by Elin Wyn
“So,” he started. “What do you want to do today?”
I arched an eyebrow. “We’re on patrol duty today. What could you possibly mean?”
“Well, yeah, I know we’re on patrol duty today,” he said. “But we don’t always have to patrol the same way. I was just wondering where you wanted to patrol.”
“Ah,” I said in response. “I’m perfectly fine with our standard patrol pattern.”
“Of course, you are,” my brother said dejectedly. “You and your habits.”
I was getting ready to respond when a familiar human came rushing up to us.
I looked over to see Annie pull up in front of us, out of breath. After a quick moment, she managed to get her words out. “Do you know where General Rouhr is? I need to talk to him, it’s really important.”
Well, since she didn’t need us, I was perfectly content with sending her on her way. I opened my mouth to give her directions to where Rouhr was going to be today, but my brother interrupted me. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s my friend Daphne,” she started. “I think she’s missing.”
My brother and I both perked up at the mention of her name. This was the same woman we had been looking for yesterday. “Missing? Are you sure?” I asked.
She nodded. “Mm-hmm. She was asking me a bunch of questions about the Puppet Master yesterday, then she just vanished.”
I took a step closer to Annie. “Tell me everything,” I ordered.
She hesitated slightly, her eyebrows raised at my exuberance. “Well, she was interested in what the mental intelligence of the Puppet Master was. She was surprised that none of us ever looked into figuring out how smart the thing was. Then, she went to talk to you,” she nodded in my direction, “and after that, I don’t know.”
“Why was she interested in the creature’s intelligence?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Well, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Tella and I both think that this thing has some level of sentience. It would explain how the attacks weren’t focused on actually hurting people, but just causing damage, and how the dome surrounded the town without destroying it.” Then she stopped to think for a moment. “Actually, now that I think about it, it would also explain why we were able to take the dome down without any sort of retaliation.”
“So, you’re saying that this thing is smart and this friend of yours was interested in finding out how smart?” my brother asked.
She nodded. “That’s why I need to find the general. I need to find her.”
“Any idea where she could have gone?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. All I know is that I can’t get hold of her and her parents’ hovercraft is gone.”
I was still a little concerned about where the woman could have gone, but I was beginning to doubt it was anything bad. “Maybe she left to go get something, or perhaps she went somewhere to take some time off,” I suggested.
“No, Daphne isn’t the type to just take off without telling people,” Annie argued. “I’m worried she’s gone off and done something stupid.”
“Like what?” Rokul asked.
“Well,” Annie started, looking a bit embarrassed. “When we were talking yesterday, I may have mentioned how I first came into contact with the Puppet Master. You know, how I checked out the crater it had created?”
Everything clicked into place. Daphne was interested in the intelligence of this creature. She had asked Annie about it, then came and asked me about it. Later, there was a breach of our systems that had come from the hospital. Now she was missing, and the hovercraft that her parents owned was gone as well.
This didn’t sound good.
Already dreading the answer, I turned to Annie. “What is the range on her parents’ hovercraft?”
She looked at me and I could see the worry in her eyes, as well. “Far,” she said. “They bought the best one on the market right before the war, so it’s supposed to be able to go a sizable distance without recharging, as well as being pretty fast - for a personal craft.”
“Skrell,” I cursed. My brother looked at me. “You’re going to need to go with someone else on patrol,” I told him. “Annie and I need to talk to the general.”
“Okay, what am I missing?” he asked.
“She has a top-of-the-line hovercraft with a long range of travel. She’s interested in finding out the intelligence level of the Puppet Master. She’s been asking a lot of questions and she’s now missing,” I explained.
His eyes lit up in understanding. “She’s gone for the crater,” he said matter-of-factly.
I nodded.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Are you sure you don’t want me with you?”
I shook my head. “If I’m wrong, I’ll be back in just a few,” I said. “If I’m right, I’ll pick you up on the way.”
“Okay, go.”
I looked at Annie, who nodded at me, and we began making our way to the general.
“Do you really think she’d do something like this?” I asked, trying one more time to verify my ideas.
She nodded as she jogged next to me. I slowed down my pace for her, not realizing that I had been walking that fast. “Yeah, she’s the type. Kind of like Tella, and me.”
Fantastic.
Another human woman with far too much impulsiveness.
Daphne
“Estimated arrival time: five minutes,” the onboard computer announced in its impersonal disembodied voice. I stirred in my seat, feeling as if someone had nailed my spine to it, and groaned as I looked out the window. The scenery remained the same as the past half an hour, a deserted landscape with barely any distinguishable features except the remains of the alien vessel, Aurora. Not for the first time since leaving Nyheim, I suspected the hovercraft had been travelling in circles.
But that wasn’t exactly a surprise, given that the onboard computer had been announcing an ETA of five minutes for the past two hours or so. “Crap,” I muttered, sitting straight in the chair and hitting the dashboard controls a couple of times. I disengaged the autopilot feature and assumed control of the hovercraft. For good measure, I shut off the navigation system as well.
Even though my parents’ hovercraft was top-of-the-line, it was an urban model. The navigation system had been designed for city travel, and now that I was roaming through the wilderness, it was throwing a fit.
I wasn’t sure of the crater’s exact location, but it couldn’t be that far away. Judging from the reports I had managed to grab from the government server, it was one of the few landmarks in this part of the desert, so I was counting on that to help me find it.
It wasn’t easy, of course. I spent the next three and a half hours flying around aimlessly, and it didn’t help that I had barely gotten any sleep. Even though I had tried to get some shut-eye as the autopilot worked its magic during the night, sleeping in a hovercraft seat wasn’t exactly an easy task. I was about to turn the autopilot back on when I noticed something on the horizon. Squinting, my fingers curled tight around the controls, I then let out a triumphant shout as I realized I was looking at the crater.
Pushing the hovercraft’s engines to the limit, I sped up toward the edge and only then began my descent. It was a controlled landing, which was pretty much a miracle—when I was younger, I used to sneak out of my parents’ house and steal their hovercraft for the night, only to be caught when they discovered the countless dents caused by my reckless flying.
Mom would be proud.
Except for the fact I was using her hovercraft to do something that was pretty much illegal.
Illegal-ish? Maybe just strongly discouraged.
I tried not to think of that: nobody would know about this little field trip of mine, after all. Unless I found something of interest...but by then, the government would be more interested in hiring me than punishing me. This was a win-win situation.
Or so I hoped.
“And here we are,” I whispered to myself as I shut the engines down. Popping the do
or open, I jumped out of the hovercraft and stretched my back, groaning as I heard it crack. I walked carefully toward the edge of the crater and looked at it with fascination.
It wouldn’t be easy to climb down, and I hoped the climbing gear I had brought would suffice. If what I’d picked up from Annie and those reports were correct, the crater might somehow offer an explanation for the vines.
Like it or not, there was no other option but to climb down and look around.
I felt slightly anxious, but that was only reasonable. I had spent most of my career holed up inside a lab, and field work wasn’t exactly part of a neuroscientist’s job description. But here I was, breaking the mold.
Returning to the hovercraft, I dug my bags from the back and laid them on the sand tidily. Then, grabbing whatever food I had managed to steal from mom’s kitchen, I sat on the hood of the hovercraft and had an improvised breakfast. Rappelling down a crater while hungry didn’t strike me as a good idea, after all.
The sun was still rising on the horizon, lazily making its ascent up the sky, and I enjoyed the way the weather was slowly warming up. It almost convinced me to sleep for a couple of hours more, but I knew that in just a couple of hours the pleasant warmth would give way to a terrible heat, so I got to work the moment I was done with breakfast.
I was down on my knees, sorting through my equipment, when I started hearing a low humming sound. Confused, I looked around to see where the noise was coming from. I didn’t see anything, so I stood up and used my hand to shade my eyes from the sun. That was when I saw them.
In the distance, tiny black dots seemed to be growing larger against the backdrop of a blue sky, the sun gleaming on their metallic surfaces. Just one heartbeat later and the dots grew large enough for me to realize I was looking at a small group of shuttles.
I froze then, not sure on what I should do.
Could those be government aircraft? Or were they just part of some commercial convoy making its way between cities?
I had absolutely no idea and, worst of all, there was no way for me to find out. If those were government shuttles, I was pretty screwed.
“Crap, crap, crap,” I repeated over and over again, trying to come up with a solution. “Alright, calm down, Daphne,” I finally chided myself, taking a deep breath as I closed my eyes. If the government wasn’t coming after me, then I was worrying needlessly.
But if I was going to be detained, then it was already too late to do anything about it. I could only try to make the most out of the situation, which meant I had to work fast.
Replacing panic with determination, I ran toward the bags and grabbed some of the handheld equipment. I wasn’t sure which equipment I would need, so I just decided to go for the ones I could carry. I glanced at the shuttles one more time and, realizing that they were drawing close, I started running away from the hovercraft.
There were a couple of dunes just a hundred feet or so away from where I had landed, and those would be the perfect cover. If I were lucky, the shuttles would ignore my hovercraft...if not, maybe I could sneak around my wannabe captors and try to collect some samples before my inevitable capture.
“Oh, shit!” I cried out as I got to the crest of one of the dunes, realizing that it dipped down toward another crater, one that was much smaller than the main one, probably no more than ten feet across. As the sand shifted under my feet, I tumbled forward and rolled down the dune fast, the world around me spinning wildly.
The world went dark when I dove straight into the smaller crater, and for a moment I was certain I was going to die.
I didn’t.
I crashed through a lattice of something, too fast and too dark to make out what had saved me.
I landed at the bottom of the crater with a thud, feeling slightly dizzy but otherwise okay. I sat up, patted my body and breathed out with relief. No broken bones, so there was that.
Overhead, I could still hear the furious growl of engines, and I was pretty certain that the shuttles were already landing. I wanted to grab a few samples before I was caught, but it seemed that I wouldn’t have the chance to do so...not if I were trapped in a dark hole in the ground, that was.
I was about to give up and call for help when I felt something brush against my leg. I stifled a scream and, fighting back panic, reached inside my bag and grabbed a flashlight. When I turned it on, I was surprised to see that there was a small vine sprouting from the ground, its tip gently nudging my ankle.
Well, that was unusual.
Which was exactly what I was here for.
“Hello, there,” I whispered, grabbing a pair of shears to collect a sample. Normal procedure...except I wasn’t expecting what happened next. As I spoke, the vine moved slightly, almost as if it were reacting to my voice.
It was listening to me.
Takar
“Skrell,” the general said as Annie and I explained our hypothesis.
If he was as frustrated as I was by the situation, he at least kept his temper.
He looked at the both of us, staring at Annie hard, almost as if she were to blame for Daphne’s probable behavior. Which was possible, but honestly, from the small time I’d spent with Daphne, I wasn’t sure if anything would have held her back.
“Fine,” he said as he turned his attention to me. “Gather a small team and go get her.”
“And if she’s discovered the creature and angered it?” I asked.
He gave a bit of side-nod. “Fine, make sure the team is large enough to deal with trouble, but not too large. We still have too many issues here.”
“Sir,” I said with a quick salute. We exited his office before I turned to Annie. “Sorry, but you’re not going.”
“What? She’s my friend,” she argued.
I put my hands on her shoulders and held her still. “I understand that, but if things get bad, I’m going to need the team concentrating on stopping the creature, not protecting you. Besides, Karzin would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”
With that, I walked away, getting on the comm and calling for Rokul, Sylor, and several of the combined city guard to meet me at the airfield in full combat gear.
No one argued or questioned, they simply acknowledged and met me there. I quickly explained the situation and told them what my plan was. I had already gotten the tracking information for the hovercraft, so I knew where she was heading. We would take a transport and chase her down, but if she arrived at the crater and somehow came into contact with the Puppet Master before we arrived, things could go bad.
Very bad.
Very quickly.
“One small problem,” one of the human guards, Trevor, said. “The only transports we have available at the moment are the small ones.”
“What? Why?” I demanded.
“Maneuvers and food deliveries,” he answered.
“Fine,” I growled. “Load up.”
They were cramped, but workable, with enough room for four people. Rokul piloted one, Sylor piloted another, I piloted the last, making sure we were leaving space for Daphne.
If we found her.
We lifted off and I took the lead.
I brought up the tracking system, punched in the hovercraft’s information, and turned my little ship in the right direction. We were flying towards the Aurora’s home in the desert and the original hole the Puppet Master had created. After nearly two hours of flight, we arrived in the desert.
“Keep an eye out for anything that may indicate where she is, just in case she left the hovercraft,” I ordered.
It wasn’t long before I saw the hovercraft. I pushed my…we had to come up with a better name for these things…ship ahead. I saw a small shape standing outside the craft that turned and started running.
She was a persistent one, I had to admit. She had to know that she was in trouble, yet she wasn’t going to give up. If she wasn’t an annoyance to my life, I’d be impressed with her. She didn’t seem the type to dive headfirst into danger. She seemed far too perky
and far too ready with a smile to be the type willing to go on an adventure.
She disappeared behind a small dune as I landed. I shut down, unbuckled, grabbed my gear, and chased after her. The others were landing as I reached the dune she had jumped behind. I didn’t find footprints as I had expected. Instead, I found another crater, this one nowhere near as large as the original.
This one was only ten feet across, if that.
“Did you get her?” I heard from behind me. Rokul and the others were approaching, weapons at the ready.
Daphne might not be a danger, but we’d all seen what the Puppet Master could do.
I shook my head.
“Then, did she go down the hole?” Trevor asked.
It was the only possible solution to her location. “Spread out, search the area. Just in case,” I ordered. If she had found a way to get away without going down into the crater, we needed to figure that out first.
We searched the surrounding area, but found nothing. Not even her footprints.
She really had gone into the hole.
Skrell and double skrell.
I liked Annie, mostly. For a human, she didn’t make me too annoyed. I was grateful to her for how she had fixed Karzin and made him happy, but her recklessness was not something to be admired, or emulated.
“What do we do?” my brother asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I groaned as the only option was to go down into the hole after her. “I’ll go down,” I said. “She’s spoken to me, so she’ll recognize my face and not be too scared by it.”
“Are you sure? You’re an ugly one,” my brother teased. The others laughed as I glared at him.
“Back on point,” I said. “I’ll go down and bring her back. All of you stay up here.”
“Why do we stay up here?” Trevor, one of the human guards who’d accompanied us, asked.
Sylor, who had been getting climbing gear prepared, answered. “If there’s anything that goes wrong down there, it’s better to only lose one member of the team instead of all of us.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “Besides, if the Puppet Master attacks me down there, it would be nearly impossible for all of us to fight without hitting ourselves.”