Whale Eater
Science (flash) fiction
If you want to get in the mood: the soundtrack matching this piece can be listened to HERE
The Blues were waiting for them as they came out behind Phobos.
The fat colony ship, engines blue as it fell stern-first towards them, with a pack of needle shapes swinging in loose curves around it. Vectored thrust, nozzles spraying propellant, dim glitters against the red of the planet behind them.
Jericho felt sweat beading across his forehead as he cranked the main motor up to maximum, felt the gravity kick on his stomach turning into an anvil, a car, an elephant. The Apache Spirit shook around him, screaming electronic codes as they closed the distance. Indigo Pearl and Mockingbird were somewhere on his right, riding wingtip to wingtip for a single radar profile. Phobos had helped - now they were on their own.
The whale ahead was implacable, relentless. Too big to stop, too slow to dance. The blue needlefish darting around it knew this, and had to make sure nothing disturbed the whale. They latched onto the electronic profiles of the Apache and its wingmates seconds after they were clear of the moon. Glows lit up behind them, throwing flares against the whale’s skin as they accelerated.
The hunt was on.
Jericho cut thrust, felt the elephant disappear off his chest. Thrusters spun him sideways with a kick to the chest, then the elephant was back as he blasted off at an angle from his wingmates. Indigo and Mockingbird split moments later, spiralling off in different directions. A black flicker behind Indigo just before it turns, something tumbling out from a rear bay and continuing along their original path.
Radar noises, enemy flak incoming. Scatterings of iron shot - ball-bearings and spinning triangles - zip silently through the space where he had been a heartbeat before. Barely the size of his fingernails, moving at ten klicks a second relative. One touch, and you disintegrate. Game over.
The needlefish are past them, banking hard, engines blue and furious and silent in the heavens. Apache barrels between them, fuselage thrumming as bays eject counter-shot in a spinning whirl around it. Kicks and thumps as hydraulics realign, a pale flare on his starboard side as something ignites.
One down.
Hard burn, looping out, the red planet inching back into view. The orbital mechanics are on their side, gravity well pulling them down towards a target trying to swim away.
Message blurt from Indigo, then silence. Jericho catches a red swansong on the one monitor, a single line of code. Goodbye, buddy. You’re riding the solar winds now, forever and forever. Wings of starlight, soul of fire, body already cooling into ice.
Something screams on the radio, interference from the Blues as they regroup, scatter again. The delta vee is not on their side. The whale kept them slow.
Cut thrust, spin, hard stop after less than a second.
Red veins through red eyes, gravity pushing blood the wrong way. Heartbeat steady - the drugs were still working.
Apache fell engine-first towards the whale. The world receding away from Jericho, a tunnel pulling light and motion away from him. Going backwards always felt like falling to him.
The whale rolls as he approaches, revealing its own teeth. Grey clouds mist the space between them, missed time and time again. Shot forever shot, spiralling away to the stars. Man-iron sent as greeting to the star-iron out in the asteroid belt.
The needlefish fall down towards him, spiders dropping from the ceiling. Light and motion amongst them, a long engine plume as something cuts through their midst. Mockingbird screaming triumphantly over the radio.
A blink, a second, a twist of ship and light.
Another red swansong. Mockingbird screams for the stars now, expanding into a glittering cloud.
Three needlefish left. Teeth bright, they dart in for the kill.
Jericho has been busy. The harpoon bay is open now, the nose camera watching the flanks of the whale. Red planet behind it, grey outlines where the whale’s shape bent heaven and obscured the stars.
The iron shot punches through the cockpit and eviscerates Jericho between one heartbeat and the next. Apache Spirit keeps fighting even as it tumbles away, spreading gossamer wings of ceramics, metal chips, blood crystals. Dead-man switches activate, send it plunging off in a wild loop - dead ship luring live fish away.
The harpoon is already halfway to the whale.
The black net from Indigo finishes its last correction, sends a final message, goes dark. It skims the skin of the whale without being noticed.
The harpoon noticed it. It was watching the black net all along.
It hits the whale on the rear quarter, punching in between a habitat pod and an engine module. A cone of titanium and boron burrows deep even as the harpoon motor stutters and finally blinks out.
The whale finally notices. It begins to roll.
The harpoon detonates, and the whale dies. Star-fire and man-fire combines, and silver scales expand in a cloud where the whale had existed a moment before. Bones glow, reveal themselves, tumble away.
Phobos watches, and turns the other cheek when the scales scar it in long ripples.
All due credits to the artist for the artwork - please see the link for more details
A great description of what I presume is space combat. It took me a while to figure out what the whale was. A ship or a creature? My brother has a book on Amazon you might like called “Persephone- First Contact.”