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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/HexKm on 2024-09-27 22:21:04+00:00.

“Oh my!” Enola’s words coming from the speakers in the bomber’s engineering bay carried a tone of concern.

Sally, who had consumed two glasses of the bourbon since Wilson had left, still felt some of the anxiety that she was trying to numb, and being out of contact to updated information from the Sac and the AI’s sudden exclamation didn’t help. Her words tumbled out, belying her mental state. “What? Is Wilson okay?”

Enola’s voice still carried the concern, though the words themselves carried reassurance. “Oh, don’t worry Chief. Liz is still registering as functional, and the data relay indicates that she and the Sergeant have breached the hull.”

Sally reached across the workspace to the half-bottle of amber liquor. “So why are you acting worried?”

Enola didn’t answer immediately. Granted, while she didn’t have the processing speed of Vicki, from Terran perception her response should have been instantaneous. When she did pipe her answer through the speakers, it seemed measured and carefully crafted, and with a final intonation that seemed ominous. “Chief, Liz just started broadcasting Mussorgsky… The Night on Bald Mountain.”

Sally poured another two fingers of the liquor into her glass, then looked over at the chromed AI capsule. “So? What’s the big deal? There’s lots of music to choose from…”

“You… You don’t know?” The incredulity in Enola’s tone couldn’t be missed. “That piece… Well, there was a newsreel that I heard while they were finishing my spacecraft. The reporters talked about how much the horrible Drasalite enemies disliked this music. There’s something about it that causes resonances in their protoplasm, and causes all manner of cognitive issues.”

Sally grinned grimly and put the cap back on the bottle. “Good. That should give Wilson an edge. So what’s the worry?”

Enola’s answer was chilling, “Well, many assaults by our boys used the music, by broadcast or loudspeaker drones, to accompany their attacks. Some of the Drasalites reacted very badly. They… they drew in the attackers and blew themselves up to take as many of our boys with them as they could. But on a starship blowing themselves up could mean…”

Sally frowned and, instead of reaching for her glass slammed her hand down on the white marble surface of the workspace. “Frak!”

Before Sally could say anything else, a sharp buzzing alarm sounded in the engine room aft of Enola’s engineering bay.

Sally screwed her eyes tightly closed and lowered her head as her expression started to change from one of fear and helplessness to one of determination. But it was the determination of someone well in their cups, and as she turned toward the engine room her eyes seemed to burn as she opened them again.

Tippy skittered over to the troubled engineer, rubbing the front of its losenge-shaped body against the woman’s thigh. Its three arms waved helplessly in the air, dogs not really understanding about hugging.

As she started taking a couple of fluid steps towards the engine room, she patted the cyborg dog’s body. “C’mon Tippy. Time for us to get back to work. Maybe we can even get this boat moving enough to go rescue that fool…”

-=-=-=-=-=-

Wilson stood braced with his feet at a ninety degree angle and his body sideways to the hatch that he was burning his way through with the field gun.

Given the depressurization of the storage compartment, it was no surprise that the hatch wouldn’t cycle open. As the stream of plasma blasted against the hatch, it was already glowing orange with the heat.

Suddenly, the latching mechanism melted enough to bend to the atmospheric pressure on the other side, and the hatch swung open on its hinges. A smattering of white-orange drops of molten metal flying through the space, carried by the air rushing through the opening, heading off into the asteroid field, then perhaps off into The Dark.

As Wilson swung the field gun back behind him on its shoulder strap, a Drasalite crewmember, pseudopods flailing, tried to grasp the edge of the glowing door jamb. As it’s membrane sizzled, it pulled it’s pseudopod back into its unicellular body, and was pulled a couple of meters towards the torn opening in the hull.

In the near-vacuum, the Drasalite seemed to inflate, and before Wilson could bring one of his forearm miniguns to bear, the amoebic body’s membrane ruptured, spraying gobbets of cloudy protoplasm across the compartment where they began to boil away. The tattered bits of membrane floated gently amidst the mist.

Wilson’s eyes went wide as the Drasalite exploded before him. He’d never actually encountered this occurrence, and he decided that the descriptions in the manuals that he’d studied during basic and his refreshers hadn’t captured the carnage of it.

Wilson’s training kicked in, and with a roll of his shoulders, he refocused his attention, brought up his right forearm until the crosshairs were visible in his HUD, and stepped forward. The vibrant, ominous music still sounded in his earphones.

With a light leaping motion, the powered armor lifted through the hatchway, the arms each pointing a different direction down the corridor. Wilson’s head whipped back and forth along the corridor, but there were no combatants, only boiling clouds of protoplasm and tattered sheets of shredded membrane that slowly sank in the vacuum of the hallway that strobed with warning lights.

Wilson turned to head to the fore, where the bridge should be.

“Sergeant? Sergeant Wilson?” Enola’s worried voice sounded in his ears.

“Huh?” Wilson paused in his movement before asking, “Liz, is that transmission coded?”

“No, Sergeant, it’s an open channel. Would you like me to try to secure an encrypted connection?”

Wilson saw movement down the corridor, and adjusted his arm to fire a burst of bullets into the rigid, multilimbed exosuit that came around the corner. Atmosphere vented from the punctures as the occupant of the suit let its plasma rifle fall from its grasp and pull back out of sight.

Wilson’s words were rapid and short. “Yes. Encrypt it.”

There was just the continually intensifying background music as Wilson stepped slowly towards where the Drasalite attacker had come from. Wilson had both of his arms raised before him, the multiple barrels of the small miniguns affixed there whirling soundlessly.

The powered armor suddenly burst around the corner, but the rigid exosuit was slumped down where the bulkhead met the deck. The black shoulder with the red cowled skull bounced off the far bulkhead before Wilson got to his feet.

As he confirmed that the Drasalite exosuit showed no movement, Wilson reached for the discarded plasma rifle. Liz’s calm, sultry voice sounded in his ears, “Sergeant, I have secured encrypted communications with the Terran Space Navy vessel Enola Gay on channel five.”

For a moment, Wilson was confused at the obsolete ‘Space Navy’ term before he remembered that the Enola Gay had been launched and lost well before the consolidation. He chuckled as he fitted the trigger pad of the plasma rifle into his right hand’s glove. “Thank you, Liz.”

Wilson worked his jaw against the communication switch. “I read you Enola. Are you okay? I’m not in a place to help the Chief, but I can give advice if you need it.”

Enola’s voice came into Wilson’s ears, “What? Oh, no, Sergeant. The Chief and Tippy are dealing with the engines. I just recognized the musical piece that you’re broadcasting. You, uh… Do you know what effect that piece has on the blobbies?” The disgust in the modulated voice wasn’t disguised in any way.

Wilson made his way down the corridor, past the inert exosuit, toward the closed pressure hatch at the end of the corridor. “Uh, no Enola, I don’t. I don’t think I have ever heard this music before. What’s up?” The big fingers of the powered armor pounded at the hatch controls.

“Well, it makes them likely to suicide in order to take the enemy with them…” Enola’s voice wasn’t just worried, it seemed like it was bordering on frantic. “And you’re on a ship with a duodec reactor!”

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