by SD Tanner
“Target enemy ship. Fire laser!”
The attack ship unloaded laser pulses at the center of the enemy ship, making it split even further apart, throwing pieces of dense black material into the air. The critters were scuttling aimlessly as if confused, but some ran towards their attack ship. Worried they might get inside he fired at those closest to it. The attack ship was less concerned about its welfare, firing again at the enemy craft. Losing what little shape it had, more black chunks were hurled into the air.
The tiny critters were at his feet, climbing the legs of his armor. While maintaining his rate of fire, he stomped his boots to shake them free.
“What’s the plan, Tank?”
“Retreat.”
They could make a mad dash for the attack ship and leave, but he wanted one of the critters. The scientists at CaliTech would tear it to pieces, hopefully giving them insight into an enemy they hadn’t seen for centuries.
“I want one.”
“Of course you do.”
Still firing at the critters scuttling towards the attack ship, he plucked one from his leg, shoving it into a pouch on his gear.
Tank spoke again, only this time he sounded genuinely concerned. “We’ve got company.”
“You don’t say.”
“We have more company. Look up.”
The pale red sky that had been clear only moments before was now filling with large bird-like creatures. Flying as a densely packed group, they must have heard the weapons fire and decided to investigate.
“We’re well outgunned. We’ve gotta go,” Tank said as he began moving towards the attack ship.
As he ran to join Tank, the enemy ship disintegrated and so did all of the tiny black critters, creating a sudden puff of dry black dust.
“What just happened?”
“It’s a critter trick,” Tank replied. “Whenever they think they’ve lost they turn to dust.”
With the critters gone, all that was left were the large bird-like aliens winging their way towards them. Black dust from the disintegrated critters and craft was drifting across the sandy desert, leaving little evidence they’d ever existed. The first of the birds flung its feet forward as it landed twenty yards from where they were standing. More of the winged creatures joined the first, until they formed an untidy line in front of them.
“Now what?” He asked.
“They could be chickens.”
They were at least six feet tall with webbed wings, and were the same color as the sand surrounding them, making them blend into the land. It wasn’t the body of the birds that bothered him, but their faces. Instead of a beak, they had a nose and full lips. Their bodies were hairless, exposing a thick pale brown hide. Judging by what swung between their legs, they bred pretty much as they did. Where a human had hands they had four long, thin heavily jointed appendages. They didn’t appear to have an opposing digit, so maybe Tank was right and they were chickens.
The creatures stared at them with eyes that had an iris surrounded by white, and if he only looked at their heads, he could have easily mistaken them for human.
Tank had his Burner trained on the closest of the creatures. “Try the AI.”
The AI was supposed to be a universal translator. Inside of the little box was a microphone, speaker and a dedicated computer. It would record any sound and look for speech patterns, translating different languages between two people. Holding up the box, through a channel on his helmet, he could hear the chattering noise that he assumed was their speech.
While still holding the box high, he said, “Translate.”
“Help.”
“Enemy.”
“Help enemy,” he repeated, realizing how stupid he sounded. “Maybe they’re here to help us.”
“Or maybe they think we’re the enemy.”
After what seemed to be some shoving from the birds, one finally hesitantly shuffled towards them.
“Umm, hello?” He said and then waited for the translator to speak.
The little box chirped something, making the bird tilt its head in a way that only added to its humanoid appearance. It was ten feet from where he was standing and Tank had redirected his gun to target its human looking face.
“Don’t, Tank. It hasn’t done anything.”
“If it so much as flinches, it’s gonna be chicken pot pie for supper.”
More of the birds were appearing on the horizon and they were at risk of becoming swamped.
Still unsure whether he should shoot or explore, he said, “Friend.”
Their orders were to find other lifeforms and make friends of any that weren’t hostile or seeded with the enemy DNA. Usually they only found bacteria or bugs, so this was the first time they’d ever seen an alien they could make contact with, friendly or otherwise. The creature clucked and clicked some more and the AI device did its best to translate.
“Seek? Prison?”
“Are you sure that stupid box is working?” Tank asked, now sounding disgusted.
“How am I supposed to know?”
“It’s not making any sense.”
Turning to face Tank, he couldn’t contain his annoyance. “This is the first time we’ve found an alien lifeform and all you want to do is make a meal of it.”
“There’s not too many choices for these cluckers. They’re food, friend or foe, and if it doesn’t start making sense real fast then I’m calling it food.”
The thought of eating anything that looked that human made the goo still bubbling inside of his stomach churn a little harder. “Check out its eyes, Tank. They look like ours…well, not yours.”
More of the birds were landing, forming an ever-tightening circle around them. Swinging his weapon in front of him, Tank slowly spun on his heel, eyeing them warily.
“I don’t like this.”
Starting to feel claustrophobic, he tried talking to the spokesman again. “Friend.”
In an almost human way, the bird sighed and its unhappy clucks were caught by the AI box. “Enemy seek. Enemy take.”
Thinking he might have understood the message, he replied, “Is something taking you?”
“You take?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“That’s not true. CaliTech will want one to study.”
“That’s no way to make friends, Tank.”
The engineers in CaliTech were endlessly curious and always resourceful. So keen were they to gather samples of life on other planets, they sent planet riders to any habitable world. By learning how to mix cells, the scientists were creating new types of living tools by merging Earth-based cells with alien ones. Like a modern day Frankenstein, these transformed creatures were then used to serve the human race. Something about what they were doing didn’t seem right to him, but having lived no other way he couldn’t quite say what it was.
Returning his gaze to the bird, he asked, “Is something taking you?”
“Help?”
“Is it asking for help or offering it?”
Tank had moved so he was now standing behind him, facing the increasing number of winged creatures gathering around them. “I don’t think it matters. We’re surrounded.”
“It matters a lot. They’re not food, and given they haven’t attacked us then they’re probably not enemy either, so that only leaves one other option.”
“You dunno what they are to know whether they’re enemy or not. We should leave now.”
Their close resemblance to humans was so uncanny he wanted to know why. They were standing on an alien planet where no person had ever stood before, so they shouldn’t share enough genetic material to look like one another and yet they did.
“No, Tank, this isn’t right. They look like us and they shouldn’t.”
“It won’t make much difference if they choose to attack. You can either eat chicken pot pie or be chicken feed, and I’m not allowed to let you die.”
“But it’s okay if I lead the Bombardiers and disappear.”
The resent
ment leaking through the tone of his voice surprised even him, but Tank either didn’t notice or didn’t choose to ask. “Now is not the time. We have to go.”
Although he was prepared to argue the point, he never got the time. Above him, the battleship and three attack ships swooped through the atmosphere. Following a policy of shoot first and ask questions later, the circle of birds surrounding them exploded as their ships opened fire.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” He shouted into his headset.
“Fire! Fire!” Tank roared, drowning out his order.
When push came to shove, he would obey Tank and so would the battle team. He wasn’t the leader of the Bombardiers yet, and he never would be if Tank didn’t clear him.
Giving the bird still standing in front of him one last look, he muttered, “Sorry.”
Twisting on his feet, he launched towards their attack ship that was already moving closer to them. Leaping and grabbing hold of the rim at the top, he hauled himself into the molded reddish seat while Tank clambered in front of him. The clear cover slammed down above his head as the attack ship lifted into the air. Next to him, the creatures were also taking flight, zipping alongside him. Flying gracefully, they were headed towards the battleship that was still firing at them, but once they were hit, they plummeted towards the ground.
He knew he should be shooting at them, defending his battle team, but he wasn’t sure whether the birds could even hurt them. They weren’t carrying any weapons and he had no idea what they could or would do to defend themselves. As they climbed higher, there were less of the birds beside him, so he assumed there was a limit as to how high they could travel.
Feeling bad for a species that had only tried to talk to them, he said grimly, “I think we might be the bad guys.”
CHAPTER FOUR:
Bad to the Bone
(Ark Three)
Crowded into the Battleship Command Pod, he sat on one of the heavily worn chairs, tiredly removing his helmet.
Giving the crew an accusing glare, he asked, “What the hell was that all about? Why did you come in shooting?”
Tank and his four Bombardiers were seated against a bench built into the wall below a set of screens. Transformed Bombardiers retained their original features, but each had a hardened face, giving them matching grimly fixed expressions. Everything on the ship had been built rugged, toughened to deal with the weight and abuse it would take. His squad had their visors flicked up and they were lolling on the heavily padded chairs that were covered in a thickened leather hide. With their armored legs stretched out in front of them, the helmets had flattened their hair, and all were drinking water from the packs still attached to their gear. Other than a few bruises, his Navigator squad appeared to be in good order.
Bombardier One-Zero-One was female, still retaining the curves and finer features of a woman despite her hardened body. The female Bombardiers could conceive, but their inflexible bodies didn’t allow them to carry a child to term. If they wanted to have one, the CaliTech medics would find them a surrogate, but few ever did. Being forced to spend most of their time living in space it wasn’t as if they could raise them. Bombardiers were effectively a privileged underclass. Worshipped from afar as heroes, they were not allowed on Earth for long and never in large numbers.
Raising her head and clearly staring at him with her solid brown-colored eyes, Bombardier One-Zero-One replied, “You shouldn’t have left the battleship. You didn’t have the firepower to take on the enemy.”
Feeling irritable, he said with as little patience as he was feeling, “The birds you shot up weren’t enemy aliens. I think they were the indigenous species on that planet. How are we supposed to learn anything if all you do is destroy what we find?”
Any open criticism of the United Guild was a punishable offence, possibly even a death sentence, so his question was close to being treasonable. Dunk Two didn’t like to be challenged any more than his predecessor had.
Bombardier One-Zero-One shrugged. “We don’t make the rules. You do.”
The rules weren’t of his making either. The original Dunk had outlined a very simple policy towards anything they found in space. Every planet was tested for life. If they found any traces of the enemy DNA then all life on that planet was to be systematically destroyed. If the planet were deemed to be clean then they were to set up a colony with planet riders so they could mine for new cells. Most planets were dead hunks of rock spinning around in space. Only every thousandth planet they’d found contained any sign of life, and even then it was only ever bacteria or insects. Of the total number of planets they’d discovered only four had been considered clean and fifteen others had been cleansed.
Although the destruction of life on other planets bothered him, it was the murder of their own people that he objected to the most. The aliens had seeded their DNA into the human race millions of years earlier, and a person with enough of it could transform into a critter. Having now found an enemy ship, it meant that wasn’t the only way a person could be used. The original Dunk must have foreseen the risk, so every human fetus was tested for enemy DNA, and if it was too high then the woman was forced to abort. Some people refused, fleeing the cities and eking out life as a renegade by living on the fringes of civilization. The Navigators often hunted the renegades as part of their training, but for some reason his squad never had.
He gave Bombardier One-Zero-One a sidelong glare. “I don’t make the rules. Don’t blame this crap on me.”
Cardiff was lounging against the back of her chair, idly brushing the dirt from her Navigator gear. “Why are you so upset about this? Our job is to get cell samples and take them back to CaliTech. If anything, this will mean we’ll get a trip home.”
Along with the rest of his squad, he and Cardiff had trained together in CaliTech to become Navigators. Since entering the Academy, they’d lived and worked together from the age of seventeen. Having not seen much of their families, and relying on each other to fill the gap, even when they argued they would always find a way back to one another. Her apparently callous disregard for the birds bothered him, but he would take it up with her later.
Standing up and flipping his helmet down, Lace said, “I’m heading to quarters. You guys work out what you wanna do, but right now all I’ve got is a belly full of goo and I need food.”
In a tone that sounded harsher than he intended, he said, “Sit down, Lace. You’re done when I say you are.”
Lace flipped his helmet up and gave him a hard stare before backing down. “Yes, sir.”
It was Tank who settled the argument for them. “Unless you wanna go renegade there isn’t anything to decide. Our orders in this situation are simple. Collect samples and take them back to CaliTech.” Sniffing derisively, he added, “It’s on them whether the planet lives or dies.”
“And you don’t care?”
“It’s been this way since the world spinelessly handed control over to Dunk.”
Before civilization had ended, Tank had been a Ranger in the U.S. Army. He always spoke fondly of his days before the aliens, but had never openly spoken out against the United Guild’s regime. This was the first time Tank had implied that perhaps the world wasn’t right to follow Dunk and his clones.
Eyeing his mentor curiously, he asked, “Was it spineless, Tank?”
Standing and walking across to the command control panel, Tank began flicking through images of the planet below them. “It’s what people thought they needed at the time.” By pointing at one of the screens, he dragged him back to the problem at hand. “We need to get one of the birds and some of the black dust the critters left.” Through his actions and words, Tank was making it clear that the subject was not up for discussion.
As children, he and Dunk Three had shared an apartment on the top level of the main building in the CaliTech compound, where they’d wanted for nothing other than parents. The Guild had only allowed Tank to visit Earth once a month, and even then only for a few days. Now he’d finally gra
duated from the Navigator Academy, he was permanently assigned to work with him until he was ready to transform into a Bombardier. The novelty of finally being able to spend time with his mentor hadn’t worn off, so he wasn’t willing to start an argument with him.
“Yeah, alright, but I want to go back down there…and I want this done humanely. Those things didn’t do anything to us. We killed them, not the other way around.”
Tank didn’t say anything, but patted his shoulder affectionately. After collecting additional ammo from the storage area, they returned to the attack ships in the docking bay. Seated inside of the three ships, they waited until the battleship dropped lower in the atmosphere before exiting its belly. Flying across the planet, one-by-one they landed close to where the alien ship had been. Nothing of it was left, not even a dusty black smudge. Jumping from his attack ship, the other two teams disembarked from theirs. Above their heads, the battleship was still visible from the ground. With three Bombardiers and an equal number of Navigators, if the birds wanted to start a fight then he knew they’d only lose again.
Ordering his visor to standard vision, he surveyed the rocky area. Expecting to see the corpses of the birds, only a few rocks could be seen scattered across the surface.
“Where did the bodies go?” He asked.
“What bodies?” Cardiff asked.
“The ones we killed.”
“They must have taken them,” Tank replied. “It would have been easier for us if they hadn’t.”
Taking their dead implied they would mourn them, kicking his already guilty conscience up another notch. The birds had done nothing to harm them, only asking if they were going to take them away. If anything, they’d struck him as vulnerable. From an early age, it had been drilled into him that he was to protect the human race, but no one had ever said who would pay the price. It had never occurred to him that he would be expected to kill the innocent. Nothing about what they were about to do was making him feel proud in any way.
“Only an intelligent species takes their dead,” he said unhappily.