The Mothership (40 page)

“Just be careful not to blow my leg off!”

Timer angled his special as far away from
the scientist as he could, then touched the firing surface, blasting a pinhole
in the elbow joint. The cargo handler’s arm shuddered and released its grip. Vamp
dragged the scientist clear as the four-legged cargo handler pushed itself to a
sitting position with its functional right arm, then climbed onto its two good
legs, using its partially melted legs as crutches.

Vamp raked its torso with her M16, but the
bullets bounced off the heavy duty machine until her gun clicked empty.
“Reloading!”

Timer grabbed Dr McInness by the arm and
dragged him through an archway onto a balcony that bordered a circular cargo
shaft almost a hundred meters across. The shaft led up through every deck in
the ship and was lined with pairs of silver magnetic strips that supported  large
cargo platforms. One platform was parked alongside the balcony’s loading bay, covered
by a translucent dome accessible via a wide arched entrance.

Timer hauled the scientist up onto his
shoulder and headed for the elevator platform, yelling, “This way.”

Vamp slammed a new clip into her rifle, backing
after Timer and Dr McInness, but saving her ammo now she knew the cargo
handler’s hull was too thick to penetrate with bullets.

The cargo handler started limping toward her.
Its left forearm hung uselessly from its shattered elbow, but its right arm
reached toward them, its metal claws snapping. Vamp switched to single fire
mode, and aimed at the glassy black sensor dome, hoping it was a soft spot.
Several times she scored glancing hits, cracking it, but barely slowing the
cargo handler’s lurching gait.

Timer carried Dr McInness onto the cargo
elevator, lowered him to the floor, then realized the transparent walls and
domed ceiling were featureless. “Where are the controls?”

 “Must be remotely controlled,” Dr McInness
said through gritted teeth as he propped himself against the side of the
elevator.

Vamp backed onto the platform, continuing
to fire single aimed shots at the robot’s sensor dome. “Go!”

 “No controls!” Timer said, motioning to
the blank walls.

Vamp slid a grenade into the launcher
mounted beneath her M16. “Fire in the hole!”

She fired then dived behind the dome as the
grenade exploded against the cargo handler’s chest. The blast sent the rugged
machine sliding backwards across the deck and peppered the transparent dome
with shrapnel, creating dozens of white impact points. The robot lay on its
back a moment, then pushed itself up onto its legs and started lurching toward
them again.

“Is that thing a fork lift or a tank?” She
muttered, then dropped her M16 and drew her tiny silver special. The ‘Tom
Thumb’ was the smallest and least powerful of all the recovered weapons, but it
packed more focused firepower than her M16. She pointed it at the cargo
handler, touched the biosensitive firing surface, triggering a stream of super
heated plasma that cut a tiny vertical line down the cargo handler’s chest. The
machine shuddered, then exploded, scattering arms and legs in all directions.

“So much for self-preservation,” Vamp said
as she holstered her special.

An alarm warbled several times, then a high
pitched voice announced an alert in an incomprehensible language. The
elevator’s door materialized, locking them inside, then the under powered platform
began sliding slowly upwards.

Vamp sighed. “I guess we got their
attention.”

* * * *

The sound of metal
grinding on metal filled the storage compartment as the transport was dragged
back through the tear in the bulkhead. It shuddered and came to a stop, then
three seekers sped through the opening like silver streaks. One broke left, one
right, while the third came straight in. Five meters from the torn bulkhead,
they simultaneously came to a dead stop. Their sensor disks scanned the empty
aisles between the storage containers, noting several containers had been
opened, but the occupants of the transport were nowhere to be seen. Together,
the seekers moved forward, each down a different aisle. They knew the hatch at
the far end of the protein storage facility had been remotely locked as soon as
the transport had landed, and its internal sensors informed them it hadn’t been
forced open.

Bill hid in a side aisle in the middle of
the chamber, listening to the click of metal footsteps as the seekers marched
toward him. Wal and Cracker were together two rows across, while Slab was out
of sight, further back in the chamber. Bill gave Cracker a questioning look:
what
should we do?

Cracker shrugged, while beside him, Wal
slid his rifle’s safety off, causing the tiniest click.

The three seekers stopped, each registering
the sound and instantly exchanging data to triangulate Wal’s position. He’d
barely removed his thumb from the safety when two of the machines sped forward
together, their rapid footsteps chattering like a burst of machine gun fire on
the metal deck. Seekers appeared either side of Wal and Cracker, before either
of them could raise their weapons. Long silver arms flashed out, snatching the
guns from their hands and shooting precisely calculated electric charges into
their spinal cords. It was not enough to kill, only to cause total paralysis
throughout their nervous systems. Wal and Cracker hit the floor together,
blinking as their muscles twitched from nerve shock, then watched helplessly as
metal legs passed in front of their eyes.

Two rows away, Bill raised his rifle, but
the nearest seeker darted towards him and wrenched the gun from his hands with
blinding speed. Bill stared at the machine now holding his rifle with
amazement, then another arm shot past his head, touching his neck and pumping
enough electricity into his nervous system to send him convulsing to the floor.

Slab heard the muffled sounds of his mates
being overpowered, then metallic footsteps approaching. The footsteps told him
there were three machines, although not how close they were. He pulled himself
quietly up onto a stack of storage containers with barely a meter’s headroom to
the ceiling, then crawled to the far side, bringing his rifle forward ready to
shoot. The safety was off before the seekers had entered the chamber, but the
tip of his rifle barrel protruded a few millimeters beyond the edge of the
containers, passing into view of one of the seekers. Its visual sensors zoomed
in on the black metal shape, instantly matching it to the design of the crude
kinetic weapons they’d already captured from the other bipeds. It informed its
two companions of the last adversary’s location, then leapt onto the nearest
stack and spotted Slab lying on his belly.

The seeker scrambled on hands and legs across
the tops of the ration containers, moving at almost the same dazzling speed it
had when upright. Slab caught the blur of movement out of the corner of his
eye. He spun around to see the machine racing toward him, bringing his gun
around fast and squeezing off a shot. The bullet struck the seeker on the flat
top of its sensor disk, punching a hole through it and splintering its vision,
but not slowing it down. The seeker veered sideways as Slab fired again,
dodging his second shot and leaping from one stack to the next, circling in
toward him. He squeezed off one shot after another, missing each time as the
seeker scrambled sideways faster than he could turn.

A silver blur swept in towards him and
wrapped a shiny hand around the rifle barrel. The seeker tried to tear the gun
from his hands, but Slab held on tight, his thick muscles bulging as he refused
to let go of his weapon. The seeker dragged him sideways by his rifle as he
fired a shot harmlessly into the ceiling, but it couldn’t tear the weapon from
his stubborn hands. It lashed out toward his spine with one of its free hands,
trying to paralyze him, just as Slab kicked its hip section. The seeker rolled
onto its chest at his feet, refusing to let go of the barrel. He stamped a
heavy boot on its shoulder, driving it away, then he fired at the sensor disk
beside his boot. The seeker shuddered and released its grip on the rifle, then
filled with rage, he kicked out wildly, sending it sliding across the top of
the containers, giving him room to aim.

A metal arm streaked up from the aisle
behind him and shot a bolt of electricity into his spine. He shuddered,
fighting off paralysis, then rolled and fired a glancing shot at the second
seeker. Aware of the danger, the seeker clamped two hands on the barrel. Slab
threw his weight to the side, trying to tear the rifle free, then his eyes
bulged in surprise as the seeker’s two hands bent the barrel to ninety degrees.

The second seeker leapt forward and hit him
with a larger jolt, adjusted for his bigger size. Slab groaned, released the
rifle and slumped helplessly onto his face. Without a moment’s delay, the
seeker scooped him up like a rag doll and carried him rapidly down into the
aisle, past storage containers, towards the opening in the bulkhead. He struggled
to focus, glimpsing the other seekers carrying his mates, who were obviously as
helpless as he was.

The three seekers carried them back through
the opening in the bulk head, past the wrecked transport and the still burning
fighters to the hull breach. Without pausing, the machines launched themselves
up through the hole in the hull. Slab’s head spun as the world wheeled crazily
around him. For a moment, he hung head down, facing the well of destruction
that stretched down through the ship several kilometers to darkness, then they
were outside on the hull, bounding toward the ship’s central spine. Slab’s face
flopped close to the gray metal hull with each stride, but never hit, although
the wild rocking motion made him nauseous, even with the air blasting on his
face.

Near the spine of the ship, the three
seekers leapt into an opening in the hull, diving down into a large circular
shaft. It was one of the many cargo transport shafts that crisscrossed the
ship, forming a complex logistical network capable of moving vast quantities of
supplies and equipment to wherever they were needed at lightning fast speeds.

It was the same cargo shaft that Vamp, Dr
McInness and Timer were trapped in, inside a cargo platform, more than a
thousand meters below.

The seekers caught the narrow ladders
lining the shaft’s inner wall with their feet, then effortlessly launched
themselves into the air with the agility of monkeys swinging through trees.
They bounded from ladder to ladder as shaft walls and cargo platforms flashed by
at all angles, while the opening to the sky shrank rapidly away.

Slab was about to be separated from his
breakfast when the seekers landed on a cargo balcony. They raced through an
archway into a large circular room containing a rectangular table beneath a
cluster of bright lights. Lying on the table, attended by two floating lab
drones was a tall, gaunt man who appeared to be sleeping. Running around the
wall was a white bench with an assortment of equipment stations spaced along
it. Lab drones with delicate telescoping arms tended experiments and moved
research samples from station to station. The bench space to the left contained
the dissected remains of animals and birds, each sample carefully sorted and
categorized, while to their right, the disassembled pieces of a shotgun were
being subjected to a range of metallurgical and chemical tests.

The seekers dropped the four paralyzed men
on the deck before passing their rifles to the lab drones for analysis. Other
drones used surgical lasers to sever their backpack straps, then carried the
packs to the bench tops while examination tables rose out of the floor beneath
the men. The tables emitted white nano membranes that swam over their bodies,
pinning them in gentle, but vice-like grips. Once the captured specimens were
restrained, the seekers disappeared back down the corridor at high speed.

Slab was the first to have feeling begin to
return to his fingers and toes. Even though the ship had mapped human DNA, it
had not yet analyzed enough specimens to precisely compute stun charges for
different body masses. Its analysis, however, had led to the identification of
thousands of bioagents that could potentially eliminate all life on the planet
or wipe out a single species. What it had not yet determined was whether the
production of such organisms was an effective use of resources, considering it
required repairing the wrecked genetic engineering labs. With the vast array of
critical repairs that had to be carried out, the Command Nexus had temporarily
deferred adding a biological dimension to its strategy.

All Slab knew was he could wiggle his toes
and he itched in places he couldn’t scratch. The vice-like grip of the nano
membrane restrained him like a steel stocking, preventing him from turning his
head, but not his eyes. Wal lay to his right, mouth open, staring blankly at
the bright ceiling panel illuminating their tables, while Cracker blinked,
trying to focus. Bill was outside his line of sight, although he saw a lab
drone laying out the contents of Bill’s pack for analysis.

One of the lab drones floated into view,
its silent approach startling him. In one of its slender tentacles it carried a
surgical laser identical to the device that had sheared off their backpacks.
Its other arms carried a white circular ball of sterilized cloth and a shiny
silver machine fitted with a circular cup at one end. The cup seemed familiar,
then he remembered why. His eye darted across to where a knobby emu leg stood
perpendicular to the bench. A shiny metal device the twin of the one carried by
the lab drone held the leg where the knee joint would have been.