by John Coon
“No one destroyed it to my knowledge,” he said. “I see nothing around here to indicate they incinerated it or blew it up.”
The same revelation which unfolded to Lance also washed over Xttra. A hopeful smile appeared on his face and he clapped his hands together.
“Do you know what this means?”
“They have the aerorover. And we can track it to find the soldiers and Calandra.”
“Exactly.”
Lance copied Xttra's smile onto his own lips. Ahm brightened a star where the Earthians made one dim. Hope existed again – if only a spark. Now they could take the fight to the Earthians, strike at them, and free her.
Xttra threw open his door and hopped inside the remaining aerorover. Lance matched his speed climbing into the vehicle. They had no time to waste if they wanted to save Calandra and the rest of their imprisoned crew from whatever fate these hostile Earthians had planned.
28
Calandra flinched and cried out at once after her right foot touched solid ground. Pain shot through every bone in the foot. Her mother and father each grasped a hand and held it firm.
"We won't let you fall, Callie." Her mother, Alyssa, spoke to her in a soothing tone. "We're right here beside you.”
Calandra took a few tentative steps forward, favoring her right foot. She felt so nervous taking these first steps since suffering that wretched accident in the cave. It took more than an hour to bring her to the surface after her fall. Their clan doctor warned her parents the surgically repaired foot would still be weak, especially right after the molded cast could be removed two months later. He told them it had been an act of Ahm no amputation was involved. The breaks in her foot and ankle bones were the most severe he had seen in many years.
“I wished you had stayed away from that cave.” Her father, Malthius, looked at Calandra with a mixture of sadness and concern. “It is a dangerous enough place for an adult to explore, let alone a child with brittle bones.”
Alyssa shot him an annoyed glare.
“This is not the time and place for a lecture,” she said. “Callie didn't break her foot on purpose. It was a freak accident that could have happened to anyone.”
A burst of pain shot through Calandra again, centered inside her arm and her adjacent ribs this time. That lingering memory of her childhood accident fled with the swiftness of a mirage. Her eyes popped open. She worked to calm her rapid, heavy breaths. Calandra found herself laying in a narrow bed inside an unfamiliar room. Dim lighting and no visible windows gave the room a dungeon-like quality. Tubes were hooked up to one arm. A beeping machine near her bed appeared to track her heart and lung function. One line showed her heart rate. A thick white plaster cast covered her other arm from her knuckles to the elbow.
Calandra tried to raise her healthy arm. A distinct metal clank greeted her ears. She looked down at her arm. A restraint circled her wrist.
Images flashed through her mind. The aerorover crashing in the ravine. Lance setting up shield markers. Fleeing from Earthian soldiers.
Her eyes bounced around the room. Where was Lance? Did they capture Xttra too? No one else seemed to be present. The Earthian soldiers had captured her, but Calandra had no clue concerning what fates fell upon the rest of the crew. An uneasy feeling permeated her mind, wrapping around her brain like giant fingers.
Could she be the last one alive?
Calandra stamped out that thought as soon as it appeared. No. She was not alone. Ahm would never be this cruel to her.
A door facing the foot of her bed swung open. Two Earthians entered. Both wore different clothing than the soldiers Calandra encountered in the ravine and neither one carried visible weapons. This alone gave them a less threatening vibe. One Earthian was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman around her age. A green-eyed man with thin brown hair accompanied her. He appeared much older, judging by tufts of graying hair at his temples.
“I saw the same device in this one's ear as the others,” the blonde-haired woman said, glancing over her shoulder at her fellow Earthian. “I decided to leave it in this time and see what happens.”
“Do you suppose it functions as some sort of communication device, then?”
“It's possible.”
Calandra refused to take her eyes off either Earthian. The brown-haired man took notes on a thin rectangular board while he checked a monitor on the machine by her bed. His writing instrument left permanent marks on thin white sheets. It seemed like a primitive and inefficient way to record information. The blonde-haired woman circled around to the other side. She flinched when she noticed Calandra staring at her.
“You're finally awake.” She eyeballed Calandra's restraints as she spoke. “I hope you have a better grasp of our language than the last alien did.”
Last alien?
Those two words grabbed her attention. Who else were these Earthians holding as their prisoners? A more urgent question materialized as Calandra pondered over the answer.
Why were they being held as prisoners?
“Why did you attack us? We came here as peaceful explorers.”
Calandra meant her words to be blunt and forceful. Her voice betrayed her as she spoke, and a trembling lilt overtook each one. Fear devoured those words at the same rate it threatened to consume her mind and soul.
“You speak English really well for an alien.”
The brown-haired man set down his board on her right leg and flashed a bemused half-smile.
“How did you become so fluent in our language?” he asked. “Has your race studied us for a long time?”
“I'm wearing a translator. It sends a signal to my brain to convert your words into my language and a separate signal to my vocal cords to convert my words into your language. We studied the language of the probe builders, so we could communicate.”
The blonde-haired woman leaned closer and now perched on the edge of her chair.
“Probe builders? What probe builders?”
A thought flashed through Calandra's mind. Did they make unintentional contact with a rival Earth nation? This would explain why these Earthians attacked without provocation. They wanted to prevent communications with the actual probe builders.
Calandra chided herself for being so anxious to reach Earth. She pushed everyone into a dangerous situation. They should have taken more time to do research and communicate from a safe distance before diving in unprepared. Taking a cautious approach in answering questions posed to her was a better strategy at this point.
“Who are you?” Calandra deflected the question presented to her. “Why did you attack us?”
“Let's start off on a different foot,” the brown-haired man said. “I'm Sam. That's Paige.”
He flashed a smile after introducing himself. When Calandra refused to reciprocate, his smile dissolved as quickly as it appeared.
“We really don't want to hurt you,” he insisted. “We're just looking for information on why you came to Earth. You give us what we want, everything will work out fine.”
Calandra glanced down at her broken arm. It alone offered enough evidence to convince her she could not trust what Sam promised.
“Too late for that. Why did you attack us?”
Repeating the same question again and again would no doubt eventually draw the ire of her captors. Calandra no longer cared. She wanted answers. These attacks on her and her crew were unwarranted. They did nothing in their actions to pose a threat to these Earth people.
“Why did you come here?” Paige's blue eyes held the same no-nonsense determination couched in her words. “Why are you on Earth?”
“You sent a probe to us.”
“We sent out no such probes.”
A crease formed in her brow and Calandra frowned.
“Maybe it wasn't you, exactly,” she said. “But someone from your planet built a probe and sent it to Lathos. We came here hoping to contact this race of probe builders.”
“Lathos?”
“My home planet.”
“How do you know about Earth?”
“If you return my holocaster, I can show you an image of the probe we found.”
Paige gave her a blank stare. Calandra realized the Earthian had never seen a holocaster.
“My holocaster. It's in a pouch – “
Calandra paused. She bit down on her lower lip as a new twinge of pain dug into her ribs. Once it passed, she let out a ragged breath.
“Where are the others who came to Earth with me?” Calandra posed a nagging question still on her mind. “Where is Xttra? Where is –”
“Xttra?” Sam said, interrupting her. “That name doesn't ring a bell.”
“Xttra Oogan. Our expedition leader.”
“You're the only living alien in our custody. The others are dead.”
Paige delivered her revelation with a cruel bluntness. For Calandra, it felt like a roaring ocean wave smacked her entire body. A lump formed in her throat. Her face contorted and her lips started to tremble. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
She was alone.
These monsters stole her life.
Cut off from family and friends on a distant planet. No way to contact the people she loved. No hope of hearing their voices or feeling their embraces again. Her parents. Alayna. Bella. All consigned to turning into nothing more than distant memories.
Worst of all, they stole Xttra from her.
Xttra. Her soulmate. Her friend. Her love.
As Sam gazed at Calandra, a concerned frown washed over his face. He finally turned and shook his head at Paige.
“What are you saying? I could have sworn –”
Sam stopped when Paige answered him with a throat slash gesture. Calandra's teary eyes and trembling lips hardened into a glare. This Earthian woman was evil to the core. She cared little for Calandra or her circumstances. Her pain meant nothing to this pile of Ebutoka droppings.
“Let me go.” Calandra's tone became quiet and forceful. “Release me at once.”
“Let you go?” Paige scoffed. “So you can finish planning your invasion? Forgive me, but I've dealt with too many treacherous and ruthless aliens to let you simply walk out of here and return to your mountain hideout.”
“Invasion?” Calandra spat the word back at her with a mix of anger and disbelief. “We came here to make peaceful contact after finding an Earth probe.”
She let out a gasp, followed by a forceful cough, as a new burst of pain sliced through her ribs. Paige rose to her feet and glanced over at a bag connected to the tube feeding into Calandra's healthy arm.
“We better get someone to check on her medications.” She glanced at Sam across the bed. “Make a note of it on your clipboard. Can't have our alien here growing too weak to answer questions.”
Sam nodded, snatched up the rectangular board, and jotted down Paige's instructions. She turned her attention to Calandra once again.
“Now tell me, what exactly do you know about Rubrum? Are the Rubrumians friend or foe?”
Rubrum.
Fear crawled up Calandra's throat at the mention of that planet. Her eyes widened. Her breathing turned shallow and rapid. Calandra heard stories dating back to the Separatist War. Stories she dismissed as nothing more than gruesome and frightening legends. No one had seen or heard from Rubrum or its people in a generation.
How did these Earthians even know about Rubrum? Perhaps the Aramus system was not as isolated as she had assumed.
"Our people are not one with Rubrum." Her voice grew more frightened with each word. "We have no relations with that planet or its inhabitants."
“Is that a fact?”
Paige produced a weapon from her pocket and set it down on the chair. Calandra recognized it as an eliminator. Her eyes trailed down to the weapon. It still held a full charge of blue laser bolts.
“How do you explain this?”
Calandra answered her interrogator with a blank stare. She did not know how to answer the question. Weapons were a mystery to her. Paige stuffed the eliminator back in her pocket and sat in the chair again. She leaned back, crossed her arms, and studied Calandra as though trying to read her face like pages from a book. Her scowl deepened until Paige broke eye contact after a prolonged silence and glanced over at Sam.
“Run the first test.”
Sam glanced down at his clipboard and then cast a sideways glance at her.
“Is this completely necessary? I don't think she's one of these hybrid things you're worried about and she's answering our questions.”
Paige snapped her head toward a wall-mounted surveillance device.
“Run the first test,” she repeated in a much louder, angrier voice.
Both Earthians slapped on dark glasses. Dim ceiling lights bathed Calandra with a sudden increased luminosity. She squinted. Those changing lights shone right in her eyes. The room continued growing brighter. Calandra pinched her eyelids shut. Even with both eyes closed, she found little relief or protection from overpowering light now filling the entire room.
It soon dawned on her these aliens were intentionally trying to blind her.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she cried out. “Stop. Please stop!”
Calandra clenched her jaw and bit down on her lip under the brightening lights. She turned her head both ways on her pillow. It did not matter where she turned. Intense light greeted her exposed face in every direction.
“What in the hell are you doing in here?”
Every light inside the room switched back to its former dim state with an unexpected suddenness. Calandra panted while her heart pounded. Those words belonged to a new voice, but her head throbbed too hard to allow her to open her eyes and discover who put a stop to this torture.
“You better have a damn good reason for causing this interruption.” Paige sounded cross while addressing the new person inside the room. “The door is supposed to stay closed for the duration of hybrid testing.”
“So, I see we've decided to skip talking to the aliens and go straight to torture.”
The new Earthian spoke in a similar accent to Paige. Calandra wondered if they belonged to the same clan. Perhaps a clan leader had arrived to overrule Paige and Sam and release her. A thread of hope arose inside Calandra from this thought.
“Collin, this isn't what you think.”
“Tell me what it is Sam. I'm all ears. Explain what I'm seeing here in this room besides you two outright torturing an alien.”
Calandra finally summoned enough strength to open her eyes. She saw Collin for the first time – a brown-haired man, near her age, who wore glasses. He stood as stiff as a stone column inside the open doorway. His steely gray eyes appeared equally cold and hard now.
“You should learn to keep your mouth shut,” Paige said. “You don't have the first clue on how dangerous these aliens can be.”
“Dangerous?” Collin shifted his gaze to Calandra. His eyes trailed her from head to toe. “I see an 'alien' who looks like a human with a broken arm. Yet, she's shackled to the bed like an animal and treated worse than one.”
“I'm an astronomer. A peaceful explorer.”
The other Earthians turned to face Calandra now.
“Please help me,” she begged, making a direct appeal to Colin. “Please let me go home.”
Collin snapped his head back and faced Paige a second time. A bitter frown graced his lips and he answered with an equally bitter laugh.
“Dangerous, huh? She has more reason to worry about what we're doing right now than we do about what she might do later.”
He turned and marched through the doorway before Paige could serve up a counterargument. Collin looked back over his shoulder at Sam one more time as he reached the corridor.
“Open your eyes, Sam. What message are we sending to the rest of the galaxy when this is how we treat alien visitors?”
Calandra knew how she would answer the question he posed. Terror and sadness swarmed her in equal measure with the knowledge she was a prisoner on this hostile planet wh
o had dwindling hope of regaining her freedom.
29
Sam's mouth dropped open. None of the right words popped into his head while he tried to think of how to respond to Collin. He followed him from the hangar back into the main Earth Defense Bureau offices, hoping to talk some sense into his friend. This was the last direction he expected their conversation to take.
“You heard me, Sam. I'm finished. I want nothing more to do with the bureau.”
Collin pressed a key on his laptop. A printer behind his desk hummed and spit out fresh paper.
“Be reasonable. You don't understand what's at stake here. We need to learn what we're up against.”
Sam started toward the printer to check out the document his friend printed out. Collin snatched up those freshly printed pages before he saw their contents. He cast a hardened stare at Sam.
“I thought you were better than this.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“You're letting a traumatized survivor with an agenda cloud the bigger picture here.”
“Paige stopped an alien invasion. She's been down this road before.”
Collin stuffed the printed pages inside a folder on his desk. He slammed his fist on the desk and jerked his head up at Sam.
“Have you stopped to consider that she might be wrong? Haven't you, at some point, asked tough questions about what we're doing here?”
“You tell me. What should we be doing here?”
“Learning. Learning about them. Discovering more about ourselves.”
“That's exactly what we're trying to do.” Sam insisted. He leaned his hand against the desk while facing his friend. “We're working hard every day to discover what's out there.”
Collin snatched a pouch fashioned from an unidentified animal hide off the desk. They had taken it from one of the aliens. He plunged his hand inside the pouch and drew out a gadget resembling a square pad. Collin laid it on the desk. Then he brought out a second gadget that reminded Sam of a flash drive and slapped it down next to the first one.