Seeder Saga (21 page)

Jason

Sarah was abruptly woken by the voice of Molly and the voice of Crusoe. They were both urgent.

She tumbled out of her pod and started to dress when Crusoe said, “Jason Rodriguez has woken from stasis. According to Molly, he’s still in Pod Bay Two. He’s opened at least two other pods. You must hurry and you must use caution. I’m circling back to your coordinates but it will take some time to reach you. By then I fear it will be too late. Good luck, Admiral.”

Sarah was stunned. She thought Molly had been ordered to never let Jason escape his frozen bonds. Then again, Molly had done some counterintuitive things during the journey already. Had she deliberately disobeyed orders? Had she been corrupted somehow by Jason when he tweaked her databases? Maybe the pod had simply malfunctioned?

She slipped her shoes on and wished like crazy that she had a firearm. She’d shoot him on sight. Not only was he the enemy, bent on their destruction, but he was a fanatic, willing to give his own life to make sure they all died. Worse, he was a hybrid, far more convoluted than anything she’d seen yet. He was part Velor, part human, and part whatever the hell Crusoe was.

She told herself to stop thinking about it. She had to act.

The bay hatch was still closed, which was fortuitous. She ordered Molly to open it, and as soon as it opened enough to allow her to slip through, she rushed inside.

The bay was dark as always
, but she saw movement the second she came in. A figure stood up and ran out of view. When she moved towards where the figure had knelt, she nearly screamed. There was blood and gore everywhere. Then when she saw who it belonged to, she was confused.

Two bodies lay on the floor at her feet. One was the
Prime Minister of Great Britain and the other was the French Premier. They had both used their political clout and probably greased some palms to get on board. She hadn’t even known they were on her ship until the flight had been well underway. But why had Jason decided to kill two old useless men?

A voice from behind startled her
and she knew she’d made a mistake. She should’ve chased Jason down right away instead of getting distracted, allowing him to get the jump on her.

He said ominously, “Your two highest ranking leaders are now dead. I was going to kill them in stasis
, but I wanted to see the looks on their faces as I did it.”

Sarah laughed out loud and then quickly stood and whirled around on him. “Those old goats were not our leaders. They were the leaders of my old, long dead world. They bought their way
on board because there’s no way their presence here could be justified. They’re completely useless.”

Jason looked bemused as he tried to discern whether she was lying or not. “If that’s true
, then so what? I’m about to kill you, then your crew, and then every soldier and colonist on this ship. I started with the leaders because that’s how I was trained, but it doesn’t matter in the long run.”

Sarah smiled a fake smile. “If you kill us all off, who’s going to fly this thing to its destruction?”

“I will sacrifice myself for the good of my people. I’ll fly the
Seeder
to its glorious end and my people will rejoice and hail me as a hero. I won’t tell them you’re already dead. The end will be the same either way. I’ll be accorded a special place in the legends of the Velors.”

“Posthumously, of course
,” said Sarah. “But you should know that we’ve decided to run right into the ambush your stupid people set for us. We’ve built a fleet to give us a chance.” She didn’t say this to supply him with intel, but to make him stop and think it through.

While he was figuring out the ramifications of what she said, she punched him square in the face. He hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. His face was caved in slightly and gushing blood all over her shoes. She’d been rendered super strong and extra quick by Crusoe’s alteration to her DNA.

Jason clutched at her calf and crawled up her body, hand over hand. How was he still conscious? His face was already morphing back to normal, a result of Crusoe’s DNA tampering, no doubt. A cruel smile was starting to play on his disfigured lips when she hit him again, harder this time. He fell down again, and before he could get back to his feet, she stomped down on his head with all her might. But she knew he’d recover despite the brutality of what she’d done. Crusoe had taken him apart, and yet here he was, alive and well.

She grabbed him by the throat and started to drag his body from the pod bay. She had to get him off the ship or else he’d kill everyone.

Now she wished she hadn’t told him about the fleet. If he’d gotten the upper hand, he would’ve gone after the other ships.

Using her new super strength, she was able to move him quickly
, but not quickly enough. He snatched at her wrist with both hands, and with a wrenching motion, broke it like a twig.

She felt the pain
,but she also felt something else, something soothing. She dropped Jason and watched in awe as her wrist straightened itself out. She heard the bones pop as they ground over each other until they were back in place. Then she felt a burning sensation. The instant swelling was already going down. Within just half a minute, she was good as new.

But so was Jason. He leapt to his feet and punched her in the forehead. Her vision swam
, but she kept her feet under her.

Jason took a step back. The look on his face was full of fright. “Why are you still on your feet? What the
hell are you?”

Sarah took the opportunity to attack. She sprang forward and slugged him in the abdomen. When he bent double, she took his head in her hands and twisted it clear around. He fell to the floor with a dull thud. He was on his stomach, but he was face-up. He blinked at her and his leg twitched
, but the bastard just would not die.

Sarah twisted his head even further around, but it was clear it was going to take more than ruining individual parts of his body to kill him.

She grabbed his head in both hands and, walking backwards, dragged him towards the airlock. As she walked, she twisted his head around and around so his body couldn’t get the chance to heal itself.

She got him inside the airlock, threw him against the outer doors
, and then ran out. She shut the inner doors and then opened the airlock up to the vacuum of space.

She stood there breathing rapidly, trying to get her head straight. She took little solace in the fact that she’d survived
. That just meant there was another deadly encounter right around the corner. There always was on this ship.

She was about to close the outer doors when the sirens started to blare. Before she could ask Molly what was going on, the inner doors began to open, bit by bit. The atmosphere rushed past her, whipping her hair and clothes as it went by. In the two inch gap of the inner doors was Jason’s fingers. He had managed to stay in the airlock and now he was prying the doors apart with inhuman strength.

She gasped but quickly recovered. She knew what to do.

She stood and waited for him to open the doors. When he’d got them almost a foot apart, she put a palm on either side of the gap and then she stomped him right in the chest. He saw it coming
, and held on tighter and remained in the airlock, but Sarah reeled back and stomped him again. He lost grip with one of his hands, and before he could recover she pried at the fingers of the other hand. He was stronger than she expected, though, and kept a tight grip.

Sarah didn’t even think about it
. She bent down and bit his fingers clean off, one by one. He tried in vain to reach through with his other hand, but he was too late. She spat the last digit at her feet and watched Jason as he floated off into the void.

In his case, she kind of hoped he’d suffer an endless life floating through space aimlessly
, his altered body refusing to die.

Recovery

Sarah entered the command station and hailed Crusoe. “I took care of him. He’s off the ship. You can resume course.”

“Excellent work, Admiral. I was worried.” Crusoe was barely lit on the monitor. He truly was flying a worthless piece of junk with no amenities, including oxygen or sufficient lighting. He said, “It must have been a hell of a fight. You look terrible. I can’t believe you survived that.”

She said, “What do you mean?”

He pointed at his own forehead and then he pointed into the screen. “Molly, show her what she looks like.”

The monitor changed to a mirror image of Sarah. She looked like a mutant from the movies. The entire top half of her head was completely caved in, with blood seeping out and dripping down her hair.

Crusoe said reassuringly, “Give it some time. You’ll recover. I’m just surprised you survived an attack like that.”

Sarah thought about telling him that she hadn’t even gone down when it happened, but she thought that might be bragging.

She said, “Thanks again for alerting me.” To Molly, she asked, “How did he get out of stasis?” She didn’t try to hide the accusation in her tone.

Molly said evenly, “It appears as though he tampered with his pod. I detected two small charges detonating right before he disconnected his IV’s. It stands to reason that those charges opened his pod door, allowing him to wake from stasis.”

Sarah said to no one in particular, “We should’ve checked his pod over before we stuck him in it. He was a saboteur. I should’ve kept that in mind. I should’ve been smarter.”

Crusoe said, “Well, it’s over now. Goodnight
, Admiral Miller.”

“Thank you
, Captain Crusoe. Thanks for everything.”

Then the monitor turned black.

As Sarah got back inside her pod, she couldn’t get the image of Jason’s head being twisted around in such a horrifying manner out of her head. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had changed on a fundamental level during the voyage.

Fight

“Ready for battle
, Captains?” Crusoe said as Sarah slowly woke from stasis.

“How long were we out?”

“The entire trip. We’re there. Wake your people.”

“Shit.”

“Just remember that these bastards want us dead for their own glory. Remember that they render entire species extinct for fun. They went after Earth, probably too late, but the gesture was there. They killed every living creature on my planet. Keep those thoughts swirling around in your head and let the anger move you to action.”

Sarah stood straighter and said, “The Velors may defeat us but we’ll make it a fight.”

She heard Jack’s voice yell, “Death to the Velors!”

A
nd Jane said, “Molly, wake my crew. We’re about to fill space with alien blood.”

Sarah yelled, “Molly, wake my crew and troops right away.”

“Yes, Admiral Miller.”

Man, she liked the sound of that. But she feared she wouldn’t get to enjoy the moniker for too long.

She turned the monitor on and was spellbound by what it showed her. The seed planet was beautiful beyond her wildest imagination. It looked much like Earth, but with bluer seas and smaller continents. The star it orbited was large, as large as the sun looked from the Earth. The entire scene made her heart weep for home.

A
single moon appeared from behind the opposite side of the planet. It was difficult to tell from this distance, but it looked like it had liquid water running across its surface.

What a find. Too bad it was bait.

Urgently, Crusoe’s voice issued over the speakers, “They’re on to us. I spot three very large ships on the other side of that moon. Their thrusters just ignited. Move your asses, people. We don’t have much time. I’ll intercept them. Let me take the hits and then you move in.”

Sarah and Jack said, “
Shit,” at the same time. It would’ve made her laugh under different circumstances.

She could hear Jane breathing rapidly over the speakers. She just hoped she could keep it together for this
. It was too important to let fear cloud judgment.

Sarah rushed below deck, ran past the ignorant frozen colonists, and had Molly open the hatch to
Pod Bay Two. The infiltrators were suiting up as she walked inside. The others looked primed for action. That was good.

The handful of colonists in this pod bay had no idea how lucky they had it. They’d get to sleep through their own demise.

She led the infiltrators into the airlock and told them to be ready. If she opened it, they had to act quickly. Then she led the rest of them to the command station.

Once inside, she realized how many troops she actually had at her disposal. There was barely room to move. They all stared at the monitors in a daze. They could see the mammoth alien ships come around the moon. Some of them gasped and one of the guys passed out. The ships were clearly designed to inspire fear in the enemy, whoever that m
ight be. They were unnaturally colored with black and brown markings. The brown spots looked like dried blood or rust. Each Velor ship was about as large as Crusoe’s lead ship, but they were boxy and long like a misshapen coffin. Their most easily recognizable feature was the vast array of weaponry jutting out of each ship, like spines on a sea creature. On top of each was a single humungous cannon and an antenna with a large orb at the tip.

On a whim, she asked for more volunteers to help the infiltrators. She had to get some of these people out from under
foot.

To her surprise, a bunch of hands shot into the air. She led them below deck and handed out the extra suits. Of the fifty extra suits, only four remained unused. She was a little miffed when she handed one of the suits to Robert Smith, her recently appointed second in command, but she let it slide. He was a soldier; he should be fighting.

She led the volunteers to the airlock. She opened it and mixed the two groups up and then instructed half of them to station outside. That would be team two. Some of them didn’t know how to spacewalk, so she needed experience on both teams.

With that done, she rushed upstairs in time to see the big lead ship captained by Crusoe taking fire from the Velor ships. When she saw the firepower they possessed, she wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep forever. But there was no room for cowardice here.

She was pleased to see her gunners already situated. Her flight crew was monitoring the battle intently.

A handful of soldiers were just milling around
, so she commanded them to supply whatever the rest of the soldiers needed. “If a gunner needs water, you’d better be there with a jug. If someone faints, you revive them.”

Then she took her seat at the captain’s chair and ordered Molly
off-line. Crusoe was right: if Jason had sent any intel back, then the Velors knew exactly what Molly would do under every single circumstance. Now they were unpredictable.

“Move as close to that ship as possible,” she said, pointing at the nearest Velor craft. “When I give the word, open the airlock.”

“One of her pilots argued, “But I thought we’d fire on them first.”

Sarah locked him in a stare and he blushed and turned away. “Sorry
, Captain.”

“They have superior ships, firepower, and knowledge of space battle. We only have the element of surprise, and by God will they be surprised by a bunch of lunatics busting through their hull and fighting them hand to hand. They call themselves warriors
, but I think we have the real warriors.”

The entire room yelled, “Hurrah,” as one.

She fought the urge to smile.