The Mothership (48 page)

Many will die, but many will survive.
Eventually, other females will begin to spawn. In a few decades, this world’s
oceans will be swarming with billions of your kind. They will become a greater
force than any I could build.

She lay in silence, knowing the Command
Nexus was only doing its duty, which was to utilize every resource at its
disposal. She realized she was just another resource. While the ship had the
potential to create a technological army, she carried within her the ability to
give birth to a biological army.

‘I agree.’

 
Thank you, World Mother.

The highly formalized and hierarchical
response surprised her. The Command Nexus was speaking to her as if she really
were a Planetary Matriarch. Never again would the Command Nexus direct her. In
future, every communication would be a request, or a suggestion, for not even a
Command Nexus would dare to give an order to the Spawn Mother of an entire
world civilization.

I suggest you select the vehicle you
require, the weapons it will have and whether it will be capable of
interplanetary flight or not. There are also many different types of habitats I
can construct, each of which will serve the strategy equally well, but may
provide you with different levels of comfort.

‘Can’t you select what I need?’

It is your prerogative, Great Mother. You
will be dependent upon both the vehicle and the habitat for the remainder of
your life.

She was not used to such treatment,
especially from an awareness who moments before had been an integral part of
the ship’s higher command structure. The captain always out ranked the ship’s
Command Nexus, but rarely contradicted its recommendations.

‘Very well. I will choose.’

The Command Nexus directed her to the
nearest command center, where she could access fabrication control. It was only
several levels away, so she decided to leave the heavy lift suit and proceed on
foot. After having encountered the hot bloods in the sleep chamber, she’d
equipped herself with a weapon and a photon field, the latter capable of
warping light around her body making her invisible. With those two items, she would
be safe enough.

Nemza’ri stepped into the corridor, and
headed toward the command center. She realized her life was going to be one of
solitude and isolation, hidden beneath the oceans of this primitive world, but
her life span was a long one. Perhaps in time, she would rejoin her kind, after
they had civilized this planet. The years ahead would be lonely ones, but she
would do her duty, without hesitation.

She was after all, this world’s First
Matriarch.

Bill heard a
gentle humming that grew louder as he scrambled down a narrow ladder inside a
cramped maintenance shaft. The four hunters and Dan McKay had been climbing
down the shaft for what seemed like hours, through many decks in search of
ground level and escape.

Bill saw a glimmer of
light at the next landing, and stepped off the ladder, muscles aching from the
climb. A moment later Slab and Cracker joined him.

“I never want to see
another ladder in my life!” Cracker said.

Slab glanced into the
shaft, which reached down into darkness with no sign of the bottom. “Still a
long way to go.”

They waited while Wal
and Dan McKay reached them, then started along a short corridor towards light
spilling into the passageway from a fully powered compartment ahead. It was the
first brightly lit area they’d seen since their escape from the dissection lab.
Bill raised his rifle as they neared the entrance, but Slab placed a big hand
on his shoulder and moved past him to peer cautiously into the room. After a
moment, he nodded it was clear and stepped into a long room filled with rows of
silver rectangular beds covered by transparent bubbles.

Slab froze when he realized seven of the
beds were occupied.

“It’s a morgue,” Cracker whispered.

Bill gave him a dubious look. “If they’re
dead, why are you whispering?”

“Because he doesn’t want to wake the dead!”
Wal said with a grin, stepping bravely out from behind Slab.

They moved warily down the aisles toward
the seven humming beds, their eyes transfixed by the bodies floating just above
the beds and by the wispy white vapors that swirled slowly around them. Slab
approached the first bed, fascinated by its occupant’s aqua dynamic features
and elongated head. One side of its body was charred black and most of its left
arm was missing, replaced by a translucent bubble filled with a dark viscous
liquid. As they watched, the amphibian’s chest expanded and contracted slowly.

“It’s alive!” Cracker exclaimed.

After their initial shock subsided, they
leant closer as curiosity overcame their fear. The alien’s bulging eyes were
closed and its breathing shallow, but appeared stable. It floated on an
acceleration field that ensured its damaged skin did not touch the metal sides
of the regeneration bed or the transparent canopy enclosing it. The wispy
vapors comprised billions of nano machines working tirelessly to repair damaged
cells while the bubble over the alien’s stump was in the early stages of
regrowing its lost arm.

Wal scowled, as his confidence returned.
“It’s an ugly bugger.”

Slab moved on to the next regeneration bed.
Its occupant’s burns were less severe than the first, but it had lost both its
legs. Regrowth bubbles were attached to its stumps and the first signs of
reforming bone were visible. Because this alien was less badly burnt, the nano
cloud was thinner than for the first patient. Slab moved around the end of the
regen bed, not taking his eyes off its occupant until his knee struck a low
metal platform extending from the side of the bed.

“Ugh!” He reached down to rub his knee,
then saw one of the two myrnods taken from the flooded hull breach lying face
down on the platform. “Jeez!” He cried as he jumped back, startled. Another
look told him the amphibious predator was unconscious, and he relaxed as the
others rushed forward to see what had startled him.

A thin transparent tube, filled with a
hairline of yellow fluid, snaked from the creature’s muscled shoulders to the
base of the regen bed, where nano machines refined the growth hormone into a
powerful stimulant. This potent substance was then injected into the
unconscious alien to accelerate both its gamete production and cell
regeneration rates. Though they couldn’t see it, nano medics in the cloud
enveloping the alien were harvesting gametes, assessing their quality and
storing genetically perfect samples for cloning.

When Cracker saw the unconscious myrnod, he
whistled at the sight of its hook claws. “I bet that bastard could rip your
guts open with one swipe!”

Bill studied its teeth, visible in its
partly open mouth. “With teeth like that, it’d give a great white a run for its
money.”

Wal made a face. “No way, a great white
would eat this thing for breakfast.”

Bill touched the tube connecting the
amphibian to the regen bed. “Looks like it’s giving aquaman a transfusion.”

Slab stopped rubbing his knee. “We better
save the last bullet, in case we run into one of those things,” he said,
nodding to the myrnod.

“Suppose we run into two of them?” Wal
asked nervously.

“Then we’ll throw you at the other one, and
run like hell,” Slab replied as he headed for the third bed.

Its occupant was charred black all over,
from having been engulfed completely in flames. A large regrowth bubble
enveloped its lower abdomen, working desperately to regenerate failing internal
organs.

Cracker glanced around the hospital ward
thoughtfully. “I wonder if these blokes are the only survivors? There’s a lot
of empty beds here.”

“Someone put them there,” Bill said, “And
plugged claw foot into that one.”

“The machines could have done it,” Slab
suggested as he moved to the fourth regen bed where another scorched crewman
lay in a coma.

Dan McKay stopped beside Slab, gazing at
the charred skin, seeing how it blistered and flaked similar to burnt human
skin. “Looks like he suffered.”

“Yeah,” Wal agreed, “That had to hurt.”

“It’s probably drugged, can’t feel
anything,” Bill said as he stopped at the sixth regen bed, then glanced back at
the previous patient. “I wonder if they have two sexes, like us? They all look
the same to me.”

Dan followed his gaze, from one alien to
the other. They had been stripped naked by the nano machines before cellular
regeneration had begun. Neither showed any sign of reproductive organs. “They
look a bit like fish. They could fertilize eggs the same way.”

Wal looked horrified. “You mean, no sex?”

Dan shrugged, “Maybe.”

Slab grunted with disgust. “Bloody dickless
aliens!”

“That’s why they build such bloody big
ships,” Cracker declared. “Trying to compensate.”

“Like Wal’s V8!” Bill said with a smirk.

Wal gave up his search for alien manhood
and headed toward the last occupied regen bed. Its patient had lost a foot and
was covered with a patchwork of mild burns, but was otherwise unharmed. A
second claw footed myrnod lay face down on a low lying metal platform beside
the bed, being drained of its precious hormonal fluid. Wal leaned close to the
transparent bubble and studied the alien’s face curiously. Even though its eyes
were closed, he was fascinated by how much larger the creature’s eyes were than
his. “He’s got big bloody eyes! I bet he sees good.”

The alien amphibian opened its eyes, and
stared straight at Wal.

“Argh!” Wal yelled, jumping back startled.

The alien’s eyes darted from one to
another, instantly assessing the situation. It was not drugged, but pain free
due to nano machines having nullified its nervous system. Crippled and
outnumbered, an animal would have panicked, but the alien was calm and focused.
With no functioning implants to contact the ship, it pushed its left arm down through
the weak acceleration field and hovered a finger over a featureless stretch of
metal. A circle illuminated, then the creature opened its mouth and spoke,
although the words did not carry through the bubble.

A panel in the roof vanished and a med drone
floated down into the ward with a tranquilizer needle attached to one of its
slender arms. When it was head high, it glided toward Wal and tried to spear
him with the needle. Wal threw himself backwards, careening off a vacant regen
bed onto the floor. Slab grabbed Bill’s gun, and slammed the butt of the weapon
into the side of the drone, sending it tumbling sideways through the air. It
wobbled as it regained its balance, then it spun around and darted back at him.
Before it could stab him, Slab rammed the rifle’s stock into it again, sending
it spiraling out of control onto the deck. He ran to where it had fallen and
smashed the butt of the rifle into it several times, remembering its twin had
tried to cut his arm off. When its thin surgical arms went limp, Slab kicked
it, sending it skidding across the floor.

“Feel better?” Dan asked.

Slab scowled, “Not yet! Maybe if I kick it
again.”

Wal scrambled to his feet shakily, eyes
riveted to the tranquilizer at the end of the med drone’s flexible arm. “Man,
look at that thing!” He shuddered. “I really hate needles!”

Silently, twenty-nine panels in the ceiling
vanished and a med drone floated down from each opening, each equipped with a
tranquilizer needle.

Slab’s eyes bulged when he saw them. “Oh
crap!” He turned and aimed the rifle at the crippled alien lying in the regen
bed.

Bill pushed the barrel up. “We’ve only got
one bullet.”

“It’ll only take one bullet!”

“Run!” Wal yelled as the med drones cleared
the roof panels.

“That way.” Cracker pointed to the exit on
the far side of the med lab.

They sprinted for the exit, ducking and
dodging tranquilizer needles the med drones stabbed down at them. Slab
deflected one needle with the rifle, then smashed a med drone away with the
butt of the gun while Cracker sidestepped another, caught the slender metal arm
and slammed it against the edge of a regen bed, snapping its fragile spine. A
few paces ahead, Bill and Wal helped Dan to the exit, then Cracker darted after
them, driving a detonator into one of his last two sticks of dynamite.

“Not in here!” Bill yelled when he saw what
Cracker was doing.

“Slab,” Cracker yelled, “Get out of there!”

The ex-footy player backed toward the exit,
parrying the stabbing arms of four machines with the rifle. He glanced back at
Cracker, saw the dynamite in his hand, then holding the rifle one handed, he
caught the arm of the nearest drone and swung it into the other three, knocking
them back. He turned and dived through the exit as Cracker tossed the dynamite
into the med ward.

The med drones surged toward the exit as
the dynamite tumbled through the air toward them. The machines packed tightly
together as they approached the exit, their inbuilt guidance and anti-collision
programming slowing their advance. The stick of dynamite bounced off one,
clattered against a second and exploded. Metal fragments flew between them,
shattering the drones near the exit. The undamaged machines further back
hesitated while drone parts smashed into nearby regen beds, shattering their
translucent canopies. One of the med drones crashed into an occupied regen bed,
striking its feeble patient in the chest and sending the swirling nano machines
into a frenzy as the occupant’s vital signs collapsed.