B. Larson: Battle Station

“Speculation in either direction is possible, but uncertain. Should we apply thrust to the nearest fragment and investigate?”

I considered the option. I didn’t like it, but after all, we’d come here to learn about the place. I didn’t see anything on hand that was immediately threatening.

“All right,” I said, “But try not to leave any traceable signature.”

Marvin applied only a tiny squirt of frozen gasses. We rode this puff forward into the system, and moved off at an angle. The fragment of metal, when we caught up to it, was spinning in our faces. Marvin reached out with a tentacle and caught it. A spark flashed when he made contact.

“Careful,” I said.

“I’ve got it,” he said, handing it back to me.

I placed my gauntlets on the thing and examined it. Burnt, shredded metal. It could be anything, but it didn’t look natural. “Looks like a piece of a ship, all right.”

“Colonel, something is approaching.”

That got my attention. I immediately envisioned a Macro cruiser, somehow alerted to our presence. I swiveled my helmet, but saw nothing other than empty, black space. “Get us out of here, Marvin. Full thrust back through the ring.”

The tiny sled-like vehicle did a slewing U-turn and headed back toward the dark ring. It was so close. With any luck, we’d make it and slip away. I only hoped I hadn’t pushed things too far. After all, if I’d felt the urge to take a look on the far side, why wouldn’t the enemy feel the same way?

We didn’t make it. I knew we were in trouble when the twin suns were suddenly blocked, and no longer shone upon our backs. A huge shadow cast us into instant, impenetrable darkness.

“More thrust, Marvin.”

“We are accelerating at full capacity. Perhaps you should jettison the sensor unit.”

I pursed my lips tightly, muttered a curse, and did as he suggested. I heaved the unit over my shoulder.

We were almost completely within the ring’s center. Soon, we would transfer from this place to somewhere utterly different, and infinitely safer. In my mind, I could hear Sandra scolding me: “You just had to do it, didn’t you, Kyle?”

Then I sensed something. Something large loomed very close behind. I looked back, I couldn’t help it. What I saw made me suck in a breath to shout out loud. But it was too late, even for that.

We didn’t make it to the ring.

It was a hand. A black, slinky metal hand of a type I was all too familiar with. Made of interlocking segments of rippling metal, it plucked me from the back of Marvin’s scooter. I struggled immediately. It was instinct, of course. My current battle suit design was nothing like the old units. They had exoskeletal strength, independent propulsion and thick armor. I’d not used my propulsion units up until this point, naturally, as I’d wanted to remain unnoticed. But now I knew it didn’t matter. Whoever was out here, whoever had blown ships to fragments in the vicinity of this ring, they were well aware of my intrusion into their space now. All I wanted to do was escape them.

I applied full thrust, but that wasn’t enough. Maybe if the arm hadn’t already had a grip on me, I could have darted out of reach. But now that I was in the grip of a three-fingered nanite arm, I didn’t have anything like the thrust needed to break free. I tried anyway and simultaneously activated my lasers, which were embedded in each arm. I fired back up at the main trunk of the arm itself, as it snaked backward, reeling me in.

A brilliant beam splashed on the metal of the arm. But it wasn’t holding still, and although a gush of vaporized metal was released, it didn’t cut away the arm itself.

Still, I struggled, knowing I was running out of time. I broke radio silence. “Marvin, can you get this thing off me?”

There was no answer. I glanced in his direction, and saw nothing. No scooter, no Marvin. Only a few frosty crystals of exhaust from his strange propulsion system. He’d gone through the point of no return and vanished. He was probably a dozen lightyears away, and unable to hear me. I wasn’t angry with him, he’d done what he could. The scooter had simply gone ahead to the far side. What I did feel, however, was very alone.

I thought about shooting away the fingers that gripped me, but I feared I would burn a hole in my own suit. I decided to try it anyway, but couldn’t get the angle right. The projectors were on my wrists, and with the bulk of the suit, I couldn’t get them turned so they would fire against my own chest and waist region.

I recalled something at the last instant, as the arm drew me up into a region of even more complete darkness: the ship’s maw. I recalled that Sandra had once slashed away one of these fingers with her combat knife. I drew mine now, and it took me two strikes, but I managed to hack away one of the three fingers. About a foot of its length twisted and writhed like a half-severed worm on a sidewalk as it floated away from me.

It was all too little, too late. I experienced the familiar sensation of being swallowed by a huge, hungry creature. Then the starlight shut off, and I knew I’d been consumed.

The arm released me and snaked away through an opening. Familiar nanite walls surrounded me. The arm retreated from my chamber into another, and I darted after it, using my suits propulsion systems.

In this chamber, two doors opened simultaneously. I eyed one, then the other. In the back of one a tiny gleam of white light shone. I froze, remembering.

“The tests,” I said aloud to no one. But I was certain my hunch was correct. I laughed suddenly, knowing where I was and what was happening.

“You big bastard of a ship,” I whooped. “You scared the living crap out of me.”

It was a test. It was all a test. The ship was a Nano ship, and apparently it was tired of its commander, or whoever had been in charge had died. Now, it was recruiting me for the job. Fortunately, I was very conversant with these tricks and ploys. I’d seen them all before. Hell, I could have written a book about them.

I waltzed through one trick after another. Each time I did so, I expected the ship to address me in some fashion, as Alamo had so long ago. But it didn’t. I opened my external microphones and turned up the gain. All I heard from the ship was some odd sounds-clicks and echoing squeaks. They sounded like something a dolphin would make at the bottom of the sea.

Maybe it wanted me to remove my helmet to talk, but I didn’t want to. I kept it firmly on my head in case the ship did eject me for some reason. Even if I failed a test, at least I wouldn’t die.

It was about the fifth test, by my count, when I met the alien. It was an entirely new life form. Big, but not impossibly so. If I had to estimate, I would say it was about ten feet long and weigh in at around a thousand pounds.

It looked like a crustacean of some kind. A big, bluish-green one. It dripped fluids, and didn’t look to healthy-but who was I to judge? Maybe this barnacle-encrusted sad-sack creature was an Olympic contender wherever it came from.

It approached me gamely enough. There was only one big claw and eight smaller legs instead of six, but I still considered it a lobster. It never had a chance, of course. I pushed away its snapping claw and sat on it. There was gravity in the ship, and I pinned it to the deck, where it scrabbled helplessly.

I almost killed it out of hand, but stopped myself. That’s what the ship wanted. That’s what had to happen, but I couldn’t do it. In fact, the entire situation made me angry.

I flipped up the visor on my helmet, having tested the air with my suits sensors and found it breathable. The atmosphere was humid, dank and made me sweat in my suit almost immediately.