Making the Galaxy Great

Jason’s thoughts were moving faster than the alien transport vessel in which they found themselves. “Do we just wait in here till this thing arrives at A-69?” he asked McCauley.

She shook her head. “We need to figure out how we’re going to get out of here when we land. And make sure nobody’s waiting to ambush us.”

She climbed out of the shuttle and Jason quickly followed her. They stepped into a curving corridor about a meter wide, with a ceiling barely tall enough for an Yrrean, let alone a typical human. The shuttle was nestled inside a sort of cubby, like an egg in a crate, along what must be the outer hull of the transport ship.

They crept down a vast curving hall, past two more parked shuttles on the outer wall, until they came to a small oval window on the inner side of the hall. Peeking through it, Jason saw the central core of the ship — a vast oval cargo bay, at least 100 meters in diameter at its longest and perhaps 50 meters in height. In the middle of the bay was a single stack of blue, green and yellow crates with what Jason assumed was Yrrean writing on the sides.

“They’ve got this huge ship and that’s all they brought?” Jason observed.

“Mostly minerals and rare metals,” said McCauley. “Elements we don’t have on Earth that have special properties, like superconductivity, magnetism, whatever.”

“So they give us a few minerals and we give them, what, a buttload of corn and soy sauce? I guess that’s supply and demand.”

“Now you see why the President was trying to cut a better deal,” McCauley mused.

“Okay, but it seems like there might have been a more diplomatic—” Jason was interrupted by the sound of soft, high-pitched Yrrean voices coming down the hall.

McCauley grabbed his arm. “Back to the shuttle. And get your rinjot ready.”

When they were back inside the shuttle, Jason pressed himself against the wall on one side of the door and McCauley posted herself on the other.

“How big’s the crew on these things?” he asked as soon as the door shut behind them.

“You mean just the crew, minus the refugees we’re not supposed to know about? Not many — maybe four, I think.”

“Only four? And we already took out two,” Jason reminded her. “Back in the forest.”

The shuttle door opened and two Yrrean hands, holding what looked like weapons, reached inside the cabin. McCauley locked her eyes on Jason, held up one finger and mouthed something — either that she was having fun or that she would take the first one. When an Yrrean gingerly stepped into the cabin Jason cleared his throat loudly. The alien looked toward him and was about to aim its weapon before being roughly jerked away by McCauley, who pounced quickly and subdued the unfortunate Yrrean. Jason winced as he heard the high-pitched groans, but only for a split second because the Yrrean’s companion now entered the cabin. He gave the second one a quick taste of the rinjot. McCauley grabbed the alien’s weapon.

They returned to their posts on either side of the shuttle door. After about thirty seconds, McCauley stepped back out of the shuttle holding the weapon out in front of her.

“Clear,” she said, climbing back into the shuttle. She began pulling the jumpsuit off the Yrrean nearest to her. “That should have been the last of them. Let’s get these suits on.”

Jason understood. If they were going to walk off the ship at A-69, they needed to become Yrreans. Unfortunately, neither of the Yrreans was taller than about five six, so the jumpsuits were small on both of them. And that wasn’t the only problem.

“You have the largest . . . um . . . chest of any Yrrean I’ve seen,” Jason noted. The jumpsuit, because it was so tight, emphatically proclaimed her proportions.

“What do you want me to do, Fleming? Cut them off?”

“God no,” answered Jason. “But maybe, I don’t know, hunch over a little bit.”

“Sure. Whatever. Now let’s figure out how to get down into that cargo bay.”

“Wait,” said Jason. “I know we’ve got the suits, but we still don’t look like Yrreans. We need—”

“Hoodies. I know. They keep a bunch down in the cargo bay. The Yrreans never leave the ship without wearing them. Our sunlight is rough on their skin, and they don’t even like the lights in the buildings. Now let’s hurry, please!”

They ran along the corridor, searching for a way down to the cargo bay. It opened into some sort of control center. Two other doors revealed small compartments that must have been sleeping quarters, because they each had a pair of Yrrean-sized platforms attached to the walls.

As they passed the second bedroom, a light flashed further along the curving corridor. A drone, just like the one they’d encountered in the forest, floated around the curve and into view. Without a word they both fell back into the tiny bedroom, just as a portion of the doorway exploded and sent a shower of glowing shards in all directions. One landed on Jason’s left cheek and felt like a handful of hypodermic needles had just been thrust into his skin.

“Tell me it can’t unlock the door,” he said to McCauley as he rubbed his face and stared at the small, singed hole in the door. A moment later, there was another explosion and more of the door peeled away into smoke.

“It doesn’t need to,” she replied.

Jason looked around the room desperately — but for what? A secret door? A weapon?

A mirror?

He picked up a small mirror with a handle that lay on a counter between the two beds. “I have an idea,” he said.

There was another explosion and a hole appeared right in the middle of the door. McCauley pointed her pulser at the door, waiting for the inevitable entrance of the flying death machine. She glanced at Jason as if he’d just grown a third arm.

“Fleming, just get out of the way and I’ll try to—”

“If I can just slow it for a second, you can—”

“Get out of the fucking—”

One more blast from outside and most of the door was gone. Reaching from the side, Jason held the mirror up just as the drone floated into the room. It hovered, just for a second, as it encountered itself in the mirror.

McCauley’s pulser sent a cloud of tiny glowing shards back into the corridor.

“Nice shooting,” Jason told her.

McCauley’s eyes veered from the door to Jason’s hand, and she shook her head. “I can’t believe that worked. Those things have a shitload of sensors. It should have been able to decipher the mirror.”

Jason shrugged. “Maybe the mirror just reflected its sensor signal back at it. I don’t know. Just be happy it worked.”

They continued down the long corridor until it ended at a closed door. Jason waved his hand trying to make the door open but there was no response.

“I don’t think we have to be polite any more,” said McCauley. She motioned Jason away and fired at the door with the pulser. Half of it disappeared in a cloud of sparks and the rest crumpled and fell inward — down a long shaft that extended from their deck all the way down to the cargo bay. Running straight down the middle of the tube was a ladder.

“You have to be kidding me,” said Jason. “A high-tech alien ship like this and they have a ladder?”

McCauley shrugged. “And you were expecting . . . ?”

“I don’t know, something like the light rail at A-69.”

They heard a soft tone that seemed to be broadcast throughout the ship.

“Shit, we need to get going,” said McCauley. She climbed onto the ladder.

When Jason stepped off the ladder his legs went wobbly, as he’d done when the shuttle arrived at the home ship. The gravity had changed again.

“We’ve landed,” said McCauley. She pointed toward a section of the ship’s cargo bay wall that was painted a pale yellow color so it stood out from the indifferent gray of the rest. “That’s the main hatch. A-69 should be right through there.”

Then she motioned toward an enclosed niche in the wall, a sort of room. Actually, as it turned out, a closet. Inside were several hoodies and a few random items of Earth clothing. Jason was still pulling one of the hoodies over his head, when he heard a faint metallic whine. He tightened the hood over his face as the yellow portion of the hull silently lifted up and out.

The ship had completed its mission without its crew. As the hull opened up, four human soldiers clad in helmets and body armor entered the cargo bay.