Quantum

by K A Carter

  “What are we looking for?” said Z’oni. The hall was empty and eerie by its look. Cloudy lights mounted into the bulkhead. Another Draul appeared firing at them, Z’oni took care of him with a blast from her carbine.

  It was like a maze. To S’tiri, the corridors gave the appeal of being underground. Very little lights, and dark materials. It was the furthest from the way Mulaya looked on its surface.

  “Here,” M’ala said. She had stopped at the end of a diagonal hallway that connected three others. She planted a gear on one of the pressure door locks. “This should do the trick.” All of her gadgets were state of the art. Certified A’tai equipment. The tech aboard the Draul ship was considerably advanced but bared the markers of familiar root hardware that primarily exported from notable corporations. This technology in particular the product of Esel And’tl a Moranthian company of course.

  The gear went to work, cycling for a pressure release. A numerical based algorithm that would trigger an opening. After only a quick minute, the door slammed upward.

  An array of hovering terminals wrapped around the small room. S’tiri walked toward them, M’ala following. She separated clicking up the display of one of the terminals. She focused her buggy eyes at the screen as if it would decipher just by looking at them. Slowly but surely, they did, the trans-linked translator in a matter of nanoseconds gathered dialectal information through its connections and made it intelligible.

  “We’re in an auxiliary communications room,” said M’ala. In the same moment, S’tiri’s com-link opened up. The voice was likely an operator on the bridge. “Boarding Party, we’re starting to take hits. Whatever it is you’re trying to get, get it and get back now! Enemy reinforcements are arriving.” The voice cracked just before cutting off.

  M’ala had placed some sort of gadget onto the console. S’tiri didn’t bother to ask what it was doing. “I need you both to clear a path back to the ship,” said S’tiri. He made a military gesture to the door.

  “What is this doing?” he said.

  “Collecting the data you wanted,” said M’ala. “Whatever it may be.”

  “What does that mean?” said Z’oni, she had her back to them watching the door. Eroful joined her, aiming down his carbine.

  “For all we know we could be downloading meaningless metadata.” M’ala prepared her hand in front of the gadget, she was ready to pull it off the console.

  “That’s comforting,” said Z’oni. She was cut off by their com-link.

  “There is a ship docking here, we’ve officially ran out of time,” said the soldier.

  Z’oni brushed her lip against the com-link node in her helmet. “We’re on our way.” She motioned the soldier toward the door. “Finish this up,” She said to M’ala. Z’oni and the other soldier stormed out the door; their weapons up in an offensive posture.

  M’ala snatched the gadget from the console. It was a quick rush from the door to the end of the corridor. Finally, with the hangar in sight, cross fire could be seen. It looked bad. S’tiri readied his weapon. He could only get a few cell fire shots out at a few Draul until he saw a hatch unlock at the far end. It was the other Draul ship that had docked. Out came a slew of soldiers that looked more sinister than the ones already in the hangar bay.

  “Let’s go now!” Z’oni said through the com-link. S’tiri could see the Irinan fighters start to lift off. She and the other soldiers darted out of the hangar force field. It was still a far run to their fighters. M’ala stopped behind him, “We’re not going to make it,” she said. Starting to drop the small blaster she was carrying. S’tiri stuttered at it but by now they had been surrounded. A whistling silence came over the enemy, only the rumbles of the battle outside. The group of Draul separated as a one of them approached outside

  He was tall, taller than all the others. Out of a crowd of soldiers walked the ancient looking Draul. S’tiri looked at him oddly, he wore a long black robe over thin layered armor. His voice was deep and gravelly.

  “Take them aboard” he said.

  ∆∆∆

  S’tiri awoke strapped in a sitting position, he couldn’t remember how he got there, only that a large pain wrapped around his neck. He felt volts running through him like fresh blood. He could hardly, move his head, but out of the corner of his eye M’ala sat strapped next to him. She was unresponsive. He had whispered her name a few times. He started to hear rustling on the other side of the pressure doors. The doors opened and brutes strutted in carrying staffs. The pointy tips of them coursing with electricity. It all hard a distinct glow to it.

  One of the brutes perched beside him, throwing a hard-scaly hand at his face and pulling it back. S’tiri could hear them speaking in what was surely a Draul dialect. It was thick, he could hardly decipher or translate it. It also could have been from damage

  S’tiri had his eyes closed as he took shock after shock from the staffs. He began to hear screams but it wasn’t his. M’ala had awoke, screaming at the sight of his torture.

  S’tiri couldn’t tell how much time had passed since being captured. The two guards had become familiar faces. He made it his job to taunt them. This time it was different. The guards entered escorting the robed Draul.

  “What will it be today?” said S’tiri, his Draul was atrocious; he had done it on purpose to mock them.”

  “I have no use for this other one,” said the robed Draul. The guards made no sounds. S’tiri’s eyes wavered as they walked toward M’ala. The shocks rippled from each of their staffs. S’tiri cringed as if it were him being shocked. The screams were enough to simulate it. Screams worsened as the guards continued.

  S’tiri wanted them to stop, he wanted to stop them. He couldn’t think straight and his skin still tingled. Only a few words could make it out. “Who are you?!” he said, stutteringly.

  The robed Draul only responded with a grim growl that came from his chest.

  Chapter 12: Jericho

  Unlike the last warp jump, this one had lasted nearly twenty minutes. That was the count according to Jericho’s mental clock. He left the cockpit toward the main deck. The crew seemed calmer than before but that didn’t give relief to Jericho. He had cycled through scenarios; anything that could have happened to make things worse. He always did. His subconscious always made the outcomes worse than what reality was.

  Zen sat glaring at the rest of the crew. They were talking, but over the chatter in his brain he didn’t concentrate on any of the conversation. “Listen up,” said Jericho. His eyes scoped over the room. “As you know we just warp jumped. So, there’s good news and bad news.”

  “Give it to us straight Cap’n,” said Scud.

  “Well good news there’s more stars in sight.” He threw a small grin in for comfort. “Bad news is we don’t know where the fuck we are.”

  Anda had moved next to him. As much as he wanted to take a moment to embrace her, he suppressed the urge. It was hard not comforting her, but he knew she didn’t really need it.

  “So, what’s next?” said Zen hysterically.

  Jericho thought about not responding, then realized it wouldn’t have been very Captain-like of him. For all it was worth, Zen was a part of the crew now. He wouldn’t dare say it in front of the rest of the crew.

  “Well Freya is looking into doing a flyby of a nearby system. So, we’ll see what it looks like and go from there.”

  “Great plan,” responded Zen. She clapped while walking toward him. With each steps the claps got louder. “Great plan genius. What are we supposed to do? Walk around with our thumbs up our asses. No, how about we fly the ship into the closest rock ther-“

  Zen disappeared from Jericho’s sight, when he looked down and she was back in his vision. Anda had given a cold hard right hook. Zen laid on the floor unconscious, blood sitting soft on her busted lip.

  “Thank you,” said Morris with a sigh. His brother Luke sat next to him near the center terminal. They clapped and laughed.

  “That was unnecessary,” said Je
richo.

  Anda shook her hand as if the pain would subside by doing so. “I would’ve done anything to shut her up” she said. She kissed him on the cheek. “She’s lucky I don’t have my blaster on me.”

  “Regardless of what you all feel towards her, Zen is a part of this crew now,” Jericho’s tone was the one he used whenever giving a speech. It was firm; one a leader would give. “She is stuck here, just like the rest of us. Just like those two in the brig.”

  The system wasn’t in the galactic data index. Jericho read over it, trying to connect them together. Freya studied it next to him.

  “Doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen cap,” she said. She made a few keystrokes and the hologram brought up a map of the system.

  “Three stars, two planets, and two gas giants,” she said with a sigh. The noise of background systems in the cockpit whistled.

  “Well we don’t have much choice but to take a fly by. We aren’t exactly packed for extended space exploration,” said Jericho.

  “Alright, I’ll take her in.”

  The closer the Icarus moved toward the glassy planet, sunlight streamed through the cockpit. Freya flipped on tinters to shield her eyes while flying and took the ship in toward orbit. Vibrations rippled through the ship until a stop.

  “We’re at an optimal orbit,” said Freya.

  “Oh Free, what would I do without you,” Jericho said in jocular manner; he patted her on a dainty shoulder.

  “Fall out of the sky probably,” she said.

  The engine deck consisted of a small orbit jumper, and a row of large lockers that panned the far side of the room. Next to it, a small outfitting area that had utility benches. Morris stood, clipping emergency air tanks to his belt. The space suits the Icarus had were similarly all black with white stripes. As Morris lowered a helmet over his thick frizzy hair, LED’s lit up the inside with a blue tint.

  “Ready to go Cap,” said Morris, waving a glove covered thumb in the air. Anda joined Jericho, as always. The inside of the orbit jumper was padded black, only three seats with one of them at the controls.

  “Take us down easy, please?” said Jericho.

  Anda looked at the controls like it was something she had studied but didn’t commit to memory yet. With a thick joystick in front of her, she gripped it and looked around the cabin.

  A small lever next to her ear dangled, asking to be pulled. She did so. Slowly the platform dropped down, the jumper falling gently into orbit as the airlock clunked back into place.

  “What a pretty orange marble,” said Morris, looking out of the starboard window.

  “What do the scans say?” said Jericho

  Morris slid his seat to the right side; a terminal, waiting for commands, greeted him. “Let’s see. Gravity measures at 0.82G, moderate carbon atmosphere with hints of nitrogen. It’s a sand pit cap. Doubt we’ll find anything worthwhile.”

  “The clouds were a yellowy tint, and the sun glared over sand. The dive into low atmosphere was relatively smooth. In the distance shiny objects appeared to move in the sunlight’s glow. Jericho took note of it.

  “Um, Cap?” said Morris.

  “I know.”

  Without notice the com system came on. “An echoing voice on the other side speaking in something Jericho couldn’t make out. “Altari! Altari Muras Culet,” said the voice.

  “Do you have any idea what its saying?” Morris uttered.

  Anda flickered a terminal input that probably was tuning the sound to a clearer pitch. “No, I’m not a xeno-linguist. It’s nothing I’ve ever heard.”

  It only took moments for the mysterious shiny ships to glide in front of them. The lander was surrounded by what looked to be well-armed individuals. Anda grabbed from her keen sense of what to do and began to land, she adjusted slowly and made sure not to seem hostile. It wouldn’t have mattered though. The lander didn’t have any weapons. As she did, Jericho flicked a switch that also hung over the seats. It blinked red.

  On the ground, glassy hardened crystal pads were perched in grainy sand, Jericho looked at them as though they were something interesting but in the back of his head, had the thought that they were only landing pads. He suppressed the small urge to examine further. Out of one of the craft walked a very slim being. The pilot suit it wore was a shiny auburn. Jericho didn’t notice how wide his mouth was open until the being and a few from the other crafts approached. All of them slim and wearing similar garb.

  “Muhali cushoa, Lita hin” said the one in the middle. In person, the beings seemed a lot less hostile. The one that was speaking took a few steps forward tapping on the broad side of his thigh like counting each step. Jericho knew they were alien because they weren’t speaking anything he could understand but couldn’t help but to see similar details. Five fingers that looked snug in a pilot’s glove, bipedal legs. Their heads were small, even with full scale helmets on.

  “I’m sorry but we can’t understand you,” said Jericho. Immediately after saying it he realized it was pointless.

  At the sound of Jericho’s voice, all of them raised weapons at the crew. Morris’ instinct took the better of him. At the sight of a gun pointed at him, it was as if his primitive mind took over and he had no control over his hands. He raised the rifle that was slung over his shoulder with a quick twitch. Jericho raised his hands in an effort to seem non-combative. “They aren’t gonna know what you mean by that cap,” Morris said with a hint of condescendence. Jericho looked over to Anda. She had her gun drawn too; a small modified blaster that was painted all over. He thought she’d had known better. He thought Morris would know better too, he said it anyway to clarify.

  “I’m not gesturing to them I’m gesturing to you two,” he said, snapping his neck at both of them like a true authority. “Put your weapons down.”

  It took him saying it twice for the two of them to lower their weapons.

  The small stand-off dissolved as both parties slowly lowered their weapons. It was interrupted by another ship, its glossy exterior looked of polished crystal. It landed on another plane of hardened flat rock. Out came a woman. Jericho couldn’t see her features but he could tell it was a woman. A gown that looked royal, and an entourage of what could easily be identified as servants and guards followed her.

  Jericho’s jaw widened open again, and slowly clasped back together. The pilots had kneeled in her direction and their helmets were off. Small bean like heads were all he could see. The woman stood in front of them like royalty; as she appeared to be. Jericho imagined it the way the Federation chancellor probably greeted everyone. Uppity and annoying, but here it was in his face. A ruler of some sort, and she was human. Her eyes looked like gems that gleamed as they moved, she was elegant. Jericho finally brought himself back to a state of mind where he could process all that was happening.

  “My apologies for the hostile greetings, we don’t take kindly to unauthorized visits,” she said. Her voice sounded as if there many people all talking, all at once. She spoke and Jericho and the others could understand.

  “Alright I’m thoroughly freaked out now,” said Morris. The comment made Jericho look back but he didn’t bother to respond.

  “I sensed your arrival,” she continued. “Though it is later than I expected.”

  “How much later?” said Jericho, inadvertently humoring her that he knew what she was talking about.

  “By our dates, approximately four cycles.” She made an unknown gesture to a servant and whispered in her ear. “You three must be fatigued, excuse my lack of hospitality. Please, accompany me on my ship back to the palace.”

  It seemed to roll off Jericho’s tongue before he had even said it. “I’ll have to deny that for now, I have matter to attend to back in orbit.” On cue a com-link on his suit flickered. Scud on the other end. “You alright down their Cap’n?” only the crew and Jericho could hear through the suits. “Yeah, heading back to you now,” said Jericho.

  “I’ll have to take a raincheck on this one…-“the stat
ement was directed to the woman.

  It seemed even odder that she nodded gracefully and boarded her ship back to where that palace she was talking about was. Not to mention the pleasant but scary smile, Jericho felt it necessary to play it safe.

  Back aboard the Icarus, the crew was as shocked as Jericho was back after he filled them in on what happened.

  “There are humans down there, I am not bullshitting,” said Morris. He uttered the words through a slew of canned space steak being stuffed in his mouth.

  “That makes no sense,” Mellor said. “There are no known documented human colonies in all of the Milky Way. The comment was an obvious one. The federation had made it a point to keep all colony operations on hold until it was further suited to protect them. The idea of a non-CPF colony didn’t seem too realistic either. It was possible that corporations hid their own established colonies as well-kept secrets, but it would have been leaked by now. Jericho was sure it would have been leaked by now. It was like throwing mice into a snake pit. Back on Earth and in the rest system,magnificent commercials may have glamourized the space crusade that was the Federation in governmental motion, but those who had taken the chance knew it to be cold, dark, and a dangerous place. The CPF were the youngest in a sandbox of creation. Infinity surrounding all within the confines of the Milky Way and beyond.

  In one breath, Jericho felt the thought slide into his cognition. He would take the chance. The discovery of the planet couldn’t have been by chance. The information was worth the risk of his life at that point. Besides, he had been in much worse situations.

  “We’re going down there,” he said. He rustled up to the cockpit; Freya followed at his back, curtailing him right as he neared the seat. “Woah, let’s think about this Cap,” said Freya. She held her hand out to stop him leaning against the back headrest. “Think about all that we just got through. We don’t even know if they’re real.”