“What’s with all the extra drones and those huge crates?” Katherine asked as she rubbed the back of the neck of her new drone with her hand.
“The drones are spares in case we need to interact with people,” Jacob replied, “I don’t want to waste this masterpiece.” He gestured up and down the body that Barry had created. “Speaking of, you seem off. Is something wrong?”
He wanted to change the topic so she would forget about the crate tucked off in the corner of the hold. That was in case things on Earth needed a bit more persuasion.
“I’m fine. It just feels like I’m wearing an itchy sweater,” Katherine replied in annoyance. “I’m sure it’s just in my mind.”
“That’s a bad sign,” Jacob replied. “You might want to switch back to your old drone until we return.”
“What? Why?” she demanded. Then she crossed her arms and glared at him from behind the featureless face. “I’m not stepping off this ship so you can leave me behind if that’s your plan.”
“Suit yourself,” Jacob shrugged as he moved onto the storage area. Just the fact that he could shrug now made these new drones entirely worth it. He could have put more effort into convincing her, but if she wanted to be driven mad by the sensation of a body that didn’t quite fit right, that was her prerogative.
It was one thing to spend a few hours in an uncomfortable unit, but an entirely different thing to spend the majority of his time in a drone. If his new drone felt off at all, you could bet he would have postponed the trip and told Barry to melt the unit down and make him a new one.
Once Jacob secured the drone to the seat, he immediately disconnected from the unit to avoid another tongue-lashing from Katherine. He popped into one of the borganian drones aboard the bridge, the same ones he had created to pilot the vessel.
He learned the name of Representative Chalto’s race after studying the ship’s archives. Anything of importance had been wiped from the data storage before they left the vessel, but that was fine. It was just more evidence that Chalto had never truly trusted Jacob.
The man was right not to trust him, but it still hurt. Jacob had never been the duplicitous type back when he was human. At least he didn’t have any memory of being that way. The fact that he was forced to do things he detested to survive rankled him, but he would do it all over again if he were in the same situation.
“Real fucking mature, Jacob!” he heard Katherine’s distant yell from the storage room.
Jacob chuckled at the woman’s annoyance. He knew he shouldn’t be needling her like this, but he couldn’t help himself. She was always so damn combative and accusing. He pushed those thoughts aside as he focused on the ship’s controls. He had spent plenty of time training in the vessel’s simulator, so it didn’t take him long to power up the vessel.
What the simulator failed to account for was the sound. He had to verify the vessel’s reactor was even running because of how quiet it was. It was a night-and-day difference between this vessel and the transport’s ancient reactor. To be fair, the transport’s reactor wasn’t all that loud unless you went into the engineering space where it was housed. There was just always a constant hum throughout the ship while it was powered up, like you were standing next to a massive electrical box. Considering the energies involved in space travel, that was probably a pretty accurate comparison.
The first time Jacob experienced the phenomenon, he rushed off the transport for fear it would blow up. He didn’t go back for hours, and he only returned when he realized the ship wasn’t going to explode. Even then, it took effort to tune out the noise. Now the lack of noise was disconcerting.
Once Jacob verified that all the systems were good, he asked the AI to open the hangar doors.
The AI obliged, and Jacob watched as the massive doors jerked fitfully apart. He metaphorically crossed his fingers that they wouldn’t get stuck halfway. They may be operable, but that wasn’t saying much. He breathed a sigh of relief when they fully opened. The entire hangar was going to have to be taken offline and repaired at some point, but that was a low priority with so many other hangars to choose from.
As he suspected, a comm call came in as soon as their guardians noticed the damaged hangar opening.
“Borganian diplomatic vessel, this is the battleship The Deep Chorus. We have not received authorization for your departure.”
Jacob made a mental note to find the registration system aboard the ship and update it as soon as possible. He didn’t want to get into trouble running a diplomatic identity in Astryx space.
“That’s because I didn’t want you to know,” Jacob replied in annoyance. Then he sighed and pressed the comm button to actually respond. “I wasn’t aware you required my itinerary. The judicator certainly didn’t mention such a restriction.” He wanted to add that they had no authority to impose such a rule, but kept that thought to himself. The Astryx were essentially an occupying force at the moment, and Jacob didn’t have any way to fight them off, not that he intended to. They were, after all, providing free protection. The Astryx vessels also required the station for refueling, so it was a codependent relationship at the moment.
He could play nicely as long as they did. Maybe if he got lucky, he could even get a partial scan of one of their military vessels when they docked. He doubted they would allow the drones anywhere near their ships, but he had ideas for outfitting the hangars with the drone sensors. He would also have actual defensive cannons that could damage shields soon, assuming he could scale up the weapons he had scanned on this vessel.
“The council asked us to keep a thorough log of all vessels that come and go to ensure no AI contamination. Had we been made aware of your plans to travel, we would have notified you.”
The annoyance in the person’s tone said otherwise, but Jacob chose not to call the man out on his bullshit.
“Well, this ship is firmly under my control, and I am heading out, so what do I need to do?”
The captain’s terminal pinged with a message, and Jacob extracted one of the other drones from the command couches and sent it over to read the correspondence. It was forty pages long and asked a series of questions that essentially wanted to know every last detail of his trip.
Jacob snorted at that before filling out the form. He added the time he was departing, a vague time of return, and the fact that he had one passenger, then sent it back. He may need to play nice with the Astryx, but that didn’t mean he needed to provide them with every minor detail of his life. He certainly wasn’t about to tell them where he was going. In that field, he just put that he wasn’t leaving the station, which was technically true, the best kind of truth.
They must have realized they weren’t going to get anything further from him, and they didn’t push the issue any further or even comment on the empty fields. They were probably worried he would hike their rates up or deny them access to the station. He would have issues trying to do the latter, but he had come up with a few ways he might do that if push came to shove.
Without further ado, he retracted the landing struts and floated out the hangar door. The bridge door shut and sealed itself automatically, which was a relief, because Jacob had seen Katherine stomping toward the entrance.
She banged on the hatch a few times before yelling loud enough to hear through the reinforced metal. “This isn’t funny, Jacob. You can’t just leave me alone the entire trip.”
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If the drone had a mouth, it would have been smirking. He activated a ship-wide comm button. “This is your captain speaking. We will be transitioning shortly; all passengers must secure themselves for their safety. Thank you for flying Air Jacob.”
Jacob heard Katherine throw a few more curses his way before storming off. Honestly, he had no idea if passengers had to secure themselves on a ship that had internal gravity, but it seemed like a prudent decision. Once they were in FTL, then she could run around and yell at his drone all she wanted. Not that it would do any good. Jacob had no intention of spending a month alone aboard this vessel with or without Katherine. She was much too volatile a person for that, and he had work to do back at the station.
She would figure out that staying on the ship constantly wasn’t a good idea soon enough and pop back into her station-assigned drone, but until then, she was limited on what she had access to aboard the ship.
***
“General Roberts,” a stiffly dressed major saluted as he entered the converted storefront that acted as their forward operating base.
Daniel Roberts finished looking over the document he was perusing. He quickly signed it and handed it off to an aide before returning the major’s salute.
“Major Guiterrez, at ease.”
The man relaxed into parade rest, but he looked troubled.
“I assume by the look on your face that you bring me bad news?” Daniel asked. “Well, out with it.”
“Russia and China have moved up their nuclear preparations. The President and Joint Chiefs of Staff have raised our overall alert level to DEFCON 2. I’ve been asked to extract you to a secure location.”
What the hell were they thinking?
It had been less than two weeks since the alien ship had crashed into Brooklyn, and the world powers had gone mad with greed and jealousy that the US had sole access to the discovery. The President had attempted to form a joint research team, even including those two countries, but that wasn’t enough for nations like Russia, China, hell, even North Korea had thrown their hat into the ring. They were demanding not just access to the technology, but the technology itself. It was a ridiculous request when the ship hadn’t even been excavated from the crash site yet. That didn’t seem to matter to those nations.
Country leaders weren’t the only ones who had gone mad. Riots had broken out all across the globe as news of their visitor reached even the most remote locations. He didn’t even want to get into the theological debates that were raging, or what some of the more ideological groups had done.
The violence and fear had gotten so bad that a four-mile radius had been cleared around the crash site, and over three thousand Marines were now deployed in the area. It may seem like a lot, but it was far less than he had asked for. Part of the reason for that was international relations, which seemed to be souring by the hour.
Daniel grabbed his tablet, shoved it into a case, and gestured for the major to lead the way. His chief of staff would handle the rest and join them shortly.
They hadn’t even cleared the building before a siren started going off in the distance. The Marines looked confused as to why a tornado siren was blaring on a clear day, but Daniel was old enough to recall the duck and cover exercises taught in school.
The major seemed to understand what was going on, too. Then all of the radios in the area crackled to life, telling everyone to find cover.
“Follow me, General,” Guiterrez said as he pushed past a few confused Marines and ordered them to move their asses.
It didn’t take long to realize where they were going, as Marines were hurrying toward the same location.
“The subway?” Daniel asked.
“There are still bomb shelters down there, General. I had our people make sure every bomb shelter in our area was safe, then had each of them restocked with rations and other necessities in case the worst happened.”
“Good thinking,” Daniel praised the major’s foresight.
He knew Major Guiterrez was competent, but he hadn’t worked with him personally until this mess. He would have to look into the man’s history to see if he had enough time in rank to bump up to an O-5. They could use more competent lieutenant colonels.
Daniel hoped the alert was just precautionary, but as they were entering the stairwell, the Major’s radio blared to life once again. A code phrase to prove it was authentic was followed by a chilling warning. “DEFCON 1, weapons inbound. Seek immediate cover and shelter in place until the all clear is given.”
They really fucking did it. Humanity was about to nuke itself into oblivion, and all it took was a single crashed alien vessel to tip the balance that decades of animosity hadn’t been capable of doing. He would like to say he was surprised, but he wasn’t.
Daniel hurried below street level, passing six Marines who were wrestling a thick pair of doors over the stairwell entrance. Someone must have welded them in place to add some extra protection in case the worst transpired. Not that they would do much good if a nuclear warhead detonated overhead, and he was sure at least one of the enemy weapons was targeted at the ship’s location.
He idly wondered which country pulled the trigger first as he entered a musty room with the radiation symbol denoting it as a bomb shelter riveted to the outside. The rust on the sign and the water seepage did not inspire confidence, but it was better than being on the surface when the bomb went off.
Daniel tried to contact command, but the radio was being jammed. That shouldn’t be possible without advanced planning and high-tech gear aimed directly at their location. Daniel wondered why anyone would bother when a bomb would destroy everything in the area, then a horrible thought hit him.
“Major!”
“Yes, General?”
“Has the dig site exposed the ship?”
“Yes, General. I was going to bring it up, but then I got notified that we were moving to DEFCON 2 and told to extract you. We broke through a few hours ago, but the engineers wanted to stabilize the area before sending anyone in.”
“Who told you this?” Daniel urged.
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff. Why?” The major asked in concern.
“It’s a ruse,” Daniel spat. “I don’t know if someone in Washington turned traitor or our communications have been hijacked, but I want Marines on that dig site immediately.”
Before the major could respond, they heard gunfire and explosions in the distance. Whoever had orchestrated the fake nuclear strike had done so with ruthless planning. Their little ploy had trapped the majority of his forces in kill boxes, him included.
“Does this tunnel take us to the ship?” Daniel demanded.
“Yes, General, but the crossover tunnel is decommissioned and locked up tight.”
“Find some tools and get it open, or we’re all sitting ducks down here.”
The major nodded and started organizing the few dozen Marines who had joined them in the bunker.
A few teams stayed behind and hastily set up an impromptu choke point, pointing to the bottom of the stairs, but far enough back that any enemy would have to step into the lower landing if they wanted to attack the fortified position.
The rest hurried down the tunnel toward the crossover passage.
More teams broke off and headed down the train tunnel in both directions. If the enemy was prepared enough to know where the bunkers on the surface were, they would know about the ones in the subway as well.
Someone managed to open the locked door to the crossover, and Daniel was inside only moments before a hail of gunfire ripped down the train tunnel toward them.
The Marines returned fire, but there wasn’t much cover, and the volume of fire coming their way was far higher than the return fire. A few more teams remained behind to secure their rear.
Then gunfire erupted in front of their group, and Major General Daniel Roberts and the Marines found themselves pinned between two hostile forces; their only choice was to fight through or die. Whoever was attacking them had picked the wrong target as Marines returned deadly accurate fire down the tunnel.
The fighting seemed to ebb and flow for hours, but his Marines were well prepared. Whoever had planned this ambush had done so with numbers. Major Guiterrez had packed the shelters with ammunition as well as food, and each Marine had grabbed as much as they could carry before they left.
At some point, the enemy must have realized they were taking more losses than they could sustain, and they started to retreat, but not before trying to fire rockets toward their cross tunnel to cave it in.
The only thing that saved them was a crack shot from one of the Marines, which caused the rocket-wielding attacker to fall, and catch the detonator of his RPG on the nearby wall, killing himself and anyone nearby, while also destabilizing that section of the tunnel, which was already compromised by the ship’s crash landing.
When the dust cleared, Daniel urged the major to push forward. They needed to reach the ship.
By the time they cleared the subway and arrived at the dig site, it was already too late. Dead army engineers littered the area. They had been stabbed in the back or had their throats slit. It was clear they had been caught completely by surprise, but there was no sign of fighting, meaning the attack had come from within.
Daniel was disgusted that some of his own people had turned traitor. Dozens of sets of dusty footprints led into the vessel’s broken opening. Some Marines went in to clear the ship, but the people who had done this heinous act were already gone. They had likely fled during the gunfight.
When Daniel finally entered the ship and looked around, it was clear the attackers hadn’t gotten everything, but they hadn’t left empty-handed either. Strange cubes had been pulled from a large stack, some knocked across the room, while others were partially pulled from the wiring holding them in place. There was no telling if that was due to the crash or not, but the dusty footsteps led into that room, so he had to assume that some of the devices had been taken.
“General, it appears we have an unknown, possibly alien body in what’s left of the cockpit.”
Daniel nodded at Guiterrez. “Get our comms back online, then find out how many people we lost, before you catalog everything inside the ship.”
The major nodded and hurried off to issue orders.
Daniel hid his fury from the major, but he made a promise to himself that everyone involved would pay dearly for this attack.