Terraformed Skies

by Anna Lewis

  “Commander Noble, we have a problem,” he said.

  “Clearly, sir” said Trevor.

  “Now is not the time for smart talk, Commander. We appear to be under attack. Do you hear that on the radio?” he asked.

  Lena lifted the radio to her ear, the faint sound of garbling coming through the static. She stared at the men before her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Well, we’re not yet sure. We think the mothership is attempting to make contact. Thus far, none of our men know what language it is. We have no information on it,” explained the general. “I understand you’ve studied alien languages in your time.”

  “I have, sir,” she responded with some trepidation. “But it’s been years--”

  “Good. We’ll get you set up at the sight,” he interrupted. “And Commander, we’ll need you to defend us.”

  “But sir, I haven’t fully recovered,” explained Trevor, looking down at the scrubs he was wearing. “And I’m hardly dressed for the part.”

  “We’ll get you a uniform once we’re out at the tent. This is a dire situation and we need your full attention,” he said.

  “Of course, sir. Anything for the country,” replied Trevor.

  “That’s the problem, Commander. It’s the entire world that is under attack. We’re getting calls from the Eastern Alliance about joining forces because their side of the world is also under attack by drones,” said the general.

  “Are you serious?” Lena asked, her eyes widening as General Sanders nodded.

  “I’m afraid so, Doctor. We’ve never encountered anything like it. We’re already in the process of organizing a global placement of soldiers, but we don’t have enough people,” replied the general. “It’s a mess out there. People have been driven into a panic by the sightings all across the country.”

  “And these drones, sir?” asked Trevor, looking at the drones in the sky above him. “What about those?”

  “We’re not sure what they’re doing. They fly down and seem to scope around, but we can’t yet figure out their presence. They disappear up into the sky after they visited,” replied General Sanders.

  “Have any other places been bombed?” asked Lena.

  “Parts of the Eastern Alliance, mostly their military bases, and some other towns across the globe. It’s a mass scale panic, I tell you,” said the general.

  The older gentleman to his left looked sullen. The knowledge of having such widespread disaster weighed on his shoulders. While removing his cap, he brushed the thin hair on his head and then replaced it with the hat, opening his mouth to speak.

  “We’re at a loss for what to do. That’s where you two come in,” he said.

  “Who are you, sir?” asked Trevor.

  “General Haynes from the south. We were flown in as soon as the sighting was reported,” he replied.

  “How did you get here so fast?” asked Lena.

  “The new planes have been equipped with something similar to hyper speed like on a spaceship. It only took thirty minutes to cross the border, if that,” replied General Haynes.

  “This is a lot to absorb,” said Trevor. “I’m speechless, sir.”

  “We realize that. It left us speechless as well,” said General Sanders. “But we’ll figure out a plan. We just have to make it to the field where the main tent is located. All the equipment you’ll need is there.”

  The four stood for a moment in silence, exchanging glances. Another bomb exploded further in the distance, catapulting them into action. As General Sanders rushed them back down the stairs, Trevor kept his grip on Lena’s hand. She was relieved to have him next to her during this strange time. Having his fingers wrapped around hers made her feel safe even as they sprinted towards a car that would drive them out to the field. A number of men were sprawled along the field, likely injured from the war as well as the sudden attack from space. It was a ghastly sight to see the amount of bodies along the ground. Lena covered her face, saying a little prayer for the lives she couldn’t save.

  As a doctor, she felt compelled to jump from the vehicle and tend to their wounds. Surely there were still men that were alive, yet she knew that those were not her orders. It broke her heart to think of it that way and it reminded her of how she had been fired just moments ago in her office. When would she tell Trevor? Their lives were already a chaotic mess. It would be better to tell him later after they had sorted out this sudden invasion.

  Once they arrived at the main tent, they all jumped from the vehicle and gathered around a group of men handling a radio. The garbled sound coming from it grew louder until the entire tent was absorbed by its foreign message, the men looking between each other to see if anything sounded familiar. It all sounded like gibberish. Without warning, the static stopped and the radio went dead silent. One of them tried to focus the screen to get a better view of the ship. It remained blurry.

  Everyone in attendance was shocked, looking up into the sky in preparation for more fire, but nothing happened. In the sky above, the alien mothership didn’t budge. The field echoed an eerie silence only heard when a war has ended, the occasional moan of a wounded man ricocheting off the tents. They had to come up with a plan, but what were they to do? With no knowledge of their enemy, they were left utterly defenseless against another attack. The group remained silent as the radio crackled intermittently.

  ***

  The air was wrought with intense fear, all of the soldiers gathered around the radio to listen for another transmission. Nothing came. Lena and Trevor stood holding hands and searching the skies for a clue as to who their enemy might be. She could just make out a symbol on the corner of the alien mothership that looked familiar, the lettering in curves and dots instead of straight lines like their country’s alphabet. It was certainly alien. Most of her knowledge of alien languages came not from invasions, but from sudden alien attacks on planets, resulting in their total devastation. Pluto had been one of those planets. Not long after they developed deep space flight, the astronauts sent to study Pluto up close discovered that it had been destroyed during their journey to it. All that remained were bits of rock and shrapnel decorating the area Pluto had previously occupied.

  What if Earth joins the ranks of those planets? Lena thought as nausea washed over her body. What if Trevor and I are lost forever?

  Part of her supposed they would just become part of the cosmos, returning like the ashes of their ancestors to the very place they had begun: amidst the stars. It was a mildly comforting thought to imagine her and Trevor intertwined in such a fashion. What a poetic ending to a budding romance. However alluring it might sound now, she was sure their deaths would be incredibly painful and she made a promise to avoid that by dedicating her time to deciphering this language.

  Taking Trevor’s hand, she leaned into his skin and inhaled the aroma of his body, trying hard to impress it into her memory in case they were ever separated. Trevor wrapped a loving arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, doing the same with her as she was doing with him. He never wanted them to part, but they might have to face that at one point during this global attack. Being sent into battle meant parting with your loved ones. They would have to accept it eventually.

  A few drones appeared over the field, startling the group into action. Soldiers grabbed their weapons and headed out into the vast space where they lined up in action stance, awaiting the strangely shaped ovals to fire upon the ground. However, they did not fire. The general shouted from behind the couple, frightening Lena into a crouch. He apologized.

  “There will be a lot of yelling happening around here,” he explained. “That’s something you’ll have to get used to.”

  “It’s similar to the emergency room at the hospital,” she mentioned. “I’ll be fine.”

  Trevor rubbed her back in consolation, only vaguely aware that across the globe men in uniform were also taking to the fields to stand in the same way their soldiers were standing. Many of them lined up in groups, faci
ng their guns and war machines towards the sky. The sound of marching boots filled the air and alerted the aliens that the humans were preparing, the gargling communication between them roaring as they noticed the tiny dots moving along the surface of their computer screens.

  “They are choosing battle,” said one gnarled face to another, in their language.

  “Foolish humans,” said the other.

  “We shall attack upon the next rotation. Prepare the disintegrators and send word to the drones,” said their captain. “We must get those scientists before their world caves in on itself.”

  While their quest might have seemed noble at first, the humans weren’t too keen on being given up to some unknown species. Many of them were happy occupying the earth despite their own disagreements. It had taken many years to gain global peace only for it to plummet after a few months due to an argument between the Western and Eastern Alliance leaders. Such a seemingly foolish dispute had catapulted them into World War V of which they refused to turn away, sacrificing countless thousands of men to solve a problem that could have been solved had they been more receptive to sitting down and admitting their faults. But pride seemed to rule their countries.

  All this had alerted the species of Vihatagons, who were determined to utilize the knowledge of their scientists to create new weapons, ones that would be able to demolish entire worlds with the mere push of a button.

  Such a race had the power and technology to take out entire planets of creatures. They were no longer concerned with making peaceful alliances with other worlds, but instead wanted to conquer everything in sight. Even their language sounded incredibly hateful, filled with hacking, spitting, and gargling. No one could understand a word of these strange creatures, let alone stand to be in their company for long lest one’s face get sprayed with the viscous saliva that spouted during conversation.

  Perhaps this was what drove the Vihatagons to go on a massive killing spree, kidnapping intelligent beings from across the universe and prying knowledge from their brains in an effort to strengthen their own forces. Had they not been the laughing stock of the planet closest to them – Mildgorf, which was predominantly comprised of very short beings with large eyeballs – then maybe they wouldn’t be so enraged and compelled to take down everything in existence. Had the Mildgorfians been more receptive to the hacking and spitting, the hateful Vihatagons might have left them alone. It was the oldest lesson in history, that of accepting differences. Even other species had trouble with this ancient wisdom.

  But the past is the past. The future of Earth was lying in a delicate balance. Meanwhile, Trevor and Lena were rushing into the tent to take cover from the drones. What were the drones doing flying through the field? The general instructed them to hold their positions until the attackers fired, warning that they didn’t want to agitate the aliens any further. Like many other parts of the world, the drones flew down between the soldiers and hovered about before retreating back up into the sky. It was the second time they had come down for a visit, formulating an action plan and gaining extensive knowledge of Earth’s layout.

  General Sanders told the other military leaders of the world that they needed to gather their scientists at a heavily secure base. It was vital to the continued existence of the Earth to keep the scientists safe, informing them that their base was the safest in the world. In addition, he would have to send the message in code as he knew the aliens had their radios under surveillance, but could not use any of the normal codes, as the Eastern Alliance and other countries would not be able to decipher them. They opted, humorously enough, for pig Latin as it was something likely to confuse the opposing forces. But would it work? It wasn’t necessarily something logged into their language banks as far as an official language, so he was positive they wouldn’t be able to decipher the code. He grabbed one of his generals standing to his right, gripping the shoulders of the frightened man as his face turned red.

  “Bring the scientists here,” he instructed the general firmly. “The future of our world depends on it.”

  ***

  “Commander Noble,” said General Sanders while popping into the tent. “We need your help.”

  Trevor stood from the cot in the corner, saluting his general with his cybernetic arm, and then relaxing when the general raised his hand.

  “What can I do, sir?” asked Trevor, standing firmly in place to await instruction.

  “Well, what can you do?” asked the general while looking between Lena and Trevor. “Show me what your new parts are capable of.”

  “Let’s go out into the open area. This is going to get a little rough,” suggested Lena while taking Trevor’s arm.

  “I understand you’re the one who did all this,” said the general, pointing to the cybernetic parts. “It’s quite an accomplishment, young lady.”

  Lena smiled.

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied, disregarding the pet name she heard a million times under the doctors who taught her. “Trevor, stand out a ways and then start firing.”

  Following her instruction, Trevor walked out into the field and began demolishing trees in the distance, nearly missing at one point and causing a group of soldiers to scatter.

  “Here,” Lena said while walking over and tapping his left temple. “How’s that?”

  Excitement filled him as he realized his optic nerve had been turned into a sniper scope, focusing on distant objects that made it easier to shoot. He was able to analyze all sorts of things from people to plants and could read the temperature as well.

  “This is amazing!” he cried. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before when we were shooting targets at the hospital?”

  Lena chuckled lightly, shrugging her shoulders.

  “I suppose it didn’t cross my mind at the time,” she joked.

  Trevor rolled his eyes with a huge grin, joining her laughter and playfully poking her arm.

  “You always seem to do that. Is there anything else I should know? Anything...strange?” he asked while looking down at his body.

  “I’m just joking,” she replied. “I wanted you to learn your new capabilities step by step, mastering each one in turn. But that’s the last one. I promise. Now, show the General how you can jump.” She turned to the General. “He can jump a huge amount higher than a normal person with that new leg, sir.”

  With a wide smile, Trevor winked at Lena and then bent his knees, catapulting himself into the air about fifty feet or more and landing back down with a loud boom. The general’s mouth was hanging wide open, in awe of the amazing machinery that made him capable of accomplishing such a feat. A group of soldiers gathered around him after he landed, applauding him for being able to do such a thing and shoving Lena to the side while they reached out to admire his arm. Upset that she had been shoved away, Lena retreated to the tent. She listened to the sound of excited chatter and wiggled her nose at all the praise he was receiving for being a cyborg. He was her project. Why weren’t they surrounding her with hands of praise? After all, she was the one who developed the technology and the general was the first to approach her about a potential project.

  Had she said no, Trevor wouldn’t be standing there receiving all that adulation. She desperately wanted to make an impression on the world, and Trevor was living proof that her genius could make a serious difference. Scoffing, she opened a notebook and began deciphering bits of the language she had heard. There wasn’t much she could do as most of it was spitting and gargling, something she had never heard in a language prior to today. Of course, there were languages in existence that involved the occasional hacking, but not at this magnitude. The tones were different as well and she made a note on the paper next to a few scribbles.

  Cheering erupted from outside the tent after a mild explosion, Trevor likely discovering more functions of his parts. She should be out there supporting him, but her jealousy was overwhelming. Why would she subject herself to watching adulation for him, when it was she who deserved it? Many of the men expre
ssed interest in having cyborg transformations, the lot of them raising their voices in heated discussion over what they would do. Outside of the tent stood Trevor who was looking around for Lena. She had disappeared after he had landed from his jump, the group crowding the area and effectively hiding her body.

  How desperately he wanted her next to him even in the midst of being praised, knowing that it would make her proud to see him succeeding in all of the tests they had previously thought might fail. He was able to catapult himself out into the field a lengthy distance and land without breaking anything, something that he had feared the first time he had tried it. The arm’s ray gun was easier to control, his head no longer feeling faint after he used it, even a few times in a row. He wondered if there was a limit to that considering how he had been dizzy the first time. Would he ever run out of that energy? A thousand questions filled his mind that only Lena could answer, but she wasn’t present.

  Looking around, Trevor noticed the light coming from the tent and figured she had gone inside to rest, the events of the day taking a toll on their bodies and minds. He could use a meal and a nap himself, walking in the direction of the tent only to be stopped by his commanding general.

  “Are you up for the task, Commander? We’re relying on you to lead us to victory,” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” said Trevor, standing stiff in the face of his superior. “I will do all that I can.”

  “Good. We’ll bring you a meal before the sun sets. I’m sure you two are hungry by now. It’s been a hell of a day,” said the general.

  Nodding, Trevor walked in the direction of the tent and stopped outside the fabric, peeking through the slit of the opening to see what Lena was doing. She was sitting on the cot writing furiously into a notebook, her forehead breaking out into a sweat. The intense concentration on her face made his loins stir and he thought about earlier in the day when they had made love. It was strange how these stressful situations made him crave her touch, the mere thought of being wrapped up in her body enough to cause him an erection. He peered around to see if anyone was watching. No one was within the vicinity to see his embarrassing arousal, though there was nothing embarrassing about his lover causing him to become stiff.