Terraformed Skies

by Anna Lewis

  The beady eyes in his head rolled up to look at the ceiling of the tent, humming erupting from all around them as if a helicopter were landing nearby.

  “Speaking of...”

  Smiling, the creature chortled with pride as the sound shook the very soil upon which they stood, Lena and Trevor clinging to each other as they hit the ground. The tent shuddered under the great air blowing about them and started to fly away, revealing nothing but dust and clouds above them. A great orb occupied the sky above them as Mike continued to cackle, his hoarse gurgling filling the air with the roaring sound of wings. Clinging to her lover with her eyes shut, Lena screamed for Trevor to tell her what was going on, but he couldn’t tell. Neither of them could decipher the strange thing in the sky. The dusty soot began to clog their nostrils, coughing as it trickled into their lungs.

  In an instant, Lena was swept from Trevor's grip and flying up into the swirl of dust. The cloud enveloped her as she continued to cough against the dirty air, reaching out for anything to grab that might keep her on the ground. What was happening? Her eyes were stinging from the thick soot and it kept her from seeing anything around her. An awful sensation filled her gut as she rose over the ground and over Trevor, screaming for him to keep her from being taken away. The air disappeared and oxygen was restored to her lungs. Trevor’s screams died out. Silence rang in her ears. She was alone.

  And then it went dark.

  Book 3: Reprogram

  Beneath the circling dirt and soot lay the great Navy SEAL commander, Trevor Noble, who reached out in vain to his love, Dr. Lena Clark. Just moments ago, she was lost to the great tornado of sand that encircled them as their enemy, Mike Larsen, laughed maniacally. A drone had swooped down in an effort to capture Trevor, but took Lena instead. The helicopter above was being driven by General Sanders who leaped from the vehicle and ran over to the fallen Trevor. He shook his head.

  “Where’s Lena?!” Trevor cried.

  “Commander! We need to get you to safety!” yelled the general.

  “But Lena has been taken!” he shouted. “We must save her!”

  “We need to get you to safety first!” yelled General Sanders. “You’re no good to us if you get captured too! Come on!”

  The general heaved Trevor onto his back, and took him to the copter, blades spinning above them menacingly as they boarded the vehicle. General Sanders tapped a few buttons on the touch screen control panel and the copter rose up into the sky, the sound of Mike’s laughter fading into a gurgle that dissipated when they flew over to the main base next to the hospital.

  It was mayhem on the ground. Dots of people darted back and forth, guiding others to safety, where they took cover from the aerial attack.

  General Sanders landed on the roof of the base building and took Trevor inside, the two men panting in the quiet hall away from the chaos. Trevor grabbed the general and shook him.

  “We have to save her!” he screamed.

  “At ease, Commander,” said the general. “We must come up with a plan first.”

  “What about Mike?” asked Trevor.

  “What about him?” spat General Sanders while leading him down the concrete stairs.

  They reached a doo. The general stated his name and rank, pressing his hand to a touchscreen, which turned green once it recognized his handprint. The door opened.

  “What do we do with him?” Trevor asked, shaking still from the adrenaline of fighting the maniacal alien hybrid. “He’s the one who betrayed us. He should be punished. We’ll send his bleeding body back to those wretched beings above and we’ll have--”

  “Silence, Commander!” yelled General Sanders, stopping in the middle of the hall. “Get a hold of yourself.”

  Hanging his head, the general removed his hat and rubbed his bald patch. He studied the tile along the hall and wondered if he should tell the commander about who had truly betrayed him, how his body had been set up to become part of a military experiment. He took a breath, released it, and then lifted his head to look into Trevor’s eyes that were filled with confusion and anger.

  “I think you ought to sit for this one,” said the general as he guided Trevor into a conference room. “It’s going to be a lot to take.”

  “I don’t understand, sir,” said Trevor, sitting at the table. “What is it?”

  As General Sanders took a seat opposite Trevor, he kept his hand on his ray gun in case the cyborg got too passionate. He wished hard that this hadn’t been the case, that he didn’t have to be the one who had catapulted Trevor into this situation, but the deed was done. There’s no going back now.

  “I was the one who volunteered you for the Cyborg Trials,” admitted the general. “And I feel such guilt having caused this situation.”

  “What do you mean, sir? I was injured. There was no way it was your fault,” said Trevor.

  “But it is. I was the one who set up the trap for you to get injured. I paid the enemy soldier to wound you in such a way that would qualify you for the experiments,” explained General Sanders.

  He folded his hands in his lap, waiting patiently for the shocked Trevor to absorb all the information. Trevor remained silent.

  “I’m sorry, Commander,” said the general. “I’ve felt guilty at every turn.”

  Still silence.

  “Commander? Are you listening?” asked the general. “I’m sorr--”

  “YOU TRAITOR!” cries Trevor, standing from his seat. “Did you have my brother killed as well? Was Alfonse part of your elaborate scheme?! Was he killed because...because...”

  Trevor fell into a fit of tears against the leather seat, cradling his head in his heads as sobs racked his body forward. He felt sick. What kind of person would deliberately harm his own comrade? Thoughts filled him of the day he had watched his brother die, pictures flashing before his eyes of all the laughter and all the tears. He could see his brother smiling. Everything came barreling into his brain at once and the sensor on his cybernetic arm beeped rapidly.

  “I would have never killed your brother. Never. Do you understand me? Alfonse’s death was caused by the enemy, but your injuries weren’t. I’m sorry,” explained General Sanders.

  “There aren’t enough apologies you could give me, General,” spat the heart-broken Trevor. “I’ve heard enough.”

  “Commander, I--” pleaded the general.

  “Enough!” shouted Trevor, slamming his hand against the table.

  Abruptly, he stood from the chair and wiped his face, reminding the general that they had a task to complete. Lena was a prisoner on that mothership and they had to get her back somehow.

  High above the weeping Trevor and General Sanders sat Lena in the control room of the mothership. She looked around wildly, her eyes still burning from the dust that had irritated her face. A gurgling sound came from behind her. As she turned, she came face to face with a Vihatagon – the captain of the ship – who leaned his distorted face down to study her with two black, beady eyes.

  In his language, he began to speak, “What is this?”

  Another responded to him in the same gurgles and spits, saying, “It’s the human female who made the cyborg.”

  “Where is the cyborg?!” shouted the captain while charging the other Vihatagon. “Why is he not here? I did not want this woman! Do you not understand orders?”

  Lena scurried away from the two disgusting aliens that were oozing and spitting all over the place as they quarreled, trying hard to discern their conversation with what she knew about their language. It was difficult to understand without her notes. As they continued to argue and spit, she crawled away towards the door where she quietly picked the touch pad with her nails. She pulled a small tool case from her back pocket and started manipulating the wires, checking over her shoulder every so often to make sure the aliens were distracted.

  Twisting one wire and snapping another, Lena was able to unlock the door and sprint from the main control room. A chorus of gurgles and spits followed her as she dove b
ehind a large metal case, ducking down low to keep out of sight. The two aliens fled past her and she didn’t stand up until they were around the corner. She couldn’t tell where in the ship she might be. Looking down at her wrist, she noticed the Vihatagons hadn’t removed her cyber watch. Would it work this high up in space? She held it up to her lips and whispered a command at the screen.

  “Watch, open navigation.”

  The watch beeped, the display showing that there was no signal.

  “Damn,” she whispered. “How am I going to get out of here?”

  ***

  Standing in the corridor were the two Vihatagons, the captain shouting for the human woman to be found, and his first mate. They looked in every room they came across, searching as high and low as they could manage with their disfigured bodies. The captain turned abruptly to his first mate who stood at attention.

  “The woman – she’s the one who made the cyborg, yes?” asked the captain.

  “Yes, sir. I believe so,” replied the first mate.

  “Then, we are at an advantage! We shall capture her and wait for the cyborg to come to her rescue. It’s the perfect plan!” cried the captain.

  “Very good, sir!” replied the first mate, commending him for his sharp thinking.

  “Find her!” shouted the captain. “Find her now!”

  On the other side of the room was the brave Lena who remained crouched behind a set of metal boxes. She tapped her cyber watch.

  “Useless thing,” she whispered. “Now what do I do?”

  Lena looked around to see if she could fashion herself a weapon in order to make her way through the maze of halls. She picked up a metal pipe and walked carefully towards an unmarked room, analyzing the blinking pad on the door. The language displayed was what she had seen on the side of the ship, the squiggles and curls similar to the ones she had researched on earth. She couldn’t understand all of them, but some of the symbols indicated it was a storage room for cargo. It might even hold some drones.

  The doors slid open and she scanned the room, holding the metal pipe close at her side. In the corner lay an unused drone that caught Lena’s eye. She closed the door behind her and started working on finding the control panel in order to rewire it. She’d have to drag it to a port in order to use it, but if she could figure out the processing system then she would be able to fly straight back to earth. Once she rewired the drone, she popped open the top and peered inside to get a good idea of the controls. It looked simple enough.

  On the wall next to the door, Lena noticed a map outlining the layout of the ship. She studied it briefly and snapped a picture with her watch that she could use later to identify the important parts of the ship. This was handy to have back home where they could figure out how to stop the Vihatagons. They would have to disable the drones first before taking out the mothership. It was going to take a lot of power to do that.

  Now to find a way to fly out, thought Lena while looking around the room. There! A portal!

  Diagonal to the door was a circular opening that looked like a port. She shoved the large spherical drone over in that direction, programed the coordinates to the military base below, and then synthesized herself into the memory of the drone computer.

  “Here I come!” she shouted as the drone rose up and attached to the port.

  It hummed as it charged up in the shaft and then entered the atmosphere, catapulting towards the earth. She made it through the atmosphere and was rapidly approaching the field that Trevor had left behind, soldiers aiming their guns in her direction. There was no way to inform them of her escape, so she braced herself for them to fire at the outside of the drone. A few of their ray guns hit the front of the drone before it landed in the dirt, sliding across the length of the field and stopping near the tents. Soil sprayed up into the air on both sides. A soldier carefully approached the fallen drone. Just as he was about to shoot it again, Lena appeared next to it with her arms up in the air.

  “Don’t shoot!” she shouted. “I’m Dr. Lena Clark!”

  “Doctor!” shouted the soldier. “The general was just looking for you!”

  Lena ran after the soldier who was leading her to the main building. If only they’d had a vehicle to transport them. Her legs were already giving out beneath her, and she wasn’t sure whether she would make it in time before Trevor tried to come to her rescue.

  “Wait!” she called after the soldier. “You’re going too fast!”

  A few more yards left her gasping hoarsely. The soldier ran back to take her arm and guided her to the main building. They rushed past the scientists waiting in the main area, flew up the stairs, and stormed into the conference room where the two generals and the commander were shouting. Trevor turned as the door slammed open and impulsively took Lena up into his arms.

  “Lena!” he cried happily as he spun her around.

  “Trevor!” she squeaked, hugging his shoulders tight.

  The couple kissed briefly, a few relieved tears making an appearance.

  “How did you get back?” asked Trevor while setting her down on the ground.

  “I reprogrammed one of the drones to get me back to earth. I think we can do the same to get you up above the atmosphere,” she explained.

  “What?” asked Trevor.

  “You can do that?” asked General Sanders.

  “Yes, I can,” said Lena. “Trevor, you’re the only one who will be able to reach the control panel on the ship. It’s underneath and none of us would be able to disable it without a spacesuit.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Trevor.

  “I can make you an EVA suit... a spacesuit for you to survive in space,” she explained. “And then you can ride the drone up to the belly of the mothership in orbit, get out of the drone, and disarm the mothership’s drone system.”

  “You mean, you intend to stop the drones collecting people?” asked General Haynes.

  “Yes, we can disable them completely. And we can get the people back,” replied Lena, still panting from her sprint across the field.

  “When can we start?” asked General Sanders.

  “Whenever we both get a hot meal. I’m starving,” replied Lena while holding her stomach.

  “I think we all need to eat,” said Trevor, guiding Lena to the door.

  The other men agreed and the group walked down the stairs to the main area to see what they could put together. Some of the supplies had been salvaged from the damaged tents and the kitchen area had a microwave with a number of provision packets. Each of them helped themselves to whatever was available, sitting with the scientists at the table.

  The British scientist introduced himself to Lena as Dr. Marcus Warren. He was a developer of space travel with an extensive knowledge of aliens at the University of Cambridge. They had a brief discussion about the alien technology and talked about the drones, Lena commenting that she had discovered a way to reprogram them. Many of the scientists agreed that they would have done the same and then debated about the best way to disarm the mothership.

  “You have to go to the control panel,” suggested Dr. Warren.

  “No, you fool. You have to get into the bridge in order to disarm the entire ship,” claimed Dr. Glenn Snyder.

  “But all the controls are under the belly,” said Lena.

  “How would you know?” asked Dr. Snyder.

  “Because I was just there,” she said, standing.

  She turned to ask General Sanders if there was a laptop nearby and he procured one for her. While tapping her watch, she synced it using the Wi-Fi feature and started scrolling through her notes of the mothership’s layout she’d photographed while up there. She waved her fingers over the screen and then pulled the visual up over the table where the scientists were able to view it.

  “Gentlemen, this is the map of the entire mothership,” Lena said proudly. “Now, let’s discover how we can take these aliens down.”

  ***

  As Lena explained the interior of the mother
ship to the five scientists, a number of transportation pods were landing in the field just beyond the building. A line of soldiers waited for the aliens to appear and readied their ray guns.

  “Where’s the general?” called one soldier.

  “He’s in the main building. Jeffery, go get him!” yelled another.

  Jeffery shoved his ray gun in its holster and then ran in the direction of the main building, busting through the main doors and huffing before explaining the situation to General Sanders. The older general ran out the door with his soldier, calling for Trevor to follow. As Lena was about to run after Trevor, he stopped her and pressed his lips to hers.

  “No, darling,” he said. “Let me handle this. Work on that spacesuit.”

  “But Trevor--”

  “Stay here.”

  Trevor kissed her one more time before dashing out the double doors guarded by two soldiers. Lena watched him disappear past the gates and down the path to the field, worried that she might not see him again. Teary eyed, she returned to the table and finished the discussion about how to infiltrate the mothership.

  “We’ll need a team to go up in a drone and start releasing people back to earth,” she explained while wiping her face. “I’ll also need help fashioning a spacesuit.”

  “Are there any materials on base that you could use to build one?” asked Professor Franklin McLeod, head of the IT Institute of the Western Alliance.

  Lena stared at the table.

  “There are, but they are in the hospital where I was fired. I’m not allowed back inside,” she replied.

  “Can we send someone else to retrieve those materials?” asked Dr. Warren.

  “I believe so. We can ask one of the soldiers to collect it. I can communicate with him via radio. General Haynes, do you have anyone up for the job?” asked Lena, turning to the other general.

  He raised one eyebrow in her direction and smiled.