SODIUM:4 Gravity (14 page)

Shepard placed our chances at 50 / 50. We would also have to field strip eight of our Drillers to construct a shield to put around the reactors. Should any part of our plan fail we would die an instant death.

We worked for hours breaking down Drillers and hand welding supplies to build our harness. I sent the plans of our endeavor to Command and was told they would have their engineers look into the likelihood of it being a success. They wanted the final say before giving us the go-ahead.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent removing the reactors. It would be many hours before Shepard would have a harness ready for testing. As the others worked I was left with nothing to do. I sat back in my chair and looked at the ring Zack had placed on my finger, my BGS gloves sitting in my lap. As I began to daydream my mind drifted off to better times. Time spent with Zack and my family, time spent on the farm. I wondered if this horrific war would ever end.

The team worked well into the night hours before the harness was ready. The reactors were powered on at their lowest setting and their outputs merged. One by one we each coupled to the tether and tested our suits. They functioned perfectly.

Shepard then ramped up the reactors and again the suits were tested. We soon discovered that Raven's suit had a flaw in the heel that would expose her to the deadly alien gravity beam. It was decided that she would remain with the ship.

With Raven unhooked Shepard then set the reactors to full. I was the first to blink out, turning my BGS into the physics phenomenon of an invisible warped space field. Randy reached towards where I had been and pushed his hand through the space I had previously occupied. When his hand passed out of my space I blinked back into existence.

Shepard ran the numbers on my suit and again concluded that the shielding should be sufficient to withstand the gravity beam. Next out was Randy. It was fascinating to see someone first standing before and to then disappear in an instant. It was a sight that made you sometimes wonder about reality. Randy still existed in that space, but I had no way of knowing for sure.

When Shepard had completed her own venture into warped space, she evaluated the performance diagnostic results of our suits. Except for Raven, the three of us would make the journey.

Within the hour Command came back with the go-ahead. We turned the ship and opened the rear hatch. The alien gravity beam pushed at the contents of our GAF nearly pinning Raven to the front wall because of the defect in her suit. When the reactor harness was clear of the ship, the hatch was closed and the active skin brought back online.

We were each attached to the harness, but invisible to each other. I gave the command and with our BHDs we began to move towards the alien mega-ship through the tunnel we had drilled. When we reached the four kilometer wall I gave the command to start disintegrating the Moon rock that now stood between us and the alien vessel.

The drilling took many hours, our progress was slow. Shepard kept a leery eye on our suit parameters which had risen to 40% with just over a kilometer to go. When our nav computers signaled that we had entered the last 100 meters our shields had risen to 92%. Just before reaching the surface we gave one final pull with our BHDs to force us through the final meters of rock.

At 98% we broke through the last layer and floated out just above the surface. The mega-ship was still 800 meters away. At 600 meters the shields hit 99% and at 400 meters 100%. I began to feel the force of the alien gravity wave growing heavy against my skin. At 300 meters the force had reached two G’s and at 250 meters four G’s. We were being crushed as we moved ever closer.

At 200 meters the force was becoming unbearable. We did not have the shielding needed to get inside. As I enabled my comm to give the command to withdraw the gravity beam suddenly shifted. To our surprise Command had launched 500 Drillers as a distraction. They had been timed to arrive just as we exited from the Moon rock.

I gave the command to abandon the harness and to move the final 200 meters under the power of our power cells. Within seconds we were free. The Drillers had been spread out to keep the aliens occupied as long as possible. As the last Driller was sacrificed the gravity beam swept back into our location just as we entered the exterior wall of the alien craft.

For only a moment the gravity monitors in our suits spiked to 25 G’s. We soon learned that Randy had taken a hit. The gravity spike had crushed his feet before they had moved through the wall of the ship. He was now in excruciating pain and his BGS attempted to compensate by releasing meds.

He was soon drifting unconsciously through the green alien seas that lay just inside the alien vessel. The suit would keep him under sedation as it attempted to increase his rate of healing. There was nothing we could do.

As we drifted forward I took note of the many sub-trains moving cargo and squid riders about. Again the outer chamber was filled with row after row of skimmer and fighter. At our slow pace it took nearly an hour to cross the vast internal alien sea.

When we passed through the first inner wall we were again in a feeding chamber. I reminded Shepard through a thought message with our audio implants to not speak as we would be detected. The audio conversion process was fast with my QE comm enabled implant, but was slow for everyone else. Even simple conversions would sometimes have many seconds of lag. It was a function of our technology that needed improvement.

After drifting through several more bulkheads we came into an empty room. It was an air filled room. I blinked back in and soon felt the familiar pull of gravity. It measured as 0.77 G’s and was surprisingly pleasant after our long drift.

I sent an override command to Randy's suit and he was soon lying on the floor in front of me. Shepard followed behind and secured the room. It was 12 by 20 meters in size and held stacks of shipping crates similar to the ones the sub-trains had been moving about.

When I recognized a door down one wall I moved Randy around a stack of crates to a safer location. With the gravity now being in effect we were stationary. I adjusted Randy's suit to a setting that would allow the ship’s gravity to hold him in place while he himself would remain invisible to anyone else. It was the only option available to us.

With Randy secure, we turned our attention to the alien ship. Shepard checked the air and remarked that it was the same consistency as the air I had encountered when with the humanoids on the alien cruiser.

As we stood quietly debating our next move the door suddenly swung open. I blinked out, but Shepard was facing away and was too slow to react. A squid, wearing a helmet and pushing a small cart, looked up at her and jerked in a stunned reaction. Before it had time to react further I hit it with a pulse wave which in turn drove it backwards crushing it into the far wall.

The helmet made a loud clang as it impacted the wall and the bright green alien slithered to the floor dead. I blinked back in and rushed over to the door. The squid was alone, so I pulled the cart inside and closed the door behind it. As I looked down upon the dead alien a command came in over my QE comm.

We were given orders to continue our exploration of the massive alien vessel with an emphasis on learning as much as we could about the humanoid taskmasters. It was an order we were eager to comply with.

I was not about to leave Randy to the mercy of the aliens and soon had a plan in place to get him off the ship. Shepard programmed his BHD to give a sufficient enough blast to carry him off the ship. He would then drift for several days before he would be far enough out to safely be picked up by another crew.

With Randy tucked away we dragged the alien carcass to a secluded corner of the room. Shepard and I then turned and walked towards the inner wall. Just before reaching it we each blinked out and once again began to drift. The outer hallway was empty and we floated into another storage area.

When we came through the next wall we were surrounded by a number of the alien humanoids. They were sitting at tables, drinking and smoking. The six white eyes of the alien humanoids we had seen before now had a glazed appearance with green streaks running through them. I took it as a similar reaction that we had to drinking and smoking with our red bloodshot eyes.

There was much conversation going on and I was sure our linguistics boys back home were running it through their translation algorithms as we watched and listened. The lighting was dull and the room filled with smoke, so I took a chance with a momentary blink in and out to stop my forward progress.

It was fascinating watching the humanoids at play in what was predictably a bar scene. Conversations were loud with grunting noises that I could only imagine were laughs. Then, two of the humanoids stood facing each other while displaying angry gestures. The other patrons grew silent as they looked on. The four slits of their nostrils flared and the tips of their pointed ears turned a bright yellow. It was an impressive display.

A third humanoid from behind the bar soon joined them and just as with every squabble scene in every bar of every movie I had ever seen, the bartender calmed the anger and offered up a fresh brew. Things soon returned to normal as the crowd once again returned to their discussions.

I then received an audio text from Shepard. She was in a room with hundreds of sleeping humanoids. They were laid out on giant pillows on the floor with each curled up in a delineated space. One wall was full of what appeared to be lockers while another had racks of weapons. She had drifted into the humanoid's barracks.

When the same two humanoids again stood in anger I took the opportunity to blink out and maneuver out of the bar while heads were turned. After floating through another hallway I came into the same barracks area as Shepard. I again blinked in bringing myself to a stop. I had the urge to laugh when I observed the sleeping humanoids. Their nostrils opened and then flapped gently shut as they breathed in and out. They made the same sound we would associate with passing gas only with several hundred doing it at the same time.

I had a moment of panic and nearly fired my pulse gun as one of the humanoids quickly sat up with one of his six eyes halfway open. After letting out a snort he soon settled back into his slumber.

With our barracks observation complete, we once again blinked and moved through the next wall. This time I was nearly blinded by a brilliant light. We were drifting through a reactor core. When we exited the other side I looked back at the containment vessel and then at the two squid technicians that were manning consoles in front of it.

We again blinked to come to a stop and observed. Moments later a humanoid entered the room carrying a small red-tipped cylinder in one hand. The reaction of the squids was to appear to cower. The yellow humanoid then spoke in their language. Our translators told us that it was angry at some threshold not being met.

The humanoid raised the cylinder and a green bolt of light flashed out of the end, striking one of the squids squarely in the back. It slumped over in its chair. As we waited and watched three more squids entered the room. Two removed the motionless green alien while the third took its place at the console.

The taskmaster then began speaking and it was clear that the previous technician had been executed. The new tech was expected to not make the same mistake. When the humanoid exited the room the squids remained silent, working diligently to complete or continue the work they had been assigned.

Command soon gave orders to continue our observances as we moved about mapping the great ship. Five minutes soon turned into five hours as we blinked from room to room. I began to grow weary of the game and had begun to repeatedly ask Command when the fun was to begin. I was eager to stop the alien vessel from continuing its push of our moon.

The news I received next was encouraging. Our scientists and engineers had made a major breakthrough with the gravity wave technology. A massive effort was now underway to construct a ship with four macro generators.

Each generator would have an output capable of supplying the power needs of several moderately sized countries. Only 46 would be needed to supply the energy needs of the planet. Estimates gave the ship the ability to nearly counter the gravity wave from the alien mega-ship. We now had a means to greatly slow the progress of the Moon which was now 670 kilometers closer to Earth.

The next room we drifted into had the appearance of an alien massage parlor. Two females of the species were laid flat on a table while being rubbed down by two scantily clad males. It was a disgusting display as their bodies writhed about in evident pleasure and I was happy to continue drifting towards another wall.

Before we could exit Command sent a new order. We were told to hold our position until further notice and it was critical for us to stay where we were. I hesitated before blinking to stop my progress. There was nothing about this room or the goings-on within that would be reason for our continued observation. I stood and stared in disgust as I pictured the boy’s home at Command ogling their monitors.

I soon learned the reason for our stop. Command had been busily constructing eight harnesses similar to the one we had used to drift aboard. These harnesses were more powerful giving them the ability to drift fully through the dispersed alien gravity beam. Each harness housed a squad of eight BGS Marines.

The Marines had been given the task of securing one each of an alien squid and an alien humanoid. They were then to be transported off the ship and back to Command for interrogation. It was a bold move on our part as the information they could possibly provide might be such as to bring about the end of the war.

As the alien masseuses plied their trade the alien females continued to writhe in pleasure. As interesting as it was to gaze upon another species in what was likely some of their daily routine I had to avert my eyes. The erotic displays before me only brought more loathing to an otherwise contemptuous species. I scowled as I followed my orders to hold.