War of the Spheres Read online

  “Yes, I believe targeting me was intentional,” I said. “As to the guilty party…I can’t say yet.” Jillian wasn’t putting it together, but it was obvious to me—the guilty party wasn’t anyone from this group.

  “I’ll find the truth. I always do,” I assured her.

  “Good enough,” she said, and she smiled as I stood in the doorway.

  Just as I started to think Dr. Brandt was flirting again, a series of terrified shrieks rang out from the room around the corner. I spun on my heel and ran toward the sound with Jillian Brandt close behind.

  The room was a storage area, just off to the side of the mess hall. The door slammed closed before I could reach it. A woman’s howls of despair continued on the other side as I tried the handle which predictably was locked.

  Two kicks later, I was in.

  This time the scene was much gorier than Dr. Adams’ death had been. The small cubes and shiny cylinders that were stacked on shelving all around the small room were spattered heavily with blood.

  One of Toby’s visitors crouched over a wrecked body which wore a lab coat and gurgled out its last breath.

  Squatting like a giant bug, the alien drew one of those runes out of the dead scientist’s pocket. It looked up with a passionless, reptilian expression on its face as it turned to display the rune toward me. Was I being mocked by this thing? It stood to its full height of about seven feet, wiped the rune on its already bloodied robe and then concealed it somewhere inside the loose garment. It wasn’t making a move to leave, and I figured it was ass-kicking time.

  I advanced and landed a strong side kick, aiming for its chest. I was thinking to attack aggressively and throw off my opponent’s game. Unfortunately, it was my first time fighting one of these guys.

  The alien had unusual body dynamics. It just didn’t move naturally—not like a human would. It was hard to tell exactly where the sensitive spots were under the damned robe. The creature’s anatomy was distinctly different from ours.

  Displacing itself from the force of my kick in an odd manner, he gripped my leg and deflected my kick, sending me staggering past him. I decided I was calling the alien a he. If this thing was female, I was already sure that I didn’t want to tangle with a male.

  I got back to my feet immediately and scrambled up to square off again. My opponent did some kind of practiced, angular posturing and then flexed at the knees into an odd stance. The black eyes blinked in their deep sockets, and he rattled off a fast set of metronome-like clicks as he regarded me. I could tell he was in the same mood as I was.

  “Jillian, get out of here!” I said when I noticed she was still standing in the doorway calling for help. “Close that door and don’t let anyone in. I’ll come out when this bug-lizard and I have sorted things out.”

  “Chief, that thing will kill you!”

  “Out, Dr. Brandt!” I insisted.

  She tried to slam the broken door, but it wobbled half-way open, and a canister fell off the shelf.

  This thing had height on me and a much longer reach. I was watching the way he moved when he took steps. As we closed, four long, clawed fingers tore at the air on each side of him.

  This display left me with vague ideas as to what his weaknesses might be—but my instincts at such moments were usually reliable.

  I ran at him the same way I had before. His response was nearly identical to the previous one—as I’d hoped.

  Instead of repeating my last attack, I changed up my move and kicked hard to the inside of his knee, hoping to cripple him.

  He wasn’t expecting that, and he reeled off-balance a little, but I hadn’t stopped him like I’d planned. We squared-off again.

  Before he had too much time to think, I ducked very low and skipped in quick and close—defending my belly and deflecting his clawed hand. I came up inside his guard and then pounded blows into his abdomen. Changing it up, I planted two solid hooks into his lower face. His skin was rough and the strikes felt like they hurt me as much as him, but I was glad to see he didn’t like it.

  He slapped at me and flung me back. I chalked it up to desperation on his part—I had gotten to him.

  After that, he went nuts—like a pissed-off cat that’d been tossed into a wading pool. He scissored in close and fast with that graceful bug-walk of his, and his mouth gargled out a torrent of rattling fury.

  Claws laid into me painfully, and it was a little hard to keep track of his enraged attacks. He grappled me and began to shred me into hamburger. I had managed to keep him away from my guts so far, but I couldn’t avoid those claws for long.

  Our scrambling brawl took us near to that fallen canister, and I managed to grip it and smash it into his bony face.

  It was a bulls-eye. The powdery contents exploded into his deep eye-sockets and caused a nice little cloud of irritation around us. I quickly managed to get an arm-lock on him that I’d adapted to his screwy joints.

  The skin on my back and shoulders was badly shredded, but I focused on the problem at hand. I shut out the agony and cracked the fingers of his right hand like I was breaking up kindling for a bonfire.

  That move was enough to motivate him into another mad kicking fit, and he got free. This bastard had leverage and was stronger than me. Still blinded and slipping on blood, he scrambled to his feet again and backed clumsily to the wall. He was favoring the one hand—holding it up with the broken digits oddly twisted.

  He began to furiously paw at his garment as he retreated, using his good hand. He pulled his robe open and tried to grip tabs at either side. These hung from a harness he wore beneath the robe.

  My own hot pain was creeping back. I had to breathe slowly and dial down my pain receptors. Blood dribbled off of me and pooled on the floor of the small room as I heaved deep breaths. I would certainly have passed out by now if my body’s modifications hadn’t improved my circulatory and nervous systems. Still, I wasn’t sure who was losing this fight.

  “Come on crab-boy,” I told the intruder. “Let’s finish this like professionals.”

  With a confident step I didn’t entirely feel, I closed in again to attack.

  I caught sight of the dead scientist just as he stumbled over her, and it ticked me off all over again that this bastard had gotten to her. When I lost someone on my watch it became personal.

  I launched into the alien before he could recover and try anything unexpected.

  “You having trouble seeing me, Buddy?” I asked the monster. He was covered in blood—mostly his own.

  Three more slamming fists battered his face, and I learned a little more about his unfamiliar anatomy. Then, I reached out to grab his left hand, planning to rearrange his bones as I’d done to the right.

  I only got halfway done with that process when a blinding flare of plasma passed inches from my nose and seared through the intruder’s long, narrow chest. I stared at neat smoking holes which had appeared before my eyes.

  The alien looked dead to me. I figured that if he was the guy who’d thrown that shim earlier, I was going to call us even.

  Apparently, I was taking too long standing over the corpse for the liking of the man behind me.

  “Stand down, you crazy son-of-a-bitch!” a very loud and hoarse voice screamed at me.

  I looked over to the broken door at a pair of large men wearing salt and pepper camo and holding live plasma weapons.

  “Are you talking to me?” I panted. “I’m saving the day, here.”

  “Identify yourself,” he ordered.

  “I’m Chief Gray—who are you?”

  The man lowered his weapon. “Ah—the security officer. You’re worries are over, Gray. I’m Major Knox. You’ve been replaced.” He then turned to the man next to him. “Sergeant, take a team and clear every room in this bay.”

  “Yes sir, Major,” replied the man while I lifted the rune from the dead alien’s robe. I tucked it out of sight and got carefully to my feet. I wasn’t in this for the recognition, but it seemed to me like I wasn’t gett
ing the appropriate level of appreciation here.

  Knox pointed a commanding finger at me and then stepped outside the door and pointed it at the floor next to him. My torn skin on fire, I took careful steps across the slick floor to the place he indicated.

  The brilliant glare of the bay lighting overwhelmed my senses as I stepped out of the storeroom. A small cluster of men stood near Knox with the same camo and an assortment of ranks between private and specialist.

  “Major? Did you have a question for me?” I asked tersely.

  Knox narrowed his eyes and gave me a false smile. “I do not have a question for you, Chief. I have statements.”

  “Okay...” He looked like he was pissed, so I added in: “…Major Knox.”

  “The Ministry of Control has ordered me here to secure this facility. I’m now responsible for the safety of this compound—not you. Understood?”

  He looked at me like I was in middle school, and he waited expectantly for my response.

  “Understood, Major,” I answered after a moment.

  “I’ll not tolerate a free-agent working under my watch. You’ll answer to me while I’m in charge of this facility.”

  “Got it, Major Knox,” I returned.

  My teeth were clenched against the pain in my guts by this time. Blood loss and fatigue were weighing heavily on my state of coherence. I was going to behave badly if I didn’t get a chance to recover and conduct a stabilizing procedure.

  I couldn’t remember any specifics, but I knew my body and mind were modified to endure a tremendous amount of damage. My brain wasn’t designed to pass out—I could die, sure, but I was unlikely to slip away into unconsciousness. I needed some down-time to let my body heal. My only other option was letting my adrenaline kick in again—going berserk and possibly dropping dead at the end.

  “Chief Gray, you’re dismissed to the infirmary,” Knox concluded.

  There was one good thing about Knox showing up. His presence was the perfect opportunity to recover some strength and focus—without compromising my mission.

  I took a last look into the store room. There, I discovered a new pair of glittering, black eyes looking back at me.

  It was a fresh, undamaged alien. His strange eyes were sunken into pasty, bone-white features, and they roved over his fallen comrade.

  He wore a robe which matched that of the first, and at my intrusion he retreated—backing away slowly. Lifting his dead associate, he threw the carcass over a shoulder.

  His harness matched the partner’s. The tabs of that harness were in either hand, and he held them out and caressed them deliberately. He faded away as he backed straight into the store room wall and slowly vanished with the fallen alien’s body.

  “Major Knox?” I boomed.

  Knox turned irritably from where he had been speaking to his men. “Yes, Chief?”

  “I believe you’ll find that you’re missing a body, Major.” I was quite amused, but I put on my best stony expression and indicated the empty bloodstained floor with a nod.

  As he stepped to the doorway and stared, I shambled past Dr. Brandt. She had continued to remain nearby. She held a hand over her mouth and gawked at my physical state. I gave her a reassuring nod and patted the spot where the rune rested safely. Torn, bleeding and doused with flour, I made my way to get some medical attention, leaving a gory smear in my wake.

  Chapter 8

  It was way past midnight, and the civilian team members were trying to take a sleep break under the 24 hour watch of Knox and his men. There was still a skeleton crew on duty, and I spent the next two hours being poked and prodded.

  In the meantime, I’d been cauterized and stitched together with staples and glue. Then I’d been injected with a stew of pain-killers and antibiotics. Afterward, I was told to lie still for a while, so the medical team could keep an eye on my progress.

  The moment they were done patching me up, I headed back to the labs.

  There was the basic issue of replacing my clothing. My uniform had been shredded, but fortunately, Knox’s team had come in with replacements. I got my own boots back and added my rank insignia to the appropriate places of my new uniform.

  The rest of the night remained quiet. I spent the next several hours in a state of low stimulation—staying relaxed and keeping my heart-rate as low as possible to speed my healing. As was my usual pattern, I dozed now and then, but didn’t really sleep.

  I found a comfy armchair and passed the time by reading technical papers that had been written by Colonel Hughes and others on the team.

  After giving my busy mind its fill of the experimental science that would soon be shuttling us far across the universe, I set the scrolled computer sheet aside and leaned all the way back.

  My thoughts turned to the runes. I wouldn’t say I had them completely figured out, but I had a lot of it pieced together. I’d bet I knew as much about them as almost anybody indigenous to Earth.

  They weren’t magic or extremely high-tech. As far as I could see, they were basically some kind of significant emblem to the aliens—unless their mineral composition was specifically reactive with some alien technology.

  To us humans they were informational on some level but really only amounted to bragging rights for most—an alien artifact to keep in one’s pocket. It turns out those bragging rights could be lethal.

  There was another fact I was certain of. I had seen the vector lines on Adams’ map, and they synced up with the angles of these icons to a degree far beyond coincidence. The icons indicated points of reference that Adams had taken an interest in, an interest he had been killed over.

  By early morning, events had shifted into high gear. The brass finally realized we were under attack by some external threat. They didn’t send more security—they sent fresh orders.

  “Huddle up, people,” Major Knox told the alarmed technicians. “I’ve got a new directive. Because of the second death—”

  “Third!” Dr. Fillmore called out from the back. “That girl from the supply team never came back—and she’s not going to.”

  Knox glared at him, and I made note of Fillmore’s consistency. It wasn’t just me that got heckled by Dr. Fillmore—the man was a dick to everyone.

  “In any case, the most recent attack has caused the Ministry to order us to step things up another notch. Essentially, they’ve decided we can’t protect you here on the ground.”

  That sunk in, but it left people blinking in confusion.

  “But we just moved everything into this facility!” someone objected.

  “Does that mean Control is giving up on us, or taking us somewhere else?” another asked.

  Knox pointed a finger at the roof. A lot of people looked up, some wincing. Possibly, they expected to see an alien menace clinging to the struts up there.

  “We’re flying out to Luna Station,” he said.

  There was a tiny hint of disgust in his voice. I wasn’t sure if that was due to the stricken looks on people’s faces, or the nature of the orders themselves.

  “What?” Dr. Fillmore complained instantly. “We’re not ready to deploy this generator! It’s entirely experimental. Explain these simple facts to him, Colonel Hughes.”

  Major Knox glanced at her, but she looked away, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

  “The time schedule has been stepped up,” she said resignedly.

  “What about our alpha testing schedule?” Fillmore sputtered. “If you install this thing on some warship, it’s as likely to blow up as move anything around in space at this point.”

  She nodded. “We’re going to have to skip alpha testing. We’re skipping all further simulations, too. We’re going to try the field-generating engine out in deep-space on the good graces of our thorough research alone.”

  A groundswell of alarmed noises erupted from the crowd.

  “Well,” Fillmore said, crossing his arms, “you can count me out of this fiasco. I can’t be responsible for the death of an entire crew—much less if I’m to
be one of them.”

  “For once,” Dr. Gevan said tiredly, “I agree with Fillmore. It’s too dangerous. I’m out.”

  Major Knox looked at Hughes pointedly, but she said nothing.

  “Well—I’ll be going on this voyage—no matter what,” Toby said decidedly as he pushed through the ring of taller people. “After my dissertation in plasma hydraulics next week, I’m free to go—I’ve already given notice at my internships until further notice.”

  “Colonel Hughes, if you’re not going to tell them the rest, I’ll do it,” Knox said. Then he turned to us and lifted his chin high. “People, this isn’t a request. It’s an order direct from the Ministry of Control.” As he spoke, he rattled a plastic piece of computer paper. The embossed seal looked official enough.

  “We’re heading out, and I’m taking you all into space in leg-irons if I have to. By the way Toby, you’re definitely going, but your little dissertation will have to wait.”

  “My little...? But…”

  ”Nobody leaves. Not from here on out. Access to the city has been cut off.”

  Stunned silence met these words.

  “When do we ship out?” I asked in a calm tone.

  “Tonight,” the major said. “The first shuttle is making its final approach now. We’ll disembark from the roof. Don’t bother with personal items, a fresh kit will be provided for all of you.”

  “What about the engine itself?” Dr. Gevan demanded.

  “It’s not all that big. My men will load it into a shipping carton to protect it, and we’ll be gone in two hours.”

  Fillmore’s face had flushed red with alarm. He turned toward Colonel Hughes. “Tell me you’re doing something to stop this madness. We’ve had an attack by a foreign power—but that’s not cause enough to destroy three years hard work!”

  She shook her head. “It’s out of my hands, Sean.”

  I was shocked when Fillmore turned to me next. He didn’t even like me. “You,” he said. “You’ve got the good sense of a common man. This is a very delicate and experimental piece of equipment. To move it now, in its prototypical state—”