Alien Mine Ch. 13

"Where are they," Sandy asked as the ship's information flowed through her. She loved this feeling as her senses expanded, and she became one with the shuttle. Instead of tasting emotions, it was sensor returns and ship data streams flowing through her. She could feel the shuttle reform for atmospheric flight in her body, almost as if she was the one changing. Sandy was linked through the ship's AI with Thea and then Mei, who were managing the ship's drives and part of the weapons.

"There," Leslie said, projecting a mental finger, "heading west." Thankfully the tracking devices they had put on her were still transmitting.

"They told Bao they were taking her to Beijing," Kiania said.

Rhys shared a worried thought with everyone except Mei. "Om," he said, glancing at Mei. Mei was in armor like the rest of them. Rhys had ordered that she learn to handle a rifle and fight like the rest of them, but she was not as well trained as the others yet.

"I am sorry, Mei, we shouldn't have waited," he said, "but we will get her back."

Mei didn't say anything, but Thea pulled her close. "We will get her; you have to trust Rhys," Thea said softly.

Mei looked at Rhys worriedly but nodded and tried to smile.

"They are trying to lead us into a trap again; Bao is just the bait," Kiania said thoughtfully, but I bet they didn't expect our quick reaction.

"Perhaps, what's out there ahead of them?" Rhys asked.

"Nothing for miles, just some small scattered villages, and desert, a few military bases further out. Even further ahead is the Houtan Prefecture, but they are several hours from that yet."

The shuttle was fast approaching, and Rhys knew there was no time for subtlety or planning; they needed to hit fast and get out of there. It went against his every instinct to jump into a battle so unprepared, but they had little choice. Where-ever they were taking her would be worse if not impossible to get to. Making a decision, he turned to Kiania.

"Get the men ready; we will drop you in front of them and disable the vehicles from the air. There are two cars and two military trucks; assume the trucks have Trangrods in them. Amancia and I will go after Bao; you take out the rest. Five minutes and counting." he said.

"Drop us there," Kiania said, indicating an area about 15 kilometers ahead of the small convoy, "we will set up in those rocks and arrange a road block." Kiania turned and strode to where the men were waiting. There was little discussion; they knew what they faced and were ready.

"Watch your back," Rhys said. Use the drones to cover your butts."

"Good to go," Sarge said before Kiania could reply.

As they approached the drop-off point, Mei turned to Rhys. "Let me go with you; I want to be there when we get Bao; she will want to see a friendly face." Mei could see the reluctance in Rhys' expression. "I have trained," she said firmly, "I can fight. Perhaps not as good as you but I will follow your orders. Please, Rhys, let me do this."

Rhys considered what she said; he also took a second to absorb the emotions flowing from her. Excitement, fear, anticipation, anger, and a fierce need to protect Bao.

"OK, but you will stay with me," he commanded.

Mei shivered a little as she reacted to the command. "Thank you, I won't let you down."

Sandy brought the shuttle down, and Kiania and her team jumped the last meter and disappeared into the rocks to the left side of the road. The earth had been shoved aside here when the road was built, and it was a mixture of medium-sized boulders and rubble, plenty of room to hide twice as many men. The combination of armored human figures and mechanical drones still looked alien to Rhys, he thought as he watched them move quickly and disappear. He could see how Kiania arranged her ambush as good as anything he would have done. The drones blended into the rocks, crouching down almost flat. The heat signature of the men and drones was almost completely masked. Thea had made a few minor improvements but thought she could do much better given time and help.

Thea used what they were still calling the dissipator, and a good chunk of the road disappeared into whatever happened to it when the beam met matter. Thea was convinced it was breaking molecular bonds, but the science was beyond them for now.

The two cars were bracketed by military vehicles. It was overkill for transporting a single woman; they were expecting trouble. The military truck was enclosed and apparently shielded from their sensors. That said, 'Om' more than anything. Rhys watched as the vehicles slowed suddenly in confusion. The lead truck went into the hole, but Thea had carved it out to slow and stop them. She didn't want to take a chance that Bao would be injured. The vehicles came to a stop, but some of them slammed into each other as they tried to dodge the deep crevice where the road used to be.

"Jamming now," Sandy said, blocking any calls for help. Leslie and her Bob watched the communications, analyzing the signals through the ship's AI. She could see the satellite comms from the vehicles kick in as someone tried to alert their headquarters. But just then, the heavy weapons opened up on the lead truck. Mike fired his chain gun, and the lead vehicle came apart, the explosive rounds cutting it in half. Two Trangrods jumped out of the back returning fire, and moving quickly to attack. Isaac could see them with his eyes, but more importantly, his arms computer was tracking them and he easily kept his fire on the Trangrods. These were smarter, he thought; instead of just charging, they weaved, jumped, and moved for cover. However, it only prolonged their existence for a few seconds as his weapon blew them apart. William turned his autocannon on the second military vehicle, a small truck like the first one just as Rhys, Leslie, Mei, and Amancia appeared next to the car with Bao. They had simply dropped from the underside of the shuttle hovering ten meters above the fight. Leslie and Amancia went for the vehicle holding Bao. Using their strength, they each grabbed a back door and ripped it off, casting the armored doors aside like pieces of plastic, revealing a terrified Bao, a woman guard, and two more in the front. Leslie leaned in and dispatched the front two with a single bullet each to the head.

When Amancia ripped off the door, she saw a large woman and knew immediately something wasn't right. There was a strident buzzing in her head and a nauseous smell. America's senses recoiled at the strange feeling, and suddenly she was in deep combat mode and linked with the others in what they called the 'greater mind'. "Om parasite," something told them all. The female guard grabbed Bao, dragging her close as if to use her for a shield. Instead of reaching for the woman to pull her away from Bao, Amancia raised her weapon and blew the woman's head apart, scattering blood and brains across the seat and Bao. Bao screamed and fell to the floor, covering her head with her hands, now red with the woman's blood. "You must destroy the body," the same voice said as the now headless body continued moving. Leslie reached in and grabbed Bao while Amancia fired point-blank on automatic. The headless body jerked as Amanica raked it with bullets designed to kill a biomechanical Trangrod. The body disinigrated under her fire. "It is not yet dead. Burn it," the voice said. Amancia leaped back as a beam from the shuttle fired and obliterated any trace of the vehicle.

Leslie cradled a terrified Bao and ran toward Kiania and the team to get Bao away to safety. Then, as she was moving quickly through the remains of the first truck, Leslie registered something new she hadn't seen before but was hoping to find. "Om signal," she told the others, "they know we are here!"

Sandy immediately took the shuttle up, launching drones that quickly climbed into space to watch for Om threats. She worried about leaving the others, but the shuttle couldn't be trapped with no room to maneuver if there were still Om ships.

Rhys and Mei had dropped down facing the rear two vehicles. Mei calmly dispatched anyone in the car with a long burst from her rifle, the car and bodies torn to pieces. Rhys concentrated his fire on the remaining truck, firing grenades through the windshield. At the same time, the back of the truck seemed to explode outward as a new Om terror revealed itself. Low to the ground, it looked like a beetle with a hard carapace, multiple legs with serrated edges, a small turret-like weapon on top that was firing even now. Rhys lunged sideways, grabbing Mei and throwing her out of the way as the first one charged straight at her. It moved even quicker than the others, and Rhys felt the impacts of bullets hitting his armor. They struck harder than anything he had felt before, and he knew his armor couldn't take much more of it. Explosions rocked the ground where they had been a second before. Rhys and Mei returned fire, most of the rounds bouncing off the sloped carapace. Rhys fired at a leg and saw it come off at the same time he felt a round puncture his armor going into his left thigh. The force knocked him to the ground, but he felt no pain, Bob blocked the nerves, and Rhys rolled onto his good knee and launched two grenades. Mei was firing, but the Trangrod jumped straight at him, then almost dissolved in the air as the chain gun and auto-cannon tore it to shreds.

Laser beams from above lashed out around them, destroying everything still moving. "Incoming," Sandy said, the ship's sensors detecting a missile launch ahead of them. Sandy took the shuttle down at top speed, stopping only five meters from the ground.

Everyone swarmed the shuttle, Sandy turning the ship to run as Rhys jumped into the air last. Rhys felt his heart sink as he saw the danger reaching for them.

The greater mind made an instantaneous decision, "Multiple launches coming from far western China, we have to run."

"Strap in," Rhys said, taking a second to check that Bao was secured in a chair. Mei was trying to calm her, but they could do little for Bao now.

"Head for space; we need to try and outrun them," Rhys said.

Sandy pushed the ship's engines as hard as they could; even with Drans technology, the shuttle couldn't move at relativistic speeds in a planet's atmosphere. Nor could they dissipate the extreme heat signature they were making as they streaked across the sky of eastern China and then up above the Pacific Ocean.

Rhys counted twenty-five missiles following them through the atmosphere. They weren't closing as fast, but the shuttle couldn't outrun them. Still, a longer stern chase gave them a better chance of survival. "Engage," he ordered, and Thea and Amancia began targeting the incoming missiles with the energy beams. The range was still long, but Rhys hoped for a few hits. Sandy had a hologram display, and everyone could see the approaching threat. "Launch counter missiles, adjust course to this," he instructed Sandy. Rhys watched the counter missiles try and acquire the incoming Om strike. Unfortunately, the energy beams had only gotten two, and the anti-missiles didn't do much better.

"Five down," Thea noted.

Rhys nodded, thinking they would have to do much better if they were to survive. The astroid belt was too far to run to; that left only the moon that was approaching quickly. The linked minds measured vectors, acceleration, hit probabilities, and maneuvering limitations in seconds. The optimal solution appeared in the hologram, a curving course taking them behind and very close to the moon. "That course Sandy," Rhys said, but she was already maneuvering, steering them toward the moon. They couldn't outrun the missiles, so they would try jamming them when they were close to the moon's gravity well and hope their point defense, limited though it was, could defend against the attack. The shuttle was not designed to fight off an attack like this that would have challenged a much more capable Drans ship. He didn't know where the Om had gotten a large number of missiles this capable, but it didn't bode well for future engagements; they wouldn't be able to risk the shuttle against these kinds of forces.

Rhys winced as he moved to check on Mei and Bao; he had forgotten about taking the slug through his thigh. Bao looked terrified despite Mei being with her, her eyes closed and her hands locked around the arm rests of the chair.

"Got one," Amancia said, but there were still eighteen remaining and closing at an alarming rate.

This had better work, Rhys thought grimly as the shuttle streaked for the surface of the moon at almost 20% light speed. It was a crazy maneuver, but they had to get close for this to work; the decoy drones would have only seconds to draw them off course, but a slight misjudgment would result in a new, enormous crater in the moon.

Sandy threw the ship into the gravity well riding the acceleration V toward the moon. They passed over the pole and slingshotted around the earth side at almost 25% light speed. Only a Drans symbiont pilot could maneuver the shuttle safely at these speeds, but this was crazy even by those standards.

Everything happened in a microsecond. The shuttle dipped as close as 500 meters above a flat plane at an insane speed, and Sandy launched the two decoys that simulated the shuttle signature. At the same time, Amancia and Thea fired the energy weapons and all their counter missiles. Everything happened too fast for even the AI, and just as Sandy pointed the shuttle up away from the moon, a missile or missiles exploded just underneath them, throwing the ship into a disorienting tumble. Sandy screamed as she felt the pain ripple through the Shuttle. Her physical body twisted, and she fell to the deck, stunned at the sensation as the ship's damage translated into physical pain.

Rhys was unaffected at first, but as control shifted to him, he could feel the damage to the ship. Sandy was unconscious, her mind dropped from the link, but Rhys had no time to check on her. The ship seemed to come back alive, but the link was missing the AI. Rhys shifted through the incoming sensor data; Bob sorted out the data streams for him long enough to see that one missile had survived and was circling back for another attack. Energy beams stabbed out from the ship frantically as the remaining missile maneuvered. Before Rhys could formulate a command, control was suddenly wrenched away from him. The ship steadied itself and fired all the energy weapons; the disrupter and lasers fired, destroying the last missile. Sandy was back in the link, and Rhys stared in amazement at her. She stood in her former position, but her hair went in every direction, ninety thousand strands of hair that reached into the ship in every possible direction. Some strands were now several meters long, stretching across the compartment and seeming to fuse with the smart metal. Her features were hidden behind the hair, so he couldn't see her face, but her excitement was clear over the link. "Who knew I could do this!" she said triumphantly, but the shuttle is hurt," she added, all excitement gone from her voice. I will take us back so it can heal.

....

***

"The trap was well planned," Amancia said, "the missiles would have overwhelmed our defenses if we had been closer."

"We were lucky," Rhys agreed, his voice grim, thinking how close it had been. They were in the front room of their house at the base going over the battle. Several parts of the fight worried Rhys, and then, of course, there was Sandy and her hair. Rhys leaned back on the couch, taking a large drink of bourbon as he thought about the events earlier in the day. Kiania sat close to him on his left; Sandy was on his right. Thea sat in a comfortable chair, and Leslie and Amancia sat close together on another couch. Mei was with Bao in a spare bedroom. Rhys had insisted that Bao go into one of the med units; though she had no physical damage, it was her mental state he was worried about. The sudden violence, a body exploding all over you, is enough to terrify anyone not used to it. But add in being grabbed and carried by a strange woman into a spaceship, nearly killed in the ensuing battle, and Bao was in shock, barely conscious when they got back.

Rhys watched Leslie sip her drink, sifting through her emotions, looking for changes in her symbiont. The bots could make a chocolate martini that Leslie said was the best she ever had. "How did you know about the Om signal? None of us have been able to detect it before," he asked with curiosity.

"I don't know, Bob and I have been thinking about it, trying to understand how they seem to be picking up our comms, but we have never intercepted theirs. As soon as we realized they were taking Bao west, we suspected something, so I watched for a signal."

"How did you know it was Om?" Kiania asked.

"I don't know, but I did. It tasted funny, well, like I had a rotten piece of meat in my mouth," Leslie added with a grimace.

"Interesting," Sandy said to Rhys.

"Anything else," he asked?

"No, but now that I know what to look for, I think I can recognize it again."

"But how were you able to detect it: it's not like you have built-in comm gear, or do you?" Thea asked pointedly.

Leslie looked puzzled as she thought about what Thea had said, and she could feel Rhys' eyes on her. Looking inward, she concentrated like she had during the brief battle. She could hear/taste/feel a background noise that had been there since her symbiont had matured. The more she focused, the clearer the signal became. Data streams resolved themselves, and she could recognize the flow of communications in the base. "I can hear the base," she said excitedly; "the data flows, I know what they mean, I think. It's a little confusing, but it's there."

"Seems like I am not the only one with new abilities," Sandy said.

"Yes, about that," Rhys said. How exactly did that happen, and how did you throw me out of the ship's control?" I am glad you did; you saved us, but how were you able to do that?"

I don't know," Sandy said quietly, thinking about what had happened. When the ship was hit, I felt all of it, as if I had been badly hurt. Actually, that's exactly what it felt like; I thought I had been badly injured in the explosion, and the connection with the shuttle AI was gone. That's when I lost consciousness. But then I found myself back on my feet and my hair extending into the ship. I was connected, but differently, as if I was the AI. I usually am connected just to the AI, but this was different; it was a direct connection with the shuttle feeding directly into my brain. Unfortunately, the AI is damaged; I am not sure we will be able to repair it.

"But how did you do it," Thea pressed; where did the ability suddenly come from?"

Sandy shrugged and looked at Rhys with a questioning look on her face.

"I have no idea, but I think we have a deeper question," he said firmly, looking at Amancia. "Who or what told you that the woman was an Om parasite and then told Thea to burn it with a Laser?"

"I don't know, but the same thing happened during the fight near DC with the Om. Remember? "

"Yes, I remember, but I have no idea who or what the voice is. The only thing I can think of is the AI we salvaged from the cruiser, but other than the nanobits, we haven't been able to communicate with it."

"We know nothing about that AI," Thea interjected. "Mei and I have discussed it at length. None of us can approach it; the nanobits see to that, but how do we know they are protecting it? Perhaps they are protecting us from the AI. Perhaps that is not a Drans AI at all."

"Neither bob nor I know for sure," Rhys acknowledged. It was in a protected area of the ship, where Bob expected it to be, but I can't imagine what else has been helping us at critical times."