“Kill it.” He said snappily.
Jennifer turned sharply to him. “What? We don’t know what it wants.”
"There's only one thing those things could want, and that’s all of us dead and off this planet," Raynor said coldly. Though Jennifer was his child, he would not tolerate to be talked back at.
Jennifer would not relent. “We can only get so much information from a dead one, let’s probe a live one.”
He didn’t meet her eyes. He only stared forward at the Shifter, which was ever patiently standing still.
“You’re a soldier, not a scientist.” His voice was firm.
“A soldier knows when to take an advantage. Maybe there’s a way to capture it alive and then probe it alive and gather the necessary information to defeat them.”
“She’s got a point, Raynor,” Santiago chimed in. There was truth in her words. Maybe the trouble of taking it would yield key information.
“And who would take that charge?” Raynor asked.
“Me,” Jennifer said in an instant.
“Absolutely not.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her towards his. He forcibly leaned his head close to her.
“I do not need to remind you that I know all there is about these things,” he whispered. “This one is displaying characteristics that I’ve never seen.”
“I also learned how to negotiate with alien species for the Human Conquest Initiative. I will go out and bring this back alive.” Jennifer wrenched he arm from his grip. “I'm the best recruit you’ve got here, and I'll prove it."
She waded through the host of soldiers crammed on the wall and stormed off to the gate. Although no one said anything to the commander; they were also curious about the Shifter.
Jennifer reached the mighty gates. "Open the gates!" She yelled out.
After a minute, she heard gears groaning as they caught against each other. The massive metal gates slowly opened up to her. The sun's light didn't hesitate to penetrate the open crack and shone onto her face. She would prove herself superior to the other recruits and her worth to her father, by bringing back her prize, and he would never question her again. She slung her rifle over her shoulder. She took a deep breath.
After a few moments, the gates ground to a halt, and the golden plains of the alien planet awaited her.
Chapter Three
If Jennifer has been in civilian clothes, she would have been able to feel the gentle breeze brushing against her body. She would have been able to feel the soft indigo soil between her toes and to walk without care. But this was not Earth. She was not destined to live a civilian life.
As she put more and more distance between herself and the base, she looked back over her shoulder. Along with her father, whose gaze was fixed on her, the wall was now crowded with soldiers awaiting action. She felt an increasing weight on her shoulders the closer she got to the Shifter. If she was wrong, the Shifter could quickly crush her as easily as a hammer smashing a glass cup. Another lesson rose out of the depths of her mind. She remembered the strength and speed of the Shifters. She was taking a significant risk coming out here just to prove a point and to, maybe, gain an advantage. But as she always said, ‘a soldier knows when to take an advantage’, and if she was attacked, she vowed to herself that she would not be easy prey.
Closer and closer, she approached the Shifter. Her heart rate increased. Thoughts and lessons raced through her mind as she tried to find any edge she might need at that moment to parlay with the creature. One experience popped out of the rapidly racing lessons. This was a primitive creature. She worried, suddenly, whether she would be able to speak with it. There was no recorded evidence of communication between the two species, besides that conversation with Thomas the Shifter; maybe she could claim to be among the first.
After a further ten minutes, she was ten feet from the creature. The sheer size of him forced her to crane her head up to look at it. She was taller than the average woman, but the Shifter dwarfed her in comparison. Her heart was pounding like a jackrabbit’s now. Her breathing sped up. She felt claustrophobic in her own suit that she had worn since her training.
To relieve this pressure, she instinctively removed her helmet. The suit exuded two bursts of fresh oxygen as she twisted her helmet off. She breathed the planet's fresh air into her lungs heavily. The atmosphere was hospitable for humans, but if they traveled someplace with toxic air, the suit would filter it and make it breathable for the wearer. The wind now took its long-awaited turn to brush through her hair. The Shifter did not make a move. He only tilted his head, curious about the human in front of him.
She quickly turned and gestured a thumbs up towards the base to let them know she was okay. She couldn't see it, but she could practically taste the tension from the human base. She grabbed her rifle and held it in front of her. She slowly lowered herself to the ground and set the gun on the ground. She inched closer to the Shifter. She stopped three feet in front of him.
“I hope this works,” she muttered under her breath.
The Shifter took a moment to analyze her actions. After a second, he raised his staff high in the sky. She couldn't help but flinch as he slammed it into the ground next to him, embedding it deep into the soil.
She held her hand up towards the base again with another thumbs up. Almost as if he was learning from her, he balled the fist of his right hand and poked his thumb up, and then smiled at her.
Upon closer examination of his face, she could make out deep wrinkles on his forehead. It was difficult for her to make out specific features because of its dark, translucent skin. If it was indeed old, the fact that it retained its strong humanoid form was incredible to her. It was something she wanted to know more about. How long could these things live? She couldn't discern its age solely from hair because Shifters had none.
"Fascinating," she said. It opened its mouth and uttered words to her, but nothing came out that resembled any language she knew. It came out as a deep melodic tune. "Can you speak our language?" She asked loudly, leaving a second between each word, thinking it might be able to understand her like that. She didn't know, and she surely wouldn't be able to lure it back to base if he didn't know what she was saying.
As she finished her drawn out sentence, he tried talking with her again, but it seemed as if they couldn't understand each other after all. He took a significant step toward her and reached out to her with an open palm. She hesitated, but then gave the base another thumbs up sign. They hadn't opened fire on them yet, which was a surprising amount of restraint for them. He nodded his head toward his open palm. He uttered a word in his profound language of song. Though she didn't understand the words, deep down she knew what he wanted. She slowly placed her hand on his palm.
He shook his head. He drew back his hand and motioned with his other hand as if he was taking off a glove. He reached out to her again. She complied and removed her glove. Other than dying, what was there to lose at this point? She hovered her hand above his.
“You won’t harm me, right?”
He didn’t say anything.
***
"Give me a status, Santiago," Raynor said impatiently. The whole base was eager to strike at the second of danger. Although Jennifer had given the base a thumbs up sign, they weren't convinced of her safety.
“She’s removed one of her gloves, along with her helmet.”
“What is that girl doing?” Raynor whispered to himself. His patience was wearing thin.
“We have three beads on target Shifter.”
“Is she still okay?”
“She’s fine. She’s… reaching out to the creature?”
“What?”
“She’s about to touch hands with it, sir.”
“Be ready to shoot if it shows any type of aggression."
Just then, Darian rushed up, through the soldiers on the wall. He stopped, short of breath after his race up there. Raynor ignored him and kept his eyes forward.
“I came as soon as I heard, Sir,” Darian
said, “Why is she out there?”
“She wants to take it alive.”
“Sir, with all due respect, she should not be out there. You’re her father, you should have stopped her.”
Raynor brushed off the criticism. Something in his mind told him that she was okay. Deep down, the memory of the mercy of Thomas the Shifter was the only factor that didn’t have him kill the Shifter outright.
“Your observation is noted, but in the end, it's my call, and if we can learn something from it that creature, it'll be worth it."
“I’m going out there,” Darian said, “it’s only a matter of time before that savage makes its move. There could be an army behind that Shifter waiting to assault the base.”
"You will do no such thing.” Raynor retorted angrily. “Now go back to your post, or you can be on janitorial duty for insubordination." Darian opened his mouth to protest again, but closed it without comment and left in a huff.
“He has a point, sir, we don’t know what’s out there,” Santiago said.
"I know. I just don't want him around." Raynor chuckled to himself. The other soldiers laughed too, understanding Raynor's strange, mostly dry style of humor. "Stay focused." He snapped. The soldiers immediately fell silent and focused again. Raynor smiled to himself.
***
Jennifer took a deep breath. She placed her bare hand against his. She felt his skin with hers. To her surprise, it felt smooth, delicate, and moist. His palm felt eerily similar to a human's hand except for its perpetual dampness. He enclosed her hand with its free hand. He smiled at her.
“What-“ she started to say before thousands of her memories and teachings flashed in her mind. The memory of her first birthday where only her mother attended with a cake, flashed first. All her of days of being mocked in school. Every day of training, every lesson, every emotion rushed through her mind at once.
Though every memory flashed in her mind, two that stuck out more than the others were that of a graveyard and of Jennifer being held by a grieving mother as a baby. Her mother, only eighteen at the time, openly sobbed as her husband – Jennifer’s father- was pronounced killed in action. That was before the survivors were found on the abandoned moon base.
Then the second memory flashed of Jennifer standing alone in her military suit in front of the same grave, but instead of her father's name, it held her mother's. Her father was millions of miles away. She cried and placed a bouquet of flowers down in front of the grave. In a flash, she stared down at her hand, but the dark blue sides of the Shifter no longer held it, but a feminine hand, with some developing aging wrinkles.
She stared up, wide-eyed at the figure in front of her now. A beautiful human woman in a simple, flowing dark dress stood in front of her. She had long, bright hair. Freckles adorned her cheeks along with wrinkles on her face, which was weathered from her tough, stressful life. The color of her irises shifted through the colors of the rainbow, which almost distracted Jennifer from her warm, motherly smile. She realized in astonishment that the Shifter had taken the form of her mother.
The gender of the Shifter didn't matter. They could assume any form they wanted, as long as they had contact with the flesh. Her mind raced with the possibility of what she just witnessed. She had learned in class that male Shifters could assume the forms of men, but she didn't know that the males could also assume female forms. The she made the connection that women must have the option as well. Could they assume the form of animals as well? She realized that what she knew was just the tip of the iceberg. She now knew she needed this Shifter alive. The possibility of all the knowledge drove her curiosity to new heights. The breeze kicked up again and tousled her “mother’s” hair.
“Greetings, Jennifer Raynor,” the Shifter said in its now melodic female tone. Jennifer ripped her hand from the grip of the Shifter. She stepped back.
“Explain yourself. Why are you in my mother’s form?”
“When we make contact with the flesh of another, we can assume their form. We learn their languages, and we learn their memories as a side effect.”
“But why are you my mother?”
“It helps us learn and communicate with any other species we meet. It helps build relationships easier. I assumed that taking this form, of your parent, would result in easier communication.”
“I’ve never learned that. You just assume forms to infiltrate and sabotage - interesting.” Jennifer shook her head. Seeing this fake mother of hers troubled her more than it should.
“What’s wrong?” the Shifter asked.
“Please change forms, anything but her.”
The Shifter bowed, acknowledging her request. “I apologize, what form would you prefer?”
"Anything else."
The Shifter nodded. His skin tone shifted from the fair skin of the mother, back to his regular dark blue, but he kept the figure. Then his figure turned into a featureless blob. Then like a statue being formed from a block of clay, female features emerged. As the Shifter finished this transformation, Jennifer felt as if she was staring into a mirror. The Shifter had altered his body to take the form of Jennifer, at that exact moment. He stood in front of her, with her body without her helmet and without one glove. The only discerning difference was the shifting rainbow iris. She knew that while the Shifter could hide behind her actual eye color, that of a blue sea, he had decided to use the shifting eye color so as not to confuse the humans at the base.
“Is this form more acceptable?” The Shifter asked in Jennifer’s voice. While hearing him talk with her voice was strange, it was better than standing in front of her dead mother.
“It’s a little weird, but yeah, that’s fine. Why are you here?” She asked.
The Shifter’s reached for the stick, now two feet taller than himself. She stepped back, wary of his actions. She held out her hand for him to stop, while using her other hand to reach for her sidearm, out of instinct.
“Don’t do anything funny.” She threatened.
He shook his head and smiled as if he knew more than he let on. "I would not desire to give the snipers, trained on me, a reason to fire, before I fulfill what I have come here to do." Almost ceremoniously he took his time, unhooking each helmet from his walking stick. He set each one down in a line.
Jennifer waited for the Shifter, who still maintained her form, to finish. After he had lined up each helmet, he knelt down on both knees before the masks. He then gestured for Jennifer to kneel on the other side. She complied. She knelt down on the other side of helmets.
“How do you know to do that?” she asked.
"I know your actions from your memories." He replied.
“These helmets belong to one of our scouting parties. Are they dead?”
“I wished to return these in good faith. I realize now that it might be misunderstood that they perished.”
"Are they dead or not?" A hint of annoyance crept into her tone. She wanted direct answers but felt as if this creature liked to dance around questions. She took a breath, clearing her emotions. This was too important. He put his hands in his lap.
"They are safe. They are being taken care of in one of our cities, to which they came too close. They will be released to you again once the storm passes. The jungle can be quite dangerous."
“How can I believe you?” She asked.
He reached out with the gloveless hand. “We can share our memories as well.”
"I won't turn into you, right?" She asked.
The Shifter chuckled.
She reached out her gloveless hand again and touched his hand, or would it be her hand? Either way, she felt her own soft skin before a bright light flashed in her head.
Chapter Four
An image of the Shifter stood in front of a grand, wide window. The gleaming room was in a high tower that overlooked a magnificent city of bright, vibrant buildings in an assortment of shapes and colors, like the world itself. She saw it from his point of view. He looked down on a bustling street with Shifters of all
sizes and colors. What she could only deduce were children walked with their mothers and fathers.
The color of Shifter children was so bright, and one she had never seen one before. She even felt eight feet tall and smelled lavender in the air. The memory played like a movie in her head. Before the Shifter turned around, she caught a glimpse of his form. It was the same firm, dark blue body as he had approached, but he wore some type of jewel-studded crown. Three jewels were set in the ornate crown of white looping metals.
The Shifter turned around to face five soldiers of mixed nationalities and genders, who stood nervously without their helmets. Some of them trembled, attempting to feign courage, even though they were deep in enemy territory and could be killed at any moment. Two guards stood on both sides of the group of soldiers. The walls reflected a rainbow color like the inside of a seashell. This rush of new information confused and threatened to daze Jennifer, but she pushed through.
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