Readyworld

fiction by michael werneburg

As we watched in stunned fascination, one of the toothy monsters came bounding around the corner of the building the aliens were lurking behind. As soon as it did so, it rounded on the aliens; its senses must have been extremely keen. It closed on the two aliens in a clearly predatory fashion; low and menacing like a stalking six-legged saber-toothed cat-lizard. As it moved between the aliens and our location, the aliens naturally turned to face us; I could make out the visors to the alien suits, and saw that they were triangular when viewed from the front. "Three eyes," I said aloud.

The predator closed the distance in a couple of sidling steps. One of the aliens closed on the thing, and the predator leapt at it with surprising speed.

The larger, heavier predator hit the alien in a flash, its massive jaws closing on the thin forearm of the alien in a heartbeat. Lena and I both let out exclamations at the swift brutality of the attack. But instead of severing the limb, the mouth full of teeth just pushed the cloth into the alien's arm. The material of the cloth had absorbed the predator's blow. The professional in me gasped at the ability of the thin cloth cover; it had absorbed a huge amount of energy!

The alien wasted no time in bringing down its long blade, stabbing at the predator's neck with three rapid motions. The doomed beast retained its grip on the alien's forearm, but went limp, hanging onto the alien by its teeth.

The alien stabbed the beast with a final blow much further up the neck, and the jaws went slack. The alien had killed the predator in less than five seconds.

Its assailant defeated, the alien turned to its partner and made small body and hand gestures, as if speaking. The other alien made similar gestures, then pointed right at us.

The first alien spun in our direction. Clearly, both of the aliens were watching us through the transparent material of the corridor wall, just as we watched them.

The alien who'd watched his comrade dispatch the predator slung its projectile weapon off of its shoulder. I went to shout a warning to Lena, but nothing came out. The alien raised the weapon. Lena screamed.

I grabbed her and pulled her through a doorway. There was a strange sound and a circular shape a meter in diameter in the wall in front of Lena had been blasted into a transparent state. I was staring at a patch of the same glass I'd been shown earlier in the military ship. Lena moaned, and I pulled her away. We were in a hallway. Flat concrete walls, human. My brain, refusing to take in what happened, noted that the alien's weapon wasn't a particle weapon after all; it was an energy weapon similar to the one used halfway round the world just a few days before.

"MOVE!" shouted a sudden voice to our right. A voice so loud it hurt. We both whirled in its direction. Standing there was one of the soldiers from our little excursion to the Big Room. His once-spotless armor was now gory mess. He was covered in what looked like blood but even by the crazy light of Readyworld we could see it wasn't red. Lena and I both stood there rooted to the spot. Wrapped around his forearm was his weapon; it was giving off a lot of heat. If the soldier's appearance had been intimidating before, it was now quite terrifying. Sonia was already screaming, just from his voice.

"NOW!" came the voice over the suit's amplifiers. He turned to go, and set off at a pace we couldn't match. Lena and I scrambled after him. The corridor was deserted; I wondered where the panicked crowd had gone.

The massive soldier was already halfway down the corridor. As I ran, Lena's hand in mine, I wondered why the man was in such a hurry; the shuttle was either going to wait or it wasn't, right? Then I realized that at the far end, I could see the glass doors hanging open. As I watched, I saw dark shapes appear, silhouetted against the dim red light. Then there were bright flashes from the soldier's weapon, and a deafening roar. Lena screamed, and nearly faltered. Sonia started putting out a hell of a racket. I grabbed Lena's hand, and we started moving again, though my eyes hadn't recovered from the bright flashes and I couldn't really see where we were going.

We neared the end of the corridor. The soldier was already there, standing framed in the ragged hole that was all that was left of the doorway. As we neared, he began firing again, a short burst of sound and light.

We emerged from the ruined doorway, and stood at the top of the stairs. The stairs—as with most of the right angles in the complex—were a human addition. They'd been carved into a broad ramp that had graced the original alien design, and they'd been as neat and square as if they'd been part of the plan all along. Now, though, they were marked with scorch marks and gouges caused by the energy weapons. And they were littered with bodies, some of which were human. Lena and I stood at the soldier's elbows, surveying the wreckage in horror. I'd never seen a dead person before; this was all pretty overwhelming.

"Did they leave without us?" Lena asked in a small, worried voice.