Chapter Number Goes Here (2/2)
”BOOM! HEADSHOT!” she yelled as she triggered the rivet gun.
And put a two foot duralloy rivet through his forehead.
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The station was clean and brightly lit. He was in the maintenance section, laying on his side. He managed to scrabble to his hooves, looking around. He was in his normal covert action uniform that he wore under the armor. He had his wrist computer which was connected to his implant as well as his pouch of tools.
He remembered boarding the ship with his team. Remembered setting up the atomic charges. He also remembered the sirens that had gone off.
WARNING! MAT-TRANS IN PROGRESS! WARNING! MAT-TRANS IN PROGRESS!
Then everything had gone black. He wasn't sure where his armor was, or his weapons. He remembered setting his weapons down by the atomic charge.
Did he take off his armor?
He wasn't sure. He couldn't remember anything except for the Demand Answers had arrived in system again. The System High Most had determined that the safest course of action was to destroy the vessel. He had hand-selected his team, all beings who were supposed to join the Fourth Wave into Terran Space in order to destabilize Terran worlds.
Half of the plates were off the walls, duralloy and durachrome plates stacked up around the room. Plas packs covered in words that Falmo'o didn't understand. His implant absorbed the words, choked on them slightly, and started to try to put together a lexicon.
He could hear singing, faintly.
Falmo'o picked up a wrench and followed the sound of singing.
A Terran was knelt down, an open floor plate in front of her, working on something that Falmo'o couldn't see. Her yellow hair was cut short, making her look almost bald. She was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and had a metal collar around her neck, a small box on one side of the collar sporting a red light that slowly blinked. She had on plas boots that looked new to Falmo'o's eyes.
”I'll get done when I'm done,” the Terran female said without looking up. ”Coming down here and bothering me won't get this all hooked up and working any faster.”
Falmo'o stopped, staring at the back of her head. There were no scars, no markings, just a number on the back of her neck and some kind of block of close lines with irregular spacing between the lines. The number was at the bottom of the block of lines. She had no cybernetics, no datalink in her temple, just smooth unmarked pinkish skin.
”I can hear you breathing,” The Terran female said. ”I still want to know, aside from being unthawed, what's in all of this for me? You said Earth is gone. Destroyed. You said that this will help, but I still want to know, what exactly are you offering me?”
Falmo'o couldn't understand a word that she was saying. The language was curt, full of hard stops, glottal clicks, and other strange parts. His implant kept twinging.
The Terran female turned and looked up. Her eyes widened and she gave a slow smile. ”Wow, what are you? Holy shit, you're an actual alien, aren't you?”
Falmo'o just stared at her.
”Hey, any chance you can take this off? It hurts my neck,” The human female said. She tugged on the collar.
Falmo'o knelt down, examining the collar. It looked like some kind of explosive was built into the ring. There was a radio receiver as well as a narrow frequency jammer. It was fairly simple to undo, Falmo'o had disabled a lot more complicated devices in the field before.
Assisting slave caste could find disaffected beings who could be used as sources of information as well as infiltration and fifth column forces. Falmo'o thought for a moment and figured that the risk was outweighed by long term reward possibility. He quickly disabled the jammer, spoofed the transmitter and reciever, and disabled the explosive before unlocking it.
When the light went green it unlocked and fell in the Terran female's lap.
The female Terran smiled at him. ”Oh, you are amazing, alien guy. You're my new best friend.”
Falmo'o noticed his lexicon creation program was having an incredibly difficult time working on the language.
She looked back down and then back up. ”This is going to be fun, trust me,” she said. She picked up the collar, used her tools to open it. ”Man, this stuff is really advanced. Still, electronics are electronics and Ohm's Law rules all,” she said. She made some adjustments, the light turned red, and she put it back on, smiling widely. ”See, that's the thing those guys who thawed me out don't get. I only need one chance. Just one.”
Her smile changed, making Falmo'o have to grab a hold of his training to not flinch. It was a fierce, cruel thing. Her eyes glittered and she licked her lips. ”I can taste the mat-trans from here.”
She shook her head, standing up. ”Follow me, new friend.”
Falmo'o resisted an urge to bash in the back of her head. He had released the explosive collar and then watched as she'd expertly jimmied it to act as if it was armed without putting her in danger.
I'm just an engineer, her voice whispered in his head. He wondered when she had said those words.
She led him into some kind of main maintenance section, where computer cores were, the sides open to reveal all of the computer systems. The computers were heavily shielded, had coolant lines run to them, and were covered in blinking lights. She led him back, to where the keel plate was in the station.
It was a Combine Star, something Falmo'o was familiar with. Combine logos showed up on some of the fiercest warriors of the Terran Confederacy. The Unified Intelligence Council wasn't sure where Combine space was located or who exactly they were, and it was a high interest datapoint to discover. Finding a Combine facility meant they were near Combine space.
”Look at that, new friend,” she said, as if Falmo'o could understand her. ”Look at this, how they're acting like this is all their invention. Acting like they discovered it, like they are the ones who discovered this, perfected it.”
She turned and walked away. ”Ignorant stupid children demanding that I give them my secrets. They don't even promise me anything, don't offer me anything. Just tell me to work. That plate should have the DARPA logo on it, not whatever crap it is they replaced my country with.”
She barked a laugh. A harsh cruel laugh. ”Probably some New World Order crap from the UN. Surprised they aren't all wearing blue berets and raping villagers.”
Falmo'o watched the female move over to one of the computers. He couldn't understand her, but the fury, mocking, and cruelty in her voice was familiar.
The Terran female knelt down and unlocked the lock on the mechanical keyboard quickly with her tools. She started tapping on the keyboard, and Falmo'o watched her type.
No, I don't understand the language, her voice whispered in his brain as the computer cores spun up to full speed, the coolant system kicking in.
The Terran Female turned around, looking at Falmo'o. ”Don't be frightened, new friend,” she said. She lifted up a standard cutter. ”You know, I think you're going to be my favorite.”
She set the cutter on the desk and went back to typing rapidly.
The door to the computer core hissed open. Falmo'o moved back slightly, making sure he couldn't be easily seen.
”Dee Taynee, put your hands in the air and get down on your knees,” came a male voice. The language Falmo'o could understand. There was the hissing of powered armor and thumps of heavy steps approaching.
Falmo'o looked over. It was two humans in the Combine power armor. Both of them had batons that crackled with electricity as they came in. Falmo'o shifted slightly to conceal himself better.
”Kneel down, hands behind your neck, Dee Taynee,” the humans in Combine armor ordered. ”Step away from the keyboard.”
She ignored them, constantly typing, if anything the speed picking up.
”Dee Taynee, step away from the keyboard,” They ordered again, moving forward.
”Make me,” the Terran Female stated, still typing.
One reached out with the baton to touch the human female.
The Terran female moved, grabbing up the cutter, spinning under the baton, popping back up to jam the cutter into the seam of the armor, twisting it and pushing it. She pulled it out as the armor suddenly sagged. She grabbed the baton as it fell, turning and sticking it into the face of the other armor. The armor jerked back and the Terran female jammed the blade under the chest plate, at the flexible mid-section, twisting the blade and jamming it all the way to the hilt before yanking it out.
Both armors went down on their knees, slumping forward slightly. The Terran female moved behind them, jamming the knife deep into the back of the neck seal, twisting it, and pulling it free of each one before going back to the keyboard.
Falmo'o stared. He'd seen video, seen recordings of humans in battle, but seeing it first hand was something else.
After a moment she turned and looked at Falmo'o, smiling.
”This will be neat, new friend. See,” she tapped a big key on the right side of the main group of keys on the keyboard with the blade of the knife.
”Now, I'm not trapped in here with them,” her smile got wider. ”They're trapped in here with me.”
Falmo'o looked down, saw steam or fog gathering at his feat.
”Quantum foam byproduct. It's harmless,” the human female, Dee Taynee, smiled. ”Normally, you'd be asleep and would miss this part,” her smiled got wider. ”We are all made of star dust.”
Falmo'o couldn't understand anything the human female had said, but he still managed to scream as his molecules were ripped apart, then those particles were ripped apart, and something sucked him in.