Escape 1: Escape From Aliens (4 page)

“Who the fuck are you!”

He smiled. “Bill MacCarthy. Retired Navy SEAL. Left as Chief Petty Officer. I escaped from my cell. Want to leave yours?”

“Uh, well, yes!” she grunted, her dark brown eyes flashing over him as she tracked what he held in each hand, then scanned him. No doubt she noted his hiking boots, checkered shirt and jeans, and backpack. Plus the white tube weapon and red cube he held in his hands. She fixed on his lightly bearded face and blinked slanted eyes as her Asian face showed puzzlement. “I’m Captain Jane Yamaguchi. Active duty with the 21
st
Space Wing, Air Force Space Command at Peterson AFB. What’s your plan?”

Military like him. Nice. She had stepped back two paces, but was clearly ready to jump through the open door. Which her toss of the food slab and her run at him said was something she had planned since being captured. If the door ever opened she planned to run through it. And through anybody in the way. He liked that.

“Do what I told Diligent Taskmaster. Pursue him, capture him, capture his starship and free the other captives.”

She gave him a half grin. “Typical SEAL. The objective always commands the actions.” She looked aside at her tent and a backpack that sat outside it. “How long can you hold open that door? Long enough for me to grab my stuff?”

Bill nodded, looking back over his shoulder at the central walkway. No one had entered, either by the nearby metal door or the more distant one. “It won’t close while a person stands on the sill. I opened it with this red cube I took from the crewman who came to fix the air flow of my place.” He turned back as Jane moved swiftly to pull on her backpack, grab her own hiking boots from inside the tent along with a canteen, then turned to face him.

“Ready to exit.”

He turned in the doorway, still standing on the sill. “Pass by me to the central walkway and hold there until I join you.”

Faster than he expected she ran past him. Turning at the juncture of the cell walkway and the central walkway, she gestured at the nearby metal door that faced their end of the walkway. “Can your red cube open that door?”

Bill grinned, then ran out, around her and up to the eight foot high metal door. Which like all the doors he’d seen was an oval, wider in the middle than at the top or bottom. Like the containment module doors there was no external door opening control or touch panel. “Don’t know. Let’s see.” He pointed the cube at the door and touched the round spot on its upper face.

A grinding sound began, then the gray metal door slid slowly to the left. In front of them lay a square room that seemed empty, though with a similar giant door at the far side of the room.

“Bill, get in there fast!”

He jumped over the door sill that met the walkway, then scanned the room to confirm it was as empty as it had seemed at first glance. Twenty feet wide by twenty long, it was illuminated by a bright red glow on the middle of the ceiling. A line of wall hooks ran along either side of the opposite doorway. From them hung what looked like tubes of transparent fabric. From behind came the sound of the heavy metal door sliding shut. “I’m in. Why so fast?”

Jane looked up, around, then shook her head. She walked to him, paused at a foot out, gave him a smile and reached up with her arms to pull his head down to hers. He cooperated.

“Cause,” she whispered into his ear. “That bastard Alien likely has the ability to listen to any part of this starship. Like it heard us in the cells.” Jane pressed tighter against him. “Pretend like we can’t believe we escaped. Hug me tighter.”

“Happy to,” he whispered. “Explain more.”

She nipped his left ear with her teeth. “Should be obvious. That chamber with the cell modules in it was meant to be opened to space. There was a long black line on the ceiling, like the old STS shuttle cargo bay. That chamber opens to space so our containment modules can be delivered to the spaceship of our Buyer. Remember what it said about why the Collectors do what they do?”

Shit. Double shit
. “Point taken. But can’t it do the same to this room?”

“Maybe,” she whispered. “I’m guessing this room works as an airlock. For passage by crew into and out from the cell chamber when a collector pod brings in a new captive. I’m assuming a crewman is needed to move us, and our belongings, into a containment module. While we’re passed out from that fucking red beam!”

He saw her point in the fast move. Perhaps Diligent had not sent another crewman to capture him because the Alien could just open the module chamber to space, thereby killing him. Yes, Diligent would lose a captive that he could have sold. But a captive running loose in his starship was a danger no ship captain would tolerate. Bill wondered if Diligent had been sleeping, or having sex however cockroaches did it, when the news came of his escape from his cell. Whatever the story, he’d had the time needed to escape his cell, free Jane from her cell, and for the two of them to get to another part of the starship.

“Jane,” he whispered, “the most I know about space and space stuff is what I’ve seen on NASA programs, CNN and Nova. You got any idea of where on this starship we are? And which way lies the bridge? I really do want to grab this bastard.”

She chuckled, still holding him tight. “Well, we just left the cargo section of this spaceship. If human ships are any guide to go by, I am betting there is an engine area, a bridge or command station of some sort, a common eating area for food intake by the crew, sleeping or living quarters for each crew person, an air production and renewal plant, waste recycling space, and hallways or tubeways to connect them all. Plus, the lower gravity here and earlier feels like a half gee, or half that of Earth. That means Diligent must come from a smaller planet with lower gravity. Which makes sense if he is a giant insect.” She paused, her breath warm against his neck. “Your red cube seems to work on any door. The lack of a local opening option seems to be part of the design of this starship. It assumes every person on board who moves through a hallway will have a red cube. Along with the right to move through the starship.” She gestured with her right hand to the wall where the clear fabric tubes hung. “My guess is those are spacesuits. Hopefully flexible enough for different body shapes. Since we don’t know what places Diligent can vent to space, let’s put on a suit and then get the hell out of here!”

“Right!” Bill let go of Jane, whose close body contact had reminded him of how long it had been since he’d made love with a woman. And Jane was most definitely a woman!

She also let go, noticed where his eyes had gone, and grimaced. “SEAL boy! I’m more than a rack of boobs! I’m IT trained, work at the Space Operations Center of the AFSPC in Building One at Peterson, and I suspect I know more about tracking space objects, satellites and enemy spacecraft than you do!”

She’d spoken aloud. But he guessed it was something she’d told Diligent during her own orientation talk. And she was right. Hot-looking though she was, their first duty was survival, then subversion of the control of this starship. “Right! You’ve had SERE training, like me. We’ve done survival and escape. Time for evasion and resistance.” He pulled down one of the tube suits, looked it over, saw it had an opening at one end and a round part at the opposite, and lifted the open end to above his head. “Since the suit com may not work for us, do you know ASL?”

Jane had joined him at the rack of spacesuits. “I do,” she said as she bent down to put on her hiking boots. “Something I learned during Basic at Lackland. What’s the white tube? And the mask thing?”

“The white tube shoots a red beam which hits you like a taser,” he said, just before pulling the suit on. “The mask is an oxy breather thing. The giant grizzly crewman who entered my cell was wearing it since the oxy level in my cell had gotten way below normal.”

“Thanks.” She pulled on her own tube suit. Like him she discovered that once she was fully inside, the bottom of the suit split into two leg-tubes when you pushed out with your legs. The top part of the suit resembled a globular helmet. It settled around his head. Bill pushed with his arms to either side and the suit grew two tubular lengths to either side. Flexing his fingers caused the end of each arm tube to change into five tiny tubes, one for each finger. He looked to Jane.

“Can you hear me?” he said aloud.

She looked surprised. “I can. There has to be some kind of automated com speaker inside these things. And the wavelength must be the same for every suit. Which makes sense for emergencies and crew coordination. So I’m sure anyone else in a suit, and our friend Diligent, can also hear what we say.”

Bill nodded. “So we go to ASL.” He pulled on his backpack, slung his canteen strap over his helmet, stuck his flashlight into his pack, held the white taser tube in his right hand and finger-talked in American Sign Language with his left. “
Out that door. Agreed
?”

“
Agreed
,” she said with her right hand, using finger-talk as swiftly as he did.

He picked up the red cube he’d laid on the floor while donning the tube suit. Touching the Open spot on the cube made the second giant door grind open just like the door they’d passed through to leave the cell chamber. Before them stretched a long, long hallway. Gray metal walls, floor and ceiling surrounded them. Some distance down the twenty foot-wide hall he could see light coming from the right and left, likely from side hallways. “Jane, you got any idea how this ship might be laid out?” he said out loud, figuring his question was obvious to anyone listening. “Which way is the bridge? The engines? The—”

“Nope,” she interrupted. “But I bet this ship has a voice-responsive computer that runs most stuff. And it may be linked into the tube suit comlink. For emergency response to anyone in a suit.”

He blinked. Of course a large spaceship would have a computer that ran most automated systems. No matter the size of the crew, machines were vital. And voice-responsive expert systems had been common in business and mil-intel operations for decades. “So how do we connect with this . . . this ship computer? We’re humans. We talk English, not Alien jabber-jabber.”

Jane faced the long, empty hallway. Like him she wore a transparent tube suit. On top of which was her backpack with her canteen slung from her neck. Inside the tube suit, which closely hugged the contours of her body, she gave a shrug. “We ask.” She paused. “Spaceship computer mind, do you hear and understand me?”

A hum sounded inside Bill’s clear helmet. “I hear and understand you.”

Jane turned thoughtful. “Why are you talking with me? Won’t the ship captain block your communication?”

“I am required to respond to all bioforms who occupy a vacuum suit.” Another hum sounded in Bill’s helmet. “That is according to Protocol Seven, Emergency Operations of the Ship. The wearing of a vacuum suit by any bioform while inside this ship indicates an emergency situation.”

Damn
.

“Can you display for me an interior map of this spaceship? So we can reach Captain Diligent Taskmaster with important information,” Jane said calmly.

Another hum sounded. “I can. Where do you wish the map displayed?”

Jane gestured to her right. “This wall to my right will do, if you have imaging capability that will appear on the wall.”

The hum lasted longer this time. “The wall can be made visual. But that choice limits my full display options. Do you wish a three dimensional map of this ship’s interior, similar to what is viewed by ship crewmembers?”

“Yes!” he and Jane both said loudly.

“Projecting,” it said with a short hum.

Before Jane and Bill a man-high holo took form in the hallway.

A teardrop shape floated before them, similar in shape to the collector pod that had hovered over his lake before it had shot Bill with the red taser beam. The shape shimmered and grew translucent. Two main hallways now appeared inside the teardrop, along with many box-like rooms that linked to the hallways.

“Excellent,” Jane said. “Identify which chamber is the command bridge, which the engine room, which the food service area, which . . . identify all areas accessible to a crew lifeform with English lettering that indicates the room function.”

A long hum sounded. “As you wish.”

Bill blinked, then stared. He had an excellent memory for spatial forms, which had aided him in his Technical Surveillance Operations work. He gestured to Jane. “
Me now
,” he signed.

She nodded understanding. He looked intently at the identified spaces and hallways. “Ship mind,” Bill called loudly, “can you display the locations of all ship crew, including the location of Captain Diligent Taskmaster? Do so if you can. Also show the location of myself and the other bioform next to me.”

“I can,” it said with a low hum. “Displaying.”

Seven red dots now appeared on the teardrop holo. One red dot was nearby, in the cell he’d occupied. That must be the grizzly bear Alien. It occupied a place labeled as Containment Unit Chamber. The remaining four dots were at the far end of the ship holo, in the round space marked as Command Bridge Chamber. He and Jane were located near the narrow end of the ship, just ahead of what was labeled an Engine Chamber. The tunnel they faced led to that space. Side hallways showed in the holo, the first of them lying just ahead of them. The side hallway led to another long hallway that ran the length of the ship. That hallway reached the nose of the teardrop, where the Bridge room was located. In between were rooms marked as Food Chamber, Habitat Chambers, Fusion Power Plants, Factory Chamber, Air Renewal/Production Chamber, Waste Recycling Chamber, Collector Pods Chamber, Greenery Chamber, Water Pool Chamber, Weapons Chamber and a Transport Exit Chamber. What bothered him, though, was the presence of three red dots at the far end of the other long hallway. While a single red dot was stationary in the Command Bridge, three crew dots had left the bridge and were moving down the hallway toward them.