“You should.”
Dee made a kind of frown with his mouth. “She believes us confined to this level,” he reasoned.
“Locked out from the rest of the ship? Shit.” Right where they wanted us in the first place. “Can they freeze us?”
“That is highly unlikely as we are protected by levels above and below, however, it would be simple to make it unbearably cold, and certainly easy enough for them to shut off power and air.”
“Fuck.” I pulled my cap off and ran my hand through my hair. Isolating us might have been their contingency all along; maybe they lost a few more troops in the move, but if we were under a long siege, that was a whole different battle. This was not the kind of warfare I was prepared for. “How long would we have if they did that?”
“The psychological implications of being in constant darkness would begin to take hold in a few days, perhaps a week, if morale was kept high, which would take some doing in itself. It would not matter much, though, as it is highly likely we would run out of oxygen around the same time.”
“Drababan is right.” Alken’s gravel-tone came over the PA system. “We calculate you will run out of oxygen in five days, twenty-two hours. This fight is senseless. If you lay down your arms and return to your holding areas you will be treated justly.”
“Your just or my just?” I asked, more as a stalling tactic. He had his finger on the power button and I needed more time to think.
“Semantics. The fighting ends or you do.”
“Tracy, tell anyone with a flashlight to get ready to turn it on. Also, see what we can do about candles.”
“Fire will burn more oxygen,” Dee felt the need remind me.
“Only going to need a day or two to figure this out,” I told him.
“I hate the fucking dark, Talbot,” BT informed me. I wanted to tell him to stop being a baby, but I liked all my bones un-snapped.
“It won’t be for long. Colonel,” I was back on the radio, “I need to know what this level contains.”
It was a couple of minutes before she got back to me. “Captain Fields, if he remembers correctly, says it has enlisted quarters, the brig, sick bay, an auxiliary bridge…”
My eyes lit up.
“That will be the first thing they turned off,” Dee whispered.
“…thrust, engineering, and an observation deck.”
“Wonder if they have any good meds.” Probably not the best thing to ponder at this moment, but not the worst, either. “Any of that crucial to the ship’s operation?”
Dee shook his head and Tracy reiterated that.
“It is as if they prepared for all contingencies by placing us on the least crucial portion,” Dee said.
“I really hate being that thoroughly out-thought.”
“Really man?” BT asked. “I’d think that would feel completely natural to you by now.”
The inkling of an idea flit across my head. “Colonel, ask the captain where the buckle drive is in relation to us.”
“The captain says two decks below.”
“I am awaiting your decision,” Alken said.
I had a finger all lined up for Alken, the harbinger of our squad blazing into glory. Instead, I told him. “We will not fight anymore. However, we are keeping the weapons. We must be allowed a defense against aggression.”
“You do not have room for negotiation, General. This is an unconditional surrender on your part or it is not.”
“Colonel Talbot, this is General Talbot. I am ordering you to Code Seven, November, Uniform, Kilo, Echo.”
To Tracy’s credit and quick thinking, she picked up on it immediately. “Yes sir. We will commence with the assembly now.”
“General?” Alken urged.
“Alken, I have in my possession what is known as a back pack nuclear device and I am prepared to detonate.”
“To what end?”
“Why yours, of course,” I answered.
“Our scans indicate no such device.”
“The Julipion never picked up on the one we delivered to them, and neither did her sister ship when we blew her to Kingdom Come. We have the appropriate masking technology to thwart your scans. Now, I am told that this device is not large enough to take out this ship. But it will cause significant damage two to three levels in either direction.”
“Using this explosive will result in your deaths,” Alken said. He seemed shocked that we would sacrifice ourselves.
“I would much rather go down fighting and take you with me than become a Progerian slave.”
“Can you say the same for your men?” Alken asked.
“Drababan?” I turned.
“I would like a moment of prayer before we depart this plane, but it would be my honor to die alongside some of the bravest creatures I have ever known.”
And like continents colliding, BT and Dee fist bumped. I’m not sure if there will ever be a stranger image for me to recollect.
“BT?”
“We go down swinging. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“And you?” I turned to look at the faces of all those I led.
I got a hearty: “Ooh rah!”
“Well, there you have it, Alken. We’re unanimously hell bound down here. You get rid of one problem when we’re gone, but ooh boy! Gonna be a bitch out running the Styrvers with absolutely no propulsion system. Of course, I’m no theoretical physicist…”
“You don’t say?” BT quipped. I thought Dee was going to dissolve into laughter.
I continued on after a stern look. “But I’m thinking a sudden stop in a buckle is a pretty big deal. Am I right? All those worm hole properties coming to an unexpected close? Probably tear this tin can to shreds. We are prepared to die for our cause, Alken. Are you?” The other end went dead silent. “Let’s get back in case he tries to make an assault,” I muttered to my team.
We made it back and had nothing but uneasy silence for another half hour before we got word again. It was short and to the point. “You may keep your weapons. We will not attack as long as you do not.”
A cheer erupted from the men and women. “That’s it for now,” I answered, straight-faced. “I’ll get back to you with what we need later.”
“There is no more!” his voice boomed, “we have acquiesced to your conditional surrender. There will be no more!”
“Listen you luggage wannabe. If I say there’s more, there’s more. I don’t give a fuck about you, about this ship, or about the Progerian home world. You do what I ask or I’ll make star dust out of you. It’s as simple as that. I’m through taking orders from boot material. It’s like fucking pond creatures are moving into the house and drinking my beer and eating my fucking pork chops. That’s just not the way it’s supposed to be. Lizards giving orders, I mean.”
Tracy came over to me and pulled me down to whisper in my e
ar. “We’ve disabled the optics systems in this area, but the microphones and speakers will be impossible. They’re integrated into the hull itself.”
“Good job.”
“What are you doing?!” Alken sounded on the verge of panic. “We have lost visual!”
“You don’t have a need to know.”
“Fields, Jenkins, the bomb ready?” The two men looked across the room at each other first before looking at me. I was over-exaggerating the nod of my head and rolling my hand in a “keep it coming” gesture.
“Ye…yes sir,” came from them.
“Put it over there.” Why I felt the need to point out a place where nothing was going, was beyond me. What was really funny was Jenkins carried absolutely nothing over there and set it carefully in position, then gave a thumbs up. Captain Fields could only shake his head.
“Now what?” Tracy came over and was talking quietly.
“Anyone got a hammer?” I asked. We actually had six, which seemed like a lot of hammers, but it worked for what I needed. “Let’s give our hosts a little drum beat. I want a man on each wall, give it some heavy metal banging, please.” I waited until the ear grating tempo started. “You want more ideas from me? Pretty sure I just hit my allocated quota for the month. I was hoping someone else had hatched one by now.”
“We can’t wait it out?” BT had asked it as a question but meant it more as a statement.
“At some point, they will force our hand. Even if they beat the Stryvers and make it home, I can’t imagine that they’ll keep sending this ship out on missions with a whole deck sublet to humans and a rogue Geno. Maybe they’ll try to sell it to another race as a fixer-upper with an infestation.”
“Mike.” Tracy was reeling me back in from my tangent.
“Sorry, the pounding is pretty distracting.”
Chapter 2
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 2
Two weeks. For two weeks, we sat there with a big fat wriggly thumb shoved up our asses. Sure, I was happy it was our own thumb and not some stranger’s, but still. There were positives; we were eating, we had lights and air, and good to his word, Alken had not attacked, though we had not let our guard down, nor would we. We’d allowed the mutes to gather their dead and Alken had allowed us to “bury” our dead. Basically, we were able to cremate the bodies. We had containers with ashes and tags and my sincerest hope was we would get to spread them on Earth. I’d even asked for and received medical attention for those that were wounded. All in all, it was a decent détente, though we were personally no closer to salvation, just closer to a Stryver end or a Progerian one. I was contemplating cleaning my rifle again or looking at the inside of my eyelids; this inaction was numbingly boring. I don’t know when I’d started to tread over to the adrenal junkie side, but I was getting more restless with each day. It would only be a matter of time until I forced something. Paul had calmed down, for the most part. I still caught glares from him, but at least the ranting had stopped; we’d taken the gag off a few days earlier.
I entertained the idea of putting him in the brig, but that was on the far side of this deck and I didn’t want him to be any more exposed to danger than he was and I also didn’t want to split our forces up to keep him guarded against the Progs. I tried to talk to him a couple of times but there’s only so many times you can listen to “Fuck you, Mike.” We’d allowed the Prog medical staff to use their facilities; I kept my men as far away from them as possible so there were no 5.56 caliber misunderstandings.
“Sir, Corporal Jennings says there’s a Prog doctor in hallway seven that wants to speak with you.”
“Thank you Private. Dee, can you hold down the fort?” I wanted him to stay back. As much as the Progs considered us a hostile force, Dee just seemed to infuriate the hell out of them, and them wanting to talk meant something. I didn’t want a fly in the ointment. He understood and had no problem with that.
“Tracy, BT, let’s go.”
The Prog that greeted us seemed nervous that he had been sent on this mission, like we were fans of croc burgers and he was on the menu.
“Imperial Witness Alken would like to meet with the one called General Talbot.” He looked to all of us.
“In your eyes, do we all look so similar that you can’t tell the difference between a female and male and not only that, but notice this huge size and color difference between me and my friend here? Just curious.”
The Progerian didn’t know how to respond.
“Don’t worry about it. If Alken wants to talk to me, he’s free to come down,” I told him.
“He would rather you came to him, alone.”
At first, I thought that was the worst idea ever, but then the part about being able to walk around and see what was going on made it seem like an okay idea.
“You can’t seriously be thinking about this, can you?” Tracy asked.
“He’s getting desperate.”
“Or hungry,” BT added.
“That’s helpful,” I told him.
“Seriously though, Mike. You have to tell him no,” BT said.
“No,” I answered, uncharacteristically briefly to the messenger.
He looked like I’d not only slapped his mother but then proceeded to piss on her floor.
“When the Imperial Witness requests an audience, you cannot deny him. It is law.”
“Not my law. If he wants to meet, it will be right here. I’ll be mostly alone; I’ll keep some trusted friends at the end of the hallway. It’s that or nothing.”
“I cannot tell him this.”
“Then don’t. You can stay down here with us. We’ll treat you decently, maybe like family, a dysfunctional family, but family nonetheless. We’ll name you Cinderella; you can do all the shitty chores.”
The thought of him staying with the humans must have been more distasteful than breaking the bad news to Alken because without another word he spun off to go do his own thing.
“Cinderella? What’s wrong with you, man?” BT asked.
“I think your momma dropped me too many times on my head.”
“My mother was a saint. If she was dropping you on your head it was for a godly reason.”
“What now?” Tracy asked.
“Odds are he already heard us. We’ll let him make the next move.” I was pointing to where the camera was. “Let’s go back.”
It wasn’t too long; fifteen, twenty minutes? Long enough that I was full stride in a cat nap. BT kicked the heels of my boots. “Apparently his highness isn’t so lofty that he won’t come down to the slums.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“Bullshit you were asleep, you just laid down. Are you sure you don’t have narcolepsy? Alken. Alken is coming down here.”
“Here?” I got up and placed my cap back on.
“Hallway. Just like you told his dude.”
“Alright, grab five or six people and stay at the end of the hallway.” I was moving at a good clip through the oversized, utilitarian corridors. Most science fiction movies I’d seen that involved spaceships, the corridors were either poorly lit, grated, tunnel-like affairs that allowed access to all sorts of hidden recesses, or they were these pure white, antiseptic, super-lighted tube types with mysterious reflective panels and weird perspectives. This though, besides being huge to accommodate its type of traveler, was fairly pedestrian. It was mostly grays and blacks, but also plenty of white and some blue, and illuminated by a decent blend of dingy and blinding light, just your average corridor. It certainly wasn’t so dark or twisted that I’d miss the seven mutes standing, facing me, their blasters held high. They were better shots than Storm Troopers were, so if they pulled their triggers I was a dead man. I was carrying my rifle uselessly in front of me; bringing it up to my shoulder could provoke them to fire.
“I’m here to meet Imperial Witness Alken.”
“With a weapon?”
“Doesn’t look like I’m the only one that brought ants to a pi
cnic.”
“Place your weapon on the deck.”
“You first.”
There was a laugh that could have been mistaken for a snarl. Things got a little more interesting when my back-up arrived, there was now a whole bunch of weaponry pointing back and forth in a fairly small enclosure. Someone was bound to pull a trigger soon enough.
“It is all right, Hewell. I would like to meet with this man now.”
The mute who was Hewell turned.
“BT, you should take them back around the bend.”
“There are seven mutes over there ready to fry your ass and you want to remove your only cover?” he asked.
“You could maybe learn a thing from Hewell over there. You see him giving lip service to his commander?”
“If you’re equating me to a mute now I’m just going to shoot you and get it over with.”
“In that case, I most certainly am not. Just go right around the corner, please. The mutes are backing up. I’ll be alright.”
“That’s what everyone says right before they go into the attic looking for the antique Ouija board.”
“Yeah, I’m the crazy one. Maybe that’s what they all say, but they never get to witness the crazy that swirls all around me like tornados in a Kansas trailer park in the summer.”
“I’ve seen it, sir.”
“Ah, Corporal Jennings. You will be my new second in command. I will take you to places you could never imagine existed.”
“Don’t listen to him, Jennings. He’s nuttier than a jar of chunky peanut butter.” BT pulled the man around the corner. “Be safe my man.”
“Always.” I fist bumped him. He was shaking his head like I’d told him the meaning of life and he’d yet to fully grasp the concept.
The mutes had pulled back, not completely, but to a respectable distance. They no longer had my attention. I was looking upon easily the oldest Progerian I had ever seen. His skin had so many brown spots they were in direct competition with his natural dull green for dominant color. His teeth had been worn down to mere nubs of their former intimidation. He stood with his shoulders humped forward as if the years had weighed heavily on his back and he could no longer hold them up. He moved with a stiff, shuffling gate; I could see why he would have rather I come to him. Part of me felt like an asshole for making this age-old creature come all this way but another part was fascinated that he would, although that meant shit was probably pretty bad.