by David Ryker
Stop, stop, stop! Loreto pleaded. Just keep quiet and we’ll fix it when he’s gone.
“Only, we’ve had some success with the algebra, sir.” The girl held up a thin screen and pointed to a complicated diagram. “I think you might want to see…”
Fletcher slapped the screen to the floor with a gloved hand. Loreto saw the girl’s arms shake.
“Do you know who I am?” Fletcher employed a measured voice.
“No, sir, I–”
“No?” A short, violent bark. Fletcher began to unpick his fingers from the glove of his right hand. Loreto, angry, began to move.
“No, sir, I mean–”
“No.” The glove was off and Fletcher held it by the tailored base and drew back his arm.
The glove clipped through the air toward the girl. Loreto stepped between them and took the blow against his shoulder. The entire bridge held its breath.
Loreto stood and stared at Fletcher. The man stared back.
“Ready my shuttle.” Fletcher’s tongue sniped the sounds out from between his grinding teeth. “We’ll show Red Hand here how a real military unit handles an invasion. And then, when we return, we shall discuss the retirement of this decrepit, useless Fleet.”
Fletcher and his people left the bridge. Loreto’s hand moved straight to his temple, massaging away the pain.
“Sir… I don’t–” the girl stuttered.
“Don’t do anything.” Loreto rubbed harder. “Just get back to work.”
“What work, sir?”
“I don’t know, find something!” The words stormed out before Loreto realized how angry he was. He continued in a quieter voice. “Just… go and do something. Please.”
Cele ushered the girl away. The guilt of chewing out a hapless rookie was nothing next to the mountain of shame he was already trying to climb, but it didn’t help.
“Hertz!”
The captain appeared at his side.
“Yessir?”
“Get ready. We’re going with him.”
“You think we’ll be welcome, sir?” Hertz’s trepidation was clear. “I think you made him pretty angry…”
“I don’t trust him to do this alone.”
“To do what alone, sir?”
“I don’t know yet.” Loreto looked at the alien ship. “But I don’t trust him.”
---
Loreto and Hertz boarded the shuttle. Fletcher was too angry to notice until they passed through the airlock, the wings unfolded from their upright positions, and they left the Vela behind.
It was a modern shuttle, part of the Senate’s refurbishment plans. It had cushioned stalls and walls coated in spotless white gloss. Give me the dank dirt of the Vela any day, thought Loreto. But it’s no wonder we can’t stop an alien invasion when all the money’s spent on padded seats.
He held on tight to the safety strap. Too tight, it seemed, as the buckle snapped in his hand. He tied the loose straps together in a slack knot. Modern workmanship had nothing on the old Spartan designs, he chided.
Loreto closed his eyes and pictured the invaders’ colossal ship. He imagined the tiny shuttle cutting through the air, seeming smaller and smaller as it approached. He’d spent a long time examining the alien design. Whereas the human ships held on to some vestigial notion of aerodynamics, these vast battlecruisers seemed built from factories and fortresses, roughly welded together. Corners and pipes and guns jutted out at all angles of the scimitar design. It seemed primordial, as though it had emerged from some hideous industrial forge, being assembled and evolving and growing constantly.
“How do we get in?” Hertz broke the silence.
Loreto knew better than to worry about minor details. They were flying under Fletcher’s flag; the man’s unbridled arrogance opened vaults. He was like a pumped-up creator god, demanding that the world remake itself in his own idealized image.
It was a kind of bluster and entitlement which he would never understand, one that belonged exclusively to a certain social set of the Earthbound elite. The universe, in their minds, existed solely for their entertainment. Minor details such as how to gain entry to an enemy ship were irrelevant. Loreto might not have had a pip in his neck, but he would never understand his fellow Earthbound people.
“Movement on the ship,” called the pilot, right on cue.
The shuttle shuddered and changed direction.
“I’ve lost control.” The pilot sounded worried. “They’re pulling us in, I think.”
Fletcher hummed anthems to himself. Loreto heard the sound of machinery grinding. Gigantic doors opening, he imagined. After five minutes of being dragged through space, the shuttle landed with a bang and the incessant humming drowned out the chirping of the instruments. The doors hissed open.
“It seems breathable, sir,” Fletcher’s man said from the bottom of the ramp.
“Masks anyway,” Fletcher commanded. “We won’t be here long.”
It wasn’t braggadocio or bluster, Loreto knew. Fletcher had a granite-faced confidence and he’d forged a career as a keen believer in the supremacy of the human race, manifest destiny written in the stars. It was easy to be a human supremacist when the only other species to contend with were dogs and rats exported from Earth. His crew were armed with the pulse rifles. Spare energy cells clicked on their belts as they marched into the unknown, ready for a fight. Loreto walked down the ramp unarmed with Hertz at his side, both wearing light masks clamped over their noses and mouths.
The interior of the alien ship was huge and Hertz’s mask worked overtime to combat the breathtaking environment. Before Loreto had time to take in everything, a solider pushed him along and he almost fell forward.
The humans marched across the hangar with Fletcher at the head. No one met them. They filed toward the nearest wall like explorers searching for land. The walls were gargantuan. Fibrous and jutting, like the ribcage of some terrible beast whose belly had been turned into a hangar.
The way to the outside world, to the cold throes of space, was covered by a waxen shield. From far away, it looked like an electric skin, a pulsating membrane which allowed objects through without surrendering any air. By the look of the surroundings, it let plenty through but very little out. Loreto heard a constant pumping and churning from far away.
There was no clean space anywhere. Cables, machinery, components, and parts which Loreto would never hope to recognize littered every surface. Piles of disused and broken equipment rose up like mountains, some higher than three men. It seemed more a scrapyard than a functioning military vessel.
“Kelch would love this,” Loreto whispered to Hertz.
The materials were not mechanical. On the Vela, every individual piece would have been carefully crafted for an exact purpose, designed to cut weight and cut costs, going so far as to repurpose old iron ocean liners if it meant saving a credit or two. But this world felt more organic, as though everything was a part of a natural whole, untidy like a forest.
All around their feet swirled thirty centimeters of malodorous gray mist. When Loreto leaned down to touch it, the mist pulled back, like iron filings fleeing the wrong end of a magnet. He shivered.
“We’re a long way from home, sir.” Hertz sensed his friend’s trepidation.
Before Loreto could respond, a gloved fist brought the entire column to a halt before the base of the ribbed wall. They had found a large sealed gateway, ten meters tall with a path leading to it, cut through the scrap.
Fletcher signaled with two fingers, tapping them toward either side of the door, and the men reacted. Four soldiers broke off in each direction and established positions, pointing their weapons at the entrance.
Loreto watched as one of the crew knelt and raised his weapon. He saw the man’s shoulders moving too fast. A spurt of steam in some distant ventilation shaft made the man jump and swing his gun, his breathing labored and panicked behind the mask.
“Hell.” Loreto scowled. “One wrong move and we’re–”
The he
avy doors began to grind open and a wave of the thin mist washed out of the space beyond and into the hangar. Hissing, clanking machinery sounded all around. A light from beyond lit up, casting a beige glow forward. Loreto peered into the swirling chaos and saw a crowd of shadows. The figures edged forward, just taller than a man, wider in the shoulders and longer in the neck. They dipped into each step, bobbing like marsh birds as they moved.
Loreto heard the soldier next to him hyperventilating, his nervous breathing rushed. The first figure broke free from the mist. With two arms and two legs, it stood taller than a man, wearing a skin-tight suit covered in pipes and tubes, black and matte and reflecting no light. Loreto followed the muscled suit along an arm, which hung down to the thigh and ended in three long, crooked claw-like fingers and a short, stubby thumb.
It moved in sharp and strange increments, as though it was making adjustments with the twitch of every sinew. It moved like a choppy sea, in swells and crests and peaks. The soldier’s eyes bulged, his hands trembled. The mask struggled to keep up.
Loreto looked back to the new arrival. It wore a mask. Not like the human masks for the mouth and nose but one which covered the entire head. A clear material formed into a smooth, curved surface over the face, stretching from just behind the forehead to just above the chin and ending on each side where the ears would be found on a man.
Along the side of its head, Loreto saw sockets pumping and instruments blinking. Staring into the mask, he saw nothing but glowing dots hidden behind an opaque cloud, the same thin mist which swirled around their feet. As he stared, one of the glowing dots turned from a pale white to red and grew larger and larger. It blinked.
The soldier squeezed his trigger and the figure collapsed. Loreto dived at the man, knocking the weapon from his hand and hitting him hard across the jaw. The gun slid along the floor and into the mist. As one, Fletcher’s men opened fire. The figures vanished back into the doorway. Loreto screamed for them to stop.
Fletcher held up a gloved hand and brought the firefight to a halt. Scrambling up from the floor, Loreto dashed desperately toward the doorway. The door had remained open but the figures were gone.
“Stop!” he called out. “Please! Come back!”
A bolt of energy burst out through the mist and knocked Loreto to the ground. His chest burned and stung and his bones vibrated inside his body. He hit the floor and rolled, clutching at the burn which appeared just above his heart.
Hertz ran to help. Loreto pushed himself up on to his elbows just in time to see the figures emerge again from the mist. One of them had retrieved the energy rifle and, with busy fingers, was dismantling it and examining the individual pieces as though they were primitive tools.
Loreto could see the look of disgust spreading across Fletcher’s face. But the commanding officer stepped forward and thrust out his gloved hand expectantly. The lead figure turned to the hand and did nothing. A sound emerged, like dry leaves blowing through an alley. It gestured toward Fletcher and then bowed its head.
“Yes.” Fletcher pulled back his hand. “I should think so.”
Bow back, you idiot. Loreto struggled to his feet, his chest hurting. Mirror whatever they’re doing.
The alien with the gun threw the pieces to the floor, using its free hands to gesture in strange patterns. The mist around their feet pooled and surged and spun upwards into a spiral, taking the form of a solid, flat surface. Out of this gray surface, the alien used a finger to scratch out equations and shapes. As the figure flicked its wrist, the equations changed and modified.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Fletcher used his patronizing voice. “What is this?”
Not that voice, Fletcher, Loreto thought. You’re not talking to miners on Olmec. Please. The scratching sound blew again through the hangar.
“±±±±±±±±.”
Buried deep in the whisper, Loreto was sure that he could hear syllables. Fragments of speech cut up and crushed and re-arranged, as though they were being tried for the first time.
Another figure stepped forward and began to spin shapes from the mist. This one drew an outline of the Vela. With a spare hand, it brought in the swarm of dart-shaped fighters. They’re replaying the battle, Loreto realized.
“Listen to me quite carefully.” Fletcher arched his voice. “You have entered human space. You will explain yourselves immediately.”
Loreto stumbled across the hangar, stepping over machine scraps and broken things.
“Fletcher, listen–”
A single finger raised in the air and cut him short.
“Loreto. Use the appropriate title, especially in front of …” He gestured dismissively at the crowd. “…things.”
“They’re trying to communicate, Fletcher. Listen.”
The scratching sounds came again and this time Loreto heard words.
“Our±±±far±±danger±±±.”
He turned to the lead figure. The three glowing points beneath the visor became gray and began to rotate in a slow, tight circle. Loreto felt stupid. He didn’t know what to do, he just knew that Fletcher would get it wrong. He wished he had his team with him. Awkwardly, he bent his shoulders and his hips and leaned forward, mimicking the bow. The lights stopped their rotation.
“Hello.” Loreto dared not look at Fletcher. “Who are you?”
“±±not ±±±here ± times and ±±± come ±.”
“You’re trying to speak our language.” Loreto stared into the visor, desperate to see a face instead of the faint lights behind a cloud.
“±± machine ±±±± language ±± coarse ±±±± easy.”
Loreto remembered the encyclopedias his men had sent. “You analyzed our messages?”
“Loreto, stop!” Fletcher pushed him to the side and signaled to his men to raise their weapons once again. He turned to the figures. “Listen here. You clearly have something of our language, however rudimentary. It is my duty to inform you that you have entered into Federation territory and you are to declare your intentions immediately or I shall be forced to eject you.”
Fletcher stiffened his shoulders.
“Speak simpler, Fletcher, listen–”
The commander shot Loreto a withering glance.
“Hold your tongue, Red Hand, in the presence of your betters.”
The figures turned to Fletcher and stopped conjuring the mist. The sound of rustling leaves returned. Talking to one another, Loreto knew. The lead figure pointed toward a small hole on its chin.
“±±±.”
Syllables devoid of meaning, approximations and shadow words.
“We.” The figure turned its long spindle finger to its friends. “exiles ±± running ±±.”
Fletcher snorted derisively.
“You’re exiles?” Loreto asked, cutting across Fletcher. Rank be damned, he couldn’t let the man ruin this. “Exiled from where? And the others? The ones who flew past us?”
Loreto tried to mimic the battle with his hands. The mist spun again and recreated a dart fighter. The lead figure snatched back with his reedy arm and swatted it out of the air. The ship dissipated and vanished.
“Danger.” The Exile spoke through its speaker. “Danger ± no ±±± ours.”
Loreto was captivated.
“What do you call them?”
A pause.
“± Sym ± biot,” the figure hissed. “±Si-am ± bioth ±± Sim±biot.”
“It sounds like they’re saying Symbiot,” said Hertz. “What does that mean?”
“Move?” This time the Exile raised its inflection, forming a question. “±±?”
The figures turned to the open doorway, and the Exile who had been speaking beckoned.
“They want us to follow.” Loreto understood.
“It’s a trap.” Fletcher spoke assuredly. “They are refusing to answer me.”
“They’re trying.” Loreto was done respecting Fletcher. “They’re analyzing us constantly. Every minute, their language improves. They’re decipheri
ng our conversations, can’t you hear? We should follow them.”
Like most men, Fletcher was stupid and clever in equal measure. On this occasion, he chose to see the value in what his subordinate was saying. He surrendered a curt nod.
After a long discussion, they left a garrison at the shuttle. Fletcher insisted on taking two of his men and Loreto left Hertz behind. His mind teemed with questions. The aliens led them through hallway after hallway, which twisted and turned and curled and remined him of Providence and slums in the Warrens. Nooks and crannies carved from any available space, but also a sensation that every wall and floor and corner was part of some greater living creature.
The walls were black, some unknowable metal. Captivated, Loreto reached out and touched one. As soon as he made contact, the curling mist turned blood red around his feet. He snatched back his hand as the Exiles turned and the glowing points behind their visors lit up in the same scarlet and spun fast in a circle. He hung his head.
It seemed like an hour passed and still they walked in silence. Their pages buzzed and failed, out of range for communication. The Exiles led them through a door. It was dark beyond and Fletcher, without hesitation, entered first. Light flowered in the room, budding in the floor and flourishing up the walls. The room was almost as large as the Vela’s bridge but contained only two benches, sitting opposite one another a few meters apart.
“Here,” the Exile said, the word more polished.
“You speak like us?” Loreto didn’t wait for Fletcher’s permission.
The Exile drew a straight vertical line with a finger, top to bottom.
“±±”
“This means yes?” Loreto asked. “Positive? Affirmative?”
The Exile drew the line again.
“±Yes±”
“So you can understand us, but you’re still working on decoding everything?”
“Yes ±± simple language ± repeat.”
A new alien species arrives in the galaxy and it takes them an hour to learn our language well enough to insult us, Loreto thought. The Exile pointed to the bench. The soldiers sat, Loreto sat, and Fletcher remained standing.