Alien Storm

by Ken Bebelle

  Pinned Down

  Jonesy

  The door had shut.

  Neither of them had seen it happen, but it had likely shut automatically when the charge packs detonated. For all they knew there was nothing but molten metal on the other side of the door.

  For five minutes now Cam had been standing at the door, trying to open it with the control panel. It might be stuck. It might have been locked down. Maybe she was faking, stalling for time. Fucking aliens, who knew? Either way, he needed a way out of the room.

  “How many left on the ship?”

  Cam frowned, her eyes darting up and down. “A dozen or more. It’s hard to count with them all running around.”

  “So much for sneaking out of here.”

  “It looks like they’re staying off this level.” She put her hand on the door. “I don’t think there’s a fire out there. I think we breached the hull.”

  He looked around the room again, hoping to spot something he had missed before, “No other way out of here? For sure?”

  Cam shook her head. Jonesy continued walking the perimeter of the room. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about the LT now, and a little distance didn’t hurt.

  The walls of the room sounded like metal when he rapped with his knuckles, but it didn’t look like any metal he knew. The dark finish had an odd sheen to it that looked oily, almost organic. As in the hallway, conduits snaked about the walls in no discernable pattern. He found that pulling on them was useless as they were somehow welded securely to the walls.

  “Toss me another stim, I’m going to take a look.”

  Cam brought him the packet, “Are you sure?”

  “We got another play here?”

  She frowned and handed him the tab. As the drug dissolved he felt his skin flush hot all over his body. The throbbing ache in his back, the burns to his hands and face, all his pain melted away in the warm bath of endorphins. Two in an hour. He was going to pay for this one--especially with what he was about to do.

  Jonesy closed his eyes, concentrating. The first bit always hurt the most. He opened his eyes and even with the stim he still dropped to one knee as pain lanced through his right eye. Tears welled up and ran down his cheeks as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

  His breath coming in ragged gasps, he looked up and scanned the room again, seeing a cacophony of wavelengths through his cybernetic eye. Strange radiation patterns assaulted his vision as he looked for a solution to this locked room dilemma. Pulsing yellow energy ran through the conduits, throbbing like a heartbeat. He could see stresses in the walls and floors. The explosion had twisted the structure of the deck, bent this room out of shape. Thermal gradients showed the cold vacuum on the other side of the door, as well as their air leaking out through microcracks in the walls.

  In the far corner of the room, Jonesy spotted something promising. “Let’s try over there,” he said as he looked back to Cam, and felt his stomach flip over. He closed his eyes and went to his hands and knees, shutting down his implant. The pain through his eye began fading as he threw up the food bars he had eaten. The bile bit his tongue as he wiped his mouth, trying to drive the vision of Cam glowing in mottled yellow and blue out of his head.

  He looked up, careful not to re-engage his implant. Cam stood there, the familiar concerned expression on her face made chilling by the blue tint of her skin. An alien pretending to be human.

  He’d had these episodes before in front of her and he knew she wouldn’t try to touch him while he was in this state. Thank god. He closed his eyes again and spat on the deck, trying to get the sour taste of vomit out of his mouth.

  “Over there,” he pointed without looking up. “See if you can find a panel on that wall.”

  While Cam checked out the back wall, Jonesy took deep breaths and concentrated on not throwing up again. After he collected himself he joined her in the back of the room and found her with both hands on the wall, right where he’d pointed.

  “This is definitely different from the rest of the wall.”

  “But….?”

  “But I can’t figure out what to do with it. I think it opens, but it’s not like the door. I also can’t tell what’s behind it.”

  “Well, we’re out of options and our air is leaking out of here, so door number one is going to have to do.”

  Jonesy rechecked his rifle while Cam kept at it. It was a standard US Marine Infantry plasma rifle, very serviceable, if a little boring. His own gear he liked to spice up a little. The charge pack stood at 50%. He could see that Cam’s was near the same level. Thankfully the pistols were still in reserve. He had a bad feeling that they would be counting on those very soon.

  Cam ran her hands along the seam of the shape he’d spotted in the wall. As her hands came down one side, her arm glowed faint blue for a split second. She jerked her hand back and turned to look at him. “You saw that too, right?”

  He nodded and instantly regretted the movement. His head still felt fragile. “Try like you do with the door control, but on that spot.”

  She put her hand back on the wall, and her arm glowed again. As she closed her eyes to concentrate, the glowing intensified. Her brow knitted, and the glowing expanded to the wall in the shape of the panel. The outline of the panel completed and it separated from the wall with a hiss of air, sliding outward.

  Cam dropped her arm and opened her eyes. When she turned to look at him, her eyes were blank, staring at him and devoid of expression. Jonesy took a step back, dropping his hand to the pistol at his side. His mind reflexively played a nightmare scenario of being locked in a cage with an angry bear.

  “LT?”

  She took a step towards him, eyes unblinking. Her head scanned him up and down, apparently sizing him up as she took another slow step. Jonesy kept backing up, shuffling his feet as he went. His headache made it hard to concentrate. Sweat sprang up on his neck and hands, making the pistol grip slick. He couldn’t remember if there was anything on the ground behind him, or how far it was to the opposite wall.

  “Cam!”

  She took another halting step, leaning forward like a broken marionette. Her head dropped down, and when it came back up, her neck looked odd and disjointed. In fact her neck moved like-- Oh, fuck. NotCam straightened up and began stalking towards him, all traces of humanity gone like a match in a windstorm. Her jaw hinged open hugely, baring fangs as she roared.

  He snapped his arm up with the pistol. As he drew the front sight caught on his belt, twisting the gun as he brought it to bear on her. He squeezed the trigger, and knew his aim was off. NotCam was five feet from him now, and as the pistol report sounded he backed into the far wall.

  “Owwhatthefuckwasthat?!” Cam dropped to the floor, clutching her abdomen, a confused expression on her face.

  Jonesy tried to press himself into the wall, keeping his pistol trained on Cam. “What the hell is going on?! LT!? Are you in there!?”

  Cam stayed on the ground, pressing on her wound, looking back to the open panel, and then up to him, still with the confused expression on her face. Jonesy watched her face crumple as the horrifying realization hit her, leaving her weeping on the floor.

  “What’s happening to me?” Cam began to cry, ugly gulping sounds.

  Jonesy slid to the ground and sat with his back to the wall, his gun hand propped up on his knee. His nerves jittered like bare wires. He was crashing from the adrenaline again, leaving him bone-weary and spent. God, I need to sleep.

  But he couldn’t close his eyes, because right in front of him, he watched Cam’s green blood spill out of her gut wound. Sweet Jesus. As his heart continued to pound, her wound sealed, but not before her body expelled the pistol round. Note to self, shitty SinoSov pistols don’t work on the aliens. Better upgrade these puppies.

  Cam looked at him, distraught, her face wet with tears. He leaned his head back on the wall, letting his eyes drift half-closed. Cam remained kneeling on the floor, hugging herself and rocking back and forth, moaning now. It d
idn’t matter. Their air was running out. In a few moments, all this would be decided for them if they didn’t move.

  Fortune favors the bold. He stood, keeping his back to the wall. He paused as he came to his full height. His vision was still a little blurry around the edges, and his headache was now threatening to pound its way through the back of his eyes. It had been less than an hour since the LT pulled him off the bed, but he felt like he’d just run two consecutive marathons. Home stretch.

  He strode over to Cam and prodded her shoulder with his toe. He kept the gun up and trained on the back of her head. “C’mon, LT. Get up. We’re leaving.”

  When she remained immobile on the floor, Jonesy sighed. What the hell, he would die here if he didn’t get out anyway. He tucked away the pistol, grabbed her under an arm, and hauled her up. Oof. She weighed a ton. Her skin was dry and pebbly, like leather, and she seemed much denser than she should be. He put his back into it and tried to get her to half standing. Thank god she stood up the rest of the way on her own before he fell over, ass over teakettle.

  “Alvarez. If we stay here, we’re going to asphyxiate in a few minutes. If I’m going to die, I’m going to take out as many Ringheads on this ship as I can. I’m not going to die like this, suffocating in a damned box. Let’s go.” His voice started escalating at the end, each word a bullet between them.

  She swallowed, then gave a short nod. He marched her towards the open panel in the wall.

  They considered the open panel and the open crawl space behind it.

  "The jumpship is five decks down, right?”

  Cam nodded.

  "Ok, let's get going." He waved with the pistol, inviting Cam into the opening first. "Hate yourself later, get off the alien spaceship now."

  Five

  Home

  KEENAN

  The sight of Camp Glenn stung. The sight of the sprawling base with its blocky beige buildings used to fill him with the happy anticipation of seeing the love of his life. That all changed when the Colonel informed him Cam hadn’t made it back from Segovia.

  In the week since the revelation, Keenan hadn’t slept much. Nothing seemed real. When he tried to lie down, memories burned against his eyelids, adrenaline pounding in his brain forcing him up. The man who looked out from the mirror bore little resemblance to the photos by his bed. His brown hair, normally unkempt as it was, had gotten shaggy. He rarely remembered to shave. His green eyes were so sunken that they looked bruised.

  If Phillips hadn’t ordered him back down to base, he would have come anyway. Stupid, he knew, since Cam wasn’t there, but he wanted to feel closer to her.

  Keenan heard the stalwart Dr. Beaufort mumbling under her breath behind him. He guessed she was none too pleased with the pace he set, dragging them down from the Yukon cold weather training station. But she hadn’t said a word of complaint to him.

  They’d both lost so much since the Ringheads arrival. Now when he looked in the mirror, he saw the same thousand yard stare on his own face that Beaufort wore the first time he’d picked her up from McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

  One look at his face when he’d gone to fetch her, and she hustled to pack her gear without a word. Kekoa, who’d been with him to hell and back treated him with kid gloves. The easy going islander often fell silent at the sight the thunderclouds brewing on Keenan’s face. It made him feel like shit nd he was having a hard time keeping a lid on his anger. It sometimes overflowed--he couldn’t help it. Every time he saw the hesitation in Kekoa’s eyes, he bit his tongue to keep from snarling.

  At least now that they were at Camp Glenn, he figured people would stop tiptoeing around it. Someone would say her name. She’d be real and not a cautionary tale or nightmare no one wanted to talk about because they feared for their own mortality.

  Keenan needed to be around people who knew her and wouldn’t pretend they couldn’t talk about her. He just wanted to hear someone say her name and share something about her. Cam. Camila. Camila Alvarez. And if he’d just been a bit quicker … Camila Flynn.

  That maglev ride had been hell. The drive up the mountains the rest of the way from Reno had been even worse. Bells had offered to drive, but Keenan knew he wasn’t going to sleep anyway. So the rest of them had sacked out and he’d been left with his own thoughts and memories to churn as he babysat the vehicle through the twisty mountain roads carved into the Sierras.

  As he grabbed his kit and stepped away from the vehicle, the late spring weather brought a sweat to his forehead. Here in the mountains the locals probably found it chilly, as evidenced by the number of long coats he’d seen on the drive here. But after a year in the Yukon, everything was sensory overload. Too much sun and heat, too much color, too much terrain, too many smells. The heat pressed in on him from all directions, forcing him to move forward and confront his reality--he was here at Camp Glenn but Cam wasn’t and she never would be again.

  Keenan slowed as he approached the ramp to the main entrance, his body taut with impatience as he turned to glare at Beaufort. She dropped her bag to the ground, creating a puff of arid desert dust. She wiped her forehead and tucked a loose strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. “I’d forgotten how hot this place is!”

  He clamped down the angry words that rose to his lips. It was a fucking desert, what did she expect? Keenan inhaled deeply, reminding himself that the earnest scientist didn’t deserve his anger.

  Bells strode up, her athletic frame towering over Beaufort. “This ain’t nothing Doc! Just wait till summer!” She gave a snort of laughter and a grin, her teeth a feral flash of white against her onyx skin.

  Her cheerfulness, normally endearing, now grated. He turned to look for the other two members of his contingent. Kekoa and Bennett humped the remaining gear, the shorter Kekoa taking the brunt of the heavy equipment with his cybernetic legs.

  Bells bounded up to the entry gate, her long strides eating up the walkway. “Hestia, we’re home!” she said as she waved her bracelet at the scanner and the speaker crackled to life.

  “Greetings, Corporal Chan.”

  Keenan stepped to the scanner and smacked his bracelet against it. “Hestia, I have Dr. Beaufort with me, please notify Colonel Phillips we have arrived.”

  There was a short pause as the base AI no doubt searched for the Colonel.

  A moment later, “Yes, Lieutenant Flynn, please escort Dr. Beaufort to the main lab in the lower levels. Colonel Phillips will meet you there in 10 minutes.”

  Keenan turned to Bells. “Get the gear unloaded. I’ll get Doc down to the lab.”

  She nodded, her dark curls bobbing with the movement. “Sure thing, boss. I’m starving too so you can find us in the mess hall after.” She turned to head into the bowels of the enormous base. “C’mon fellas! Coffee and bacon are on me!”

  Bennett took off his black cap and ran his fingers over his closely shaved skull before tagging in and scooping up his rucksack and gear. Kekoa grumbled a bit, dropped all the gear but his ruck and then tagged in with a quick swipe. “See ya later, Doc!” He scooped all the bags and made a beeline for the mess hall, leaving a trail of dust in his wake.

  Keenan drew in a deep breath before exhaling slowly and reminding himself that she wasn’t here. Cam’s not here. She’s gone.

  That grim thought must have bled through to his face because Beaufort, ever direct, placed a hand on his forearm. “Are you alright, Keenan?”

  He shook his head. “No, doc. I’m not. But the Colonel is waiting.” Keenan gave her hand a squeeze in thank you and escorted her into the entryway. Mission first. Questions for Phillips burned inside him like a hot coal. His grieving would have to wait just a bit longer.

  Dr. Abbé appeared just as Keenan remembered from their voyage years ago to the Arctic Circle, energetic and fast moving like a vid played at 1.5x speed. The scientist’s hands gestured constantly, his features tugged into a frown. His mood certainly hadn’t gotten sunnier despite his time here in the desert climate. He merely grunted at Keenan
in greeting.

  For Dr. Beaufort though, the dour little man gave an effusive hug and European air kisses, followed by a rapid-fire exchange in French between the two. Figures.

  Phillips walked in and made a beeline for Keenan.

  Years of habit pulled Keenan out of his funk as he stood at attention and snapped off a crisp salute. “Sir.”

  Phillips returned the salute and pulled him away from the scientists. “Son, I know you must have some questions.”

  Keenan looked into those searching blue eyes, and gave a small shake of his head. Now that he faced the Colonel, he slumped, finding himself at a loss. “I don’t even know where to start, sir.”

  The Colonel pursed his lips as if holding back his words. Finally he seemed to come to some decision. “Mack was the only one who made it back. He’s probably got more answers for you than anyone else about how it went down.”

  Keenan nodded, mentally searching to place a face to that name.

  Phillips helped him out. “Mack’s back in the field with Kennedy. There’s a lot going down right now. The shit hit the fan with Segovia and we’ve been shoveling ever since.”

  Keenan leaned in a little closer. “More Ringheads?”

  Phillips’ eyes slid to a secured door on the side wall. “Step inside the video room with me, Flynn.”

  Surprised the Colonel would be imparting something that the scientists wouldn’t be privy to, Keenan stepped into the video room with Phillips.

  Rows and rows of screens lined the back wall. Phillips pressed his hand into the scanner and the central row of screens flickered to life from their electronic sleep. Keenan watched in silence, wondering why Phillips thought a video was necessary at this moment.

  Phillips keyed in a few strokes and then turned to Keenan. “None of this leaves the room. Dr. Beaufort is not cleared to see this.”

  Keenan nodded, feeling uncertain. “Understood, sir.”

  Phillips scrubbed a brisk hand over his eyes. “These vids were downloaded from Operation Eagle Eye. When Jonesy needed his sight restored, we had prototypes of the neural networks implanted with his new eyes. It’s not perfect, but when it works, it can give us extremely detailed intel.”