by John Coon
“Let’s grab some food, find shelter, and figure out a plan in the morning.”
29
Broken tree branches blanketed the ground surrounding the Earthian ship. Glass shards crunched under Xttra’s boots as he drew closer to the vessel. A crumpled front end of the hull also bore witness to a sudden impact. As he studied the scene before him, Xttra wondered how anyone on board the ship survived such a crash.
Still, both Earthians survived based on evidence around the crash site. They found traces of hair and blood on seats inside the cockpit. Nothing in large enough quantities to point to life-threatening injuries for either colonist. That pointed to a frightening and plausible scenario in his mind. At least one Earthian deep in the throes of changing into a hybrid now ran loose somewhere in this forest.
Maybe two.
“We need to send agents from the Houston bureau office out here to clean up this mess,” Sam said. “We’ll probably need to rebuild the Magellan from scratch.”
Xttra cocked his head at him and frowned.
“You should be more concerned Earthian hybrids are now loose on your planet.”
“Hybrids?” Sam repeated the word like he misheard him. “Norah is the only infected one.”
Xttra turned and gazed at the crumpled ship again.
“My guess is you have at least two hybrids on your hands now. The Earthian who helped her escape is no doubt also infected at this point. Dead bodies and new hybrids will multiply in equal measure as long as both remain alive.”
Silence greeted Xttra’s explanation. He rolled his eyes and wheeled around to face Sam again. The Earthian stared blankly ahead.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Why are you jumping to such a terrible conclusion? We’ve seen no evidence Norah would or could infect Cliff. I spent two months alone with them on a spaceship. It isn’t in her nature.”
Xttra sighed. Sam adopted a far too trusting and naïve approach to this situation for his own good.
“We can walk away right now and leave the whole matter in Ahm’s hands,” he said. “Maybe he’ll smile on your planet and solve your problem himself.”
“Why are you being so sarcastic?”
“If you don’t want our help capturing these hybrids, we won’t force it on you.”
“Do I have another choice?” Sam shook his head as though it pained him to say these words. “After seeing the damage already done back on Mars, I can’t leave anything to chance. It’s obvious what the future entails if we fail to track them down.”
Xttra wiped sweat from his forehead across his armored sleeve. Weather conditions on this part of Earth were much more unpleasant than the area he and Calandra last visited. A stifling humidity hung in the air like a dense morning fog. It made his skin damp underneath his stellar guard uniform and flex armor. Now both were chafing. He withdrew a thermal tracker from a pouch on his belt and activated the device.
“Is your tracker picking up anything yet?”
Xttra glanced up at Kyra after she posed the question. She climbed down from the open hatch of the Earthian vessel and jumped to the ground. He shook his head.
“No one besides the three of us and … wait.”
Xttra raised his hand and signaled for everyone to be silent. Kyra whipped out her own thermal tracker from her belt. Sam stiffened and his eyes darted from tree to tree, trying to figure out what Xttra discovered.
A twig snapped. Footsteps followed.
Xttra’s hand dropped to his belt line. He unlatched his holster and wrapped his fingers around the handle of his eliminator.
The footsteps drew closer.
“Identify yourselves.”
Xttra turned in the same direction where he heard the voice. It belonged to an Earthian. His grip on his weapon tightened. No visible sign of the unidentified Earthian among the trees. That meant nothing. Even if he did not see them, they saw him.
“Tell me who you are first.”
“We’re agents with the Earth Defense Bureau.”
The voice sounded gruffer this time. Xttra shot an alarmed frown at Sam.
“Relax, agent. I’m Sam Bono—field director from the Houston office. Lower your damn weapons and come out here in the open so we can chat face-to-face.”
Three different agents popped out from hiding places among the trees. They holstered their pistols and approached the wrecked Earthian ship.
“Sorry, Mr. Bono. I didn’t recognize you in that spacesuit.” The lead agent, an Earthian man with dark curly hair and light brown skin, adopted a much more subdued tone. “We tracked the Magellan to these coordinates after it crashed.”
“We also tracked it from a spacecraft,” Sam replied. “Both colonists survived a crash landing and fled the Magellan. Have you uncovered any signs pointing to where they might be headed?”
The lead agent shrugged.
“We’ve enacted quarantine protocols throughout Calcasieu Parish. Our immediate goal is to prevent them from crossing out of Louisiana into Texas or escaping into a neighboring parish.”
“That’s a good start,” Sam replied. He motioned to the two agents behind the lead agent. “Can you get me a phone and a car, Agent Wells? My alien friends and I need to cover ground inconspicuously and I want to stay in contact, so I can direct the bureau’s search efforts.”
Agent Wells stared past Sam’s shoulder and his eyes settled on Xttra. A weary frown poked out from the corners of his lips. It did not offer a positive sign the agent trusted Sam or would follow his orders.
“Are you sure that’s such a wise idea, sir?” he said. “You know the bureau policy on alien visitors. If they find out we’re letting aliens traipse around in Louisiana—”
“I’m in charge here and they’re assisting in this manhunt.” Sam turned and pointed at Xttra. “These aliens are the only reason I came back from Mars alive and unharmed. I trust them with my life. There’s no reason for you not to trust them.”
Agent Wells’ eyes drifted downward and settled on Xttra’s armored sleeves. They trailed upward again until meeting his face. Xttra crossed his arms and returned a cold stare at the bureau agent.
“Have something you want to say to me, Earthian?”
He stood as rigid and motionless as a statue before Agent Wells. The bureau agent’s eyes hardened, and he mimicked Xttra in folding his arms and refusing to move.
Sam sighed.
“We don’t have time to start a pissing match. Carry out my request, Agent Wells, while we still have enough daylight left.”
Agent Wells raised his arms and backed away. He turned away from them when he reached the edge of the tree line and relayed Sam’s orders to the other two bureau agents. All three disappeared into the woods again.
“He’s certainly a pleasant alien, isn’t he?”
Kyra did a poor job of concealing the sarcasm couched within her words.
“Few of them are,” Xttra replied.
She adjusted the range on her tracker. Sam strolled over to Kyra’s position and stared at the screen. Heat patterns from random animals popped up, one after another, as the body heat sensor range spread out to cover a larger geographical area. It also picked up patterns from the departing Earth Defense Bureau agents as well as Cavac and Xander still aboard their ship.
“How much distance does your tracker cover?” Awe infused Sam’s question. His eyes stayed glued to the tracker screen. “Seems like you’re picking up quite a few animals out here.”
“20 peds.” Kyra glanced up from the screen. “At least with the newer trackers, anyway.”
“Ped?”
Sam jerked his head up. He scrunched up his eyes and nose upon hearing that unfamiliar word.
“Standard unit of measurement on Lathos,” Xttra said. “In Earthian terms, the tracker’s range extends about 25 kilometers in any given direc
tion.”
His explanation did not do much to erase the confusion resting on Sam’s face. The Earthian nodded and refocused his eyes on the tracker.
“And here I thought converting miles to kilometers was complicated,” he mumbled.
Xttra scanned in the opposite direction. His tracker detected heat patterns from multiple small Earthian animals. He adjusted the tracker’s sensitivity. The Earthians were larger, so Xttra realized he needed to block out irrelevant heat patterns. His adjustments boosted the tracker’s range and the patterns changed. He detected two larger heat patterns moving east toward the border of the forest.
One still resembled a typical Earthian. The other exhibited characteristics more consistent with a hybrid.
“Found them.” Xttra raised his head and wheeled around, facing Kyra and Sam. “Our Earthian hybrids are moving east out of the forest.”
“Damn. I was afraid of that,” Sam said. “They’re heading into Sulphur. We need that car now.”
“How many men, women, and children dwell in this Earthian village?”
“20,000? 30,000? I don’t know the exact number.”
Kyra pressed her hand to her mouth and shook her head. Xttra’s heart started racing when Sam disclosed the population numbers. Nothing good could come from this development. Hybrids escaping into a small Earthian city offered a blueprint for a massacre.
He only hoped they reached this place called Sulphur before things spiraled out of control further.
***
A sign suspended between two brick posts bisecting a brick circle welcomed visitors to Sulphur. Xttra’s eyes drifted from the sign over to an expansive Earthian burial ground across the road. Partially exposed tombs littered the ground. Each tomb matched an adult Earthian in site and were paired with single thick flat stones of varying shapes and sizes. A chill consumed his bones like a ravenous monster as Xttra gazed upon this burial ground. Nagging thoughts of sharing their fate dug at him.
Executing a Ra’ahmian hybrid on a barren planet like Mars offered a night and day contrast to tracking down an Earthian hybrid on their home planet. Even with the aid of advanced technology, they navigated unfamiliar surroundings among a mostly unfamiliar alien race. Xttra understood all too well how quickly hostile Earthians ambushed interplanetary visitors.
“Are you getting any signs of their whereabouts on your trackers?”
Sam glanced in the rearview mirror at Xttra. Both of his hands gripped the steering wheel. Kyra peeked up from her tracker screen and shook her head.
“So many Earthians are popping up around us. I can’t get a clean lock on the hybrids.”
Sam glanced over at her in the front passenger seat and frowned.
“In other words, we’re literally searching for needles in a haystack.”
Kyra crinkled her eyes and nose at him.
“What’s a haystack? I’m not sure what you mean.”
Sam returned an equally puzzled look. Then his expression changed when it dawned on him neither Kyra, nor Xttra, nor Xander owned a deep enough knowledge of Earth to understand what his saying meant.
“Sorry. It’s a common expression among my people. It means we’re searching for an object that’s virtually impossible to find.”
Xander, who shared the backseat with Xttra, gazed out the window.
“Conducting this search would be so much easier from our ship.”
Kyra turned and furrowed her brow at her assistant pilot. A stern frown crossed her lips. Xttra did not fault Xander for making such a suggestion. His nerves were getting the better of him. He wanted to be in a safer place.
“How do you suggest we do that?” she said. “Our thermal trackers won’t pick up anything useful from that altitude and you know it.”
Sam drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he weaved around the left side of another slower-moving Earthian car.
“Our best bet is to travel west toward the edge of town,” he said. “That should thin out the number of people showing up your trackers and help us zero in on Cliff and Norah.”
Sam made a sharp left turn when the paved road they were traveling on intersected with another paved road. Two sets of three lights housed in vertical casings hung from a horizontal metal pole running above the point where the two roads joined. Sam started his turn as the hanging lights changed from yellow to red. A loud noise blared from a car traveling down the opposite side of the road when he cut in front of the oncoming vehicle’s path.
Xttra’s eyes drifted down to his own tracker again. Red blobs showing heat patterns belonging to multiple Earthians and animals cluttered the screen. They were taking a panicked, disorganized approach to this search. A better path lay ahead.
He closed his eyes and puzzled over what he knew about dochus. The hybrid he killed on Mars owned a blend of dochu and human features. Dochu nests were abundant along the northern coasts of Ashmuth on Lathos’ southern continent. These animals sought out caves, rainforests, and damp environments for shelter and food. If dochu biomaterial also infected the Earthian colonists as Xttra suspected, it made sense for them to seek food and shelter in a place with abundant water.
“I have an idea where they went.” Xttra opened his eyes again and peeked up from the tracker. “Where is the nearest river or lake?”
Sam shrugged. “I’ll have to adjust my GPS to see.”
Kyra snapped her head at Xttra.
“What makes you think the Earthian hybrids are headed to a river or lake?”
“Think about it. The hybrid I killed had dochu biomaterial laced into its bio code. What’s one thing we know about that species?”
“They love water.”
“Exactly.”
A subtle smile peeked out from the corners of Kyra’s lips. The same revelation which entered Xttra’s mind earlier also settled on her.
“We need to travel to whatever river or lake is nearest to where our trackers last detected the infected Earthians,” she said, glancing over at Sam. “Our hybrids will build a nest in that area.”
Sam’s eyes darted over to his smartphone, mounted on the car’s dashboard. It now displayed a map of a nearby river named the Bayou D’Inde. Several small unnamed lakes and ponds also cluttered the screen.
“I see a few ponds that would work as possible nesting places,” he said. “This isn’t narrowing it down much.”
At once, a buzzing sound came from the smartphone. A series of numbers materialized on the screen. Two words—incoming call—appeared below the numbers. Sam furrowed his brow and quickly pressed a button on the steering wheel.
“Talk to me.”
“We’ve got a lead on the infected colonists.”
Xttra recognized the voice. It belonged to Agent Wells, one of the Earth Defense Bureau agents they encountered at the crash site. His voice came through a round silver and black speaker clipped to a visor directly in front of Sam hanging above the car’s windshield.
“Where are they?” Sam asked.
“We patched into the Sulphur police scanner,” Agent Wells said. “A frantic emergency call just came in from a local waterpark. Eyewitnesses reported two people get into a scuffle with a park employee. They described one as having inhuman features.”
Xttra’s eyes grew wider as Wells shared what he overheard on the police scanner. They had tracked down the infected Earthian colonists.
In one of the worst possible places.
“Where is this waterpark located?” Sam asked.
“Parrish Road.”
Sam gasped.
“We’re already driving on Parrish Road.”
“Fortunate timing.”
“We’re on our way,” Sam said. “Meet us outside the park entrance as soon as possible. And call in an emergency code to the bureau. Put a ranger team on standby just in case.”
The car’s speed
increased as soon as the conversation ended. Xttra hoped they would not arrive too late to stop a massacre from unfolding.
30
Several Earthians were fleeing toward their parked vehicles when Sam turned into a paved lot outside the waterpark. Panic claimed ownership of their faces and bodies. The same fear seized Xttra’s heart, no matter how much he tried to push it away.
He had a brush with death while battling the last hybrid. Fortune may not favor him in the same way a second time. All sentient beings believed themselves exceptional. Their natures made them see death as a distant menace unable to stake a claim until a detached future time. A part of him acknowledged the panicking Earthians were smart to flee. Yet, Xttra would never permit himself to join their flight. His sense of honor told him he must do his part to save innocent people—even on a planet he despised.
Their car skidded to a stop only a short walk from an iron fence. Xttra spotted one Earthian lying motionless on the ground only a few steps beyond the fence line. He frowned. They were already too late to save at least one person from these hybrids.
“Stay alert,” Kyra said. “This is alien territory. Keep your eyes and ears open.”
She flung open the car door and sprang off the seat. A black car sped into the paved lot right as Xttra climbed out of the backseat. Flashing lights adorned this new vehicle. Yellow lettering, spelling out police, covered the driver’s side. The car’s sudden appearance made him skittish. Xttra encountered Earthians driving similar vehicles once before. Those Earthians helped the Earth Defense Bureau capture him and Calandra when they tried to flee from the Earthian village called Hideout.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Xttra poked his head back inside the car door. “Are these Earthians here to make us their prisoners?”
Sam narrowed his eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.
“Local police,” he said. “You got nothing to worry about. Let me handle them.”
Sam popped open his door and exited the car right as a door on the police car opened. An Earthian clad in a dark short sleeve shirt and black pants stepped out of the vehicle. Xttra’s eyes were drawn to a bright gold badge hanging off the Earthian’s shirt below his left shoulder. He also wore a belt with a weapon resting in a holster on his right hip.