Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Panic. Fear. Pure terror. The emotions are boiling high, I can almost feel the heartbeats of those surrounding me. The tension makes my ears twitch and I stare at the sky where slowly, slowly, the hostile spaceships become visible.
Movement around me. People running in all directions, some are screaming orders in communication devices. Some are crying, trying to tell someone that they love them. Fragments of goodbye messages reach my ears.
”… I love you. I love you so much I’m sorry that …”
”Sorry baby, mommy is not coming home today. I need to …”
”Please tell mom I didn’t mean it …”
”Yes. I will be your mate for life. I’m so sorry I turned you down earlier, I …”
Most of those around me have already given up. They don’t believe that there is any chance to fight the Splerions and win. And I’m not sure if I can blame them. I don’t have much hope either.
Someone touches my wing which causes me to spin around and look at that person, wide-eyed. It’s the captain of the ship that picked me up.
”You had emergency training, yes?” The captain asks.
”Emergency … yes, of course. Everyone sent on exploration missions outside our solar system has to go through those. But what …”
”Come with me. We’ve been ordered to join the global defense squad. There is a shuttle station nearby.”
”I can’t!” I call out. ”I’m a scientist, not a fighter! The emergency training was just a formality, I never thought …”
”The day you signed up for the academy of space exploration you also signed up to defend your planet in a case of emergency.” The captain’s face is completely blank. No emotion. No compassion. And I know he’s right. I just never expected that I’d have to stand by my word. That I’d have to fight.
With shaking wings, I push myself into the air and fly behind the captain who is leading me to a small facility with several shuttles standing in front of it.
”Those aren’t shuttles meant for war! They’re transport shuttles!” I exclaim, shocked.
”The next airport stocked with warships is hundreds of kilometers away. We need to react now. The orders were to take these shuttles and use the trash lasers.”
”The fucking trash lasers?” I’m speechless. The trash lasers are weak lasers just strong enough to destroy space trash that floats into the shuttle’s flight path. They’re barely strong enough to cut through thin metal.
”You can’t be serious!” But the captain ignores my protests and we land.
Everything after that happens after feels like a dream. I’m given my own shuttle and am instructed to put on a different spacesuit. They’re saying something about laser resistance and better air tank but I feel like it’s exactly the same brand I’ve worn before. They put me in the captain’s seat and show me the laser control. They show me the radar. It’s still based on echolocation.
Fucking echolocation! Our technology has moved so far but ships like this still have the old equipment.
I start the shuttle and make my way into orbit. The Splerions are already waiting for me.
I turn on the echolocation systems. The sound they send out comes right back to me and my ears, fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution, allow me to see what’s happening around me in greater detail than my eyes would be able to.
There is one big Splerion ship right in front of me and several smaller ones scattered around it. Behind me is the captain with a shuttle and I can spot at least five more. All transportation shuttles, none an actual warship. None equipped with actual weapons. I swallow hard.
This is a suicide mission.
But if I have to die, I’ll take as many Splerions with me as possible.
I move my shuttle away from the big ship, there is nothing I could do to attack it anyway. Instead, I target one of the smaller ships that is the furthest away from the other ones.
Again, I send out the sound to determine the exact location of my target. It’s right there. And I can even spot a weakness in the hull. Maybe I can concentrate my laser enough to break the hull …
I need to confirm where the weakness is. I can’t mess up. The sound waves come back and …
The ship is gone.
Startled I stop my shuttle. How can the ship be gone? That can’t be, it can't … it isn’t possible!
I’m desperately pressing the echolocation button, hoping to get a new signal. There it is again! It seems to have suddenly dropped almost a kilometer. Was that a reaction to me?
I adjust my course and fly towards the small ship again, this time constantly sending out sound signals to not miss a sudden movement again. And I’m right to do so. The ship starts to move in random patterns, rises, drops, flies loops. It doesn’t give me a chance to target the weak spot.
How can it know I’m coming closer? My shuttle is too small to be easily detected. Or … a realization hits. It’s the echolocation. The ship registers the sound coming from my shuttle and reacts to it. Like an insect hunted by a bat …
I’m slowly getting very annoyed and decide to just give it a shot. The control of the laser feels foreign in my hand, I’m not used to handling weapons. But it has to be. I aim and …
Hit the ship! Of course not in the weak spot, that would have been too much luck, but at least I didn’t miss. Finally, I can fly closer and take proper aim.
A sudden high-pitched sound forces me to let go of the controls and cover my ears. What is this? It seems to come from the ship I hit. The sound is in such a horrible frequency that I feel like my eardrums are about to burst any moment now. Is this a defense system? Why is it so good at harming me? How do the Splerions know exactly which sound will harm us? And why doesn’t it harm them?
Something hits my shuttle and pushes me towards the planet. The force is strong enough to move me back into the atmosphere. My shuttle starts to rush towards the ground.
With a great effort of will, I move my hands from my hurting ears to get the shuttle back under control. I manage to stabilize its fall but all alarm lights are blinking. I need to land. Now.
References:
Sound Strategies: The 65-Million-Year-Old Battle Between Bats and Insects
How Some Insects Detect and Avoid Being Eaten by Bats
Ultrasound mosquito repellents: Zapping the myth
Picture taken from pixabay.com
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