(Author's note: Hey everyone! I'm trying a new way of publishing previews...putting everything for the preview on this page! (less obnoxious unpublishing this way) So, while I'm putting out the previews of Entanglement, I'll just keep adding every few days. So, I hope you like this peek at Entanglement!!!)
Chapter 1 part 2 begins on page 4...
Chapter 2 part 1 begins on page 5...
Chapter 2 part 2 begins on page 7...
*
Entanglement
Chapter 1 (part 1)
Tension spread throughout his back and shoulders as Alan leaned forward. He could do this. He didn’t have to kill anybody today. He wouldn’t kill anybody today.
Trying to drop the tightness out of his arms, he reached down to the grass and picked up a few loose strands. The lawn between the chemistry and physics buildings had been mown just the day before and the chopped blades felt dry against his fingertips.
A quick bend of his knees told him they were warmed up enough to run, maybe even get up to a sprint. He tried to push the anxiety out with a deep breath as he looked around. The line of chemistry grad students snarled at him while the physics grads to his left all stared at him, their faces focused, intent. He knew that not one of them was his enemy, but when he closed his eyes, the memories came back.
Immediately, he was back on the field. His body felt stronger, more stable and the shoulder pads rocked against him as he reached a foot out sharply to the left, matched the movement of the receiver that was trying to step around him. He lowered a shoulder, hit the man low in the ribs, hard. The ball tumbled loose and Alan grabbed it, dug his feet into the turf and sprinted toward the open goal line. As he ran, he shook his head.
The college stadium was gone, replaced by a small backyard. The small body hit him, arms wrapped around his knees and he fell. Alan laughed as his son, Alex, climbed up and pulled the football out of his hands. As a smile grew on his face, Alan wondered how old his son had been then. Maybe six years old? His smile disappeared and he shook his head.
His body felt like it was made of energy as he dodged around Jennifer in the park near their high school. She reached in and he skittered back, made her work to get hold of him. With a laugh, she passed by and nearly stumbled before she turned to run back at him. He sidestepped, but caught her around the waist as she moved by and he pulled her in close, both of them laughing. She felt so good against him, always had. Alan clenched his eyes tighter and shook the memory away.
He kept his muzzle low as he ran through the room. Upstairs, he heard the woman’s screams again. One of his squad mates reached out, tried to slow him down, but he sprinted up the stairs, burst through the first door. There were three men, all around the woman. Their woodland camouflage uniforms were half undone, but each had the patches and insignia of Bosnian Serb infantry. Two of them reached for their machine guns and Alan brought his rifle up, aimed quickly. The third man stumbled back, away from the woman, his hand going to the pistol at his side. As their guns came up, Alan lowered his weight and began to fire, shaking his head.
He ducked as he walked out the door. A book grazed the top of his head as he went out the door, the last box in his arms. “Yeah! Quit!” Her voice echoed out of the house, seemed to bounce off the stone covered lawn and hit him from every direction. “That’s the only thing you’ve got the guts to do!” He stopped, picked the book up from the ground. It was his copy of Atom and Void. Oppenheimer stared up at him from the cover, head cocked to one side as if waiting for an answer. Alan turned, looked at Jennifer and shook his head.
He opened his eyes, forced all the memories away. He was still on the lawn. The chemists on the opposing team were just students who were trying to blow off steam. He looked down the offensive line, at the physics graduate students who he worked with. It was okay; none of them would get hurt today. He nodded.
Frank’s voice called out. “Boson. Boson. Higgs. Heisenberg. Hike!” As he began to run, Alan saw Frank take the snap and fade back into the pocket, while Betty pulled the defensive tackle down to the ground. If there’d been a ref on the field, he would have been glued to Betty on every play, yellow flag in hand.
Of the eight players on the chemistry team, Alan counted four of them heading for him. He dodged around the cornerback, Mahesh, and ran across the field past the two safeties. When he was past them, he doubled back towards the right side of the field and pushed his legs a bit faster. He saw Frank’s arm go back, then stop. Alan pointed ahead, saw Betty push the chemistry tackle back to the ground before warning another defender away with just a point of her finger. Alan was sure she could go pro if she weighed more than a hundred and thirty pounds.
Frank raised both hands in a shrug and Alan let out a groan. He checked behind, saw that the chemistry safeties were yards behind. He stopped and held his hands up in front of his face. “Here!”
After a quick nod, Frank cocked his arm back, stepped and threw. Alan smiled. The throwing lessons they’d done in the machine shop had done some good after all. The ball spiraled forward, and came down ten yards short, dropping directly into Mahesh’s arms.
Alan repeated his groan, sagged down for a second, then started after the chemist. He checked downfield, saw that the defensive tackle had wrapped an arm around Betty’s ankle. He watched he try to break free, saw that she didn’t try to stomp or kick the other grad student and smiled. Maybe there was hope for her.
Ahead, Mahesh was probably twenty yards from the bush they had designated as one goal line. Alan felt his knees grumble quietly as he pushed himself into a sprint. He drew even and saw Mahesh’s eyes widen.
“Get him!” Betty’s voice probably carried across the whole campus. “And get off me, you stinkin’ potboiler!”
Mahesh tried to angle away, but Alan sprinted past him, toward the goal-bush. Then, he crossed his right foot over and spun around one hundred and eighty degrees. Eyes even wider, Mahesh tried to slow down, but could only stick his arms out, one still cradling the football. Alan ran at him, three, two, one step away. Then, he planted his heel hard into the grass, felt himself slow as he lowered his body, one leg stretched forward, the other knee to the ground in a rapidly decelerating lunge. He opened his arms and the intercepting chemist ran right into his shoulder.
With a grunt, Alan locked his arms together, heaved upward, picked Mahesh off the ground and began to run toward the pile of backpacks that marked the other goal line.
He heard Mahesh groan on his shoulder. “Seriously?” the man asked.
For a moment, no one else moved. Then, the chemistry tackle let go of Betty’s leg and turned to his teammates. “Get him!” In an instant, they all stopped gawking and ran at Alan. He dodged around the first pair, but the weight on his shoulder slowed him, made it harder to feint around the remaining four. He ran straight for the row of backpacks, less than ten yards away, that made up the other goal line.
But the defenders got to him before he could make it even half way. First one, then two others, wrapped their arms around his waist. He slowed, struggled to keep running forward. The last chemist stopped in front of him, her arms out. Then, Alan saw her jerk her head to the side. “Crap,” she said. She spun and ran. With a jerk at his waist, Alan felt one of the chemists let go. He looked down, saw Betty wrap an arm around another defender’s face and pry him off.
And then he was free. The last of the other team scurried away from Betty and Alan hoisted Mahesh higher up onto his shoulder and ran. As he jumped over the packs, he saw Professor Sanders standing on the sidewalk, watching the game. The sun glinted on the ornate Montegrappa fountain pen in the professor’s shirt pocket. Alan had never seen Sanders actually write with the thing, but it was always displayed prominently when he was out on campus, the hand-worked silver snake peeking above the fabric.
Alan stopped and eased Mahesh down as the professor waved him over. Mahesh handed him the ball. “Was that a touchdown or a safety?”
Before Alan could answer, Betty jogged up with Frank a few steps behind. Betty looked ready for more, but Frank was winded by the short run. As Betty launched herself onto his back and let out a yell, Alan threw Frank the ball.
“You should have flattened him!” Alan watched Mahesh step away at the tone in Betty’s voice.
“Alan?” Sanders said.
“Thanks guys. I gotta go,” Alan said, poking a thumb at Sanders. He dropped Betty and walked toward the professor, who started toward their building. Behind him, Alan heard Betty and Frank moving. He peeked back, saw Frank hand the football to Mahesh.
“That was a touchdown,” Betty said as she stabbed a finger at Mahesh’s chest as she followed Frank to trail after Alan.
Sanders led the way into the building and up the stairs. The door opened behind him.
“He’s gonna quit,” Frank said.
“Shut up!” Betty said.
“I know it. He’s gonna say it’s not worth it and he’s gonna quit.”
“Shut up!”
Alan heard a thud, knew it was the sound of Betty’s fist hitting Frank’s meaty shoulder. “Ow.”
Alan turned, pointed to himself as he kept walking up the stairs. “Guys, I’m right here. I can hear you.” Neither of his friends replied as he reached the second floor and followed Sanders into his office.
The walls were decorated with photos of Sanders with Senators, California Governors and administrators from NASA and the military. Sanders set the expensive pen on the desk as he sat and waved Alan to a chair. “It’s been two days Alan, I have to know.”
The chair was soft, comfortable. The professor hosted a number of visitors here who signed off on large grants and contracts. Alan figured this was the kind of chair they would like, but he liked the old stool at his work desk better.
He nodded. “I know. I’m sorry I haven’t given you an answer yet.”
Sanders nodded back, spoke slowly. “And I know what you’re thinking. I feel the same way, I do.”
At that, Alan couldn’t stop his eyes from traveling to the wall at his right. Above a low bookshelf, there was a grid of photos with Sanders shaking hands with a potpourri of generals, most in Army and Air Force uniforms.
Another nod from Sanders. “I know. It’s part of the business.” His fingers tapped the pen. “But I have to warn you. How many labs have you been at in the last two years alone? No one is going to hire you if you quit. When I checked your references, your last two supervisors warned me not to.”
Alan nodded back. “Yeah. I imagine.”
Sanders picked up his pen, tapped it on an open folder. “But you’ve done such good work for us. Can’t you do the assignment? Please?”
“I just,” Alan said. He paused, knowing what this answer would probably mean, what it would cost him. “I just don’t think I can do it.”
“Listen. I understand. Okay? I don’t like the military contracts either.” This time, Sanders’ eyes went to the photos first. He frowned. “But they assured me that the work is just for secure quantum communications equipment. It’s not a weapon. And this is really your area.”
Alan waited before responding. He didn’t think there was a way he could explain it all to Sanders. He looked from the pictures to the bookshelf. The memory of Oppenheimer’s book came back. He didn’t see it in the professor’s library. “Everything’s a weapon to them.”
The pen fell to the desk with a heavy thud. Sanders frowned a minute, then put up his hands, palms out to Alan, as if trying to stop him from jumping off a ledge. “Okay. Okay. We need you, okay? Just stay and help with this. If you do, I’ll get you into the PhD program. Full ride, fellowship, a post-doc, you name it. Think what you could do. In five years you could have your own lab.”
Alan leaned forward, rubbed his eyes with one hand. It still smelled like grass and the leather of the football. He had always loved those scents, often missed them. “I’m sorry. I have a son, a…an ex-wife. I just can’t. I can’t build weapons.”
“And you know what this will do to your future. I won’t be able to give you a recommendation, nothing.”
Alan heard Frank’s words come back. “It’s just not worth it.”
He looked up, saw the frown grow on Sanders’ face. “You know what that means,” the professor said.
“Yeah.” Alan stood up, offered a hand. Sanders slowly reached out and shook it. “Thanks for everything.”
He walked out the door, found Frank and Betty leaning against the wall. Frank was trying to turn his head to the right while pointing his eyes to the left, down into the cleavage exposed by Betty’s v-necked t-shirt. She pushed off the wall and the two joined Alan.
He could feel them watching him as they walked along, but he didn’t know what to tell them, didn’t even know what to really think. He heard Frank speak, his voice hushed. “Told ya he’d quit.” The sound of Betty punching him was much louder this time.
Chapter 1 (part 2)
The cardboard box was only half full, but Alan thought he had everything cleared off his bench. He pulled Alex’s picture out to double check. The photo was from his son’s middle school graduation, already two years out of date. He held it off to the side and dug through the box one handed through the mixed pile of tools he had collected over the years. He had brought them with him whenever he got a new job. It looked like he’d have to find a new home with them somewhere. But that worry would have to wait.
He eased the photo back down. The only thing missing from the box was the receiver, which Frank was cradling against his belly like it was a Faberge egg. Frank pressed down on one of the buttons on the front panel.
“Hey,” Alan said. “Don’t do that. I don’t know who’s on the other end. You could be messing with the Gold Codes there.”
Frank’s eyebrows went nearly up to his hairline for a moment until the joke made its way through his skull. They both knew the President’s nuclear launch codes were called in on a phone, not over a quantum communications receiver. Hardly anyone on the planet was able to do that. With a frown and the downturned lip of an average four year old, Frank handed the receiver back and Alan put it in the box.
“Come on, don’t leave me here with him,” Betty said, nodding at Frank.
“Thanks,” Frank said. He dropped the sneer he had thrown at Betty and looked back to Alan. “Where ya gonna go?”
“I…no idea,” Alan said.
“I know a guy. New start up. He’d kill to have you.” Frank shrugged. “Just, ya know…”
Alan nodded. “Yeah. No money yet.” He checked the drawers a second time; all were empty.
Betty stepped up as he started to grab the box. “What about getting a few beers? Frank’s buying.” She smiled up at him and he felt one of her fingers rest against his on the edge of the cardboard box.
“Thanks, but…” Alan shrugged, picked up the box and broke the physical connection. “I’ve got my three day weekend with Alex. I’m gonna get an early start.”
She took one step toward him, stopped. “But…what are you gonna do?”
Alan forced a smile onto his face and shrugged.
He slid the box onto the driver’s seat of the ancient Scout, thumbed it on and checked the meters he had bolted onto the dashboard. The module efficiency for the roof panel was down to thirty-two percent. He reached up to the roof. The tiny aluminum studs and the anti-reflection coating felt rough under his finger tip as he dragged it across the solar panel’s surface.
The finger came back up dirty. Even though Alan had rubbed most of his fingerprints off through years working in machine shops, he could still see a fine smear of dust rubbed into the tiny lines on his skin. He looked up, scanned over the surface of the panel and saw a white and blue smear in the middle. Bird poop.
He sighed, leaned his forehead on the door frame a moment before pushing the box across the bench seat to the passenger’s side and climbing in. His hands found the hard, worn plastic of the steering wheel and wrapped around it. Slowly, his grip tightened and the muscles of his whole body clenched. He shook the wheel once, and again as the metal and plastic creaked under his grip. “Damn it. Damn it.”
After a moment, he forced a deep breath into his lungs and blew it out through his teeth. “Moron. I am a freaking moron.” He started to lean back, but when his head met only air, he wished he had made a pair of headrests for the old seat. But he’d been too busy working on the receiver in every spare moment for the past eight months. And when he started picking up the signal two months ago, the little device had consumed even more of his time.
He pulled in another breath. For a moment, with the plastic of the steering wheel under his palms, he could still feel the rifle in his hands. He let go, felt the tension in his shoulders, as if he still had pads on and was getting ready to slam himself into a running back.
The tension lasted another minute, but began to break with another half dozen breaths. Alan looked over at the box, then reached into the backseat, tugged the enormous backpack closer and pulled a notebook out of the top compartment. He set the notebook in his lap, pulled a pen from the spiral binding and took the receiver out of the box.
He looked down at the device, frowned at it. “You’re no weapon. And I won’t let you be one.”
Less shaky, he turned the receiver over in his hands. The never changing honeycomb of quantum receivers on the back was a contrast to the screen on the front. He thumbed it on and saw the string of letters appear on the small touch screen.
L W J J Y N S L X
He wrote the string down in the notebook, then slid a finger over the screen, highlighting the letters. For a long moment, he waited, frowning at the screen. Then, he tapped the downward arrow and the letters all changed.
M X K K Z O T M Y
There was no noise, no motion from the box as it changed the spin on the particles it was reading. He shook his head, still frowning. “Who the hell am I talking to?”
With a last deep breath, Alan put the receiver in the box, jerked the car into gear and pulled out of his parking space.
*
Chapter 2 (part 1)
The bobble head doll, always motionless, began to jiggle, the head bouncing back and forth over its painted on t-shirt that read ROSWELL RULES. Its overlarge head, black, almond shaped eyes and green skin had always amused Pilot. He thought that, aside from the skin color, the likeness wasn’t too bad.
The doll wobbled again, it’s head bouncing up, down and sideways as the base shook under another impact. The three dimensional image behind it flickered for a moment, then came back into focus. The image showed a flattened diamond, stretched longer toward the front, but with several of its facets removed to expose a frame of girders, passageways, and ductwork.
As the doll wobbled, the image of the ship changed. One of the missing facets began to grow over the airframe. Pilot stuck a long, gray skinned finger into the model of the ship, the one they had named Ambassador, and spun it. The far side of the ship showed one of the rear panels hadn’t finished yet either. He knew it wouldn’t be done in time.
He turned away from his display to the Commander, and for a brief moment was amazed at how small she looked. The base and the Ambassador had been made to accommodate visitors and Pilot had never gotten used to the tall ceilings. The Commander turned from one console, which held a projection of a blue, brown and green planet to her external sensors. But the moment she brought up an image, the base shook and all the displays blinked out. She turned to Pilot and their large, black eyes met.
Pilot nodded, a gesture he had picked up from the beings that would have been the visitors, rushed to the door and left the bridge. He ran down the too-tall hallway, stopped at the railing and looked out the viewing wall at the expanse of the asteroid field that had always been empty. But in the last few moments, it had filled with a swarm of ships. Some of them circled around the base, others fired on it, or directed small bits of floating rock toward it. The largest vessel, which was surrounded by a ring of giant triangular spikes, was bearing down directly at the station.
As it fell closer, Pilot could see the docking bay at its nose, a large door surrounded by a circle of clamping spikes. He turned, ran back to the bridge. With a look at the Commander, he sent her what he knew; that the Harath would be boarding the base. And with that, he knew her wishes. He nodded again and hurried to his console.
As the base healed the damage from the last impact, the projection of Ambassador came back up. With a wave of his long fingers, he turned the console off and reached for the bobble head doll. And just as he did, the base shook. He knew it was the giant Harath carrier ramming and attaching itself to the base.
The bobble head doll fell to the floor, with Pilot stumbling down next to it. He looked over, saw his commander. She was also on the floor, and she wanted him to hurry.
He grabbed the bobble head from the floor, stood, and ran to the door.
*
First turned two large eyes, then another two, toward the other Harath in the docking chamber. They had all been aboard the ship for too long. The hunting had not been good and they were all withered, both from lack of gravity and pressure and from lack of food.
He wrapped a free limb around one of the struts, felt the vibration as the docking spikes sank into the outer walls of his prey’s base and begin to tear an opening. Without turning, he ran a series of colors down the photophores of his mantle. The signals ended about midway down each appendage, where the membrane stopped. The thin tissue that stretched between his eight limbs was scarred and torn in places. The flexible skin that hadn’t been injured or cut away in battle was etched with tattoos that spoke of his rank and accomplishments.
Following his signal, the boarding party reached for the water tubes and pulled them to their mouths. He turned one set of eyes to Second, made sure that his lieutenant was also drinking before encircling his own tube. The spikes on the interior of his limb clacked against the tube as he brought it to his mouth and closed his circular row of teeth around it. The water that rushed in when he bit down on the valve was salty enough but tasted too clean. It had no scent of blood to it to give it the proper flavor.
But he drank deep, felt the water fill his stomach. After one last drink, he dropped the tube and began to churn his body, sending the salt water throughout his limbs and mantle. Then, with an involuntary shudder, he felt his body begin to generate the electric current that would split the water. His mantle and the sides of his limbs began to expand as the gasses separated. The excess oxygen leaked out through its collection cells, but the hydrogen was diverted and trapped within air tight sacks that covered his body.
Before his ship had finished tearing an opening into the prey’s base, he had expanded to twice his original size. The hydrogen spread throughout his body did make him more vulnerable to heat based weapons, but the mobility it gave him as he entered the gravity of the base was worth the risk.
As he finished splitting the water, he saw the movement he had been waiting for. His second hadn’t had any water yet, was still at his dehydrated state. The process of separating the water into two gasses generally left them slow for a few moments, but First had known what Second would do. He had been waiting for it.
As Second slashed out, First turned, grabbed a second strut for leverage and swung the end claw of a limb at Second’s support arm. He cut through it and Second drifted, left without an anchor in the microgravity. First then deflected the other attacking limbs, taking a few new cuts as he did, and turned Second around while the mutineer still vulnerable. He clamped his appendages around Second’s bare mantle, dug eight rows of claws into the skin and sawed them deep into the flesh.
Second struggled, thrashed in an attempt to escape. First opened his circular mouth, sank his teeth in and pulled out a large chunk of his former lieutenant’s body. The process of generating the current to split the water had drained some of his reserves and he knew he would need the energy for the hunt.
A moment later, Second stopped struggling and First threw the body into the crowd of hunters. They tore it to small bits, eating even the claws and teeth.
And then the inner door opened and he turned one set of eyes out toward the interior of his prey’s base. He flashed a signal to wish his followers good hunting and went through the door.
*
Chapter 2 (part 2)
Pilot ran with the others to the hangar bay. The base had stopped shuddering and many systems were already healing themselves back into working order. Displays on the wall showed the status of the transport ships, an alert on the breech in the wall and a projection of Harath streaming into the base.
The others ran to their transports, but Pilot hurried off to the side, away from the crowd and toward the large segmented ship at the end of the bay. As he approached, the cockpit clam-shelled open and he climbed inside. The displays turned on as the cockpit sealed shut. He watched the hangar doors slide open as he sealed the base of his bobble head doll down onto the flat space on the far side of his display.
His eyes moved up from the blank display to a section of space that looked just as empty. With the attack underway, he had expected to see a swarm of Harath fighters waiting for the transports to launch. He knew it was a risk for everyone heading into a crowd of attacking ships, but there was no choice. Staying on the base was a much bigger risk. He reached into his display, expanded its scope and saw that the Harath carriers were still on the far side of the base. The transports were quicker than those large ships, so it looked like the evacuation might work.
From the edge of his vision, he saw the pilots of the other ships must have reached the same conclusion. They launched out into the belt and began to spread out, each taking its own escape path before regrouping back at their home world. His was the only ship that wouldn’t be going home.
He started his ship’s main and maneuvering drives. A slight hum ran from the engines, through his seat and into his body. He had always enjoyed the sensation and the excitement that it brought. It reminded him of the entertainment that the visitors often made and broadcast from their planet into space. He only wished his ship made some of the same noises that the vessels in those movies did instead of flying silently.
As the other ships left the hangar, Pilot double checked the status of his cargo and looked at the screen again. It didn’t make sense. When he had looked out the viewing window, the base had been surrounded by ships of all sizes, many of them fighters. But when he brought up more detailed scans of the area, he only saw the giant carriers and the base, whose outer skin looked to be nearly covered with rips and holes. He didn’t know if the base would be able to heal itself from that much damage, and he hoped that his commander had made it to her ship.
Hands in the control display, Pilot moved out of the hangar and the doors closed behind him. As he moved away from the base, he tilted his ship’s nose up perpendicular to the base’s plane, to get a first-hand look at the damage. And that was when he saw what the holes were.
A Harath fighter launched out of each of the gashes in the outer hull. Some of the damage had already begun to heal over and the erupting ships only reopened the wounds when they left their hiding places. Before he could react, there was a cloud of fighters falling toward his ship and the rest of the transports. He knew the other pilots would have picked up on the threat, but he swiped through the alarm image in his display before powering his ship directly upward, perpendicular to the swarm of fighters.
While clearing their plane of attack, he watched out the canopy, didn’t see any attackers high above the base. A bright flash in his display brought his attention down. The first of the transports exploded and almost instantly faded away. He called up more detail and the crowd of ships in his display suddenly grew tails that showed their velocity. Small streams of light showed energy and projectile weapons being fired by the attackers. One of the Harath ships dove through its own group’s fire, closed in and landed on a transport. Almost instantly, that ship was gone too.
Pilot did a half roll and brought his nose up 90 degrees so that he saw straight into the slaughter when he looked up out of the canopy. One after another of the transports were either shredded or blown apart in a tiny, spherical flash of energy before any of them could escape.
Then, as the number of transports dwindled, Pilot saw two of the Harath fighters peel off and head toward him. He tilted his nose down and continued in the same direction he had originally gone. His display glowed more brightly as the two fighters closed in. Warning lights flashed from the little images of the attacking ships as they fired on him. He rolled to the side, nosed up and accelerated more directly away from them.
Out the cockpit window, he saw one of the blasts soar past him, only two ship lengths away. He had to program in a destination for his main drive to fix on, but he couldn’t use the visitor’s planet. The Harath might be able to track him and the humans would be defenseless. He picked an old, abandoned base as his first target. He would jump several more times from there before going to his final destination. The Ambassador wasn’t completed yet, but he would do his duty and get the visitors to it.
He began to key in his first destination when his display showed another volley coming at him. He maneuvered directly to the side and saw a large projectile sail past. For a moment, he wished the asteroid belt was more like the ones portrayed in the human movies. In one film, the asteroids had been so thick that as the good guys swerved around, their pursuers actually crashed into the giant rocks. Pilot had never seen an asteroid field that crowded and knew they didn’t really exist. The only place in this belt that was remotely packed was the area surrounding the Ambassador, and his people had moved those asteroids there to help conceal the ship while it was being constructed.
While that dense area was close by, Pilot knew it wouldn’t do him any good. The fighters on his tail stayed too far away to be lured into such an unlikely, asteroid smashed, death. Instead, they trailed after him, slightly separate, and one of them fired again.
With the warning provided by his display, he dove and rolled away from the attack, locking in the destination for his first jump. But, as he completed the spin and reached into the display to jump away, the second ship veered closer and fired. He tried to turn away, but only managed to turn what would have been a direct hit into a glancing blow that struck the large segment at the rear of his ship. Metal creaked, bent and twisted together as the ship spun with the hit.
The bobble head doll came loose at the impact, crashed into the side of the cockpit and shattered. Everything in Pilot’s vision went dark and out of focus and it took him a moment to realize that he had nearly done what the doll had. He reached up, felt a gash on his forehead and saw a clear film of liquid on his fingers. It was also smeared on the cockpit glass by the side of his head. It had happened so fast, and he had been so focused on his flying that he hadn’t even noticed his own head being slammed into the window.
A light from the display caught his eyes. He blinked thin hidden membranes down and tried to focus on it. There were two transports left, each trying to maneuver away. With another explosion, there was only one…and then the last one was swarmed and covered with Harath fighters.
He blinked again. He was the last one. Everyone else had been killed in the attack. He stared at the screen, his hands still except for a slight trembling that seemed to be growing worse.
And then two images in the display, the ones behind his ship, began to glow brighter. And as he saw them fire at him, his focus came back and he remembered what he had to do. He had to get away.
As their weapons fire closed in, Pilot reached a shaky hand into the display, triggered the engine and jumped away.
*
First dug another row of claws into the joint where the two halves of the door met and pulled. The extra buoyancy of the hydrogen he had split made it possible for him to use every limb to pry the doors open instead of needing several to hold himself up. Slowly, the door gave way and slid open.
He swung inside the control room and found one of the little four limbed creatures working at an open panel. That was good. There had been too few of the things left on the base and he had left them to his troops. This one, though, this one would be for him.
The small thing turned toward him. Its single pair of eyes locked on his and he felt a vague impression of emotion from it. He knew that they communicated this way and found it ridiculous and overly complicated. He had never needed to share so much of his thoughts with his hunters. As long as he kept them fed, they followed him.
But, keeping them from hunger was becoming more difficult. These little gray creatures, while nourishing enough, were getting harder to find. He had led his fleet to more than two sets of eight of their bases and still hadn’t found their home world. If he didn’t find it soon, then he would be fighting off more than one of his lieutenants.
He let the creature stare at him a moment, rotated in place so that he could look at it with a different set of eyes. It wasn’t fear of being eaten that it was sending at him. It was anger, defiance and something else; satisfaction. He knew then that despite the damage to the base, this little thing had managed to erase the location of its world from the base’s records.
A ripple of color involuntarily ran down his mantle and he reached for the four legged thing. And as he did, the display stand next to it hummed and an image of a planet glowed above it. Two-thirds of it was covered in water, and the land was brown and green, with ice at the poles. But when he looked at it, even on the small image, he could see signs of imposed order. There were cities on that planet, and that meant food.
One pair of eyes was still locked onto the little gray and the emotions it sent out switched to surprise and panic and fear. The little thing must not have known this display was still active. One arm out, it ran for the display on its two worthless legs, but First simply snapped out one limb and wrapped around its midsection. He squeezed, let his claws dig in, and even without eye contact felt the rush of pain from the creature.
Before the rush of foreign emotion and sensation grew too strong, he pulled the thing into his mouth and clenched his teeth into it. As he swallowed the rest of it, he turned another set of eyes onto the display of the blue-green world. There, he would find food for all of his people.
*
(Author's note: There you go gang! A hero who won't fight anymore, little gray aliens under attack by giant, killer vampirotoothus-like killers...All I can say at this point is Las Vegas is going to be in ruins! (Not to mention the rest of our poor planet) Please let me know what you think and if you all like it, I'll see about getting more of this to you soon!)