Silhouette by Arthur McMahon Page B

The two Burmin from the cargo hold appeared at the end of the hall behind his sister as she wrestled in desperation with the gun-wielding Burmin, still struggling to take control of the weapon. The alien creature pushed a hand into her face and tore off her headpiece, taking hair with it. The weapon fired and the blast hit a wall. The two other Burmin charged forward.
    “Run Davi!” she shrieked.
    “Sue!” he yelled back.
    “NOW!”
    Davi took a step forward toward his sister, but then backpedaled and turned, running for the escape pods. He opened the pod door, stepped inside, sat in one of the oversized seats, and listened as the Burmin yelled to one another. Gunfire rang out in the halls once more. There was a moment of silence after the blasts, and Davi felt his heart drop into his stomach.
    A Burmin hollered, perhaps in triumph, and energy blasts erupted again as heavy footsteps thumped through the corridor. The Burmin were coming for him. Tears blurred Davi’s vision as he reached to close the pod door, but then his sister leapt into the escape pod.
    “Now! Now! Now!”
    Davi squealed in surprise and slammed the door shut. Green lever. Red lever. A bleeding Burmin clawed at the transparent door, smearing it with blood but unable to pry it open. It fired blasts from its weapon which left dark scorch marks.
    “Now, Davi!”
    Red buttons.
    They both slammed into the door of the pod as it rocketed off and away from the Juggernaut, forcibly reminding them of how physics worked as they crawled with great effort toward the seats. Sue pulled herself into one seat and then helped Davi climb in as well, strapping them both into one shared harness.
      The launch rockets ceased and they were now free floating with only their harness to hold them in place. Sue let her entire body relax in a moment where she had no control over their fate, a moment where she could rest her overworked everything.
      The blood on her fingertips had dried, but the skin had already started to blister. She placed her right hand on a flat disc that she thought was an armrest. The disc turned out to be the orientation controls of their pod and she swiped her fingers along the disc, angling their view back toward the command ship to see if they were being followed.
    “Burmin ships,” she said. Davi woke from a dazed stupor at her words, turning his head and half-closed eyes to the view. “You can see them launching from the Juggernaut’s belly. They look like little fire bugs.”
    “They’re going to find us,” said Davi.
    “I don’t see any coming our way,” said Sue. A twinkling light caught her attention as it rotated into view. “Look! The core. There it is, floating just off the rear of the command ship.” Their pod continued to rotate, and Sue’s eyes welled as two large Erdian cruisers came into view, escorted by countless smaller crafts. “The Presider did it,” she whispered. Sue convulsed as she alternated between coughs and laughs, pain seeping into her voice as she allowed herself to feel it again. Davi rubbed his eyes with the fingers on his remaining hand and looked at his sister, then back to the view in front of them.
    One of the Erdian cruisers fired a laser strike that landed squarely on the floating energy core, and the resulting explosion was a massive flash of light followed by a visual ripple across the entire hull of the Juggernaut. The back half of the Burmin command ship was vaporized and blown out into space in all directions, waves of debris and energy catching several escaping Burmin transfer ships in their wakes.
    Sue activated the same message she had sent the Presider forty-eight hours earlier, resending the message every few seconds as she oriented the pod and altered its trajectory toward the Erdian fleet.
    “We’re in a Burmin pod, Sue. They’re going to shoot us!”
    “I don’t think so. Even if my message doesn’t get through, we’re a weaponless escape pod. They would want to capture us for