Escape 2: Fight the Aliens by T. Jackson King

looked around, meeting each of them eye to eye. “What makes this a hard row to hoe is that you cannot kill any of the Alien crew, even if they are trying to kill you. The reason has to do with gaining the help of the Collector ship’s AI—you will hear how Jane and I discovered that wearing vacsuits created an Emergency response from this ship’s AI. And how the ship’s Emergency Protocols kept the ship captain from killing us with super-heavy gravity. Or similar deadly adjustments of ship systems.” He scanned the personal weapons worn by each volunteer. “You will see that I’m wearing a Fed Ordnance .45 semi-auto. It’s what I took fishing when I was captured by a collector pod like those behind you. You can use your personal arms against any robot or control device on the enemy Collector ship. But use your laser only to wound or disable the crew and captain.” He grinned. “Taser zapping the captain allows the ship AI to move ship control to the team leader, who will identify himself as the prime leader of your boarding team.”
    His Coast Guard buddy Joe raised a hand. “Bill?”
    “Spit it out,” he said calmly.
    The chunky man patted the chest plate he wore atop his green BDUs. “What are these plates for? And who will be the team leaders?”
    Bill reached over his shoulder and pulled a white tube and a red tube out of his backpack. Holding the white tube in his left hand, he lifted it and aimed it at Joe. “Hold still. This will hurt a bit but the plate will keep you from being knocked out.”
    Joe lifted a black eyebrow, then nodded. “Ready for whatever,” the man said as he grimaced.
    Bill pressed the button at the end of the slim white tube. A red beam shot out and hit the center of the bullet-resistant vest. Red sparkles flared. He let up on the button. The beam vanished.
    Joe groaned. “Fuck that stings!” The man lifted shaking hands up to touch the black burn spot on the vest. “So that red beam is what knocked out you and captain Jane?”
    “Yup,” Bill said, scanning the faces of his saloon buddies and the MacDill folks. “People, this is your primary weapon for disabling the Aliens who will be sent to capture or kill you. It shoots an electrified beam of red light that looks like a laser. Ship mind tells me the power cell in this tube is good for a hundred twenty taser shots like the one you just saw.”
    “One hundred twenty-one shots,” the AI hummed from the high ceiling of the chamber.
    “Mouthy AI!” He stowed the white tube in a loop of his leather belt, then moved the red tube front and center, holding it with both hands. He lifted it. “This laser tube is similar to but different from the taser. You can see that it has a flat box at the butt end and a flat box in the middle, where a clip might be on an AKM-74.” He looked up at the yellow-glowing ceiling. “Ship mind, move one of the hover bots in this chamber so it hovers just above me.”
    “Complying.”
    A silvery ball floated over from where it had hovered above the top tier of collector pods. Bill lifted the red tube and aimed. He tapped the button on the tube’s butt end. A green beam shot out and hit the ball. Which blew up in a yellow burst of electronics and tiny silver fragments. As the fragments rained down on him and his boarding volunteers, he faced them with the red tube weapon held upright. “Joe asked what the chest plates you now wear are for. Well, the titanium plate in your front and back vest slots are tough enough to block a taser shot. And they are dense enough to briefly block this laser beam . . . if you move the hell out of the way very fast! You’ll get burns on your arm or leg, but better than standing still and letting the beam burn through the plate and zap your heart.”
    “Damn,” Alicia muttered. “That’s a nasty weapon.”
    “Looks like a portable version of the Navy’s LaWS,” Stefano said softly. “How similar is it to the system on the USS Ponce ?”
    All of the