Extinction (Extraterrestrial Empire Book 1) Page 9

  “We found them,” said Ace with a sigh of relief. He tried to enter the room, but the door was locked. He banged on it. Tucker turned but put up his finger, indicating he needed a second on the computer. He continued to hit keys, and then a minute or so later, he stopped, got up, and unlocked the reinforced steel door.

  Tucker smiled. “Boy, am I glad to see you guys.”

  “Fuck you,” said Ace, pushing his arm against Tucker’s jacket. “Why’d you bolt out of the tunnel without us?”

  “Well, that’s pretty obvious. There were a bunch of spiders coming, and I didn’t want to become spider food.”

  “What happened to Janice?” Ace rushed over to Janice and shook her. She opened her glassy eyes as Ace rubbed a bead of sweat from her forehead. “Are you all right? What happened back there?”

  She spoke slowly, eyes watering. “Tucker pushed me when some crazy man came running. He jabbed my neck with some kind of object … my neck’s been killing me.”

  Ace looked at the neck. It had a reddish cut and a small puncture hole. She’d been stabbed by something, and it was most likely the weird turkey baster syringe near the worm they’d found. Ace decided not to tell Janice. It’d only freak her out.

  Ace stood up and looked at Tucker, angrier than ever. “You used her as a shield, you shitbag.”

  Tucker slowly stepped back, sensing trouble. “Listen Ace, I didn’t use her to protect me—if that’s what you think. It’s just that it was dark and I was trying to run away from the man. I swear … I know I bumped her into that crazy scientist, but it all happened so quick— I don’t know what happened. It’s all confusing.”

  Ace sensed a lie and walked up to Tucker’s computer. It was an Alpha terminal with complete access to the facility. It was locked. “Unlock this terminal. And don’t tell me it’s on a need-to-know basis or some other kind of shitbrain excuse, because I will fuckin’ have your head on top of that terminal in about two seconds if you don’t unlock it right now.”

  Tucker wanted to try one excuse and he almost spat it out before cowardice decided against it. He logged into the terminal and shook his head. “This is beyond you guys, and we’re all gonna be dead when we get back for looking at this stuff. I’ll be dead for showing you.” He logged in and left the terminal. “It’s all yours.”

  Ace looked over at Kiya. “Get online. See if you can figure out what’s going on.”

  “What can we do, boss?” asked Jimbo, approaching with Ivan.

  “Jimbo, you go over to the base comm over there in the corner and see if you can reach some of the holed-up scientists. Ivan, go out in the hallway and keep your eyes peeled for crazies. Me and Tucker are gonna go for a walk.” Ace looked over to Janice. “You hold out, Janice. I’m gonna see if I can get you to the infirmary. I know there’s one up on the north side. I need a little time to figure something out. You think you’ll be okay for another thirty minutes?”

  “I think the swelling’s going down, but there’s still a lot of pain. I would like to get a good antibiotic soon, though. The infirmary should have some.”

  “We’ll push to get outta here in less than fifteen minutes. Just rest and don’t move too much. I’ll get you to that infirmary or die trying.”

  Ace left the computer processing lab and grabbed Tucker by his jacket. He had some talking he wanted to do in private.

  ***

  Big Jimbo sat down in the soft, synth-leather Comm Station command chair. His other specialty was communications and Ace knew it. Jimbo was certified with the latest mil-comm systems along with a crypto-14 cert. Hell, he even had one of those old ham radios at home. There was a classic communications club known as the CCC that rebuilt old ham radios and used them to talk to each other in Georgia where Jimbo grew up. He had one of the best, an old Rockwell Collins HF-2050. Learning all the old circuitry really forced you to get all the basics of communication. Nowadays, the kids coming out of Space Navy Comm classes didn’t know shit about the basics. All they learned was which module to replace in the units. Everything was replaceable …

  Module to replace? That concept hit a personal nanotech nerve. Jimbo recalled his first year in the Army Rangers. He’d joined because his father thought real men should support their country by doing something more than sitting on their high-fructose corn syrup-fattened asses. But Jimbo almost died in the Chino-Korean conflict by getting chewed up from a bomb blast and then poisoned by Chinese nerve gas. But the old man, an Admiral, had friends high up, so they sent his comatose, shredded body to a secret San Diego base called Falcon Advanced Research, otherwise known as FAR.

  There they fixed up ol’ “Big Jimbo.” He woke up feeling great, but soon discovered he’d been out for over three months. His body was no longer truly his. He got wired up with a whole bunch of internal electronics, a new nano-tissue brain, and synthetic blood. They cloned his legs, arms, stomach, liver, and other broken organs. Some of the new organs were human, but in reality, most of him was nothing more than a cyborg. His old brain got wired up to the new nano-tissue brain for months. His thoughts and memories mixed and transferred to the new brain while the original brain died. Jimbo’s old body was cremated before his bodywork was complete, and it was a good thing. Who the fuck would want to wake up and see his old dead body? Those thoughts faded as Jimbo focused on the job at hand.

  Big Jimbo inspected the integrated comm unit. It was the standard, military-issue XG-400 used at high security bases, nothing too fancy. He turned it on and set the scan looking for hot spots. The location sensors seemed to be off, which was strange, but the comm channels for the emergency lines opened up. A scan showed a hot SOS chirping for help. He patched into the encrypted channel to receive an audio- video connection. An image of an empty chair came into view. In the background was a Zeon-backlit star chart showing an unknown constellation. Guy must be away from the desk, thought Jimbo. I’ll give him a little message; maybe wake ’em up. Maybe someone was getting JoJo or went to the head?

  “Ahem,” coughed Jimbo to clear his throat. “This is Earth Command Special Team Ops James Bo. Is there anyone on this line? Can anyone hear me?”

  Jimbo waited a few seconds before retransmitting, but it wasn’t necessary. A skinny man with long, disheveled hair walked up to the empty chair and sat down. He gazed calmly, like a drugged cat waiting for a lobotomy. “We can hear you. Did you say Earth Command Special Team Ops?”

  Jimbo smiled. Excellent! “Yes, I did. This is James Bo with Earth Command. We just entered the east side and started to go north. We understand that you’re holed up somewhere way up in the north side of the base. What’s going on with the sick scientists? Are they still contained in the South Sector?”

  “No,” said the man. “Don’t go to the North Sector—we had to leave that area and went to the west side. Most of the sick got loose and followed us, but we now have them contained up there in the north. We retreated back to the west side tunnels. We locked the sick ones in the north with a remote security lockdown.”

  “I’m glad we talked, because our intel said you guys were in the north facility.”

  “No, we locked ourselves in the bio-research labs here on the west side, but we think there are some unknown alien forces coming into this area. We were going to push into the south facilities, but we’re having trouble with the unlock codes from here. We need someone with the GEN-6 Alpha codes to unlock the south so that we can enter.”

  Kiya walked over, overhearing the communication. “Do you know where the alien forces are coming from? Can you give us locations?”

  The fragile-looking man stared at Kiya and paused for an uncomfortable time before speaking. “We believe they’re in tunnel T2 and are proceeding to the west end security entrance. We are all currently located in the West Bio Facility and want to proceed to the south where we can lock ourselves into the Engineering section. From there, we can control the other sections and stop the aliens. We can all meet up there, but first we need someone to grant access from the Control
Center. We need someone to unlock the south before the aliens arrive—please release the security lock on that sector.”

  “How do we do that?” asked Jimbo.

  Kiya was logged in via Tucker’s Alpha Access code and knew how. She looked over at Jimbo and spoke away from the screen. “The comm over there has access, but I’m a little concerned. I want to—”

  “Ouch!” yelled Janice grabbing her head. “My head is killing me. Oh God!”

  Kiya ran over to Janice while Jimbo looked blankly over at the scientist. The scientist shook his head. “We need to get out of here soon. If we do not, those aliens will kill us. I can explain how to unlock the south on an Alpha console if you have access.”

  “I do,” said Jimbo, looking over at Kiya helping Janice. Time was running out. “Tell me, and I’ll do the unlock protocol now.”

  The man explained the sector code and how to remove the security lockdown. Jimbo went over to the terminal and completed the instructions. It took less than ten seconds to unlock that section. He was relieved and went back to the console to tell the man he and his team could proceed south.

  When Jimbo went back, the man was already gone. Boy, those scientists are fuckin’ weird, thought Jimbo. Could have at least said thank you before rushing out. Then again, alien invaders would probably have everyone in a hurry. He went over to Kiya and Janice, and tried to figure out what to do next.

  ***

  Ace walked into a break room with Tucker in tow. He hit an automatic JoJo machine and selected an old drink, a black Italian roast, no sugar, no crème. He sipped it while watching Tucker stare down at a break table.

  Tucker looked up at Ace. “I’m telling you, you’re over your head. You got us in here safely. You did your job. Let me do mine now.” Tucker walked over to a juice machine and ordered an orange fuzzy. It dripped out a creamy orange liquid. He tasted it. “This is really good. You should try one of these.”

  Ace guzzled down half his JoJo and then threw the rest into a garbage can, spilling some of it on the floor. “We ain’t got time to fuck around here, Tucker. Janice needs help and needs it soon. I saw some kind of strange syringe on the ground where she got hurt. There was even some kind of weird green worm on ground near the syringe, but I didn’t want to mention it—”

  “A green worm?”

  “Yes, a small, green fuckin’ worm. Maybe it’s native, or maybe it’s the worm Kiya was talking about. In any case, I want you to tell me what the fuck’s going on here?”

  “Look, Ace. I’ll tell you what I know, but it’s not gonna help. This base was doing research on weapons against some type of alien, one that we expect to fight on Earth someday. One that’s so deadly that we set up the base way the fuck out here to build weapons. But something went wrong, something that made half the base crazy. Maybe it’s something in the air. Maybe it’s the equipment they were using. I don’t know what went wrong, but I’m supposed to figure out what and get that back to Earth Command and BOT. BOT is gonna probably build another research base, and they don’t want to lose all the work that was done here. This work might save the Earth in some goddam deadly war, so I gotta focus on getting that data. I’m sorry about Janice, but my focus is not on her, it’s on the security and defense of Earth.”

  Ace stood up. “We’re gonna help her. She’s my focus right now. So let’s get going. We may have to blow up this whole fuckin’ base.”

  “What are you talking about?

  Ace ignored Tucker. He now knew why the three EBE-C3s had landed. They wanted the same data that Tucker was after for BOT. He somehow knew the aliens were working their way into GEN-6. He had to find a way to take them out and then meet up with the healthy scientists. If the Aurora was in battle with the EBE-C3s, it might be no battle at all. The EBE-C3 aliens might return with their mother ship after destroying the Aurora, and they’d be outgunned and outnumbered.

  The only option in that type of war was to blow up what everyone was looking for—and that was the base. Maybe Ace and the healthy scientists could hide out somewhere on Kabbalah and avoid capture after the base’s destruction—and then again, maybe not. Things were not looking good for the home team. Ace pulled Tucker in tow while rushing back to the others in the Control Room.

  ***

  Lieutenant James Swann arrived on the bridge. The Aurora was on red alert with lights flashing and the weapons consoles busy with people trying to prepare for an attack with the colossal, alien mother ship. But those sounds and lights didn’t affect Swann as much as the amounts of energy in peoples’ thoughts. A lot of those thoughts were plain panic. As Swann got to the captain’s chair, he was relieved that at least the captain had composure, calculated composure, analyzing the situation as best he could. Swann knew that Karr was a solid captain, but his understanding of the situation was missing a critical element. But even so, the captain knew his weaknesses, and this is why Swann was called.

  Swann was an Electronic Warfare specialist, but more importantly, he was ranked as the most telepathic human to ever live. For some, this was fascinating; to many others, it was deeply disturbing, as they feared that their most private thoughts could be extracted by this mind-reader. Swann almost never read peoples’ deep, private thoughts; it was like looking into someone’s purse or wallet. You could do it pretty easily, but why?

  Captain Karr looked over at Swann, smiled, and stood up. “Is Lieutenant Goldberg still giving you trouble?”

  “I think you must have telepathic abilities. You just read my mind,” said Swann, smiling back. “I make him nervous, but he’s better than the last one, though not as cute.”

  Karr tried not to think about the previous lieutenant in charge of Psych Ops. That one quit after finding out that Swann was openly bisexual. “Let’s go to the Dream Catcher. We need to talk.”

  “I agree,” said Swann.

  Both men entered the specially shielded room. Swann liked the mental rest the Dream Catcher allowed. The Dream Catcher blocked outside human telepathic energies and electronic static noise, and it reminded Swann of resting far away at a cabin in the mountains. Most never realized that the forest was relaxing not just because of the serenity of not having people or calls; it was relaxing because those areas had less electromagnetic bombardment. No cell towers, no car navigation, no comm links, vid chat, Facelink, or Brainpal connections. The world had turned into an electronic orgy that affected all humans in some manner, but it affected the few true telepaths in a painful way.

  Karr waved Swann into a seat. He hit the key topic directly, as there was not time for friendly chitchat. “Swann, we’re being intercepted by—”

  “I know, Captain, and I’m sorry to cut you off. But you must not attack this ship. And you’ll be wasting a good Earth Command Fleet warship if you elect to self-destruct, not to mention ten thousand souls.”

  You read my mind, thought Karr.

  “Yes, I did,” continued Swann.

  “But what about the attack at Kabbalah? They tried to destroy our ship. We can’t let them take over this ship. We either fight and win, or die trying.”

  Swann shook his head. “They opened up a WHIP hole when they arrived at Kabbalah. That caused a massive EMP that hit the ship. They didn’t know we were orbiting. It was an accident.”

  “Well, I find that hard to believe, since they’re mankind’s greatest enemy,” continued Karr. “If they get within the telepathic perimeter, we’re goners.”

  “Captain, they were within the telepathic perimeter for about one minute at Kabbalah when I picked up their thoughts. They came here because they’re scared about what’s going on at GEN-6.”

  “Well, they should be. The research there is supposed to allow us to wipe them out.”

  “No, they’re not scared of our specific research. They think something unexpected has occurred on GEN-6. They think it’s something that concerns us both.” Swann sensed a flood of thoughts and calculations in Karr’s head. He gave up on his telepathic processing and decided to rest. He
allowed Karr to talk, sensing his bottled-up frustration.

  “Swann, we auto-warped once the Aurora sensed an EBE-C3 presence. You know better than anyone the power of telepathy. We can’t afford having those Greys getting into anyone’s head. I hope they didn’t get into yours. I’m surprised that, with all the lead shielding, you were able to pick up anything. How can we trust these beings? We know from the small Greys that these guys consider us enemies and they plan to wipe us out. They should know we’re trying to find a way to wipe them out. Why would they care about us? Why should we trust them?”

  “That may be true, but I got a message from a leader before we warped. They sensed this response and already gave us an answer. They said: ‘Your enemy’s enemy is your friend’.”

  “I don’t know what they’re talking about, Swann. I know of no enemy more dangerous than them. A botched-up research lab doesn’t exactly equate here. I don’t think we can trust them, Swann. This could all be a ruse.” Karr tapped his comm badge. “Warburg, how much time before the hostile is in telepathic range?”

  “Four minutes, sir.”

  Swann looked frustrated and knew what the captain was thinking. Karr was planning to blow up the ship.

  Karr looked over at Swann and answered back to Warburg. “Thanks, lieutenant.”

  “They’re gonna hold at the telepathic perimeter,” said Swann.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m in communication with them now, despite the shields around this room. I can sense them and they can sense me.”

  “How’s that possible?”