Space Cadets (5 page)

Gotcha

I don’t know what kind of crappy propulsion system the unidentified aliens were using but it was nothing that had a chance of getting away from us. We caught up with it, matched its speed, and then the captain deployed the magnetic grappler. As soon as it took hold, he yanked it into the hold where the escape ships are kept.

It was on its side when we came through the door, into the cavernous hangar.

Rick said, “We need to act quickly. If they fire off weapons in here, we’re fucked.”

Peggy was already hard at work with a cutting torch, trying to give us access through the hull, while Rick paced.

Watching it as an outsider, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor unfortunate aliens inside. They’d done nothing to us. But they gave us reason to be suspicious and that was enough. For all we knew, the Enemy could be inside that dingy tub, although it was rather unlikely given that it hadn’t attacked us and it didn’t look like it could survive a single direct hit from even small arms fire. But we had to be sure.

Peggy stood back and then kicked the side of the ship. A three foot circle of solid metal fell inwards, clanging on the floor.

She vanished inside, barely getting her huge robotic frame through the opening. Rick grabbed me by the shoulder and said, “You’re coming too kid.”

I thought that was bullshit. I wasn’t the only cadet in a skin anymore. So why me? Then again, I have to admit I felt pretty special getting chosen to help out my idol.

He vanished inside the hole and I followed him.

He cracked some primitive glow sticks, dropping them at his feet as he went. I activated some lights on my shoulders after I saw him activate his.

The ship was small on the inside. The layout was like this: The center of the ship was a full four feet from the outer hull, walled in. Between the walls of each was a narrow walkway that probably also served as a fallback hull if the outer one was breached. So we walked al the way around the perimeter of the center of the ship before we realized we’d just walked in a circle. Peggy was already cutting through the walls to the inner sanctum when we caught up to her.

Once again, she stood back and kicked with all her might. She stepped aside so Rick could take a quick peek.

He pulled his head out and said in a saddened voice, “All clear.”

I went through last. What I saw was a small command station, with odd consoles and seats, all designed specifically for the alien anatomy.

Three aliens were seated, slumped over, clearly recently deceased.

Rick lifted the chin of one of them up with his gun and then screamed, “Oh fuck. Oh shit. It’s the Enemy.”

Peggy fired a shot into the back of the head of the dead alien closest to her and Rick blasted the one he was with in the neck. Not to be outdone, I reluctantly put my gun to the side of the remaining aliens head, squeezed my eyes shut, and squeezed the trigger. I didn’t enjoy it.

The entire process was panic-driven madness. We were so programmed to kill them on sight that none of us even considered how barbaric our actions really were.

The Enemy is easily recognizable given they appear almost exactly how
Hollywood portrayed them hundreds of years ago. They are tall and lean with long, spindly necks. They have those long oval-shaped heads with big eyes, except in reality their eyes aren’t pitch black, but emerald green. And instead of having pasty white skin like in the movies, theirs is leathery and black like a lizard’s. They are hairless and completely nude. It was impossible to discern if these were males or females. Maybe the Enemy has neither gender, but something androgynous instead. I’m open to the idea that I just don’t have enough information to decide either way.

There was a scuffling sound coming from the far end of the command station. It was darker back there but when Rick turned that way and increased the intensity of his lights, we saw one of the bastards fiddling with switches and stuff.

Rick ran at the alien and grabbed it by the throat. He hauled its naked ass over by me and Peggy and set it down in the lone empty seat.

The alien looked at the defiled bodies of its comrades and hissed at us.

Then something weird happened: The alien’s throat moved and its lipless mouth parted, but a voice issued from the ship, rather than from the alien.

The ship said to us, “You’re too late. I’ve corrupted the ships computer so you’ll never unlock its secrets.”

Because I’m a dumbass, it was only then that I realized the ship was interpreting the alien’s silent speech for us.

Then the computer said, “I sacrifice my life for all of Bleeder.”

With that, the alien’s long, snake-like fingers pushed something into its mouth. It bit down on whatever it was, and then it died right before our eyes.

Peggy sighed. “Fucking poison…”

Rick put a slug in its brainpan just in case it was a ruse and then he said, “Find out what he did to the ship. We need intel, people.”

I didn’t know what I was looking for but I thought I found it right away. There was a box as big as a loaf of bread sitting on the console in the back. Once I illuminated the area, I saw two dozen wires running from it to the rest of the console. When I showed it to Rick, rather than figuring out what it did and how to properly unhook it, he just grabbed it and tore it loose.

But it was an add-on so we knew it was something only recently hooked up.

We spent ten minutes trying to figure out the ship. Nothing we did made a difference. We could not get it to respond. The alien was right; he’d corrupted it beyond repair. But time was on our side. We could reverse engineer the shit out of this thing, even if it took years. Its secrets would be ours, eventually.

We slowly dragged the alien bodies out of the tiny ship and deposited them on the floor of the hangar bay.

Rick told three of the students, milling around, to bring Samantha Salazar to him and they went off to retrieve her.

When she came into the bay, the look on her rubbery face was priceless. It was a look that only occurs when your entire reason for being is turned on its head.

Rick laughed at her. “Are you still a Skeptic, dumbass?”

She shook her head. If she wasn’t a robot, she would’ve cried, I just know it.

Her belief that the alien threat was a hoax, perpetrated by those who wished to subdue the rest of us with fear, had led her to commit multiple murders. And now she saw the error of her ways, in full relief.

She visibly wilted when the students led her away again.

Rick said to me, “Tell the captain to get us the hell out of here. We don’t know if these Bleeders sent out a distress signal. We don’t want to be here when the cavalry arrives.”

Peggy shook her head, deep in thought. “I don’t know Rick. These guys sure didn’t put up any resistance. It makes me wonder just how vicious these Bleeders really are.”

“I know. But that dinky ship stood no chance against the Conquistador. It’s no surprise they ran or that they killed themselves when we caught them. Who knows what kind of armada they have at their disposal though. We just can’t risk it.”

“You’re right. Let’s get these things into the medical bay and check them out.” Then she said to me, “Have the captain send down some tech guys to try and figure this ship out.”

I left for the command room, my head spinning. My classmates stared after me like I was an alien myself.

Warp

The captain activated the warp generator. I didn’t pay enough attention in class to know whether I should be worried by that or not but when he issued the order, several of my classmates started to whisper to each other, so maybe it’s not a proven technology, or maybe it’s just inherently dangerous. I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s a means to an end. We had to get the hell out of there.

I hope that the tech guys make progress because if a beacon had been activated on the Bleeder ship, and it was still transmitting, there was no way to truly escape unless we kicked that ship out of the hangar. And there was no freaking way we were going to do that. That Enemy ship was a symbol of hope. It gave us a glimpse into the heart of our foe. And it might just give us a tactical advantage by the time the Enemy returned to wipe out humanity, as they promised to do.

Autopsy

Instead of worrying about things I could do nothing about, I went below deck to the medical bay. I noticed Mrs. Salazar and her fellow saboteur had been locked up in an unused room. I had the urge to open the door and mock them as I passed, but I fought it.

Four alien carcasses were splayed out like a macabre freak show. Peggy was watching as the doctor cut into one of them but Rick was pacing. This lack of action was clearly not pleasing to him.

He said, “There were only four of them so they were lying about it being a colony ship. Four people does not constitute a colony.”

“They probably lied because they were afraid of us,” Peggy said.

Then Rick started to pace again, this time more furiously.

I was barely in the medical bay five minutes before Mr. Humboldt came for me. “The captain has something to tell us. Come back to the command room whenever you’re done here.”

Because I wasn’t even supposed to be there, I just shrugged and followed him back upstairs.

As we passed the room that held Mrs. Salazar, Mr. Humboldt banged on the door rapidly to scare her. He looked back and winked at me with his almost human eye.

I laughed and it was cathartic. I needed to laugh after everything that had happened so far.

Skeptics

The captain had beads of sweat on his brow. I didn’t know him that well, but I knew that could only be a bad sign.

He said, “I just received a transmission. The Skeptics have taken every single military installation within the solar system. They didn’t just take over Camp Eighty Seven, they took all one hundred camps around every single planet. They infiltrated eleven attack class warships and seven of our surveillance stations.”

Mr. Humboldt said, “God Damn.”

“It’s not all bad news though. We’re retaking most everything back from them as we speak.”

I said, “Keep talking,” because I knew he was trying to get to something and he was stalling.

“Camp Eighty Seven is still crawling with Skeptics but it has been infiltrated by a single highly trained Marine. The problem is that she doesn’t know the layout. And quite frankly, neither does command. I want you two to go back to your bodies and take the lead. Take her to any caches of weapons you know of. Show her where the Skeptics might hole up. Help her defeat them.”

“But the tech who sent us here, came here himself. There’s no one to receive us on that end to complete the transfer.”

“There is. She’s a little rusty but I hear she’s done this before.”

Mr. Humboldt said, “I’m not trusting my life to a greenhorn. She’ll screw it up and kill us.”

“If you don’t act fast, you won’t have bodies to go back to. The Skeptics will thaw your bodies and let you die.”

“They haven’t done it yet,” I said hopefully.

“Not
yet
. You are correct.”

I got his meaning but only because there was no subtlety to it.

Mr. Humboldt said, “Hurry up then. Let’s go.”

I would have asked why I had to go but I already knew. I was the only one in the class who’d killed someone. They were starting to look at me like a Marine’s apprentice or something. It made me proud and afraid at once.

Hidden Modifications

Rick Pringle ran into the skin bay right before we were to be up and downloaded.

He said, “Those Bleeders have no heart that we can find. They don’t have blood either. They have this little black sack in their stomachs though, and when you cut it open, it makes a hissing noise. Whatever came out of it made the doctor run and rinse his eyes out.”

Mr. Humboldt asked, “Are we calling them Bleeders now?”

“That’s what they call themselves. It’s fitting, considering I want to make them all bleed.”

“I thought you just said they didn’t have blood,” I said like a smart ass.

“Shut up Jack. Hey, good luck down there.”

“Is that why you came here, to wish us good luck?” I asked, knowing that couldn’t be the real reason.

“Nope. I’m here because as soon as you’re gone, I’m taking my skin back. This one’s all clunky and boring.”

“Well, it’s good to know you care,” I sarcastically said.

“Uh huh. Hurry up and give it back.”

I nodded and he added, “Hey Jack, before you go, I want you to check out one of my upgrades. Say to the skin,
Rick Pimpage wants his guns
.”

I said it and my suit completely transformed. It clicked and rumbled as hidden weapons appeared out of nowhere. I had a gun on each wrist and one on each shoulder. I had a spinning turret on my head too with a little laser sight that was strafing the walls. I was impressed. Then I saw that each finger had hinged open and I was beyond impressed. That was eight individual guns, plus the four on my body and the turret on my head. Either Rick was a genius with mechanical devices, or more likely, Peggy had fitted them for him. She seemed like the serious one of the two.

Some dude from the flight crew started to hook up cables to our heads and Rick said to him, “Don’t mention the little mods I made, hey?”

“Of course Mr. Pimpage.”

Rick smiled at that.

I looked over at Billy Humboldt and said, “This is so fucking stupid, sir.”

“Watch your language,” he joked. “I’m still your fucking teacher.”

I tried to smile but just as I did, my mind screamed out in confusion and my consciousness went out like a light.