Gagarin up to now had remained perfectly still, running alongside the alien ship.
The alien ship had several large windows out into space. Lucy could barely see anything, at best mere hints of stars off in the distance, and the rough shape of Gagarin with a few details accentuated by its running lights. Suddenly, though, it was gone.
“What the hell’s that?” said Lucy.
Orlando pulled his comms tablet out of his tool vest and tapped on it with his thumb. “This is Orlando. What is Gagarin doing?”
“Investigating an anomaly,” said Deimos, his voice a little distorted by the radio after a three second delay.
“Great, just leave us to fend for ourselves on this little frozen spaceship,” said Lucy. “We don’t need food or oxygen.”
“Really, we probably don’t,” said Orlando. “One of the first things shipped over here were EV suit power packs, protein cartridges and cans of compressed air.”
“Smartass,” said Lucy. “I hope they have a lot of fun scanning some stupid frozen rock.”
“You wish you were scanning some stupid frozen rock.”
“Guilty as–”
The alien vessel shuddered. A crack echoed through the chambers, it was hard to tell exactly where it came from. The low amber lights throbbed, growing brighter, then gentler. Speakers all around the ship croaked out an alarm none of the humans could understand. The ship itself weakly spun around in a long, slow arc.
“Get back in Adorno, close the door and stay inside. Be ready to open up if we come running,” said Lucy then she threw herself into the alien vessel. She hit her radio button. “What’s the situation down by the pods?”
No one answered. For half a moment she pondered all the reasons that could be, but that wasn’t a good use of time.
“If you hear me,” Lucy said, “Not sure why you wouldn’t, but stay put. I’ll investigate the sound. It will be fine. We probably had a micro-meteoroid hit the ship, no biggie.”
She grabbed a piece of metal mounted on the wall and hurled herself forward. She crawled through the circular chamber until she reached the shaft room. About midway up the room the walls crumpled around a dark jagged shape. Whatever it was, it didn’t extent far enough to see much through the windows.The dark shape knocked three of the hibernation tubes free and they rattled around the chamber. She could just about make out the shapes of her comrades on the other side of the chamber with the occupied tubes in the throbbing amber light.
Between her and them she saw something moving. It was huge, almost three meters long, skittering on the hibernation tubes lining the walls. It was hard to make out details in the low light and the distance, but it seemed to have four limbs, a head and a tail.
Lucy pulled her stunner out of her tool vest and aimed it carefully. She pushed her thumb into the action button. A spray of plasma shot out of the weapon and briefly illuminated the chamber, before slamming into the alien. It had dense leathery skin and unsettling yellow eyes. It was covered in tiny scales. Both sets of limbs ended in something akin to clawed hands, they dug into the metal of the hibernation tubes. Sparks shot out on impact.
Gagarin approached the anomaly. Initial spectral scans indicated it was made from organic material, similar to chitin perhaps. It had natural looking curves, not careful and precise metal plates. But it was also roughly symmetrical. It looked extruded and shaped, then hardened. It had a main hull, but also two pylons slung on its underside. The pylons buzzed with radiometric activity–they were directly interacting with the Higgs field.
Chairman Kafando pinched up his face and stared into the science console.
“It’s an alien vessel,” said Miyamoto, “It appears to have faster-than-light transit capability.”
The chairman said, “Well, they sure as hell noticed us first. Release the translation buoy. Hopefully they just want to meet us.”
A small shell shot out of the front of Gagarin. It transmitted the most basic message possible, in the most basic television and radio formats possible. Little turn around videos of objects and the sounds that represent them, or small animations and the verbs that represent them. It hung in space between the two vessels for about five seconds, then a blast of energy shot out of the enemy ship and it exploded.
The creature had been crawling toward the scientists in the back, but after the hit it turned to face Lucy. It leapt from hibernation pod to hibernation pod bolting toward Lucy’s position.
She clicked the power on the stunner up to unconscious, and fired another blast. This one hit the creature on the left side of its chest. She got another brief, good look at the alien. Its features looked inhuman, a long snout with small horns rimmed around the edge of its head. It howled in what sounded like pain. It wore something akin to an environment suit, but tight against its body in bronze colored fabric. Its torso was covered in little metal scale armor. Its hands and feet were free and exposed to the elements, but its muzzle was covered in some kind of fabric mask and its eyes had domed goggles.
After every shot the plasma cell in the stunner had to charge back up. Lucy needed a few more seconds before she could try the next step up. She pulled herself back through the opening into the circular chamber of the alien ship.
The alien followed her. It crawled toward her even as she tried to push herself further away. The alien gripped onto a shelf arm in the wall and pushed itself toward Lucy and grabbed her by the leg.
Finally, the stunner throbbed to tell her it had a full charge. She aimed it. The alien swatted it out of her hand. It bounced uselessly away. She punched the alien in the face. She wasn’t really anchored against anything, so she more pushed herself away than hurt it. The alien briefly lost its grip on her.
She reached into her tool vest. What else did she have? The hammer.
The alien grabbed her. This time it got her by the shoulder.
She turned the hammer around and swung with the pick side. It made contact with the alien’s neck. It penetrated its ev suit and emitted a high pitched whine. She could tell from the impact it definitely dug into the alien’s flesh, but it also bounced out.
She swung again. This time the alien grabbed her wrist and she lost her grip on it. The hammer tumbled sideways and still hit the alien with a glancing blow to the side of its head.
It swung its free arm at Lucy. It hit her head, but she turned into the hit and it mostly made contact with the armored part of her helmet. That was just about the last resource she had.
She swung her head at the alien, a little off center, and hit it on the side of its head. The domed goggles dug into its flesh, then tore free after a couple hits.
The alien dug its claws into her shoulder. It pierced the suit and dug into her flesh. Droplets of blood tumbled out of the wound. It was still holding Lucy’s shoulder and arm, but she had one hand free. She punched it in what seemed like it’s ribs, hitting it repeatedly with her knuckles as best she could from this vantage point.
Biting cold rushed into the damage in her ev suit.
Orlando stared from the other side of the airlock door. His expression was completely blank, stunned, paralyzed.
After four hits the alien had enough and swung her at the wall with all the strength it had. Three sparks of pain exploded up and down Lucy’s spine. Her arm was badly twisted and she felt the bone crunch in a very troubling way.
“Ideas?” said Kafando. “Why did they blow up the buoy?”
“It seemed like an aggressive action in their culture?” said Miyamoto.
Deimos said, “They’re making a show of power? You know, like, ‘Hey! I’m tough!’ Something like that?”
Lei said, “They are testing us. They want to see how we will react.”
“All right,” said Kafando, “Launch another buoy, exactly the same.”
Another buoy shot out of Gagarin. This one sailed exactly halfway between the two vessels and it began exactly the same message. Before it made it through one word the alien ship shot it out of the sky.
“Well, this is damned unsettling,” said Kafando, “I’ve read so many books that speculate about the intricacies of first contact, and yet here we are. We have so many unknown unknowns. How can we understand a completely alien civilization that we have no context for?”
“There’s a radiometric signature moving around on the underside of the vessel. It appears to be a missile, they’re loading it to fire.”
A small missile shot out of the alien ship.
“Evasive action! What’s it aimed at?” shouted Kafando.
“The stasis ship,” said Miyamoto. “It’s not aimed at us. Radiometric data indicates it contains a small yield nuclear warhead.”
“Counter measures, shoot it down, as quick as possible!”
The targeting lasers spun around on the hull of Gagarin and shot off rays of light. The missile crumpled, and the rocket fuel inside it exploded, not whatever the warhead was fueled by.
The alien pushed itself backward into the middle of the room to examine her. She looked in the alien’s face. It seemed to be smiling.
Lucy knew she wasn’t going to win this fight, but she still had some leverage. If she couldn’t deal with this alien, Orlando and the other scientists weren’t going to do any better. The low light reflected off her stunner, which bounced back into view. Lucy threw herself perpendicular to it. The alien watched with bemused interest. She hit into a wall with her fucked up arm first and bounced off. She screeched. The alien seemed confused. That was what she was counting on.
Lucy played up the pain. It hurt, of course, but this was a distraction. Wet, weak moans trickled out of her. Lucy’s good hand caught the stunner around the opposite side from the alien. It didn’t seem to notice. She turned off the safety and cranked it to maximum, and waited a moment.
She did everything she could to look overwhelmed with pain, utterly unable to keep fighting. Then, in a single fluid motion she swung the stunner out from behind herself and pointed it at the alien. The alien moved with inhuman speed. It pulled a piece of mail from its armor, pointed it at the stunner and fired. A bolt of energy shot out of the mail piece and hit the stunner dead center. It crumbled into nothing, not even ash.
Lucy kicked off the wall once more. Three sharp pangs of agony shuddered along her spine. Her arm ached at the bad twisting. She swung her good hand at the alien with everything she had. The alien caught her hand and pushed her backward, gently, this time.
The alien howled in a noise that, Lucy wasn’t sure, but she thought it sounded like laughter. The alien again roared, then turned around and crawled away.
“If the alien ship makes any other provocative action, be ready for it,” said Kafando. “Slide Gagarin in between the alien ship and the stasis ship. Prep the torpedoes, god help us, and charge the blaster array.”
For a moment, at least, the alien ship didn’t react. What was its plan? What were they going to do? The tension hung in the air terribly. Finally, it was broken. The alien vessel shot three missiles at Gagarin. These were smaller than the first missile, but faster. The radiometric scans indicated they were even lower yield weapons. As they approached the laser countermeasures disabled the first one, then the second, but they weren’t fast enough. The third made it through and detonated on the upper side of the starboard hull.
“Update?” said Kafando.
“Structural damage in hydroponics, no hull breeches but there’s significant stress,” said Lei. “Engineering team is on it.”
Kafando kept his eye on the tactical console. Again, after the second round of missiles the alien ship just laid there and waited. Then the ship moved, it tried to go over and around Gagarin to get at the stasis ship.
“Keep Gagarin between us and them,” said Kafando, and the navigator did as told.
The alien ship changed direction, and tried to dodge underneath Gagarin, but again the ship kept itself between those aliens and the stasis ship.
This seemed to be too much. The alien vessel fired two energy bolts at Gagarin, this time aimed at the rim of the saucer on the port side.
“Fire at their energy weapons with our blaster array,” said Kafando.
Shocks of energy shot out of Gagarin and sailed through space until they were close to the alien ship, but as they reached perhaps fifty meters the rays bounced off and scattered into rainbows.
The science team huddled by the suspended animation chambers. Noises echoed through the ship, but whatever was happening, it didn’t sound good. Metal crashed against flesh, an alien groaning. It was obvious enough that oxygen was leaking out of the ship, and from the bits of Drummon’s voice that carried all the way to this side of the ship, the fight was not going well.
Doctor Lawrence broke the silence.
“Drummond is hurt, badly. Looks like multiple broken bones, my god,” she said. “Heart rate erratic, blood pressure all wrong.”
She scanned through the data from her EV suit projected on the inside of her helmet.
Piquot muttered, “She’s like, hard as nails. What the fuck are we supposed to do if she can’t stop that thing?”
Manuel said, “And what about Orlando? He was right behind us, wasn’t he?”
Doctor Lawrence said, “His comms device isn’t showing any serious injuries, just high levels of stress,” said Doctor Lawrence. “Do any of you have stunners on you?”
Al Rahman nodded, and Manuel.
“You two, with me. Get your stunners ready, maybe set them to moderate yield, I don’t know what that is.”
Al Rahman said, “Unconscious. It’s enough energy to disrupt the human neural network very briefly.”
Doctor Lawrence jumped up the long shaft, kicking off the suspended animation tubes. Manuel followed immediately behind, while Al Rahman closed his eyes, nodded in the direction he thought Earth was, then followed too.
They got about a quarter of the way up the shaft when the lizard crawled out from the circle chamber. Lawrence pushed herself between two suspended animation tubes. Al Rahman and Manuel steadied themselves against the walls of the shaft.
The alien ignored them. It crawled through the chamber with inhuman quickness. When it got to the black shape the front of it opened up in four pieces revealing some kind of seat, and the alien crawled inside. The black shape pulled itself out of the shaft wall.
Immediately the air in the shaft flooded out through the hole. Al Rahman darted his eyes around. Two of the suspended animation tubes had been knocked free by the alien’s ship and smashed open while bouncing through the hall. A large piece of plate had peeled off one of them and it was just about big enough to fill the void in the ship. He tore it free from the tube, which spun around from the force, hit another tube and bounced back at Al Rahman. The tube hit his helmet and a large crack shot across the dome, but it didn’t immediately shatter. He dragged the metal plate to the hole and the explosive force pushed it into place. It mostly plugged the hole, but there were still large gaps.
“Trauma foam,” he said, and he pulled a can from his tool kit and sprayed it into the openings. Manuel followed suit. They used the expanding spray foam to block more air escaping.
Doctor Lawrence began to crawl up the shaft again. Hopefully there weren’t any more aliens lurking in here. And hopefully Lucy wouldn’t bleed out before she got there.
“Full spread of missiles,” said Kafando. “Fire.”
All six missile batteries popped to life. Missiles shot out of Gagarin, sailed through space, then four of them exploded on contact with the alien ship’s energy shield. The other two were just a hair behind the others, however, and after the splashback they sailed past the shields and crashed into the main fleshy hull, and exploded. The alien ship shuddered. It rotated a little in space. The black shape, free from the stasis vessel, sailed in a huge arc around Gagarin and around to the back of the alien ship. Then, as suddenly as it appeared the alien ship was gone. The stars behind the ship distorted for a moment, then returned to normal.