Extinction

-41-

For about a week we sailed across what we presumed to be the Alpha Centauri system. Some people whispered that perhaps we’d traveled here in some other fashion—that perhaps the Macros could jump between star systems at will. But I didn’t buy any of those rumors. If they could do that, they would have brought their big battlefleet to Earth faster. They were using the rings, I felt sure. That meant it took time to fly from star to star, but it could be accomplished in days or weeks rather than years. Most of the travel time was taken up flying from one of these rings of collapsed matter to the next. Going through the ring itself to another system seemed to be instantaneous.

The team of lab coat-types we’d brought along to figure out just such phenomena were as baffled as the rest of us. Oh, they talked a good game—theorizing about hyperspace, stable wormholes and the like, but they really didn’t have a clue. I didn’t try to figure it out myself. I’d only taken two physics courses in my undergrad years, and I’d gotten a ‘B’ in both of them. I resigned myself to using alien technology without fully understanding it—probably for the rest of my days. Like every monkey we’d ever sent on a rocket ride in the fifties, I was only interested in when the damned thing was going to land.

On the second day, I decided I couldn’t stay in the command brick forever, waiting for something to happen. I figured it was about time to participate in the training I’d ordered for the entire unit—high-gravity training.

I didn’t tell Sandra about it, but the second I entered the airlock to exit the command brick she appeared. She pressed her way in, past the stuttering airlock doors, which wanted to close on her like a hungry elevator.

Sandra slipped into the airlock with me—a tight fit, I was happy to note. I pressed up against her freely.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” she said.

“I’m just happy to see you. How did you know I was leaving the brick?”

“I put a bell on you.”

I frowned. A bell was tech slang for a tracking device. Most of the personnel carried them. They were small, and if you were tagged with a tiny transmitter you could be tracked by anyone with access to a computer. I reached up to my neck, but nothing hung there.

Sandra smiled and dug into my pockets, and I smiled back. I reached around her to return the favor, but she lightly slapped my hands away from her shapely hindquarters. She pulled something out of my front pocket. It was my portable com-link.

I looked at the com-link. It had a ring through it and she dangled the ring from one of her fine fingers.

“I get it…” I said. “You traced my com-link. That’s a violation. I’m your superior officer.”

“I’m not a marine.”

I reached for her again, but the airlock dinged and kicked us out. It had long ago equalized the pressure, and now it had reached some timing limit and lost patience. It opened the exit door without being touched. A maintenance man in coveralls eyed us in surprise. We disengaged and struggled to get out of the tight squeeze with dignity. We failed.

Sandra followed me past the smirking maintenance man to one of the target-practice bricks. We waited for a fireteam to finish, then took a turn inside. The interior of the brick was dimly lit. We were issued two practice hand-beamers at the entrance by the duty sergeant. I thanked him and handed one to Sandra, who hefted it experimentally.

“You want to team up?” I asked. “I’m dialing an honor-level run.”

“I’ve done this before.”

“Not with the system set for one-point-eight Gs.”

She frowned slightly. “I didn’t know we could do that.”

“I had a few Nano gravity stabilizers installed in these training bricks. Normally, their function is to lessen the effects of acceleration G-forces to allow for greater acceleration. We simply reversed the principle and had the Nano factories build us one that increased the gravitational effects. You still want to do it?”

She nodded.

“Just don’t shoot me in the butt,” I told her.

We stepped inside. Immediately, I felt compressed. It was hard to breathe, hard to move, hard to think. It wasn’t exactly like carrying a heavy pack on one’s back—it was worse than that. The very blood in my veins was heavier. My heart had to work harder to pump liquid up to my brain. Fortunately, the nanite-enhancements including a heart capable of pumping harder than normal human hearts. I could feel my heart rate and blood pressure increase. I took gulping breaths. I could tell right away that a double-gravity world was going to suck in combat.

We started the simulation, firing at nanite-generated targets that danced into and out of visibility. The lighting strobed like an electrical storm. The targets were all computer simulations, but the obstacles were real enough. After we’d cleaned out the first three sets there was a pause, then the lights went out entirely. I tripped over a simulated boulder and went sprawling. Falling in high-G is very different than falling on Earth. The floor came up with incredible speed and smashing force. My reflexes and strength kept me from dashing my brains out on the floor, but I did see a new set of stars in my head.

Sandra knelt over me, firing at the targets that took the opportunity to rush us. Using what intel we had on the enemy, we’d programmed the attackers to look like giant bugs. They fired back, screeched, chittered and rushed in. I didn’t have time to get up off the floor, there was only time to aim and shoot.

In fact, I rather liked it down there. It was easier to think in a horizontal position with more blood pumping to my brain—and it was nice to have Sandra kneel over me. I fired methodically and we drove the phantom enemy back. The lights went up, and the score printed out on the ceiling. We’d killed thirty-nine out of sixty targets and survived.

“Not bad,” I said, getting up.

Sandra smiled.

“You did okay,” I said. “Very good accuracy. But now let’s try hand-to-hand. We’ll put away these beamers and trade them in for combat knives.”

She looked less than pleased, but she was still game for more. I took our beamers and traded them in for dulled knives. We’d designed combat knives with a diamond edge, the blade specially-grown by nanites. They’d aligned the carbon atoms in a molecular line that was unnaturally sharp and strong. The knives had been created especially for situations like the one we were about to face. For the most part, we planned to rely on our beamers. But these knives didn’t run out of juice, they weighed virtually nothing, and in close combat with another biotic they were extremely deadly.

We ran the course again with nothing but knives. This time, we were overwhelmed. We killed only about a dozen attackers with jewel-like eyes and snapping mandibles before the computer judged us as pulled down and dismembered. Sandra had been the weak link in this fight, and it showed.

When we exited the training brick and let the next fireteam shuffle in behind us, Sandra pinched my butt.

I turned around with a half-smile. “Is that a proposition?” I asked.

“You did that on purpose. You put us in there with nothing but knives because you wanted to beat me.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I wanted you to understand your limitations. You are quick and accurate. You know how to use a gun. But you don’t know anything about close fighting. Your muscles, while enhanced, are not comparable to any marine in this unit.”

“Thanks for the lesson,” she said.

“No charge.”

“I want another shot at it,” she said.

I knew that stubborn look in her eye. I’d seen it often enough. “Okay. We’ll go again when these guys are done.”

We ended up running each of the simulations six times. We beat the shooting match every time except for the last one. The hand-to-hand matches were all losses. We got better at first, but after the fourth round I could tell Sandra was slowing. Our score for the sixth round was the worst yet, only eight kills before the enemy pulled us down.

“I’m tired,” Sandra finally admitted.

“I know.”

“I’m not used to this.”

“You did very well,” I told her. “You might be better than the very worst marine in my outfit.”

“Really?”

“Nah. I was just trying to make you feel better.”

Sandra hissed and slashed at me with her plastic knife. I caught her wrist and kissed her. We half-wrestled and half-made out until the duty Sergeant cleared his throat. I looked up.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting these,” I said, handing over the practice weaponry.

“Thank you, sir,” the Sergeant said, trying not to smile at us. He failed and grinned hugely. I couldn’t blame him.