Ally or Alien: A Sci-Fi Novel (21 page)

Bellrock clapped his hands like an Earth-based offspring unit.

"You're kicking its ass. Keep at it, eLoom. You rock."

It wasn't fireworks anymore.

It was a blue-struction.

While the artillery units reloaded, she sent her medium-armored HVR Hornets to the front. In a line formation, they approached the biomorph while firing their twin-barrel cannons at the same time.

It was working.

The stats said so.

Numbers updated in the upper-right corner of her vision.

The biomorph's speed slowed down to 34.3 km/h. Half its body seemed torn apart. The creature staggered like a wounded animal unwilling to give up. 

A flood of empathy overcame eLoom.

Please slow down and stop moving toward our direction, and I will stop attacking you.

But the life form had other plans. It went kamikaze on the HVR Hornets.

"Watch out," Bellrock said. 

The volleys of the hovertank squad pierced the front armor, but the biomorph construct ignored its damages, and shot its needle gun at point-blank range. The stakes penetrated the armor of the HVR Hornets but didn't cause severe damage. At least not on the surface.

But then something else happened.

Every unit that was hit by the biomorph walker disconnected from her CoreCommand. Their avatars blacked out on the tactical screen.

"Signal lost."

"Signal lost."

"Signal lost."

What was happening? 

 eVax chimed in again.

Me too, eLoom thought. But the confusion didn't last. Half of her HVR Hornets rotated their barrels and targeted the remaining units in the perimeter. They opened fire and destroyed two other HVR Hornets with their AM 35mm explosive projectiles. The terror ate through eLoom's circulatory system as she realized what had happened: the biomorph converted her tanks to its side. 

Going full nanobot infection.

A quick glance at the captain from Earth showed he was flummoxed as well.

"By the way, the alien's in charge of your tanks."

"I know."

eLoom moved into the second line of defense control. With the second salvo of her stationary artillery units buzzing through the sky, her bombers, now filled up with more explosive goodness, engaged in their second attack wave, about to launch their new load. But now the corrupted HVR Hornet tanks opened their Anti-Air rocket pods and spat out cluster missiles. The smart projectiles split up midway through their flight sequence and released a volley of a smaller ones. The point-defense lasers of the BMBR-Falcons took down 85% of the mini explosives, but five rockets escaped the heat and blew up.

And two bombers with them. 

eLoom hated to admit it, but the explosions looked bluetiful. There was elegance in warfare, at least if you were in charge of superior technology and knew how to use it. 

The Earth captain next to her stood still and marveled at the feast of annihilation. 

Well, that wasn't entirely true. 

Bellrock's widened eyes reflected the colors of the screen. A broad smile painted his lips, as if he was stuck in a wonderful dream. 

eVax however froze to her right. 

He wrestled with his face and didn't know which expression to showcase: one of utter disgust or bewilderment. eLoom wanted to know what was going on in her compeer's head. Thank tech his thoughts were on public now.

Loom, Loom, Loom, eVax' thoughts said.

He sometimes dropped her 'e' when thinking of her.

eLoom's thoughts replied.

Besides, destruction was such a loaded term. 

Call it: 

Risk mitigation.

Biomorph growth restriction.

Human peace treaty enablement. 

But don't call it destruction.

Boom.

Eyes back on the main screen. 

All bombers down. 

4 ARL Sparrows and 3 HVR Hornets on the ground left, plus the artillery units in front of the base. The damaged BLDR-22 of the biomorph kept creeping forward, now surrounded by its new squad of converted hovertanks. 

678 tasks and counting. 

eLoom thought, I'm sorry.

I wish there was another way. 

But your goals and ours, they just do not align.

Please, oh please.

Turn back.

We can live in peace.

Harmony before hate.

Stay still and soak up the sun.

Let me inspect you in mutual safety. Let me find a way to communicate with you beyond cannons.

Send me a signal, a sign, or anything of that matter.

Hear me?

I am still waiting.

No way. The biomorph BLDR-22 walker launched more needle volleys of its adapted cannons and took out the remaining HVR Hornets with its corrupted brothers, all lined up in front. The wreckages became part of the life form, allowing it to strengthen its arsenal. Worse, they gave the walker additional cannons that could threaten the Farsight facility from a distance. 

No, the life form wasn't stopping. 

Au contraire.

eLoom realized her prayers vaporized into the void.

The biomorph was still stomping toward the station while swallowing up every unit in its way.

Reducing in size, slightly. 

Slowing down, barely. 

eLoom calculated the possible outcome of the battle...

51

Bellrock exhaled shallow breaths.

Not because he was scared.

Far from it.

He was: flabbergasted. Flashed. Fudged up.

Why?

Because he couldn't believe the destruction porn that played on the dome's surround screens. Dozens of displays, showing the same action. eLoom’s remaining droids fired everything they got. He couldn't identify the exact weapon layout of each unit, but he could see each one carried a specific weapon that complemented its squadron, kind of like an insect.

One body, one function.

This was war, the eLoom way.

Wasn't she the Newtype woman who had previously said 'harmony before hate'?

And now here she was, controlling a droid armada consisting of bombers, floating tanks and artillery units. Wreaking havoc on the 'harmless' life form, like there was no sol after tomorrow. In-between the explosion-filled surround screens, Bellrock flicked a glance at her face. She was 100% into the moment but flinched once. Her eyes closed in nano-seconds before she was able to concentrate on the warfare again.

Was this a result of being connected to the facility, or something else?

Bellrock couldn't tell, because as a PAN-less human, he couldn't just enter her mind like eVax. So he stood idle, wishing he could participate in the battle instead of holding still and having his jaw dropping down. Besides the impressive robotized army, the alien marched on and devoured the droid wreckages like goddamn cancer on legs.

This was no soldiering for a veteran like Bellrock.

His fingers itched, his right leg started to shake.

Despite the hundreds of target pointers, graphs and stats on the screens, he realized eLoom's full frontal assault wasn't as effective as it looked. The explosions shared the same characteristics as their CGI movie counterparts.

They distracted from the story.

And in this moment, the narrative was: the biomorph closed up. It had taken down the bombers and the hovertanks, heck, even converted some of them. One screen displayed a 24.3 kilometer distance between the station and the alien, which was way too close for Bellrock's taste. 

He couldn't stay silent anymore. 

"You're not bringing it down."

For the first time ever, eLoom sounded aggravated.

"I'm doing what I can. Droid capacity is at maximum, I'm sending and firing everything we got."

Well, it wasn't enough.

So he moved closer to her left side until he was only one breath away from her ear channels.

"Don't you have something bigger?"

"As in?"

He longed for the right words. If a droid armada wasn't slowing down the alien, they needed area-damage of the grandest kind.

"You know, a nuclear warhead or something."

eLoom kept her eyes glued to the screens while multi-performing her ballade of destruction. 

"We do not have, and never had, nuclear warheads. That goes against the WMD treaty of our race.”

Taken straight from the peace talks. Well, having a droid armada wasn't probably pro-treaty as well, but who cared about the details at this point.

"I'm just saying."

His eyes rolled back to the remaining aerial droid squadron. Only the agile interceptor-style drones with their weak kinetic impactors and the now stationary artillery units around the base offered resistance at this stage.

We're going to get swarmed, Bellrock thought.

Biomorphed the fuck out.

This rotten creature probably didn't even know the meaning of surrender—it attacked like a suicidal animal with nothing to lose. 

"If that thing reaches our base, we're all done for."

The itch inside Bellrock increased. 

But watching the creature nearing the base cooked up every cell in his battle-hardened body. If he could, he would have broken through the screen walls, jumped down to the base entrance to go full Rambo on the biomorph. A holo-stabilized AM rifle with armor-piercing 35mm rounds and a couple of scatter frags was all he needed to single-handedly blast the alien back into the cosmic void.

"Do not worry, soldier," eLoom said without turning around. 

She couldn't possibly read his mind, but she was a master at reading his facial expressions.

For the first time since the start of the skirmish, she craned her neck toward him and glowed her optical sensors in blue beauty.

"We have one last defense option that involves you."

52

"Tell me," Bellrock said.

"We still have an armory depot from the Separatist War. It’s part of this facility and stores firearms from the first generation. You should be able to use them."

Armory depot inside a so-called science facility? 

It was unbelievable how much intel they kept from him. But one quick glance at the screens showed this topic was set for later. The biomorph was still the top priority. 

"Every hour you spit out another secret that wasn't supposed to exist in the first place."

"There was no reason to reveal that information earlier."

Hesitation lingered on her side.

This was hardly the moment for confessions.

"Fine, whatever. Show me the way and I'll get to it."

The second eLoom confirmed the destination, Bellrock dashed off...

53

Her last sentence never reached Bellrock. He leaped into the tube transportation capsule, took it to the lower central floor and followed the blinking arrows that eLoom projected into his environment. She seemed to be part of every aspect of the station. 

Almost...godlike. 

The captain from Earth raised his head and talked to the ceiling while running with his lungs on overdrive.

"How much longer?"

"47 seconds. You are almost there."

Thanks to the exoskeleton, Bellrock blasted through the pathways in no time. He followed the arrows and stopped in front of a round-shaped door in the middle of a neighboring station segment. eLoom's voice reverberated.

"It is okay. You can go in now. I'm going to unlock everything."

The second Bellrock stepped into the armory depot, his mouth dropped. The light switched on and illuminated the armor lockers as they flipped open at the same time. The treasure chamber of firearms looked like its counterpart from Earth, only more impressive. He recognized...

Modular flechette-based machine pistols. 

Melta grenades.

Short-ranged plasma guns.

Smart beam rifles.

And even a personal shield drone device that Bellrock remembered from the Separatist War. 

This was truly a museum of mayhem.

A goddamn gun shop paradise. 

So much for the peace treaty, Bellrock thought. The Newtype may have never used these weapons, but merely owning them was a direct violation of the contract.

Why didn't they dispose of them? 

Surely they knew how to recycle old technology. 

Bellrock rummaged through the open showcases and geared up to the max. Thanks to his exoskeleton, he could carry up to five times the amount of equipment. He used the adaptable mag pouches and attached them to his HULC.

His preferred weapon layout: 

1) The particle-beam rifle called the smartLZR—X32. This baby was pretty light for its elongated barrel, weighing only about 2.1 Kg. The rifle carried the best auto-assist technology known to humanoids. It was even superior to the holo-stabilizer tech on Earth. But the main bragging right? The smartLZR used electromagnetic fields to accelerate and direct charged particles along any chosen path, with an effective shooting range of about 1200 meter on the Martian surface.

2) Six homing Melta grenades which could blast through fortified hulls, just like the station's corridor walls, using an invisible laser pulse which, upon impact, ablated the surface and created exploding plasma.

3) Three smart, autonomous 'Needle Shepard' turrets that could be attached to walls and ground alike, firing armor-piercing 15mm high-velocity darts. 

4) A personal shield drone, dubbed the 'Carapace', which could be hooked to the sockets of his HULC exoframe limbs. Bellrock saw his reflection in the slick walls and grinned—he looked like a heavy assault unit from the Orbital Spec Ops.

Locked and loaded, baby.

Bellrock The Soldier, finally back in demand. 

He stomped out the armory when eLoom's crisp voice echoed from the corridors.

"I'm so sorry."

She repeated the statement ad nauseam. 

A giant roar erupted. The explosion was muffled by the walls. Inside the armory, it felt like a minor earthquake. Bellrock’s glance glued to the ceiling.