Valeria lay naked at the bottom of a pit walled with a cold gray alloy that vibrated with the throb of unseen engines. It was one of many in a lofty domed chamber lit by diffuse orange light. The only other sounds were echoing groans from the hull, and the terrified screams of humans snatched from their cells by a robotic claw that moved on a track in the ceiling.
Valeria was crossing the bleak emptiness of the wastes when she had been surrounded by blazing white light. Blinded, Valeria tried to see what was above her when there was a sonic howl that drove her to her knees in agony before collapsing into darkness. She awoke clamped to a table surrounded by diminutive greenish-gray humanoids with bulbous heads and spindly limbs. There was nothing human about the creatures except the expressions of disgust and disdain on their nose-less faces. She could hear the aliens speaking in stattaco bursts before turning to look at her, their solid black eyes narrowed as robotic arms tipped with light lowered from the ceiling and began to burn into her. Valeria screamed in agony, her voice joining the other humans pleading and screaming about her in the darkness. Finally one of the probes touched her forehead and sent her into blackness in an explosion of pain.
Valeria's world became her cell and the steel table surrounded by metal tentacles. Each agonizing session on the table lasted for a seeming eternity until she was rendered unconscious and deposited back in her cell. Once a day a basin would slide out of the wall filled with a clear slimy gelatin that served as both food and water. The gelatin was devoid of flavor except for faint aftertaste of fish, but it seemed to provide enough nutrition to keep her alive. However, Valeria's craving for human plasma was growing, and she dreaded what would happen when it finally overcame her.
The hum of the robotic claw stopping over her cell, woke her from a fitful sleep. She had tried to resist before, but delays caused the claw to emit a sonic shriek that drove her to her knees. The screams and cries she heard elsewhere told her that she wasn't the only one affected. After that she let the claw take her without protest as she waited for an opportunity to escape which never came.
She heard the claw descending, but exhaustion and pain made her defiant and she refused to stand or open her eyes. The sound stopped and after a moment of silence she heard the claw hum as it retracted to the ceiling.
"Uh…hi." Said the childish voice of a little girl. Valeria's eyes snapped open and she jerked her head up to see a human girl perhaps eight years old with short blond hair and wearing a Vault jumpsuit. Valeria rolled to a sitting position and stared at her visitor in astonishment. The little girl's nervous smile faded and she took a step back in fear.
"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you." Valeria croaked, her voice rough from disuse. "I'm Valeria...what's your name?"
"Sally." The little girl replied uncertainly.
"I'm very pleased to meet you." Valeria replied as reassuringly as she could, catching herself just before she smiled and exposed her fangs.
"You're really big." Sally observed with a nervous smile. "Are you a mutant?"
"Uh, yes." Valeria replied before changing the subject. "You're wearing a vault suit, are you from a vault?"
"Sort of. My family was accepted to go live in Vault 101, and my sister Amy and I got jumpsuits as part of the tour."
"Vault 101?" Valeria asked, her eyes widening in astonishment.
"Yeah." Sally replied, turning part way around so Valeria could see the numbers inscribed on her back. "But we never got there."
"What happened?" Valeria asked, confused by Sally's reference to her old home.
"My dad woke Amy and I up real early in the morning and told us we were going to the vault." Sally explained quietly. "Dad was trying to make it sound fun, but I could tell he was scared, and mom was crying. Dad didn't talk much, but I heard him tell mom we had to stay on the back roads, the main ones were blocked. We were somewhere real dark when the car stopped and dad got out to see what was wrong." Sally paused in her narrative and looked down in shame.
"Suddenly there were lights everywhere, and Dad yelled at mom to get us into the trees. Mom was screaming and I grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her out of the car. We didn't get far before the light hit us. Amy was crying and yelling my name, and I told her to hold my hand no matter what." Sally was quiet for a time and Valeria could see tears starting to roll down her cheeks. She sniffed and wiped her face on her sleeve before looking up.
"I couldn't hold on to her."
"How…long have you been here?" Valeria asked, stunned at the implication that Sally was taken over two centuries ago.
"A long time." Sally replied with a sniff and a shrug. "I got away after the aliens brought me here. There were a lot more humans being kept prisoner, and I got lost in the crowd. I'm little, so I can fit in the vent system. I did a lot of exploring and looking for Amy until I got caught getting food. The Aliens were really mad, and they had the big claw drop me in here with you. That's kind of strange cause they usually keep their prisoners separated."
Valeria tried to get to her feet, and then staggered as a wave of nausea washed over her. She shook her head and snarled as she realized the hunger was getting worse.
"Are you...ok?" Sally asked hesitantly as Valeria clenched her huge fists and gritted her teeth. She looked at Sally, and with a shock realized exactly why the little girl had been put in the cell with her. Her hunger changed to rage, and the look on Valeria's face made Sally back away. Valeria closed her eyes as her massive body shook with the effort to regain control. After a moment Valeria opened her eyes and knelt in front of the little girl who regarded her warily.
"It's all right Sally." Valeria said grimly. "I'm going to get us both out of here, I promise."
Sally regarded Valeria doubtfully, and then the lights flickered. They both looked up as they flickered again, and then suddenly went out. Alarms started to blare as Valeria and Sally found themselves floating from the floor. Sally screamed as Valeria seized her arm and pulled her into an embrace as the chamber tilted crazily around them.
"Valeria!" Sally cried. "We need to get to the door before the power comes back!" She was frantically trying to point toward an archway at the far end of the chamber. Gritting her teeth against vertigo as the room rotated around her, Valeria rammed her feet into the cell wall propelling them through the air. The chamber was now filled with floating debris, some of which appeared to be rotting bodies. Valeria realized that she and Sally were the only people still alive in the prison. The doorway seemed to be rotating as Valeria flew toward it. She knew it was actually herself turning in midair, but tried not to think about it to prevent another surge of motion sickness.
They floated through the doorway when the orange light suddenly returned and Valeria dropped to the floor. She landed in a crouch and looked up to see two aliens before her in silver metallic suits and holding metal batons. Valeria released Sally who immediately crawled behind her as the aliens advanced, their eyes narrowed and their batons humming with energy. Valeria stood until her head touched the ceiling of the corridor and screamed a raw howl of fury. The aliens stopped, their eyes wide with shock as they realized the size of the prisoner they were trying to subdue, and then Valeria lunged forward.
An alien hit her on the shoulder, but the blast of electricity only fueled her fury as her massive hands palmed their faces and squeezed. Bones crunched and green alien blood spurted as they screeched and flailed in agony before Valeria slammed their bodies into the deck. Panting, Valeria turned to see if Sally was safe and what she saw cooled her rage like ice water. She expected fear and revulsion on Sally's face but instead the little girl…
Was smiling.
Captain P'Ta of the starship K'Kai stood before its command chair overlooking the banks of controls operated by his crew. Like the others of its race the captain was a hermaphrodite, and the last of its families long line. It looked down on the brown and blue sphere in the panoramic view screen with a sneer of disgust. Its people were conquering the stars while these hulking, hairy…humans were barely managing to land on their moon.
P'Ta had been in command when the K'Kai first entered Earth orbit over three-hundred solar years ago. Like all the elites of the J'Kai, it benefited from technology that stopped aging at the cost of its reproductive ability. The masses of the J'Kai where not granted the privilege and were both short-lived and fertile, although birth rates had declined for centuries. The need for resources as well as a possible colony world was what had driven the J'Kai into interstellar space.
Space had proven a desolate waste; with Earth being the only planet found that could sustain life. However, the planet orbited a yellow sun that bombarded it with more background radiation then the J'Kai's home world, creating a riot of organisms unlike anything they had ever encountered. The dominant organism was not humans as the creatures doubtless assumed, but the microorganisms that were constantly mutating and attacking them.
To combat the biological threat, humanity had split into two separate species that were forced by biological imperatives to cohabit in order to reproduce. The disgusting and life threatening process did have the advantage of constantly re-arranging the human's genetic code allowing them to adapt to the relentless bacterial assault. As hermaphrodites, the Captain's people did not have that 'advantage' and were vulnerable to Earth's biological scourges. Unable to walk the planet's surface without protective suits, the aliens watched secretly from orbit.
For a century the ruling Council believed humanity could be shaped and controlled to exploit it. After years of study and discreet contacts, the aliens came to an inescapable conclusion. The wild climatic shifts and separated land masses made humans too fragmented to control. With a bewildering and incomprehensible plethora of languages, cultures and illogical beliefs, any attempt to unify them through subtle manipulation was doomed to fail. To make matters worse, humans were filled with hormonal and biological drives that made them too wildly irrational and combative for enslavement.
Then came the day when one of their recon crafts malfunctioned and crashed, killing the pilot and being recovered by the humans. P'Ta had felt that fate had tipped their hand and it was time to use brute force to show the humans who truly ruled the universe. Instead the council did nothing but argue over the best way to exploit the situation. All the debate became moot when the humans launched atomic weapons and irradiated their world. P'Ta was glad to finally leave the orbit of the filthy little planet and its disgusting inhabitants.
The Captain returned home to find its World threatened by the unthinkable. A faction had arisen that was convinced that the natural fluctuations of their sun were the harbinger of a catastrophic solar event. The ruling faction believed the science behind that conclusion was fatally flawed and the result of hysteria and stupidity. As solar activity increased the doomsayers became more and more frantic, finally resorting to force to take control for the good of the planet. What followed was a civil war that spread to the fleet, pitting the ships of the armada against each other. The Council was dissolved and the Navy took over after declaring martial law. The madness was then burned from the J'Kai like a rampant disease, laying waste to vast stretches of their world and slaughtering millions. Finally the rebellion was crushed and the forces of reason quickly assured the survivors that all was well, and that their world was safe from both the madness of the insurrection and their fluctuations of their sun.
P'Ta was ordered to return to Earth, to exploit the devastated planet to rebuild their home world. Only two ships, the K'Kai and the J'Nai could be refitted enough to be space worthy. They had left the Solar system when the unthinkable happened and the outer shell of the sun stripped away in a cataclysm of radioactive fire. In a heartbeat, the entire race of J'Kai had been reduced to the occupants of two salvaged starships. P'Ta knew the catastrophe had to be the last genocidal act of rebels that had somehow survived the war. They must have used a weapon to destabilize the sun in revenge. To suggest otherwise in P'Ta's presence was a death sentence.
Upon returning to Earth orbit the first order P'Ta gave was to take samples of the natives for experimentation. Any that were not deemed necessary for experimentation were to be exterminated. P'Ta took savage pleasure in the carnage that followed, and it promised that it was only the beginning of what was planned for Earth. But first they needed to find a way to combat the hostile environment in order to establish a colony. As disgusting as the prospect was, the quickest way was to genetically alter his people to give them some of the human's hard won resistance. Their entire hold had been emptied of captives as they were ruthlessly experimented on, and they were still no closer to a breakthrough. So far all the attempts created only mindless abominations. Of course, the experiments were only conducted on humans and some of the lesser J'Kai who lived on the lower levels of the ship.
"Captain!" His helmsman coughed from below. "The power in section eight has been restored, but there are no prisoners in the cells."
P'Ta's eyes narrowed in irritation at the announcement. The J'Kai below decks performed all the tasks beneath their social betters, such as maintenance. Without a source of spare parts or a docking facility, they had been forced to jury-rig and cannibalize the ship to keep it space worthy. The constant groaning from the hull was a reminder of the urgency of their mission, as were the occasional power fluctuations.
"Tell the guards to keep searching." P'Ta barked in reply. "The only prisoners left are that mutant and the immature human, assuming it hasn't been consumed already."
"The report comes from 'those who serve' Captain. The guards were found dead from blunt trauma to their heads."
"What?" The Captain snapped, its ready temper flaring. "Send a squad of commandos to the lower decks. Their orders are to terminate any humans found immediately!"
"Yes captain!"
P'Ta scowled with fury as it glared at the planet slowly turning below. Its stupid scientists had been intrigued by the genetically engineered resilience of the human mutant, and hadn't subjected the creature to genetic splicing. P'Ta did not share their fascination and felt that now was a perfect opportunity to rid his ship of the filthy and apparently dangerous creature. It was time to find another sample of humans to capture, not to waste it on irrelevant diversions. Its species faced extinction; it was P'Ta's mission to make sure that fate fell on humanity instead.
"Something's wrong Val." Sally said as she led her huge companion through a narrow maze of pipes venting steam. Sally didn't say a word after Valeria killed the aliens, instead leading her into what she called the steam works. After all the incomprehensible devices she had seen, seeing the aliens relying on something as basic as steam power was reassuring.
"We should have seen slave aliens by now." Sally explained as she stopped to peer around a corner.
"Slaves?" Valeria asked as she crouched behind Sally.
"Yeah. There's a bunch of aliens who live down here and fix stuff. The other aliens stay in the upper level and boss them around."
"Would they help us?"
"Maybe. You're pretty scary but they really don't like the boss aliens. They're just no good at fighting and don't have any guns." Sally turned to look at Valeria and noticed she was weaving on her feet with a glassy look in her eyes.
"Come on Val." She said taking Valeria's huge hand in hers. "We're almost there."
"Where?" Valeria asked as she stumbled through a blast of steam after Sally. The little girl didn't reply, instead kneeling over the body of an alien sprawled in a pool of green blood.
"He's wearing red, that makes him one of the slaves." Sally observed as she noted the shiny bodysuit the dead alien was wearing. "No burn holes, so he wasn't shot."
Suddenly there was a hoarse shriek and Sally looked up to see a shadowy figure shambling toward her out of the mist. It was the same height as a human, but it had the same hairless features as the aliens. On seeing Sally it shrieked again and charged. She threw her arms up to protect her face when Valeria leaped past her and slammed into the creature sending them both skidding along the deck, Valeria snarling as it howled and flailed at her with its misshapen arms.
Sally scrambled away from the two battling mutants as they were hidden in a sudden cloud of steam. Suddenly the creature fell silent, as it's limbs flailed and pounded on the metal deck before falling still. Valeria remained hunched over it until she suddenly pulled away with a gasp and sat against the wall panting. Sally slowly approached, seeing Valeria was covered with livid bruises and rows of gashes from the battle. Her chin and chest were also covered with dark blood that Sally was certain wasn't hers.
"That thing was…human." Valeria gasped as she used the wall to pull herself to her feet.
"The boss aliens have been trying to mix humans with the slave aliens." Sally explained. "I don't know why they're doing it, but the slaves are really unhappy about it." Sally looked down at the grotesque sexless hybrid with a gaping throat wound as Valeria stood up.
"That power outage must have opened the cells in the lab too." Sally observed. "That's bad for everybody if the experiments are loose. Come on Val, we're almost to the engineering core."
Valeria was much steadier on her feet despite her injuries, which had already stopped bleeding. Sally led her through several tunnel intersections then up a series of metal stairs to a sealed door.
"It's locked." She said as she stood a moment before the unresponsive portal. "Hold on a minute." Sally knelt down before a section of wall and pulled out an odd triangular device she had picked up from the debris littering the ship. She touched it to several points on the wall and a panel suddenly fell free revealing a small dark crawlspace beyond. Without hesitation, Sally dropped to her hands and knees and crawled inside.
Unable to assist, Valeria stood guard at the door watching the hallway below. Suddenly a screech echoed down the corridor, followed by the howls of more then one creature. Valeria glanced at the open panel, and then dropped into a crouch. The hybrids were extremely strong, and although Valeria killed one fairly easily she had doubts about her chances against a pack naked and unarmed.
"Almost got it." Came Sally's muffled voice from somewhere overhead. Another howl echoed from below, sounding closer this time. Valeria bared her teeth in a snarl and prepared to defend herself when she heard the hum of the doors opening behind her revealing Sally standing on the other side.
"Come on Val!" She shouted as she gestured urgently. Another howl, followed the rapid slap of bare feet on the deck followed Valeria as she turned and jumped through the door. Sally pressed a panel on the wall, sealing the doors just as the distorted face of a hybrid, it's mouth gaping appeared out of the steam. A muffled thudding began to sound from the door as Sally backed away.
"That should hold 'em for a while." She observed as she turned to join Valeria.
They were standing on the upper level of a vast circular chamber surrounding a translucent cylinder with what appeared to be a turbine slowly rotating within. Electricity arched and crackled from devices set about the chamber, which was strewn with debris and reeked of ozone.
"The slaves are supposed to destroy the gear captured with the humans." Sally said as she started to walk around the column. "But they store it all here instead. The boss aliens don't check up on them, so I think they're trying to save stuff for later just in case." Sally led Valeria into a side chamber crammed with objects, some Valeria recognized as from Earth. One wall was formed of a curved translucent substance giving them a view of the star studded void outside the ship.
Suddenly a crate fell over revealing the cowering form of an alien, its red-garbed arms raised in a mute appeal over its head. Sally stepped toward the creature and started to make a series of stattaco chirping and barking sounds. The alien lowered its arms and replied in the same language. Sally added something else, then turned to Valeria.
"Yep, the blackout freed all the experiments." She announced. "The slaves created it to get back at the boss aliens for experimenting on them. Problem is it shorted out some other systems which freed everything."
"They cut the power as an act of defiance?" Valeria asked stepping forward. As she approached, the alien wailed and turned its face away from her as it cowered.
"Uh, you're really scaring him." Sally observed. "Yeah, they break stuff to get even. I told you they weren't very good at fighting. They only know how to fix things, so they break stuff to get the bosses mad. The problem is they don't want to get them too mad, so they're careful. I don't think the boss aliens even know its sabotage." She turned and again spoke to the alien, who stammered out a reply before again hiding its face.
"Uh oh. He says that the additional system failures got the Captain's attention and he's sending down soldiers. Some of the braver slaves have decided this is it and headed to the robot bay to activate the drones."
"So they're rebelling." Valeria said grimly.
"Kind of." Sally agreed. "We need to get your stuff, I think it's over here." Sally led Valeria to an oblong canister set against the wall. She passed her hand over a panel and the sides suddenly slid open with a hiss. To Valeria's surprise, it did indeed contain everything she had been wearing when she was captured. She quickly started putting her armor on as she faced the vista of space.
Suddenly the pulsing blare of an alarm began to sound through the core, causing the alien worker to wail and curl up on the floor in a quivering fetal position.
"Sounds like the Captain figured out something's up down here." Sally said as she looked up at Valeria. "The slave aliens mean well, but they don't have any weapons and they get scared real easy."
"Don't worry Sally." Valeria said as she hefted the familiar weight of her sledge.
"They won't be fighting alone."
Force Commander K'Ta led its squad down the pipe lined corridors of the Engineering Bay in pursuit of the elusive human called "Sally". As soon as it had become apparent that the hybrids were loose, the Captain had ordered the entire security detail into the lower ship to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. The Engine Core was quickly secured, although oddly absent of E'Ta, the lesser race of J'Kai. K'Ta assumed the cowardly aliens were hiding from the runaway experiments and the human prisoners. To resolve the matter as quickly as possible, K'Ta divided its force into four squads, sending them to the Cryo Lab, Robot Assembly and Hanger. Its own squad of nine was taken into Engineering.
Aside from a few reports of hybrid encounters that were quickly resolved, all was quiet although the continued absence of the E'ta was increasingly strange. Then reports began to squawk over K'Ta's comm-link in a confused babble. Robot drones were advancing on the squad in the Robot Assembly Bay and ignoring orders from their masters. In the Cryo Lab the aliens were under attack by the brutish green mutants normally kept in stasis.
Suddenly a robot drone floated around the corner and advanced toward K'Ta, its optic sensor glowing red as its long three fingered arms extended toward it.
"Fire!" K'Ta barked as it pulled the lever on its disintegration rifle. The robot lurched under the barrage of blue energy but still mindlessly advanced until it's hover module failed and it crashed to the floor smoking and sparking. K'Ta looked down at the destroyed machine and with a scowl tapped it's collar communicator to report to the captain. One machine could malfunction perhaps, but for all of them to do so meant deliberate tampering.
"Captain. We have evidence that seditionists have infiltrated the ship and are among the E'Ta." There was a pause as K'Ta waited for a response, then the Captain's voice snapped.
"Terminate them along with the humans. The sedition must be stopped at all costs!"
"Acknowledged." K'Ta replied as it lifted its rifle and relayed the order to the other squads. It then received a status report that the mutants and robots had been eliminated and now they were hunting the E'Ta.
The squad had just entered a chamber with a railed stairway leading to the second level when a high-pitched voice chattered at them in almost incomprehensible J'Kai.
"Hey you! Up here!"
At the top of the stairs was the human experiment called "Sally". She was smiling and waving at them as if she had just seen her best friend. Startled by the human's unexpected audacity, K'Ta raised its rifle just as Sally ducked and ran.
"After it!" K'Ta snapped when it's comm-link began to chatter once again. The blare of a decompression alarm almost drowned out the squeals of terror from the leader of the squad in the Hanger Bay. There was a sudden roaring, followed by silence as the transmission cut off. With a snarl, K'Ta waved its squad forward after the infuriating human. Clearly something was going terribly wrong, and now it was in a hurry to exterminate the human before returning to the Core to assess the situation.
At the top of the stairs they again saw Sally standing at the end of a short hallway waving at them before again ducking aside. Enraged at the human's obvious attempts to taunt them into following the aliens did so confident they could deal with whatever happened. Suddenly another report came from the Robot Assembly. The squad leader announced they had found the E'Ta cowering near the generator and had terminated them. Suddenly K'Ta heard another voice gibber that the generators had been tampered with and were about to…
Whatever the alien was about to say was cut off in a roar followed by silence. K'Ta tapped its communicator in an attempt to restore contact when saw Sally in an annex frantically tapping at the blue glowing display of a door control. She looked up with a squeak and ran with blue energy blasting the wall and floor where she had been standing. K'Ta paused for a moment before the door control and smiled. Clearly whatever plan the human had required opening the door, an action denied by the ship wide lock down K'Ta was not completely familiar with the layout of the lower ship, but it did know the corridor the little human had fled down had no other connections. Then K'Ta's noticed an odd pulsing from the door control before its eyes widened with shocked realization. Before it could shout a warning the lock exploded in a cloud of green fire.
K'ta was protected by one of their few personal force field projectors, but even then the force of the blast knocked it to the ground. Its ear nubs ringing, K'ta almost couldn't hear the squawk of its comm-link The squad leader of the force in the Cryo Lab was reporting that they had been locked in the Cryo chamber by fleeing E'Ta. Then K'Ta heard it begin to shriek orders to stop before a loud hissing almost drowned out the wails of the other aliens. The transmission went silent as K'Ta got to its feet. One member of its squad lay thrashing on the floor, the inside of it's spherical helmet smeared with green blood as it gagged from the piece of shrapnel lodged in its throat. By the time K'Ta reached its side it fell still with a gurgling rattle.
K'Ta was now faced with the inconceivable. The E'Ta had used their intimate knowledge of the ship's systems to trap and wipe out most of the ship's security forces. The human had to be working with them, there was no other way the primitive could have known how to rewire the door controls to turn them into proximity explosives. They had to return to the command saucer, but not before the renegade experiment had been terminated. Protected by its impregnable force field, K'ta led the way down the corridor in which the human was now trapped.
Sally was cowering at the end of an annex with two short alcoves branching from it. K'Ta smiled at her terror and advanced with its three fingered hands tightening on the stock of its weapon. With the entire mission heading into disaster, it was going to savor the moment before vaporizing the troublesome creature. Then she looked up, her teeth bared in what humans considered a smile.
"Gotcha." She said as the sound of something heavy dropping to the deck echoed from behind them. The aliens whirled and faced the giant mutant they had recently captured, it's sharp teeth bared in a snarl as it pulled a huge hammer from it's back. K'Ta realized that the mutant must have been hiding among the pipes crossing the ceiling and using Sally as a distraction to prevent detection. With a shriek, the mutant attacked as the aliens frantically opened fire. In the close confines of the tunnel, the advantage lay with their attacker who crushed faceplates and bones with vicious jabs of her hammer. Hampered by their own numbers and completely unaccustomed to close quarters combat, K'Ta's squad was being slaughtered as the mutant ignored the few energy blasts that hit her.
Unnerved by the shrieking fury of the huge mutant, K'Ta fired its rifle blasting its last soldier in the back as it was jerked into the beam's path as an impromptu shield. The mutant flung the alien's body aside and leaped forward, swatting the squad leader's rifle from its hands. K'Ta gurgled in alarm as its force field flashed from the appalling kinetic energy of the mutant's attack. Its nerve completely gone, K'Ta tried to run hoping its shield would allow escape. Another blow smashed it to the floor, and the mutant brought her hammer down again and again. Squalling with terror, K'Ta raised its hands in a futile attempt to stop the inevitable as with a flash its shield collapsed and the mutant's hammer came down for the last time.
"I don't think the slaves get it, but we have to take the ship or we'll lose."
Valeria looked at Sally who was standing in the door of a storage room with her arms crossed.
"Are there more soldiers?" Valeria asked.
"I don't think so, but the slave aliens are really confused and scared."
"They won't help us?"
"A lot of the braver ones were killed by the soldiers or in the traps when they sprung 'em. The ones that are left have been talking."
"In front of you?"
"A lot of them don't know I speak J'Kai." Sally replied with a shrug. "Most are so scared all they can do is cry. Some are hoping that by capturing us somehow and handing us over the Captain will forgive them."
"So we're at a stalemate." Valeria observed grimly as she turned to look at the items littering the room. "And you think there's something here that will help?"
"Yeah." Sally said as she entered the room and pressed a panel on a storage container. "The command saucer is separate from the main ship. Mostly a teleportation matrix is used to get back and forth but that's been shut down. The only other way is a space walk."
"Are there suits?"
"Um, sort of." Sally admitted as she pulled out an armload of thick silver fabric. "These suits were made on Earth. I think one was worn by a monkey but I can fit in it okay." Sally handed a helmet to Valeria who turned it over to estimate its size. "I think the helmet will fit you, but I don't think the suit will."
"One problem at a time." Valeria said as she put the helmet on and checked the seals.
"Okay." Sally said as she started to get into her suit. "Maybe we can put something together from the alien suits, they might be…stretchy."
"How do we get inside the other ship?" Valeria asked, her voice muffled by the helmet.
"Well, the airlock doors will probably be sealed, but we've got a lot of stuff stored here. Some of it from recent space flights from Earth." Sally picked up a bulky metal object resembling a heavy pistol. "This is a magnetic grapnel which ought to come in handy." She handed the grapnel to Valeria who attached it to her belt then presented another object. "I think this is some kind of shaped charge, which we could also use." Valeria took the heavy cube, with a thoughtful look at Sally. Not for the first time Valeria was surprised by the breadth of the girl's knowledge. Once in a while her childish tone would slip, and Valeria would suddenly feel that she was talking to a much older person.
"Now we gotta put together some kind of suit for you." Sally said as she held up a tube of a slightly luminescent material. "This glue is used by the aliens to repair just about everything. It dries quick and it's pretty strong so we might be able to patch something together."
Suddenly the deck lurched beneath their feet as a loud bang echoed through the hull. Sally's eyes went wide as she picked up her helmet and ran out of the room. Valeria followed as alarms began to shrill throughout the ship, joining a chorus of panicked gibbering and wailing from the aliens. Sally led Valeria to a door and into a long curved hallway with a transparent ceiling showing the blackness of space. Sally looked up as screeching aliens ran past them in panicked flight, and saw the lights of a structure directly above them starting to move.
"Oh no!" Sally shouted over the sirens. "They're separating the command saucer from the ship! I never thought they'd do that!"
Lights from the command saucer began to slice through the darkness as the ship began to slowly rotate overhead. The few aliens still visible in the hall fell to their knees, raising their tentacled hands over their heads in terrified supplication.
"They're bringing the ship around to use the Death Ray!" Sally shrieked, sounding frightened for the first time. "They're going to destroy the ship!"
"Get your helmet on!" Valeria snapped as she began taking deep breaths while applying the glue to her armored collar.
"You don't have a suit Val! What good is…!"?
Sally was interrupted by a blinding flash of blue light followed by the ceiling vanishing in a cloud of shards and the roar of air venting into space. Sally screamed as she was swept from the floor and blasted into the void along with the thrashing bodies of E'Ta.
Valeria yanked the grapnel from her belt as she too was hurled into space, desperately firing at the ship as it rotated massively above her. Sally was turning end over end when she felt an impact that almost drove the air from her lungs. She found herself rocketing through the blackness held in Valeria's iron grip. She could see the saucer below falling away, covered with flashes of white fire and trailing debris and bodies. Suddenly they jerked to a stop, and Sally twisted around to see that Valeria's boots were against a transparent panel surrounding the metal bulk of the Death Ray. The alien weapon was glowing with a blinding blue flame as it powered up.
Valeria slapped the shaped charge Sally had given her against the panel then kicked them away as the grapnel disconnected. Sally closed her eyes and clung to her huge companion, as a white flash and an explosion of escaping atmosphere and glass knocked them tumbling. Valeria again fired the grapnel almost losing her grip on Sally as they were jerked to a halt then propelled back toward the ship.
Sally looked up, marveling at Valeria's inhuman stamina before seeing a steel iris starting to close over the observation deck. Sally again closed her eyes unable to watch if either Valeria's strength or the grapnel failed. Suddenly Sally was released and she fell sprawling on a hard surface as a muffled boom and a hissing roar echoed around her. She scrambled to her hands and knees and opened her eyes to see they were in a vaulted chamber with several dead aliens in silver uniforms. Turning she saw Valeria tearing her helmet off with a scream then dropping to her hands and knees coughing and taking huge gulps of air. Sally removed her helmet and ran coughing to Valeria's side.
Valeria's body was covered with livid bruises from ruptured blood vessels, and her muscles quivered and shook as she continued to gasp for air.
"I can't believe you did that Val." Sally marveled. Valeria turned her head to look at her and smiled weakly.
"Remind me…never to …do that…again." She panted before closing her eyes and gagging.
"Are you going to be okay?"
"I think so." Valeria replied after a moment. "Radiation helps me heal up to a point, and there was a lot of it out there."
"I think we took out the Death Ray for now." Sally observed as she looked around. "With more luck the aliens won't know they've been boarded."
"Then we'd better get moving." Valeria said as she got shakily to her feet. She noticed Sally's look of concern and smiled at the little girl.
"I really do heal quickly. Let's go."
"Captain! The hull breach in Weapons Control has been sealed but the generator is offline!" Yammered the alien at the helm.
"Raise the J'Kai!" P'Ta snapped with a furious scowl. It hated to loose its flagship, but maintaining discipline in the ranks was paramount, especially in as uncompromising a situation as the J'Kai now found themselves in. The hull breach that disabled the Death Ray was clearly collateral damage from opening fire on the ship at close range. Perhaps it would have been prudent to fire from a greater distance, but P'Ta didn't know if the seditionists had found a way to access the main drives of the ship. P'Ta knew it had to strike before the main saucer moved out of range on its own accord. It also wanted to see up close the destruction of the mutinous E'Ta. Seeing their bodies drifting in space like the strike force that had been blown out of the Hanger Bay gave P'Ta immense satisfaction.
"Captain P'Ta!" Announced the orange hologram of Sub Captain Z'Ta's head as it hung suspended over the bridge.
"Sub Captain! You are to fire on the K'Kai until it is destroyed!"
"Captain?" Z'Ta asked with uncharacteristic uncertainty.
"It has fallen to Seditionists! Destroy the ship now!"
"As you command!" Z'Ta snapped in affirmation as its image vanished. P'Ta crossed its arms and watched the slowly turning hulk of the K'Kai as it descended toward the atmosphere below. Doubtless it would burn on re-entry, but P'Ta refused to give the surviving mutineers any chance of escape. More importantly, the display of uncompromising discipline would keep surviving E'Ta in line if any other Seditionists had managed to infiltrate the crew of the J'Kai.
Suddenly a beam of blazing blue energy sliced into the K'Kai with a soundless explosion of white light. The ship began to slowly turn upside down as it left a glittering trail of debris in its wake as the Death Ray powered up again. The next blast tore through the underbelly of the ship and ruptured the containment core of the reactor. For a moment the ship hung suspended in the void, then vanished in a searing explosion of light. P'Ta raised it's arm to shield its eyes from the soundless fury of the ship's destruction. Finally the screen went dark and P'Ta surveyed the bridge crowded with surviving crew-members. Only the few sent to secure the Weapon's Bay were not represented.
"Sub-Captain!" P'Ta snapped as the image of its second in command again materialized before it. "Lower the shields and move the J'Kai into transport range for evacuation."
"As you command."
No sooner did Z'Ta's image vanish then P'Ta heard the hum of the ship's internal teleportation matrix. It turned to face the short hallway leading to the matter assembly platform and froze in shock. Stepping off the platform in a fading halo of orange energy was the giant mutant called "Valeria". Her head nearly touched the ceiling and her white eyes blazed as she snarled and raised her primitive weapon.
"Kill it!" P'Ta shrilled as it activated its force field. Valeria leaped forward sending a J'Kai flying in a shower of green blood as blue energy surrounded her in a web of death. All crew-members carried an Atomizer pistol as a sidearm, but few trained extensively in its use. That and the appalling suddenness of the mutant's attack made their shots go wild as the mutant shrieked, spun and struck with devastating power.
P'Ta drew its pistol as sparks showered around it from damaged instruments, both from energy blasts and from the bodies of J'Kai flung about by the fury of Valeria's blows. With sudden clarity, it realized there was only once chance of survival. P'Ta turned and pulled the corpse of an J'Kai off a control panel and slammed it's palm onto a blood smeared pad. A flash of blue light confirmed its activation as P'Ta turned and ran to its personal quarters as energy blasts splashed off its shield and seared the walls in showers of sparks. Another J'Kai was already in panicked flight toward the door and P'Ta shot it in the back. Its personal transporter took time to recharge, time that could not be spared for lesser J'Kai. Stepping over the body, P'Ta activated the glowing door control and sealed the doors. A quick glance through the curved view ports showed a scene of destruction and death as the J'Kai made a desperate stand against the savage mutant from Earth.
P'Ta ignored the minimal furnishings of it's quarters and stepped onto the Teleport matrix. It had fired a teleportation receiver into the planet's atmosphere, allowing P'Ta to beam down to the Earth's surface. Once there the captain would contact the J'Kai and use their teleporter to board their ship. It was desperate, but there was no time to contact the J'Kai to get them to lower their shields. The matrix was humming and the Captain could feel the energy field building in preparation for the matter to energy conversion. In the second as the process built to critical, P'Ta looked one last time into the bridge. It was now dark except for flashes of electrical fire and strewn with bodies covered with green blood. Then in that endless moment before transmission, P'Ta saw a small figure standing before the weapons control panel. With a soundless shriek of horror P'ta saw Sally activate the shields of the K'Kai then the Captain vanished except for a few orange sparks of energy dancing like fireflies.
Valeria swept her hammer around with a snarl as she looked for more enemies. She saw nothing but dead aliens as Sally approached her.
"The Captain's dead, but we can use his teleporter to get back to Earth." Sally looked around as the high-pitched jabber of the alien's language began to fill the air. "The other ship's trying to figure out what's going on, so we don't have much time."
Valeria nodded as her rage faded and she began to feel the pain of her injuries. Slinging her hammer, Valeria limped through the door then heard it slide shut behind her. She whirled in time to see Sally outside tapping at the door control.
"Sally!" Valeria shouted pressing her palms against the glass. "What are you doing?"
"I'm not giving you a choice Val." The little girl replied over the intercom, her face grim with no trace of childishness in her voice.
"I'm setting the door lock for proximity detonation. Either you use the teleporter, or you'll die."
"Why Sally?"
"I couldn't save Amy Val, but I can save you and I can save the Earth." Sally looked up, tears filling her eyes as she smiled. "I'm sorry I lied to you, but I couldn't get to the bridge without your help."
"Sally…" Valeria said as tears began to roll down her cheeks.
"Thank you for everything Val. Thank you for being my friend." Sally wiped her eyes and sniffed.
"Now please go!"
Valeria hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked to the teleporter. She turned and held her hand up in a silent goodbye as Sally raised hers. Then Sally turned and ran to the command consoles in front of the Captain's chair.
"K'Kai respond!" Z'Ta shouted to no avail as it watched the command saucer hanging motionless in the void.
"Sub-Captain! The shields of the K'Kai have been lowered again, and there has been a matter transmission to the surface of the planet!"
Z'Ta frowned in confusion. What was happening on the K'Kai?
"The K'Kai' is turning toward us Sub-Captain, and appears to be accelerating!"
"Are its shields up?"
"Negative, and the Death Ray is still powered down."
"Open the emergency hailing frequency!"
"Sub-Captain, the K'Kai is still accelerating!"
Z'Ta stared in confusion at the ship growing larger in the view screen as it tried to understand what P'ta was doing. Too late the realization struck that perhaps the Captain was no longer in command of the K'Kai.
"Evasive action!" It shrilled then gripped its command chair as the deck tilted under its feet.
"The K'Kai is following us!" The helmsman shrieked.
"Fire the Death Ray!"
"It's too close, the debris will hit us!"
Z'Ta looked at the ship looming in the view screen and with an icy chill realized the inevitability of what was about to occur. As the bridge crew gibbered and wailed Z'Ta closed its eyes.
"This is for Amy you fucking alien bastards!" Sally screamed as sparks showered around her. The alien ship filled the screen and she shrieked in triumph, her face wet with tears as the alien ships collided. Sally was hurled into a nova of white-hot plasma and in that split second felt a small hand take hers, then nothing.
Valeria stood at the bottom what appeared to be a ravine. A cylinder half imbedded in the ground was nearby surrounded by quickly fading motes of orange energy. Valeria looked up into the night sky at the cloud of fire that lit the landscape like a full moon. Streaks of light from burning debris falling into the atmosphere added to the awe-inspiring vision of the end of the J'Kai.
"Goodbye Sally." Valeria whispered as she wiped her eyes then turned away to look for a way to climb out of the ravine.