Ally or Alien: A Sci-Fi Novel (26 page)

Maybe God was a geek.

Who knew?

Except Bellrock's vision sharpened and he saw a face.

It was male.

Dark. 

And shiny, at least considering the mouth, exposing the whitest smile Bellrock had ever seen. The familiar and yet so distant figure grinned with endless fire inside.

"How are you doing, captain?"

Say what?

Bellrock focused his eyes and tried to pinpoint his thoughts that were rushing 'round like loose rockets in the cloud. With every passing second, the mind mist cleared a little. Associations haunted him back, as well as names. Bellrock widened his eyes and echoed the guy's smile.

He knew this fella.

All too well.

"Dr. freaking Rao."

64

"Welcome back," a female voice said.

eLoom's face appeared next to Dr. Rao's, and for a sec, he still believed to be in the holy kingdom. All three reuniting above the clouds, but that idea faded. The oxygen mask around his mouth, cabled to some kind of life support system, was a giveaway. 

This wasn't heaven.

This was a Newtype repair bay.

The three infamous cybernetic arms hovered around him, scanning his body and working on his missing...arm. 

Bellrock swallowed. There was a new version attached to the cybernetic stump. It looked more realistic than his last, even the skin color matched his own. He couldn't even detect the border between where his real skin from the elbow began and where the new attachment ended. A single thought, and every new finger moved in perfect harmony. Bellrock moved his palm upside down, waved through the air and formed a fist.

It felt so natural, as if it was real.

Organic, like the rest of his body.

A gentle voice sounded from behind.

"We had to replace your stump. One of the damaged parts of your cybernetic prothesis drilled into your upper arm and threatened to cut into your humerus. But do not worry, our replacements are of the highest bionic quality."

Bellrock sighed as he watched the result. He had to admit—it looked rather impressive. As good as a real arm, if not better. The response rate was sublime, even faster than his already superb Onimech prothesis, and that reigned as the number one bionic limb back on Earth. But did it mean one fourth of him was a 'Newtype' now? 

Bellrock was too tired to worry about that.

He rotated his head to the other side and glanced at eLoom and the doc standing next to each other like siblings from a different race.

"What happened in space?"

eLoom smiled.

"You blacked out because your oxygen supply diminished. We were picked up."

"Picked up?"

"I was trying to tell you the whole time, but with no B2B connection, I could only move my lips. I had ordered a recon droid from the ringstation and synced our coordinations."

And here Bellrock was, believing he could single-handedly fly back to the station to become the hero of the day. Ego aside, he was safe, and so was his partner, Sriniva Rao.

"How are you, buddy?"

"Excellent. The second I and eKazumi entered the space elevator, I was transferred to a new repair pod."

He looked as healthy as an athlete after the steroid treatment. Even the skin seemed to glow in a natural tan again.

"You are completely fit?"

eLoom grinned.

"The wonder of Newtype technology. You are both in the best state of your health."

Bellrock sank his head into the pillow-like substance underneath the back of his neck. He needed to be fit for his trip home or else complications would arise during the long-distance travel.

Crazy times.

He looked back at Dr. Rao when a vibration rumbled through the repair bay. The power of an earthquake, equivalent to a level 3 on the Richter scale.

Or so it felt.

Every cell in Bellrock's body rioted again, the tension surged. Adrenaline spread into his veins and flushed throughout the circulatory system.

"What the hell was that?"

eLoom pressed her lips and sweetened her voice. 

"Ah, yes, we still have a complication to deal with it. Do not worry about it. You are safe in here."

Whenever she said that, he worried twice as much. eLoom was the queen of downplaying. That's why the captain waited for the response of his Terran partner.

"Rao, give it to me straight."

"The Newtype are still dealing with the biomorph. It has expanded its reach."

Expanded its reach?

Did it mean...

The only answer could be a visual one.

Bellrock ripped the oxygen mask from his mouth, waved away the robot arms around him and climbed out the pod, dressed only in a skin-tight tunic. His bare feet touched the cold, white floor of the repair bay and sprinted toward the shutter gate. Both Rao and eLoom tried to halt him.

"Do not panic," the female Newtype said.

Bellrock darted into the nearby corridor and found a wall which he could wipe into transparency. Another vibration shook up the ground, so he spread his legs for maximum stability. With a stripe of the wall now cleared, he saw what he didn't want to see. The 180 degree view shock-frosted every part of his body. 

65

Space shuttles.

Shooting up from the Martian atmosphere like mechanical javelins. Roaring along trajectories that intersected with different sections of the ringstation. One of them crashed into a floating mobile platform that circumnavigated the station and shattered into a debris onslaught. Pieces fired into all directions and holed nearby vessels. A new squadron of droids flew in a diamond formation and laser-destroyed the resulting space debris to prevent any more collateral damage. 

"What's going on?"

eLoom and Dr. Rao caught up with him.

"The biomorph has infected a back-up shuttle launch facility and is sending corrupted vessels at our ringstation. It tries everything it can to reach us in space."

Bellrock threw her a look.

"It's not trying to reach you, eLoom, it's trying to wipe you all out."

First the corrupted shuttle in the space elevator, now the ships from the Martian surface. The damn creature was obsessed with taking out every humanoid life form, no matter the cost. On Mars, it was fairly easy to escape the creature because of the vast surface space. But within the ringstation, it was nearly impossible to dodge the corrupted shuttles. 

"What's the plan?"

eLoom again.

"We have forty-four turrets and five squadrons of droids that can dispose of the debris and laser bots that can alter the direction of the incoming shuttles."

"That's it?"

She tilted her head and awaited his answer. 

"You're going to play defense till the biomorph has fired every flying object at us?"

"What's the alternative?"

Easy.

Blow that sucker into oblivion.

Short and painless, which wasn't the Newtype way, but their methodology proved useless at this stage. Their tactic of evasion and escape cost them shuttles, hovergliders and whole facilities, which wasn't 'sustainably' in any way. How could they still underestimate the power of the organism?

Bellrock switched to his soldier mode.

"Don't tell me you're still trying to talk the biomorph out of it?"

Dr. Rao, who had been silent during the conversation, chimed in.

"Captain, this is Newtype territory. We have to let them deal with the life form on their terms."

"That's what we did over the last sols, and that's why we lost the Farsight facility, the astroport and almost you."

That shut him up. He stepped backwards and swallowed, probably trying to create a reasonable counter-argument.

He couldn't.

And Bellrock was tired of talking philosophy. 

"eLoom. You—“

Another vibration. 

This time much closer—a smaller vessel, maybe some kind of corrupted Newtype probe, crashed into a far away section of the ringstation and ripped through the hull. 

Layers pealed off. 

Debris spread wide. 

Every other ten seconds, some object seemed to tear apart or crash into another vessel. This was material mayhem, but eLoom told him to calm down.

"That section is already sealed off from the rest. It will mean no danger to us."

Her cool demeanor threw him off. 

Here she was, eLoom the pacifier, talking like a calm stewardess while the ringstation was getting shot apart. Bellrock hammered his fists against the transparent wall and yelled.

"This freak of nature is on the ground firing at us. And all you have are forty-four petty little turrets?"

"And droids," Dr. Rao said, "don't forget about the droids."

Bellrock flashed him a dismissive glance before focusing back on eLoom.

Blah blah was over.

It was time for epic measures, military style.

"Wipe it out on the ground."

"We can not."

"Oh, you can, you just don't want to. Fine, send me down there with an exoframe, some disk grenades and a smart beam rifle and I'll blast it to smithereens myself."

She rolled her eyes like a real human being. Despite the aggression in his voice, she remained perfectly calm.

"You alone will not be able to stop it, believe me. We could barely escape Farsight."

"Just watch me."

Bellrock, going full berserk again.

Blame it on the testosterone rocketing through his veins. But he was tired of playing the silent observer, seeing his surroundings and friends getting blasted apart. Minimal invasive maneuvers made sense when colonizing a planet, but it was a lunatic approach when dealing with a hostile life form. The passiveness of the Newtype bordered on self-destruction. 

And no matter how much he tried to reason, he fell on inactive ear channels.

In the right corner of his eyes, he noticed Dr. Rao stammering and turning pale. 

"What is it?"

The young doc simply pointed toward the transparent wall left to them and stuttered.

Now Bellrock saw it, too. A space shuttle entered the orbital space of the ringstation and accelerated like an autonomous projectile. Nearby turrets on the hull unleashed stakes of energy that ripped through its hull, but it was too late. The damaged ship impacted the adjacent section...

66

"Run."

eLoom's only response as she pointed toward the opposite direction of the corridor. Bellrock blasted from his spot and targeted the far away shutter gate with Dr. Rao. eLoom sprinted with them when the walls bent over twenty meters behind her. Looked like a giant, invisible hand was squeezing the section from the outside. 

"Run, run, run," eLoom said behind Bellrock.

"And don't look back."

Too late. 

Bellrock pushed his legs and gazed at eLoom's direction. The corridor gate tore apart. A nugget-size holed punched through the rear and ate through the material. 

Shit. 

Bellrock and Rao neared the closest shutter gate which was still over ten meters away. eLoom grabbed both of the men's arms and spearheaded the sprint.

"You need to be faster, guys."

She stormed toward the shutter slit and pushed the men into the next corridor like a disk-throwing athlete. They 'flew' through the opening before the shutter gate closed itself by default. eLoom was separated from the duo and glanced through the transparent door on the other side. Bellrock got back on his feet and shot back the eye contact. 

"Open the door and come with us."

"I can't", she said, "the Exec has sealed your section from mine. There is a hole on the other side of the corridor which decompresses the whole compartment."

Bellrock frowned.

"Then hurry."

He battered the gate with his naked fists and yelled, but whoever was in charge of the mechanism didn't bother to listen. eLoom stood on the other side, only separated by twenty centimeters of transparent armor.

So close, and yet so far away.

The story of Bellrock's space life.

A horror story.

"Come on."

He looked past eLoom's shoulder and saw the hole on the other end of the corridor demolishing. The void sucked the air from the section and blew out everything that wasn't attached to the ground. Boxes and little crates tumbled into the nothingness of space. 

Never to be seen again.

"Hurry up," Bellrock said to no avail.

eLoom pushed her face at the other side of the door and smiled.

"I told you the Exec has made their decision. But it's okay, I'm not afraid."

Bellrock knocked his fists against his side of the door till his knuckles became bloody. Dr. Rao stood next to him and breathed heavily. 

"There is nothing you can do, sir."

"Shut up."

Thousands of thoughts rushed through his mind. He tried to find a solution to get eLoom into his corridor, but he lacked everything. He didn't have an exoframe, no directed-energy weapon or any kind of tool that would help him break through the gate. He was still half-naked, wearing only a tunic covering up his torso and genitals. 

"eLoom. Can't you break through the gate? I know you're strong."

She shook her head and held onto the wall as the void sucked everything out.

“Sometimes, our desires to shape fate are out of tune with the universe’s flow. I have accepted my personal path.”

Bellrock ignored the melancholy of her speech and continued his hammer feast. The blood seeped from his fingers and dribbled on the water-resistant surface of the gate.

"Save your sentimental BS and help me open up this door."

More silence.

Followed by an intense stare from eLoom. For a second, Bellrock lost himself in her blue orbs, vibrating like two planets.

eLoom said,

"Bellrock, I'm sure you're going places. In this life cycle or the next, we will see each other again. That is what I hope for."

Her face nothing but serenity itself.

And that was it.

The vacuum pull of the space void tore her away.

Like a crash test dummy, she slammed against the walls, broke apart her left leg, hammered against the sharp opening of the far away hole and vanished into the blackness of the cosmos.