First Flight

by Claremont, Chris

  The female positioned her warriors so that their weapons could easily cover the entire compartment; simultaneously, the massive internal airlock cycled closed, sealing them inside. Then, the female turned back to Nicole, resuming her hands out, palms open stance.

  Automatically, Nicole thanked her with a smile and a nod of the head. The female cocked her own head, looking at her sideways in a quizzical gesture that was pure cat; Nicole had to fight to keep her smile from exploding into a full-fledged laugh. Be serious, idiot, she raged silently, be professional! There's too much at stake to screw up now.

  She took a breath, grateful for the Zen training given her both at the Academy Earthside and by Ciari aboard Wanderer, to calm herself and center her thoughts once more, and then reached towards her belt buckle. She opened it and pushed the belt free; now, she too, was unarmed. None of the four Aliens reacted.

  Instead of returning her hand to her side, she reached across to the airpack controls on her right forearm; a touch of a switch closed the connections. All she had to breathe was the ambient air within her suit; in less than a minute, she'd be suffocating.

  "Ben," she said, unable to keep a small quaver out of her voice, "I've shut down my airpack."

  His initial reply was silence.

  "I'm going to try the Alien atmosphere."

  "We've only done a basic scan, remember?"

  "And what do we do when our airpacks run out?"

  "This breaks every quarantine rule in the book."

  She chuckled, a little ruefully. "Show me the alternative, chum. But be quick about it; the air in here is getting a bit stuffy."

  She rested her hands on the seal ring at the base of her helmet. The female never took her eyes off her, and Nicole sensed that she understood what was being done. One of the warriors gestured and started forward, but the female waved him back, Evidently, she was willing to take the same risk as Nicole.

  She yanked the latches open, then twisted the helmet off her head. For a moment, even starved for oxygen as she was, she couldn't help holding her breath.

  The air smelt of cinnamon, a tangy, wind-blown scent that reminded her of a summer spent camping in the Grand Tetons. She smiled reflexively; it tasted good. The female's expression remained unchanged—serious, alert, intensely watchful. Her attitude sobered Nicole instantly.

  "Status, Nicole," Ciari demanded.

  "Fine so far," she told him. She lowered her hands, leaving her helmet to float in midair, and took a step towards the female, who moved as well, until they stood face to face, a meter apart. Her nostrils flared as Nicole approached. Her sense of smell must be more sensitive than ours, Nicole thought; the ears are roughly the same size as ours, but they're shaped so differently. Are they more sensitive, too? I wonder how much that sensoral input influences—consciously or subconsciously—her decision-making?

  There was an impatient beep from the Command Console, the sudden sound making Nicole flinch in surprise. The female acknowledged the call from one of the subordinate consoles along the aft bulkhead and listened intently as a torrent of indecipherable noise erupted from an unseen speaker. As Nicole watched, the female visibly relaxed. Nicole assumed she was hearing good news. Call finished, she pointed to Ciari and motioned that he remove his helmet as well.

  "Nicole?" he asked./p>

  "Do it."

  "May I have some help?"

  "Y'know," Nicole said as she moved into position behind Ciari, "I lay odds that call was a medical report. Our scans told us that their atmosphere and environment was safe for us. That lady was probably acting as a guinea pig to determine the reverse, if we were safe for them."

  "Dumb move, if she's in charge. Captains shouldn't be cannon fodder."

  "A calculated risk." Nicole's voice took on a bitter edge. "Like Cat took over Wolfe's." She flipped the latches on Ciari's helmet but before pulling it free, she told him: "Lay your rifle on the deck, Ben—nice and slow."

  "Understood."

  "Smile, m'love; we're probably on camera." Gently, Nicole removed the massive, opaque globe, the Alien female's head canting once more sideways as she shifted position for a better look at him.

  Ciari smiled at her, which, after a moment's reflection, the Alien returned. Nicole wondered if it meant the same to both cultures.

  The female spoke over her shoulder to the warriors. The central one objected. At least, that's what Nicole assumed, because as he spoke, the female's spine straightened perceptibly, her mane stiffening as she rounded on him, cutting loose with a short, clipped speech. There was no mistaking the exchange. She was boss and she wasn't going to tolerate insubordination from anyone. She glared furiously at the warrior until, with a stiff, disjointed motion that told Nicole and Ciari he was as angry as his commander, he turned his obedience into an eloquently silent protest, and lowered his own weapon to the deck. His companions followed suit; unlike the two Terrans, however, they didn't remove their helmets.

  "You get the feeling they don't quite trust us?" Nicole hissed under her breath.

  "Would you, if positions were reversed? At least we've made a beginning."

  The female, again facing Nicole, hesitantly reached out towards the young woman's face. Nicole couldn't help noticing that her fingernails, thicker and heavier than their human counterparts, had been shaped and filed to a wicked point. Nasty. A hefty swipe could probably take off half her face.

  Her touch so light Nicole barely felt it, the Alien stroked' her smooth cheek, her lips, the lines around her eyes. Thosel last moments were the worst, the claws so close that Nicole couldn't focus on them. She tried to remain relaxed and unconcerned, but her mind kept flashing to all the awful schlock-horror films she'd seen as a kid.

  The female sensed the conflict within her, confirmed it by momentarily laying her warm palm against Nicole's throat, to feel her pulse, and turned her attention to Ciari. She touched him the same way, comparing the difference in facial texture, stroking the bristly tips of his beard, his much longer hair, looking searchingly from one astronaut to the other, finally muttering to herself as she floated back to where she'd been. The examination, innocuous as it had turned out to be, had proved as hard on Ciari as Nicole; his face was sheened with a fine layer of sweat and his teeth were clenched, the cords of his neck stretched taut.

  The female smiled at Nicole, speaking quietly in her incomprehensible language, trying to convey as much with tone of voice and expression as words. She waved a hand towards the other two, still "frozen," astronauts and mimed removing a helmet. Nicole got the message.

  She tapped on the command circuit with her chin. "Heads up, troops," she told them calmly, "on my mark, unfreeze and execute a one-eighty pivot, so you're facing me. Keep your hands in full view and away from your weapons. When you've finished your turns, unseal and remove your helmets. I want no unnecessary chatter and if you don't like what you see, keep it to yourselves. At the moment, everything's fine, but we're not out of the woods yet. By a longshot. Copy?"

  Both acknowledged.

  "That's the spirit, me buckos," Nicole grinned. "Get ready, here it comes: three, two, one—break!" Nothing happened. The two had resembled statues before; they did so now. Then, Andrei carefully straightened himself to his full height, waiting for Hana to follow suit before turning. She flashed a grin at Nicole, but it faded almost instantly as she saw the Aliens. Watching them, Nicole caught a sudden gleam of excitement in Andrei's eyes, reminding her of the sense of wonder she'd felt since childhood whenever she stared up at the stars. The air was clearly a delight to them, too.

  Next, it was the warriors' turn. When their heads were bare, the female moved around Nicole to the Command Console, flicked a switch, said something, and all eyes went aft as the lock cycled open. The passageway beyond was more crowded than ever, the forward rank of warriors armed and armored, ready for a fight. But a sentence from the female made them put up their weapons. She faced Nicole and Ciari, smiled cautiously, and gestured that they leave the flight deck. She s
tarted for the lock, pausing when she realized that they weren't following.

  Nicole tossed her head and pushed off after her. "C'mon, people," she said. "Let's do as the lady says. I think things are going to be all right."

  And so they were. The Terrans were given private quarters on one of the personnel decks and, while they were chaperoned whenever they left those quarters, almost no restrictions were placed on their movements. Nicole took full advantage of that freedom, wandering every corridor, exploring every compartment. She and the others donned their pressure suits once more, to help the Aliens stretch an airtight membrane across the hull breach—an extraordinarily resilient transparency that reminded all four astronauts of sticking plastic wrap over an open container to seal the food in and prompted its share of rude comments and hearty laughs. Nicole wondered if the Aliens wondered what the hell was happening to their "guests." Aboard, she watched maintenance teams restore atmosphere to the ruptured sections, crawled with them into cramped ductways as they checked and repaired what seemed like miles of fiber-optic cabling. Her curiosity was as inexhaustible as her energy; she had no idea how long she'd been going without food or rest until she rejoined the others and discovered she hadn't seen them in over a day. She still felt no need to rest and was satisfied by a quick bite of munchies—part of the supplies they had brought over from what was left on Wanderer. She was too excited, too charged up with a wild sense of wonder and discovery. No kid trapped in Santa's toy shop ever felt so happy. The others had been doing much the same and when they finally sat down to compare notes, they were surprised at how much they'd learned, simply by observation, coupled with an improvised pidgin sign language.

  A day after their arrival, they transhipped the remainder of their salvageable equipment and personal effects over from Wanderer and cast the Command Module loose, using the last of its fuel to send it curving away from the starship. Nicole stood by the Command Console, next to the Alien female—who, for convenience, she'd begun thinking of as "Captain"—watching on a display till it was out of sight. She wasn't even aware of any tears until Ciari offered a handkerchief and she flushed with embarrassment. She was the Captain's equivalent for Wanderer and here she was, bawling like a baby. Some impression she was making. Hopefully, the others were doing better.

  "Incredible," Andrei exclaimed over dinner after a tour of the starship's engineering levels. "Absolute incredible." He was so caught up in his enthusiasm that he lapsed into rapid-fire Russian.

  "Enjoyed yourself, did you, tovarisch?" Ciari asked him, in the same tongue.

  "Da." He shifted back to English. "If I were religious, I might say I had died and gone to heaven."

  "We all feel pretty much the same, pal," Nicole said with a chuckle. "What did you find?"

  "Their primary power source—it is a faster-than-light system that appears analogous to our own Baumier Drive.

  "I must say," he continued, "that membrane is incredible! They had a sample piece and I couldn't cut it—couldn't even scratch it. Though I do not see how it could possibly withstand the stresses of a WarpSpace transition... "

  "Forget the membrane," Nicole told him between bites of a sandwich. "Tell us about the drive. You say it resembles Baumier's?"

  "I'd stake my life on it."

  "That's not saying much."

  "Belt up, Hana," Nicole snapped, her expression belying her tone. "This is serious. Go on, Andrei."

  "It isn't a one-to-one match, of course, any more than are engines and airframes constructed by different companies, with different design philosophies. But just as those different designs are derived from the same basic set of physical principles, so this alien FTL powersystem derives from the same principles and givens as our own Baumier Drive."

  "Stands to reason," Ciari added. "The Baumier Drive is a remarkably efficient means of flitting about the galaxy. It's also surprisingly simple. If we could do it, why not someone else?"

  "Why not, indeed," Nicole agreed. "Can we help them in any way," she asked Andrei, "any more than we already have?"

  The Russian shrugged. "Fitting the membrane was—if you'll pardon me—an idiot procedure, a simple matter of directing and applying brute force, bodies with muscles, few brains required. To do more, we need to be able to talk with them. Our pidgin is a beginning but it's far too imprecise. So, regrettably, until we truly learn each other's language—the details of meaning, the critical nuances—we'd be whistling in the wind. Control procedures, circuitry, fuel feed systems, computers, converter assembly, take your pick. I can tell you what should happen when the right buttons are pressed, I just don't know the right buttons."

  "It's worse than a Westerner trying to learn Chinese or Japanese." Hana sighed, stretching full-length in midair with a sinuous grace that reminded Nicole of the Captain. "Not merely a matter of learning new words, but a completely different set of sounds that the human throat may not even be capable of reproducing. I'm not saying we shouldn't try, but we might as well accept that in the end it's going to take the best linguistics computer available and probably months of work, at the very least, to make sense out of their gobbledygook."

  "What about a common basis in mathematics?"

  "I think I've got them to the point of comprehending our basic numerical structure, and I may be getting a handle on theirs. But it's a real misery when their simplest sentences sound like a godawful cat fight."

  Laughter rippled around the room as the others sympathized with Hana's lament.

  "I like their outfits, though," she said, sliding her hands down the sides of her shipsuit. "Smooth as silk, comfy as cotton, you lot should give it a try."

  "You're the adventurous one."

  Hana flipped a wing of hair off Nicole's forehead, a casual unexpectedly intimate gesture. "And you need a haircut." She pushed for the door. "I'm for another tour on the flight deck before I crash. Maybe my colleagues and I will make a quantum jump to multiplication. See ya!"

  Nicole found the two men looking at her. "What's going on?" she demanded.

  "Nothing," Andrei said hurriedly.

  "Not a thing," Ciari echoed.

  "Minds in the goddamn gutter," Nicole muttered furiously.

  "If you say so."

  "What's that supposed to mean? What the hell's your problem, Ciari?"

  "Nothi....," he began, then thought better of it. "You want to know my problem, Shea. It's that nothing has changed. Yes, we're on a live ship, but it's got warp engines it doesn't dare use and sub-light systems that are so much freeform slag. We're stuck on a ballistic trajectory that's taken us as deeply In-System as it's going to and for safety's sake we can't risk broadcasting for at least a month, the same situation we faced on Wanderer. Our felinoid friends—assuming they really are' friends, which is not as foregone a conclusion as we'd like to believe—may have heavy weaponry on this bucket but it won't do much good because they can't maneuver."

  "You think we will need it, Marshal?" Andrei asked him.

  "If we could spot this starship with the jury-rigged, pisspoor systems aboard Wanderer, others can, too."

  "Like the raiders."

  Ciari nodded. "When I'm feeling fanciful, Nicole, I say 'like Space Command.' U.S. or Russian. I guess I've gotten too old for fancy."

  There was a deliberate double meaning to his last words and Nicole sensed it was directed at her. "Reason?" she asked.

  "Those bastards who nailed us are too good. No way they'd pass up a plum like this. I sure as hell wouldn't. If for no other reason than to make up for the loss of Wolfe's claim." As Ciari spoke, Nicole felt herself grow still and cold inside—not with fear, the icy tension she'd felt on the Alien flight deck or during the approach to the derelict Rockhound so many weeks ago, but rage. And her face took on a grim, indomitable cast that caught even Ciari's attention. It was something he'd sensed, and nurtured, but never seen before. The wolf. The lion. The eagle. The huntress. As he was a hunter.

  "An hour doesn't pass when I don't think of what happened, you
know that," she said. "I've gone over every detail of that engagement, picking them apart, analyzing what we did right, and wrong, searching for a reason why. I have answers. But me more the pieces fit together, the more terrible it becomes."

  "Care to share?"

  "That ambush was no accident, Ben," she said softly. "We were set up."

  "Explain."

  "We come across Phillip Wolfe's derelict spacecraft. Surface evaluation indicates an accident but with a little digging we discover indications of something more sinister. So we decide to check out his mining claim. Logical course of action, especially considering that he and Major Garcia are old friends. We show up at said claim, along with another vessel that knows not only Air Force recognition codes but intimate details about Cat as well. Boom—we're hit. And if Cat and Paolo and the Bear hadn't sacrificed themselves, we'd have bought the farm, right then and there.

  "Rockhound's the key. If we hadn't found Wolfe's trashed ship, we'd have continued blithely on to Pluto, leaving the raiders free to strip Wolfe's rock to the core and skip clean with none of us the wiser."

  "As you say, Nicole, Rockhound is the key. Could it not have been an accident?"

  "Not a chance, Andrei. Stands to reason, if the raiders wanted Wolfe's claim, they'd eliminate him. But why, in the process, go to so much trouble to create such a plausible wreck? Why not simply atomize Rockhound? That's their most sensible course of action. I mean, why make unnecessary trouble for yourself?" She looked to Ciari for confirmation. He nodded.

  "That's the standard MO, Andrei," he said.

  "Conclusion—they wanted us at Wolfe's asteroid. With a suspicion of something wrong but insufficient hard evidence to justify summoning a legit backup. And why? To destroy us. Nothing else makes sense."

  "That makes no sense," Andrei protested. "Why go to such trouble and expense for us? A milkrun, a training flight. Being caught up in a situation—a shootout—that, I understand. But deliberate murder—of us?! Absurd!"