Hoping to be able to manage a slightly better showing, especially considering that not doing so meant death and destruction to quite a few innocent Forgeens, Captain Valance immediately set his maintenance and technical crews to making certain every weapon they had was up to standards. The pounders, the whisperers, even the forward particle accelerator affectionately dubbed “the lightwave motion gun” were all brought on line, every recoil circuit checked, each cross beam tested, every toggle oiled.

  Sadly, what normally would have enough to draw the crew together in white hot comradery, was in this instance only heightening their tension. Up and down the length of the Roosevelt, its men and women were growing tense, frightened. Desperate.

  It was hard to blame them.

  They had been sent on a suicide mission, and everyone knew it. They were the stop-gap, the noble gesture. As whispers and murmurs ran along the great ship’s grapevine, darkness filled the minds of its crew. The thing could not be stopped. Not by them. Not by just one ship, no matter how big. They were doomed, and they knew it. Hell, they were supposed to know it.

  And with that knowledge came the creeping fear. It was one thing to be sent into battle against hopeless odds, the lone ship sacrificed to cover a retreat so the fleet could survive. That meant glory and an honorable death. But that was not where the Roosevelt was headed. They were headed down the gullet of a voracious, intergalactic paramecium. They were fish food, leftovers, the soon-to-be joke of the fleet.

  Although, even that much they could have held out against. The Roosevelt’s complement were the finest Earth had to offer. They were tough, well trained, and ready to die for their world. But, many of them were wondering, was dying all they were being asked to do this time? What exactly, the question asked, was going to happen to them? After all, they were not being requested to simply be blown apart—no. They were being asked to be eaten. Dissolved, digested, rendered down to their basic atoms. What, nearly half the crew was wondering in less than half an hour after the announcement, did that actually mean?

  What was this inconceivable thing toward which they were headed? Would it store their memories, absorb their souls, keep each individual consciousness prisoner within its vast, unknowable reaches? Would their minds be tortured throughout eternity, or would their bodies be used as fuel, an endlessly slow, painful dissolving which would leave them screaming for eons?

  Like speculation, as they had encountered other alien situations since mankind had left its own minuscule corner of the galaxy, had been kept in check due to a welcome combination of luck and scope. So far, none of them had been asked to accept anything so mind-bogglingly fantastic or hideous. No creature met, no world uncovered, no race or life-form upon which they had happened defied explanation to such an extent as to be beyond comprehension.

  Now, that had changed.

  Now they had been ordered to throw themselves against some sort of impossible space vampire, a ravaging eating machine so spectacularly, sky-blotting large it could be seen while still in space by those it would consume. Now they were being asked to offer up more than just their lives—suddenly, their souls were in the balance. And, it had to be admitted, with that being the case the crew of the Roosevelt were not reacting as well as might have been hoped.

  Valance included.

  The captain forced himself to walk the corridor from his cabin to the bridge with a steady, casual motion. He would not betray the dread he was feeling, would not allow the creeping terror gnawing at the back of his mind to show in his face. That was his job, to rise to the occasion. To bear the burden of command. He did not assemble a false smile on his face, did not try to convince his crew he did not understand or share their panic. Such was too hard a mask to maintain, and unfair.

  “One step at a time,” he thought, nodding to each he encountered in the passageway. “Just take it one step at a time.”

  No, he told himself, his responsibility was to prove that it was possible to hold oneself together. Those he saw with moisture in the corners of their eyes he did not reprimand. Those he heard muttering prayers he did not chastise. They would snap to when needed. When it came time to fight, they would do so with courage. And when it came time to die, they would do so with honor.

  As Valance glanced around the bridge, standing in the doorway without actually stepping inside for a moment, he set his mind in order. They were not coming back. There was no hope. Still, there were lives counting on them. Billions of them. And then, suddenly, something he had read as a child flashed through the captain’s mind. It was some sort of fantasy story, men in loin cloths and wizards and the such. He could not remember the title, the author, even the name of the main character, but he did remember what was important—

  “If it bleeds, it can die.”

  “What, captain?”

  To the amazement of communications officer Feng, Valance looked at her and smiled. Giving her a jaunty tilt of his head, he moved to his command chair, ordering her to patch him through to the entire ship. When she responded that the channel was open, Alexander Benjamin Valance addressed his crew.

  “As if I had to tell you, this is your captain speaking. A look at the latest projections shows we’re going to be on top of this thing in less than an hour. So, I thought we should get our game face together.”

  From stem to stern, heads turned, attention was riveted.

  “I know a lot of you are scared. Why not? It’s a scary thing they’ve asked us to do. But, some of us have been scaring ourselves, and that, ladies and gentlemen of the Roosevelt, we do not need. Do you understand me, people? That is something we ... do not ... need!“

  “Oh yeah,” said Rocky, hope beginning to scratch its way through the depression which had settled in his chest, “the captain’s goin’ somewheres with this.”

  “Ahhh,” responded Noodles, his eyes fixed on the speaker above their heads, “you think?“

  “So this thing is big. So it’s something we’ve never seen before. Every time we turn around we keep stumbling across things we’ve never seen before. That no one has ever seen before. But ... nothing we’ve found so far has been able to stop us, so what is it that’s making us all so certain this goddamned bacteria from Hell is going to be able to?”

  Around the ship, nerves began to unwind, shoulders began to straighten.

  “And let me remind you people of something, our orders were to stop this thing. Not to whine and moan, not to lie down and let it roll over us. Keep this in mind, ladies and gentlemen, nobody said you were supposed to die today—nobody!“

  In the fighter bays, in the engine rooms—everywhere—sailors began to turn to one another, heads nodding, grins replacing despair.

  “You were given a job ... to protect fifty-six billion lives. Now, I don’t know what a Forgeen looks like. I don’t know what they eat, how they make love or what it smells like when they fart. But, I’m willing to bet they love each other. That they love their children. And, when that goddamned son’va bitchin’ thing fills their sky, I’m willing to bet they’re going to know fear.”

  Throughout the Roosevelt, fingers tightened into fists.

  “Well, we’re the only hope they’ve got. Maybe we can’t stop this thing, but then, maybe we can. The simple truth is we won’t know until our guns bark and the smoke clears. And if we can’t kill it, maybe we can hurt it. Maybe we can change its mind, drive it off, get it to chase us somewhere else.”

  “Captain’s right,” Harris said to Thorner, giving him an elbow to the ribs, “we were giving up without a fight.”

  “All I want to remind you people of,” snapped Valance, “is that we have a duty, and that we have more than one way to fulfill it. So, grease the long rods, you monkeys. Check out your fighters, fire up the shields and swab the damned decks, because we’re on a hunt, and we’re going to throw everything we have at the enemy until its nothing more than an intergalactic pancake!”

  From the rear mine launching facility, to the very tip of the forward shuffleboard tournament hall, a thunderous cheering burst forth from every throat. Some forty-three minutes later, the crew of the Roosevelt would discover whether or not their own personal spatula was big enough to do the job required.

  The first sighting of the approaching creature did nothing much to help spread calm throughout the crew. As deep spacers they were accustomed to seeing massive things framed against the blackness of the void. But, these were always moons, comets, planets, stars. Rarely in their travels had they even come up against other ships much bigger than their own. But, the thing centered in the ship’s monitors now was not a ship or any other kind of inanimate object. It was alive.

  No one color could be attributed to it. Vast areas of the thing were a sallow purple, others black, red, green—more. None of the colors were vibrant. They surged beneath the beast’s outer skin, pulsating, sometimes mixing one with another. None of the continual combinations did anything to improve the monstrosity’s looks.

  “Primary weapons in range, captain.”

  “Heat ’em,” ordered Valance, “but let’s just keep the array ready for now. We don’t want to give away our entire hand right at the beginning.” Turning toward his tactical unit officer, the captain gave the redhead a nod, saying;

  “Send out a few teams, Acampora, mix the payloads. Let’s see what this thing does.”

  “It’s still a great distance off, captain,” answered the woman. “They’re only going to have fuel to get there and get back.”

  “That’s all we need, lieutenant,” snapped Valance. “They’re not going out to mix it up against enemy fighters. They’re dumping payload so we can assess from a distance. Now move ’em out.”

  In only seconds some ninety fighters were streaking through the black, headed for the creature. The first wave in broke across a several thousand mile stretch of the beast, raking it with laser fire. The second wave went right up the middle of the same sector, dropping nuclear payloads. The last thirty ships strafed the outer edges of the sector, blasting away with combination missiles, dropping everything from napalm and shrapnel bombs to chemical and corrosive weapons.

  As the ships turned to make their run back to the Roosevelt, Valance and Mac Michaels studied the data coming back to the ship from the various tagged sensors dropped during the attack. Pursing his lips, the science officer sighed hard, then said;

  “Not even slowing down, sir. Speed and heading constant. Like it didn’t even notice us.”

  Valance nodded. Silent. Tight-lipped. While he pretended to be concentrating on the forward screen, the captain darted looks at the rest of the bridge crew from the corners of his eyes. All of them were feeling the strain. He could see their nerves tightening. Knowing he had to do something quickly, Valance said;

  “All right, much like we figured, light weapons don’t have much effect on this gorilla. Let’s up the ante, then. Whisper guns, mark central mass. Mr. Michaels, provide coordinates. Full beam dispersal ...”

  Sweat beaded across every forehead not already soaked.

  “On my command ...”

  Everywhere, chatter ceased. Prayers were offered.

  “Fire!”

  The Roosevelt’s fourteen forward particle weapons sliced the darkness, varying rays of pink, green and yellow boiling through space. Striking in a ring around the seven hundred square miles of surface area above their target, the beams tore across the flesh of the beast, all moving inward toward the center of what Valance and Mac Michaels hoped was the creature’s heart. And, while the devastating attack continued, before damage assessment could be made, the captain ordered;

  “Pounder batteries, zero the mark. Battery commanders, commence firing!”

  The pounders, the ship’s planet busters, had been gathering projectiles during the entire race to head off their target. The pounders were normally used against orbiting bodies. The mass drivers would launch a captured asteroid or meteor at high speed toward a target, then let the planetary body’s gravity take over, pulling the object in hard and fast. The resulting damage was usually catastrophic.

  Their target this time, of course, was not a planet, but long range observation had revealed that due to its incredible size the beast did generate its own gravitational field. Whether or not it would be sufficient to cause itself damage—that remained to be seen.

  “First volley within a hundred thousand miles, captain.”

  “Release the second volley.”

  As the next brace of pounders released their payloads, the first sped on toward their target. No one on the bridge broke the mounting silence as the initial salvo shattered the creature’s personal atmosphere. The thing’s gravity grabbing hold of the projectiles, their speed nearly doubled as the beast dragged them closer, embracing their promise of destruction.

  “Second volley entering atmosphere—”

  “Fingers crossed, everyone—”

  And then, the thousands of tons of rock, ice and iron slammed into its target. Massive renting holes burst through the creature’s outer skin, driving deep enough into the horror to release great, thousand mile arcs of fluid pumping madly. The bridge crew held their breaths, waiting for a reaction, and then, the second volley hit.

  Michaels’ science team had planned the attack to pound at what was hopefully the monster’s most vulnerable spot. The fighters were sent in to attack its fringes, to draw attention away from the core. Then, after the whisper beams hopefully broke open the thing’s flesh, the pounders were released to fall in two circles—the first broad, the second tighter, more focused. As the second volley struck, sending more geysers of blood and bile into the air, cheers went up across the Roosevelt. Taking no chances, however, her captain commanded;

  “Half a job done is nothing accomplished. Mr. Rockland ...”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Fire the lightwave!”

  Prepared since before the creature had been sighted, Rocky punched in the final three codes needed to begin the lightwave motion sequence. Deep within the Roosevelt, its massive protonic engines began to siphon off energy for the attack to come. The lightwave gun was the ship’s most powerful weapon, but it was also its desperate last chance. Capable of disrupting the gravity of a gas giant, of collapsing an entire solar system’s logical motion, it was humanity’s ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

  “Weapon ready, sir,” snapped Rocky, his finger posed above its detonator.

  The only problem was, once fired, the Roosevelt would not be capable of independent movement for several hours. The decision to use the lightwave motion weapon was never one made lightly. Indeed, it had never before been made in combat.

  “Is target locked, Mr. Rockland?”

  “Target is locked, sir.”

  Which meant, if the lightwave motion burst did not destroy the creature utterly, or at the least incapacitate it, then the Forgeen, and the Roosevelt along with its crew, were finished.

  “Then fire!”

  Valance’s orders, it would later be determined, was given a mere 2.43597 seconds too late.

  Even as Rocky’s finger descended, at his observation post, Mac Michaels began to notice an odd reaction taking place across the surface of the creature. With the majority of the steam beginning to dissipate, his long-range sensors were finally able to send back visual images worth examining. As he did so, the science officer raised one eyebrow. That first was lifted due to perplexity. The second out of horror.

  “Oh crap—”

  Was all the science officer could blurt before the lightwave motion gun was engaged. As its overwhelming payload of destruction raced through the darkness, gobbling up distance at the speed of light, across the surface of its target, the creature’s skin was mutating, bonding—rebuilding itself.

  “All hands,” announced Valance, his voice edged with both hope and doom, “brace for motion backwash.”

  The golden dazzle of accelerated light slammed into the monster with power enough to not only stop its forward motion, but to force it backward for the first time in its entire existence. However, that was all it did. As the impact flash faded from the screens, to the horror of the crew, the beast appeared unaffected.

  “Mac,” asked Valance with a still even tone, one desperate to shatter, “what? Give me a ‘what?’“

  “It, it seems to have ... scabbed over, sir. The wound—the fluid release, we thought we hurt it, and we did. But it seems all we did was bring its defenses on line. Scanners indicate the scab is the density of adamantium, running a solid mile deep.”

  “And that was enough to stop our beam?”

  “It didn’t stop it, sir. It deflected it. And, since the bonded area runs to around a depth of five miles around the impact point, well ...”

  “Yes, Mr. Michaels?”

  “At least we know the thing works ... ah, sir.”

  No one spoke. No one breathed. All any of the crew on the bridge did was stare at the screen, at the image of the terrible thing hanging in space. The living being that had just survived a direct blast from the mightiest weapon ever assembled by Earth science.

  “It does seem to have stopped moving, sir,” offered one of the sailors on long-range duty. “Perhaps we did more to it than we realize.”

  “And perhaps, Mr. Rennie, it’s just trying to decide how to proceed,” responded Mac Michaels, glowering at the ensign under his command.

  “Well, goddamnit,” snapped Valance, “then it’s one up on us, because that’s what we should be doing!” Not waiting for anyone to respond, the captain depressed his comlink and addressed the crew.

  “Now hear this. We have apparently stunned the beast, but that is all. I have no idea how much time we have before it begins to move again, either toward Forgeen or us, but in that window of opportunity, if anyone thinks they have a good idea, now is the time to sing out with it.”

 

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