Escape 1: Escape From Aliens (3 page)

“Hey, Diligent! Bet you never dealt with a captive who could sew!”

Looking down he saw the parka lying atop the drain hole, looking like a fat green balloon. Now, if some Alien crewman changed the drain suction software so it sucked harder, that suction would only pull his plug further down the hole until the aluminum of the canteen blocked any further descent. Leaving the drain still plugged. Shouldering his backpack, he turned away from the water-filled basin and walked over to the round mesh hole in the opposite wall. Touching the spot above the mesh, he watched as water flowed out in a small arc. With no canteen to contain it, the water fell onto the smooth metal floor of the cell. He grinned as he watched the skim of water flow slowly toward the refuse basin. The cell floor had a slight incline to it so that any liquid would naturally flow to the drain hole. Which was now plugged. He pulled his finger away from the spot above the mesh and the water flow stopped. With a nod he resumed touching the sensor spot.

“Diligent, I think I need a bath. A full body bath!”

Water flowed out. After a minute it did not stop flowing. In fact it was gushing out as if under a lot of pressure. Keeping his finger against the Turn On spot was doing the trick.

“Hmmm. Wonder how long it will take for this cell to get waist deep in water? And I wonder just where your emergency drain holes might be. Oh, did I tell you that Humans float?”

Forty minutes later Bill felt his bare feet leave the floor as the cell’s water level hit five feet deep. He turned to float on his side, still keeping his finger against the Turn On sensor in the cell wall. He could feel the continuing inflow of water as a gushing spurt just below the Turn On wall spot. Long minutes later the water level had risen to nearly seven feet. He sucked in air, held his breath and plunged his head and shoulders into the water so he could keep his finger on the Turn On spot. The waterproof backpack kept his midbody suspended while his feet stuck out of water toward the ceiling. He scanned the cell floor below him, confirming the refuse drain hole plug was still blocking any drainage of water. The food slot had not disgorged any new food slab, though it would soon be noon and time for a second meal. Would the slot open while exposed to a flood of water? Bill didn’t know but he assumed there were automatic devices built into the containment cell that would prevent any of its devices from damaging the module. The ending of the upward pull on his body by the rising water confirmed that. While he still felt the inflow of water below his finger, the water level was not rising. Which meant a drain or drain holes had opened somewhere in the cell. Letting go the Turn On spot he surfaced with a gasp.

“Nice bath, you mother fucker!”

As before there was no response to his comment. Presumably the Rules of Captivity saw no need to further talk with a captive once the hopelessness of their situation had been explained. Well, he had changed the conditions in his cell. Time to do more damage.

“Mr. Diligent Taskmaster, I don’t like your fake yellow sun!

Floating on his back, he looked up at the fake blue sky and yellow orb. With a kick he pushed himself toward the near wall edge. It made sense to him that a second ring of holo emitters had to lie somewhere on the ceiling. The center of the ceiling and the spot where the wall met the ceiling were out as emitter locations just due to the physics of laser projection. He splashed the water surface to right himself. Which put his head just two feet below the ceiling. Though the water level was dropping slowly. He scanned the water surface and saw four v-rivulets. The rivulets became little vortexes leading down into the water. Dunking his head he saw the vortexes led to four thumb-sized holes on the wall that looked to be three feet above the floor. Made sense. You don’t want rising water to link up with the power outlets behind the laser beads. Holding his breath with ease, he noticed that one hole was sucking in water to the left of the oval door outline. The spot where he’d killed the first bead. He decided to call that spot north. Looking to the right and left, he saw similar holes sucking in water. He called those spots east and west. Glancing back to the wall he had bumped into he saw the fourth drain hole. At south spot. With a kick he lifted his head and shoulders above the water level.

“Damn, but air feels good!” he gasped.

Bill pulled his boots off his neck, untied them, stuffed one boot into his shirt, then sank his teeth onto the lace of the other boot. Closing his eyes, he lifted both palms up above his head and began feeling backward from the wall-ceiling juncture toward the center of the ceiling. Sliding his hands along the vector from the wall to the ceiling center, he felt for an emitter bead.
Nothing
. With a kick of his feet he moved two feet further away from the wall and felt along the same arc.
Nothing
. Kicking sideways, he kept his palms against the ceiling, feeling for the bead.

“Yes!”

Opening his eyes he saw a narrow triangle of gray ceiling that stretched ten feet from the wall to the center of the ceiling. The bead lay in the middle of that line. Which meant a circle of similar laser beads had to form a ten foot wide circle that ran around the center of the ceiling. With a grin he kept one finger covering the bead, lifted the metal boot heel with his other hand and whacked the boot at it.

“Clang!”

His aim this time had been perfect. The metal ceiling strip stayed visible while to either side were the holo imagery of blue sky and yellow sun. Nice. He had not had to punch the boot in order to kill the laser emitter bead.

Five minutes later he had killed fourteen beads and the cell ceiling now was a flat gray metal roof with a yellow glow shining from one spot. He was also a foot further down as the drain holes sucked out the water that he’d flooded his cell with. That would not do. Ducking his head into the water he swam to the mesh spot on the east wall, touched just above it with a finger and felt new water surge into the five foot deep pool.

He looked up, scanning the now visible ceiling for any sign of the spyeye vidcam that watched him. Nothing. But he’d felt the coolness of fresh air against his skin when he’d been floating at the south end of the cell, well above the food slab slot. That was the source of fresh air for his cell. Which suggested the exit hole for sucking out his CO
2
contaminated air might be on the north side of the wall. Somewhere above the oval door outline but below the first laser emitter bead he’d killed. Bill gave the invisible vidcam a Fuck You gesture.

“You may think you’ve stopped me from drowning myself! Well, that was only Plan One. Plan Two is better. Watch and learn, you cockroach bastard!”

Still floating above the floor, with one hand holding the Turn On spot active, he reached into his backpack with the other hand and pulled out two ziplock baggies. Both bulged with brown shit. He couldn’t help grinning. He’d spent hours at Coronado cleaning the platoon restrooms with a toothbrush and a bucket of soapy water. That Marine initiation had been copied by his SEAL instructors. A lesson in humility and team spirit. Well, his Plan Two would serve to put those lessons to their acid test.

When the water level had risen another foot to six feet, Bill reached out and felt for the air inflow hole. He felt a hole that had appeared invisible to his eyes. It was of a size equal to his thumb. The inner metal of the air hole was gray like that of the wall and ceiling. That common grayness had camouflaged its presence. Until now. He looked back to the north side wall above the oval door outline. Squinting, he saw a similar opening there. Like this one there was no mesh on it. For which he gave thanks. His plan would have been harder to achieve if the air hole had been covered by mesh.

“Mr. Taskmaster, observe how I plan to kill myself.”

Still floating above the floor even as the water slowly drained, Bill opened the baggy, grabbed a turd and stuffed it into the air hole. He grabbed another handful of cold shit and stuffed it into the hole. When that was done, he opened the First Aid packet he’d stuffed in one pocket, pulled out wound tape, bit off two pieces, and placed them against the blocked air hole in an X-pattern. He turned away and kicked toward the air exhaust hole lying just above the door outline. He opened the second baggy, reached in and grabbed shit. He pushed a turd into the exhaust hole, following it with another turd. He zipped closed the half full baggy, then pulled out the wound tape, bit off two pieces and repeated the X-pattern seal over the exhaust hole. Looking up he saw that the ceiling was now five feet above him.

“Shit!”

He kicked back to the Turn On water spout, reached down and put one hand against the water flow control. New water surged in. Time to make his final statement to the Alien who controlled his module.

“Mr. Diligent Taskmaster of the species Hard Shell, you breathe through spiracle holes in the shell of your exoskeleton. That limits your breathing to what you can take in at any moment. Well, we Humans can suck in plenty of air and hold our breath before breathing again. Unlike most insects!” He looked up and gave a smile to the vidcam spyeye that lay somewhere in the ceiling. “But we cannot survive when the oxygen in the air gets too low. We hyperventilate. We get headaches. Then our heart stops working when there is no fresh oxygen to energize the cells of my heart muscle. So. You may have captured me with your fancy collector pod. Which zapped me with that red laser taser thingie. But now, you will have one less captive to sell at this Market world you are heading for! And since I prefer privacy while I die, I’m covering this cell’s ceiling with shit! Try to look through
that
, you mother fucker!”

Moments later he finished smearing the second bag’s shit load across the ceiling. He’d not felt any vidcame bead. Which did not surprise him since on Earth vidcam motion-eyes were usually flat and the size of a lemon seed. Leastwise, that had been the size of the vidcam he and his platoon mates had worn on their BDUs during their last chute drop insert.

With a sigh he kicked back to the center of the cell and waited for the water to go down to shin level. He might even remove the refuse hole blockage so the cell floor would be dry. Once more. Leaving him with his backpack, his flashlight, his canteen and his leather belt to confront the eventual arrival of an Alien crewman. Who had to come to remove the air inflow and exit blockages. Otherwise he would die. Moving to the right side of the door outline, he squatted, fed his belt strap into the buckle so it formed a loop-type garrote, and waited for the arrival of the Alien crewman.

Bill had no idea what size or shape the Alien might possess, nor how many arms and eyes it might have. But the Taskmaster’s early statement that all captives breathed oxy-nitro air told him it was very likely both Diligent Taskmaster and his crew also breathed Earth-like air. Which meant the arriving Alien had to have some kind of mouth or nose to suck in air. Which location could be closed off. If you applied enough pressure. Asphyxiation would eventually shut off the Alien’s brain and make it pass out. He’d considered trying to kill the arriving Alien with one of the sewing needles taped to the pencil-type flashlight. But if it had a hard exoskeleton that would not work. However, every creature had to breath, even fishes. So he’d placed his bet. A second bet had been to assume any Alien critter would be right-handled, or right-clawed, like most humans. Being right-handed made a person most attentive to the front and right side, not the left. Which meant Bill had to be on the right side of the door as he viewed it. The handedness assumption was a guess, a gamble that he hoped would gain him an extra few seconds to attack the arriving Alien. Now, he would rest, breath slowly and wait until the atmosphere sensors in his cell told some living crewperson that the Earth captive module was becoming unlivable. Which meant some crewman would be sent to fix it. Likely with some kind of weapon to knock him senseless. Well, he’d been trained in ambush tactics. No doubt the Alien expected him to try an attack. But thanks to the shit-smeared ceiling it would not know just where in the cell he would be waiting. And placing his flashlight atop his backpack at the south end of the cell would serve to draw the Alien’s attention once the entry door opened. Which would give him a few seconds to attack it from the side.

Bill grinned. His escape from an escape-proof cell on an Alien starship would be a grand tale to share with his drinking buddies at the Deep Six!

CHAPTER THREE

As Bill waited for the oxygen in the cell’s air to drop below the normal 21 percent of Earth’s air, he could not help recalling what he’d learned from an Air Force flight doc as he and his platoon buddies prepared for a high altitude free fall chute drop. The doc had explained why they needed a supplemental oxy tank.

Any air with less than 19.5 percent of oxy is considered deficient air. At levels of 16 to 19.5 percent, a person will begin to experience increased breathing rates, accelerated heart beat and some confused thinking. At levels of 12 to 16 percent you get full onset of tachypnea, or fast breathing, tachycardia or speeded up heart beat, and impaired thinking and coordination even in people at full rest. Below 10 percent he’d experience nausea, vomiting and eventual unconsciousness. If the cell air ever hit six percent he would go into convulsions followed by his heart stopping. The Air Force had called these symptoms anoxic anoxia. Well, he’d learned to concentrate carefully while doing closed and open circuit scuba dives. And he’d gotten used to thin air while hiking up to the top of several peaks in the Rockies. So he crouched to the right side of the door, slowed his breathing, held his belt garrote ready to toss over the head or neck or whatever of some Alien, and worked on slowing his heart rate. He’d learned the basics of meditation while hanging with a Buddhist from the Royal Thai Air Force. The guy had been mellow, competent, efficient and interesting. Not as good as Navy Special Ops folks, let alone his fellow SEALs. Still, the guy was willing to share his knowledge of centered meditation. Which involved breathing exercises. And Bill had been willing to learn.

He gasped deeply.

Shit
. He’d not intended to do that. Gasping meant the air was already down to 16 percent, while the carbon dioxide levels were higher. His scuba training had taught Bill how a malfunctioning suit regulator could produce too much CO
2
. Or a too tight scuba suit could do the same. Avoiding the rebreathing of exhaled air had been a part of basic scuba instruction. Now, he had no choice. He had to breath in order to get some oxygen into his lungs. He grimaced. It would become a race between nausea and vomiting caused either by too much carbon dioxide or by too little oxygen.

His temples felt tight. An ache began in his head. His chest wanted to heave to get a deep breath. He suppressed that impulse. He also suppressed the faster heart beating that sounded in his ears. At least he tried, using meditative techniques to slow his breathing. Blinking his eyes, he kept his attention focused on the oval outline of the entry door. Somehow it would open. Maybe it would slide up, slide down or move sideways. Once it did, an Alien critter would enter. Likely the critter would focus immediately on his backpack and the flashlight that shone a beam at the door, and assume he was hiding behind the pack. The light in his cell had gotten darker as the shit smear on the ceiling dried. To tighten his mental focus he began counting backward from one thousand.

“Nine hundred ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five, ninety-four, ninety . . . uh, ninety-two, damn it!”

He had missed two numbers. Centering his thoughts he focused on the visuals of the cell, on the slight increase in his heart rate, on his slow breathing and ignored the growing headache. Bill sent his senses outward, linking into the
feel
of the metal floor, the echo of his breathing as it bounced off the opposite wall, the sense of weight he felt thanks to the ship’s artificial gravity, the feel of his leg and arm muscles as they held ready to act at—

The door zipped upward.

A grizzly looked in.

Seven feet tall it was. The Alien bear had four arms, a blocky head, two short legs and his lower right hand held a white tube. The bear pointed the tube at the backpack.

A red beam shot to it, causing the pack to shake and tremble.

Bill jumped, aiming for the critter’s black-furred back, just behind its head.

Impact!

He clenched his legs about the bear’s midbody, his feet passing between the upper and lower arm pair.

The belt garrote went down over the bear’s head.

He leaned back and pulled on the end of the belt, tightening the loop about the thick, muscle-corded neck of the creature. Then he leaned forward, wrapped the  belt around its neck a second time, a third time, pulled tight a bit of slack, and then he grabbed the neck with both arms and clamped hard, hoping he could add to the blockage of air and blood. As his nose hit the back of the Alien’s head, he realized it was wearing an oxy breather mask. The strap of which pressed against his lips. Opening his mouth he clamped onto the plastic band, twisted his neck and bit through the strap. The mask fell down just as the bear reacted to his landing on its upper back.

“
Medark
!” it roared in Alien talk.

Inside the cell something hummed, then said “Get off!”

“Fuck you!” he said into the short black fur that covered the Alien’s head. He squeezed its neck with his arms, tightening the closure of the bear’s airway and whatever blood vessels ran up the neck and into its brain. Bill couldn’t believe his luck that a creature so similar to humans had entered his cell. It could have been a talking crab. Or that damned mouthy cockroach!

The bear’s lower arm pair dropped the white tube and a tiny red cube it had held in its bottom left hand. Then it gripped his legs and pulled on them, trying to unwrap his leg grip of its midbody.

The upper arm pair reached back with four-fingered hands for him.

One massive hand grabbed his hair and pulled.

The other giant hand clamped on his left arm and pulled outward.

Twenty seconds had elapsed since he’d jumped onto the Alien bear and put the garrote loop about its neck.

“Argghhh,” it gasped in what sounded like some kind of translated English.

At least it lacked the air for words.

Bill felt the hair on the right side of his head begin to pull out from his scalp.

“Have some pain!” he yelled as he bent his head so his mouth came up against the forearm part of the bear’s right arm. He bit down hard, cutting through flesh, tendons and hitting bone. Bill clenched tight his jaw muscles and bit harder.

“Crunch!” sounded as part of the bear’s forearm broke under the clamping of his teeth.

“Ahhhoooh!” it cried weakly.

But it still had the strength to rip its forearm out of Bill’s mouth. With it went some of his hair.

The left hand that had been pulling at his left arm let go and went to the bear’s neck, trying to push stumpy fingers under the leather belt so as to allow for air and blood to reach its innards. Bill bit into the thumb and three fingers of the hand.

The Alien bear shuddered.

It dropped to its knees.

A backward glance told him the Alien crewman was still only partway into his cell, having stepped back through the opening when it had felt his weight on its back. An effort at escape.

“Go to sleep, you  hairy bastard!” he grunted as his arms hugged tighter the bear’s thick neck and kept the belt loop cinched firmly about its wide neck.

The bear felt forward onto its face.

Ignoring the blood that dripped from the right side of his head, where hair had been torn out, Bill let go his leg grip, rose to a crouch, braced his boots against the Alien’s back, pulled on the belt end and kept pulling for another thirty seconds.

“Twenty-nine, thirty!” he gasped.

He looked behind him.

The cell door was open, leading out into a red lighted space. A gray metal walkway led to the open cell door. He wondered why the door had not closed automatically. Then he noticed the Alien bear’s feet and ankles lay across the door sill. Which the door opening mechanism must have sensed.
Whatever
.

Letting go the belt he ran forward, grabbed his backpack and flashlight, then looked up at the X-cross patch of tape that was holding his turd inside the air inlet. He reached up and grabbed the end of the tape. Pulling, he ripped it off the wall. Pulling loose a plastic rod he poked it through the turd to create an air inflow opening. Turning, he headed for the entry door. Reaching up he did the same for the air exhaust hole. Then, seeing that there was no one out on the metal walkway, he turned back to the unmoving Alien bear, bent down, undid his belt loop and pulled it off the Alien’s neck. The Alien did not move. Or breath.

“Shit!”

A killer he could be. When necessary. But killing the crewman sent to repair his cell so Bill would be able to breathe had not been part of his plan.

“Hope you got lungs somewhere in that massive chest of yours!” he grunted as he jumped up onto the Alien’s back and landed on it with his full two hundred pounds of muscle, bones and attitude. He heard the sound of air gasping out. Then a weak wheeze as the bear automatically breathed in.

Turning away he headed for the open door. On the way he grabbed the white tube weapon that had shot the taser beam, and then grabbed the small red cube the Alien had held in its other hand. His training at Coronado had beaten into him the value of scavenging any and every device an enemy might have on them. Which made him also grab the face mask oxy breather on his way out. Bill stuffed the red cube inside his pants, held the white tube weapon in his right hand and hung the oxy breather from the front of his shirt. Its broken strap prevented him from wearing it like the Alien had done, but he figured a supply of oxygen would be handy. Especially since he had no clue to the layout of the Alien starship. Or the room which lay beyond the cell door. Lastly, he took the pencil flashlight from his teeth and aimed its yellow beam forward.

He stepped over the feet of the bear and walked out of his cell. Immediately he felt lighter, as if the gravity outside the cell was less than inside it. He felt bouncy, which made him wonder at what was normal on an Alien starship.

A glance to the right and left told him his containment module lay near the end of a line of such modules, which were arranged in two lines that faced each other, with a wide metal walkway running down the middle between the two lines of modules. Side walkways led from each white module out to the central walkway. Waist-high railings ran along each walkway so Alien critters did not fall off. Below the walkways ran a jumble of tubes and cables. Above was a curving metal ceiling with glowing red spots. No one else was present on the center walkway that ran down a cavernous room illuminated by the red light patches. Looking around he counted ten cell modules on one side and ten on his side. At either end of the walkway were oval metal doors bigger than the door that gave entry to his module. Which reminded him he needed to finish the first part of his escape plan. Turning around he bent down, grabbed the bear’s feet and pushed them inside the cell.

“Wham!”

His fingers barely cleared the floor sill before the cell door slammed down.

Bill turned around, walked forward and aimed the white tube taser to the right and the flashlight beam to the left.
Now what?

The woman! He had to free her next, before Diligent Taskmaster sent another crewman to recapture him. But where was she? In what module?

He now stood on the center walkway. To the left side was his module. Which resembled a flattened globe. Between it and the nearby metal door was another containment module. The exterior of each cell was an off-white. Which maybe made it easier to find in the half-darkness of the chamber. He looked to the right and saw the opposite line of cells. A short metal walkway led to a white globe that lay directly opposite his cell. He thought hard, recalling all the Alien had said in its orientation talk with him.

“Yes!” The cockroach had said there were twenty cells on board the starship, but it had captives to fill only eighteen of them. Besides Bill and the woman, Diligent had said it had captured sixteen other Aliens from nine different planets. That meant the cells at the end of each line were empty, if he assumed the other cells were occupied by captives. He walked forward to the cell opposite his, hoping he’d guessed right.

The faint outline of an oval door showed in the white metal skin of the cell. But nothing else showed. No manual latch. No wheel like on a submarine hatch door. No buttons. No touch panel. How the fuck was he supposed—

“The cube!” He stuck the flashlight into a belt loop of his jeans, pulled the match box-sized red cube from inside his pants, looked it over, saw that one side of the cube had a round spot on it and, thinking
What The Hell
, he pointed it at the cell door and pressed the round spot.

“Whoosh!”

The cell door went up faster than he could blink.

Bill stepped forward and stood on the bottom sill of the door, waiting for the woman whose back faced him to react as she took a food slab from the wall slot.

In the second it took for the door opening sound to alert her, he saw she was tall, slim, curvy, with sun-tanned arms, had shoulder-length black hair, and wore a blue jumpsuit. To one side was a green dome tent similar to his, along with a holo mountain scene.

She whirled and threw the food slab at him.

Bill ducked the slab.

Astonishment filled her oval face as her run to the door came to a stop just inches from him.