Once she passed through the exterior door, she saw that there were no guards but the walls around her seemed to be a chamber with two doors that looked a lot like an organic air lock. She pulled her light out of the air and attached it to her belt. The inside of the ship was lit by some sort of bioluminescence. The walls were comprised of a hardened rock like substance. She pulled out her hand scanner to get a good reading on the material. It was showing a density akin to dreadnought armor. She pulled out her vibroknife and found she was able to get a sample from the interior. She rushed out forgetting her cloak was covering the container. Oozenoshae followed her. She was able to scrape the exterior as well. It seemed that the Sal’nash relied on layers to protect it, not hardness. She moved back inside and saw a Sal’nash sniffing at the antimatter vessel.
She stopped and watched. It wasn’t like the one she’d fought it was smaller and lacked the spindly spiked limbs that had jabbed her. It had two legs, two larger arms and four other arms with three fingered claws. It was more brown than black. It seemed to have been adapted to match the hive coloring. It seemed content and skittered off on its two arms and two legs. Allison breathed a sigh of relief, moved forward and her cloak engulfed the canister.
She started thinking to herself, “If I do this, if I detonate this bomb… I could be starting a war.”
She realized she’d already done that when Bit blew up that colony ship on her orders. She sighed and trudged forward. She noticed that the hive had open areas that seemed to have been formed as a place for them to sleep. The massive doors were open, though on this ship they appeared to be more like sphincters. There were pods with the same green slime she’d seen in the eggs. The floor was covered in it leading towards the exit she’d come in. Obviously the Sal’Nash had been in stasis until she’d poked the nest so to speak. She moved on and reached what appeared to be a central corridor.
Sphincter-like doors lined the passage on both sides. Content that the Sal’nash drones, she’d already decided that was what to call the smaller brown ones, would ignore it with its goo covering she left it behind and pressed her hand against one of the sphincter-doors. It opened. The sound was as disgusting as she imagined. It sounded like a slurping fleshy noise right out of a holo she’d been forced to watch in human sexuality about giving birth. It brought her right back to the holo. In her opinion showing teenagers that, especially girls was counterproductive to the System’s Alliance continuously running advertising campaign: Enjoy sexual freedom, Reproduce, be plentiful! Have one child, be a champion, have two children, be a hero, have three children be a legend! She finished gagging at the memory and looked inside.
The chamber was large and seemed to have organic vents that directed air through the room. There were glowing plant-like things that grew in rows out of some form of organic compound. Each had several leaves, but their colors varied between pink and orange. She slipped inside and took samples of the earth and broke off a plant stem and slipped it into another one of her sample bags. The door slid open a few seconds later and a drone rushed in. She stepped back. A long prehensile style tongue darted between its mandibles, and it licked some green slime Allison had left behind. It clicked its claws and looked around the room with its six bulbus eyes. Another drone slipped in. Before the door closed, Allison scooted out. She continued on her way. She made a note at how rapidly the drones responded. Thankfully they seemed somewhat dumb and non-aggressive.
Her scanner indicated that the room was some sort of carbon dioxide scrubber. Each room along the central hall which was half a kilometer long was identical. Some had drones tending the plants. Several drones scurried past her, none seemed to stop. It would seem they used eyesight and taste rather than other senses. The hive wasn’t quiet and easily covered up the sound of Oozie’s paws, her feet and the squeak of the dolly. Though with such a massive number of scrubbers, the airlock-like exterior access door was leading her to the conclusion this was no hive but a massive three-kilometer-long organic starship.
She found a passage leading to a massive chamber that would be towards the front port quadrant of the ship. Inside were Sal’nash of numerous descriptions. Some were massive and had bulbus lower bodies. Others were the size of Bit and looked like organic fighter planes. They were attached to vein-like tubes with green slime flowing in and black slime flowing out. She took what scans she could, but she didn’t risk climbing down into the massive launch bays. She backed out of the chamber and inspected some other side passages. This whole ship was one living organism that seemed to support the Sal’nash, almost like it was a Sal’nash itself.
The next room she happened upon had a high capacitance fluid in massive, hardened sacks. It was blue and looked viscus. It fed into another sack and in that sack the fluid was glowing blue. It was superheated. Hot enough Oozie refused to get close, and her armor started complaining about it. It was reminiscent of the plasma weaponry of Silwrath craft only it was all organic. She took scans and tore open one of the non-heated sacs with her vibroknife and took a sample. She could not let an opportunity to get details on weaponry. SAI would want that above all else. Her scans indicated the room held enough capacitance fluid to launch at least twenty plasma attacks. She backed up and weaved through six drones rushing to repair the damage she’d done.
She and Oozie moved on. She found appendages that would extend out of the ship in one chamber. They appeared to be what her scanner indicated might be a force field generator. She moved aft. All she needed to do was identify antimatter storage and she could confirm what she suspected all along. Anything she could get on propulsion, FTL speeds would help identify how much threat they posed. If they couldn’t use Synthlin tech to track them at FTL then they would have no forewarning of attacks. All indications she got from what she could glean from Aryna’s memories were that these things attacked without warning.
She glanced at the timer she’d set for herself. She was starting to reach the point that she was concerned her diversion was going to stop diverting the Sal’nash troops. The patrol that had approached the crashed ship had taken around thirty minutes from the hive… the hive-ship? She’d been poking and prodding this ship for the better part of an hour. Eventually they were going to figure something was up and send more than just drones to investigate. Eventually the troops would return. She assumed anyway. She was hoping to find the power core, the drive section and the bridge… though she might actually be looking for a brain or something.
Allison scratched Oozie’s head. Then headed onwards. They started descending a ramp. The ship wasn’t built like an Alliance ship. They had bulkheads to limit damage and loss of atmosphere. Safety mechanisms. This ship had some similar doors but the engine room/power core she was heading down into had nothing. It was just one giant scary looking pulsing organ. It seemed to be attached to the ship via glowing tubes like she’d seen in the plasma chambers. She turned around and saw three kilometers of green and black sacs attached to countless tubes it took up the entire bottom half of the ship. She whispered.
“Over half their ship is taken up by life support.”
She couldn’t detect antimatter anywhere in the ‘engineering’ space. She was, however, detecting a massive buildup of gravitic energy in the organ. Her eyes went wide as she put two and two together. She thought: “Its prepping to launch.” This was not good. Not good at all. She was happy to see the scanner tell her that it had been building up power for several hours, even before she arrived. She ran up the ramp, Oozie seemed to think it was a game and rushed ahead of her. By the time she reached the top of the ramp Oozie was dancing around the canister with a drone in its teeth shaking it. It dropped it at Allison’s feet. The words that came out of her mouth next would not be repeated in the log of her adventure on the rogue planet but suffice it to say the intelligence officer who reviewed it needed several translation matrixes to determine the content of her tirade of curse words. No one would know outside of Oozie and Allison because the transcript just said: The ensign was displeased with the death of the drone.
She rolled the drone to the side of the ramp and kicked it off. Oozie rubbed against her legs panting. Oozie had a claw wound on its side. Allison grumbled and kneeled down. She was hoping the wound sealant wouldn’t have ill effects. She couldn’t have the creature leaving a trail of blood through the ship and frankly if it worked on Sauroids and Silwrath it should work on anything carbon based. She sprayed the sealant foam on the wound and Oozie made a purring sound as Allison massaged it into the injury. She whispered.
“You are… a brat. You remind me of Sophie. That cat was a menace.”
Oozie’s tail was wagging, and its tongue was out. The eyes. Allison couldn’t resist the eyes. She whispered again while scratching under Oozie’s ears which made the creature’s whole body seem to wag with its tail.
“God damn it why are you so adorable. Come on we need to set this near the center of the ship and get the hell out of here.”
The pair ducked down a side passage with the antimatter cannister in tow just as a group of recently awakened Sal’nash marines? Allison shook her head and decided on a different name. As a dozen Sal’nash warrior drones rushed by. She glared down at Oozie and whispered harshly.
“See? That’s why you don’t randomly attack things, they always have bigger friends! Bad alien dog-cat thing.”
Her tone seemed to have the desired effect and Oozie’s tail drooped, and it seemed to start to pout. It’s always pointed, and alert ears bent back. It gave Allison the most adorable puppy dog eyes. She groaned quietly and scratched its head.
“Gah, don’t do that. It’s not fair.”
She started pushing the dolly holding the cannister down the hall again. She glanced down at Oozie and whispered.
“If it was any other pilot in the fleet that found you, you’d have died back at that crashed ship. But no, you got the one softy teenage girl. You’re going to get me in so much trouble. They’re going to see this recording and they’re going to be like, you’re stupid you should have left the stupid cat-dog thing behind. What were you thinking? We were idiots to give you access to a priceless alien starfighter. How could we possibly trust your decision making if you’d risk your life for a dumb ass cat-dog thing that can’t keep its teeth to itself? Huh?”
She’d turned a few corners while she was dressing down Oozie and stopped when she saw her perky companion get low and start to growl. Allison put her hand on Oozie’s nose.
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“Shh, shh, the whole point of this is not to be seen or heard you… grr.”
She heard movement behind her.
“There’s a bunch of Sal’nash behind me, aren’t there?”
Oozie kept growling and hissing. She turned her head slowly. She felt like she was having one of those dreams where she was going off about how stupid a teacher was and then realized they were right behind her. There was a massive Sal’nash with eight visible limbs, half of it was sunk into the chamber’s floor. It hissed at Allison and spit a gout of green bile at her. Allison dove to the side. The ship’s wall started to sizzle.
“Oh, it has acid spit that is so awesome, because my night was going so well already!”
There were dozens of drones that had been tending to the creature. They scattered. Allison heard more screeches than even more screeches. The giant Sal’nash was watching her as she moved. Apparently, her cloak was completely ineffective against it. Allison shoved the canister behind cover and slapped explosives on the power generator and along the side Bit had indicated was a weak point. She linked them together with more explosives and then slapped her detonator in the middle of it. More acid hit the protrusion she’d used as cover. Melting through the floor. There was a sub-chamber to this one. She shrugged and tipped the dolly over. Allison winced as the canister banged against a wall then another wall and finally rolled to a stop on the floor beneath.
More screeches echoed through the hive-ship. Allison looked at Oozie.
“We gotta go. Now.”
She motioned with her hand and started to run. As she ran, she spoke.
“Tango-8! Cancel radio silence! Now!”
Bit responded.
“Ensign, I am detecting a lot of activity within the hive. What is your status?”
Allison didn’t slow down. Oozie kept pace and seemed to think this was a grand old game. Allison skidded to a halt at an X-junction. Ahead of her was a full patrol of Sal’nash Warrior drones. To the left was another group rapidly approaching. Both started pelting her armor with organic spikes. She held up her arm and she swore when a turquoise energy shield appeared. The spikes bounced off of it, every single one seemed to impact her energy reserves. Oozie was crouched down growling. It seemed fully ready to get into the thick of it with the Sal’nash. Allison had other plans. She threw a synthetic meat pack down the one passageway there were no Sal’nash and then dropped her last functional flash bang. She then drew her pistol and started firing behind her as she rushed down the one hallway with no Sal’nash. Oozie grabbed the meat and started chewing it as they ran. The flash bang went off and disoriented their pursuers.
“Ensign, the hive… the Sal’nash craft is lifting off and launching airborne forces. Do you need assistance?”
Allison kept firing behind her. She felt organic spikes pelting her armor as the Sal’nash came to their senses. The armor plates seemed to be deflecting, even reflecting them in some cases with such force they were sending Sal’nash flying. It would seem the armor was very effective, but its energy reserves were getting low after her extended mission, and now continuous assault. The ship was shaking under her feet.
“Wow do you have a talent for understatement! Yes! Yes, I need help. My scans indicate I’m heading towards an exit on the top of the ship. Meet me there.”
The Sal’nash continued their chase even as dozens were cut down by their own spikes being reflected back at them with twice the force. The Qual’sa pistol seemed pretty effective once she set it to max. Though it was starting to get low on charge. She got to the airlock door, but it was sealed. She lifted her pistol and shot it. It burned a hole through it and the other door, but it was nowhere near big enough. She started wrenching on the hole she’d made with both hands. Something inside her seemed to pop and she could see the glow of her golden eyes reflected on her armor’s face plate. She could feel her fangs out. She could feel the power in her blood flowing into her muscles. She ripped the ship door apart. Oozie was crouched down growling. Allison turned away from the door and fired her last three blasts from her pistol disintegrating three more Sal’nash into flashes of turquoise particles.
“Bit, we’re danger close but I need you to blast the outer hatch with particle beams. The Sal’nash are almost on top of us.”
She pulled out her vibroknife. She was still in full vampire mode she could feel the vitality in her blood just like Maria had described it. It was like the warrior drones and Oozie were moving in slow motion relative to her. Her entire body was engaged now. There was no exhaustion. Only anticipation of the kill. She could see how they were moving. She weaved through the first one’s blows and stabbed upwards into the weak point in its lower jaw. She kicked it off her vibroknife sending it flying into two of its own. She growled. A primal part of her was cursing the helmet because she wanted to feel their chitin burst between her teeth. She wanted to devour the fear in their blood as she crushed them with her bare hands. She rapidly tore through eight of them. More were coming. They hesitated. Nothing she had discovered so far indicated they had any sense of self-preservation. Something was giving them pause. Was it her gore covered armor? Where they waiting for reinforcements? Allison snarled.
“Come and die you stupid bugs! Come on! Come at me!”
Bit spoke.
“I am targeting the hatch.”
Allison saw a large Sal’nash with red chitin pushing its way through the rank-and-file warriors, but she couldn’t react to him. She crouched down and grabbed Oozie and shielded them both with the energy shield her armor projected from her left arm. There was a flash of white light. A wash of energy shoved Allison back. Her armored feet skidded across the Sal’nash ship’s hull. The same blast caused the giant blood red Sal’nash to stumble backwards it was forced to shield its eyes with its thick arms. The rest behind it were blasted backwards causing a loud cracking sound and resulting in a gout of green Sal’nash blood.
Allison’s energy shield flickered and vanished. Her armor was showing critical power levels. She stood up and cracked her neck. She crouched. Oozie started growling at the Sal’nash. Allison looked at Oozie.
“Go, now!”
To her surprise the animal looked up at her and then lowered its head. It bolted for Bit’s waiting cockpit. She noted that this giant Sal’nash didn’t seem to have the same weak spot as the lesser warriors. It was also twice their size. She backed away. She felt juiced on vampire blood, but she was having second thoughts about this fight. It moved faster than its size would predict and landed on her. She slammed against the ship’s wall. It had one of its claws around her neck. She grabbed its neck and was shoving it away with all her strength. Its crunching mandibles and ring of vicious teeth snapped at her trying to bite her face. One of its spiked limbs tried to hit her in the abdomen, but she grabbed it with her left hand. She could feel its chitin cracking under her blood powered strength. It screeched. It attacked with another one of its spiked limbs and she kicked it away. It was rearing for another. She was having trouble speaking because her armor’s integrity was almost gone and the pressure on her neck was starting to choak her.
“Bit… shoot it.”
“You are in the line of fire.”
Allison kneed the creature with every bit of her vampiric strength. She shattered the chitin of what appeared to be its abdomen, causing a gout of green blood to spray all over her. Between the slickness of its blood and the shock of her vicious attack she was able to weasel out of its grasp, and she slammed herself to the deck in fetal position. The uberdrone reached back all four of its spiked limbs now that it had her where it thought it wanted her.
“Fire! Now! Now! Now!”
With a brilliant flash of white light, the Sal’nash evaporated. Along with the whole tunnel of lesser warrior drones. Allison took a few seconds to gather herself before jumping up. She grabbed her vibroknife and pistol on the way and jumped onto Bit’s wing. She scrambled into the cockpit. It was a tight fit with Oozie already there. The canopy oozed over them. She could see white contrails as the massive hive ship started disgorging fighter-like Sal’nash.
She didn’t have time to celebrate or be gentle. She shoved Oozie who was jumping on her lap between her legs and under the seat. She took manual control of the starfighter. She angled to get out of the atmosphere. Giant blobs of blue plasma started filling the air around the hive ship. Allison started bobbing and weaving. She shifted power from cloak to shields and weapons. Bit spoke.
“Ensign, if we leave the atmosphere we will not be able to detonate the antimatter.”
Allison nodded.
“But if we don’t get a safe distance, it will obliterate us and someone needs to get this data to the Alliance. We’ll have to wait until it breaks atmosphere and detonate it then. Won’t be as effective as we want.”
The fighter was taking heavy weapons fire. There were literally thousands of Sal’nash fighter drones swarming out of the hives all over the planet. There was no way she could win that fight. Allison did something Bit did not expect, she stopped evasive maneuvers and punched it. One of the concerns with going hypersonic and near lightspeed in the atmosphere was the damage it would cause to buildings, the biosphere and to wildlife. Allison had no such concerns today. She shifted to max thrust and ignored the warnings. Bit sensed her pilot’s intentions and removed the limiters. The sonic boom made when the fighter suddenly lurched forward caused an earthquake. The Sal’nash in closest pursuit turned into puffs of green blood when the shockwave rushed through them. The air molecules slammed into her forward shields with the force of a high-powered weapon. She didn’t slow down.
Every alarm in the fighter was going off once she hit the thicker carbon-dioxide mix and when she burst into the oxygen/hydrogen area she was going well past three quarters towards light speed. The fighter’s malleable armored skin of liquid metal was trying to shift and compensate but there was no physical way for the fighter to make what she was doing alright. The upper atmosphere ignited around her. Those bugs that had managed to get this high burst into flames behind her. The shields buckled and the fighter’s armor started to cook. When she finally made it to vacuum it was obvious Bit would need major repairs. Allison had broken the airframe and the fighter had lost sixty percent of its fluidic metal armor. Allison still didn’t slow down.
As the bugs managed to reach space they suddenly stopped thrust forward and started drifting. Whatever powered them didn’t seem to work here. Bit did not sound happy.
“My shield generators, particle beams and my computer core are still fully functional, would you perhaps like to shoot them to finish the job?”
Allison rolled her eyes.
“You removed the limiters!”
Bit was speaking loudly now.
“That didn’t mean you should go to 75 percent of lightspeed in atmosphere!”
Oozie started barking. Allison looked in the direction Oozie was looking and saw the hive ship break through the atmosphere. Then another, then another. There were thousands of them forming up. The one she’d been on was twice the size of the rest. She glanced at the potential blast radius in space of a 1000 teraton antimatter detonation. It was all theoretical, no one had actually blown up that much antimatter at once. In fact the System’s Alliance after forty years of FTL travel had maybe made three percent of that.
“Detonate it before they go to FTL.”
Bit flashed the blast radius on the screen. Even at max thrust they were going to be hit by some of it. Allison flipped all remaining power to the force shield and let the fighter coast at the current speed. She did something that was theoretically possible, but no one had really tested it yet she turned her graviton core into a graviton shield. The Synthlin manual said it was a last-ditch tactic. Only use it if you’re going to die because it could overload the core and knock the drive offline permanently and possibly create a micro-blackhole. By the same token if she took the full brunt of the explosion she was about to unleash, even at the edge they’d be obliterated. Bit flashed the button on the HUD.
“Well, if there is anyone who doesn’t know we’re here, they’re going to know now.”
Allison closed her eyes, took a deep breath and pounded the detonate button with her fist. She curled around Oozie and prepared herself to die. Her eyes focused on the Sal’nash flag ship on the fighter’s three hundred and sixty-degree holo-HUD. There was a brilliant flash. Then a wave of visible energy rippled outwards one by one the hive ships exploded in flashes of blue light each sending out a ripple of blue energy. The ships the initial detonation didn’t obliterate were destroyed by secondary plasma explosions. Eventually the wave hit the planet. The blast wave stripped its atmosphere almost instantly. Then the surface lit up with flashes of brilliant energy as canisters that still stored small amounts of antimatter were ignited. Soon the surface was engulfed in lava as the crust cracked. The blast wave slammed into the fighter and everything went dark.