by Richard Sosa
“What's that?” Iris watched her intensely.
“Lunch.”
“You're going to eat, now. Are you kidding me? Look around, what’s wrong with you?”
“I am hungry. The readings on our instruments show no danger, no toxins. We can stay here.”
Iris bonked her head on something wet and slimy and stepped away from the wall. “You can stay here. I am heading to Seventy-four. I am on COM six if you need me, have fun. Geez, Lunch?” Iris walked away and stepped through the opening and the troopers followed each taking their turn to crawl through the small opening.
Megs sat her rifle down and keyed in entries into her IARI to record and set up a scanner to continuously gather data from the environment. A small research drone flew in the air. It hovered with a camera light on while sending visual and environmental data to the Techs outside and her research lab. She took out her pen-sized sensor and turned it on. Then with a sandwich in one hand and sensor in the other began probing the tissue of the alien. The soft, gooey flesh slurped open at folds and a greenish paste covered her instrument. She swallowed a bite and speaking to her recorder aloud said, “Trimodal, two upper appendages. Large tensor fasciae latae,” she grabbed one of the legs and felt down the limb, “A rectus femoris and if Rik is correct, I should find…” she pressed a button and her sensor became a laser scalpel to cut into the leg at the right location, “a brain.” She stood silently looking at it.
The ganglia of the brain roped up through the ‘leg’ appendage and Megs followed the pathway with her finger then she cut into the next appendage to confirm that it was connected. “Gods, this thing thinks on its feet.” She pushed the creature on its ‘face’.
“Doctor,” Megs jumped when an engineer poked through the opening, “the military types are waiting for transport and they want to know if you need anything more. They’re going to take the cannon to another Orb and do the same thing. They want to know if they can drag them outside for you.”
“Don’t let them drag anything out of the Orb environment,” she ordered, “and make sure they don’t overdo it to open the ship up, minimum force, I need the environment intact. I have everything I need for the moment, thanks. Wait. Tell them to figure out a better way to open the Orb without the cannon. Get Ra to advise.”
The Tech waved at her. “Sure thing,” and disappeared from the entrance.
Megs cut into the backside of the alien almost cutting off the leg to expose the brain. Her finger in a rubber glove, stained with viscous fluid, continued to probe and she spoke into her recorder. “No auditory association area or cortex at least from what I can tell. A highly developed postcentral gyrus sensory cortex and it appears to be connected to the somatic and visual cortex, no wait, they’re the same,” frowning as she worked.
Outside, as the troopers waited for their transport, they were viewing Doctor Megs working on the alien with growing intrigue. Iris glanced at the monitor as well. “See what happens if you stay in school?” They laughed and gathered their equipment and walked to the transport landing point. Troop transporters appeared in the sky heading toward them.
Megs continued her examination and moved to the creature’s upper arms. The high-pitched squeal sounded like it was behind her and Megs turned around but claws clicking on a metal surface and blurred movement was in front of here. In a split second, she followed the creature as it bounded out from a wall panel, scrabbled up the wall to the ceiling, and leaped into the air at her twisting in one motion with claws extended. Megs stumbled back, grabbed her rifle and instinctively shot rapidly while on her back. Eyes closed. The deafening sound of her wild pulse rifle shots covered the room in blinding flashes of ricocheting lasers. The alien’s body exploded and cascaded its milky entrails over her body. The dead creature slammed into the wall with a wet thud and slid down to the floor leaving a sticky slime on the wall. Megs rolled to the side completely covered in the Spipeculas entrails. She stood to run but instinctively raised her rifle and fired at it again. She coughed and then bowed over to throw up, when she caught her breath her only thought was, ugh. Damn. She did not move, rifle ready.
Outside the soldiers saw what the drone was reporting. There was a quick black movement a high-pitched squeal followed by shots. Iris and the team raced toward the small hatch. There were more shots. Iris was halfway through the opening with her weapon drawn and shouted. “Doctor, you alright?”
She stepped fully through with rifle raised and other soldiers followed pointing their weapons in all directions. Iris reported to the others outside. “Back up stay on alert. We have a live one.”
Megs’ hair was messed up, her backside wet, her lunch on the floor and the little research drone dead on the ground. “Not anymore. It’s dead. Damn thing ruined my lunch.”
Iris inspected the dead creature with the barrel of her rifle. Megs inspected herself and said, “shit, I am wet and...” put her hand under her nose, “smelly.”
“You're, like gag point smelly,” Iris held her nose, “take a break and a shower. This creepy ship isn’t going anywhere. We can put some sensors around the ship and post a sentry. If something wants to crawl out in the dark of night, we’ll know,” she said impatiently to her team, “let’s get to Seven-four we’re late.”
Chapter Fifty-two
At Silo 74 Defense Ground Force, there was a sonic boom and thousands of Flyers appeared descending from the sky. More Flyers descended and soon they flew overhead amidst cheers. Iris stood on her cannon, waved, her hair blowing as the Flyers passed close overhead with their deafening high-pitched screaming engines kicking up dust as they passed. Several Flyers, in squares, saluted by rolling over in unison. Streams of Flyers broke off like schools of fish on their way toward assigned landing and hangars. Iris waved frantically, knowing they really couldn’t see her. She thought, come on Rik. Come home.
In space, Rik’s Raptor was operating at full throttle. “We may need to slow our speed,” Robec-3 said, “so we don’t bounce off the exosphere.”
“Roger that.” Rik could see the debris of four Orbs tumbling slowly in space, burning internally, imploding and losing altitude to Aoife's gravitational pull. One of them was already pulling apart as trails of debris were lining up turning into white-hot blobs of metal that would burn up in the atmosphere. Rik spoke to himself quietly, “burn you bastards. Burn.”
“Sir? What did you say?”
“Let’s head in. We're done.”
“No, we’re not done we’re still alive. We’re done ‘when we're dead’ you want me to crash us into an Orb shell there? Or maybe overcorrect and burn us up in re-entry.”
“Smartass. Just get us home.”
The Flyer banked and dipped into the atmosphere. White flames rose around the ship and flames cover the outside of the cockpit as the Flyer enters the atmosphere.
Rik's ship rocketed through re-entry and then emerged with smoke trailing, engines roaring. He tried to see out his blackened cockpit canopy. Other Aoife Flyers were re-entering the atmosphere, streaking trails of exhaust, all in a dive toward the planet. In the distance, the Flyers in front of him were dipping into the clouds. Rik spoke. “Ro we’re going home. We made it. I am going home.” The Flyer jerked to slow down and began to level. “O.K. slow to 200 and prepare to land at Seven-Four.”
“Nice to get back in one piece but let's not do this again, Sir,” Robec-3 said, “if I draw a short straw again, I am requesting another Captain,” then she thought, ‘shit why did I say that?’
Silence. Robec-3 tapped her controls and looked out the window.
Rik suddenly laughed. “You had fun, don't lie to me. Land this thing, pilot.”
Robec-3 smiled with relief. The Flyer landed gently on the tarmac close to Hangar 134 along with waves of Flyers jockeying for a landing position while landed Flyers were smoking and their turbines were cycling down. Rik’s Flyer looked like the rest with a dented body, long gashes on the sides and black burnt scars on its once shiny surface.
&
nbsp; Robec-3 tucked her helmet under her arm. “I am off to check on my little girl, I’ll send a link-up code, call me when we need to debrief.”
“Sure will, outstanding job solider,” Rik gave her a proud smile, “best damn co-pilot I have ever served with.” She saluted and hurried off in the opposite direction of the hangar. The rain was starting to fall, and Rik saw Dask walking toward a tent for cover. “Dask,” Rik shouted, and he bailed to join Dask. They walked into a large tent where the edges flapped in the wind. The rain came down in torrents drenching everything, the ground was muddy, and most personnel ran for cover or braved the downpour to protect their equipment. Dask was oblivious to the rain.
“Has Iris reported in?” Rik wondered.
Dask hunched his shoulders. “Good work out there. I was sure I lost you. I wasn’t prepared for that.”
“One primary Orb managed to transition away,” Rik said, “I just need to report that. But we hit it hard before it left,” Rik took a deep breath, “I don’t believe it will be able to align and orbit around any large hydrogen giant and refuel and still hold together. It would also need to stay in one piece during light speed. I put some teams on the remaining Orbital Platforms telescope array, so we have eyes on the two large gas planets. I think they probably went off to die or attempted to traverse the gas giant’s gravity to re-fuel and simply blew apart.”
Dask frowned. “Sounds like you kicked its ass. Do your conclusions have a high probability of accuracy?”
“We shot it up. It was retreating just to survive. Ninety-nine percent.”
Dask grimaced, “or, it’s just out there avoiding detection. I am not comfortable with that loose end.”
Rik ignored his unease. “We’ll stay on it. Where’s Iris.”
“Check your Flyer, a lot of pilots and infantry are connecting to their families through the logs in their ships or mobile units, probably faster than anything we have on the ground right now.”
“Good to know, I am heading back to my Flyer.”
“Don’t you want to wait for the rain to settle?” Dask looked up to the tent ceiling. Rik didn’t hear as he prepared to leave. Dask stopped him. “Wait, son, let’s talk for a quick moment,” Dask herded him to a quiet corner of the tent, “Iris broke down bad when she was told you were dead. I had to counsel her not to go off and kill herself in a fury of revenge.”
Rik was frightened by the thought. “Thanks for telling her that.”
“She cares about you, so if you hurt her, I’ll break your neck.”
Rik smiled. “She’s trying very hard to like you. Why the change of heart?”
Dask said. “No change of heart, she just reminds me.”
Rik stared at Dask and frowned. “I know that expression old man. Neil could never keep something from me. No way. What are you saying?”
“Iris reminds me of Terin.”
“Terin? Who’s that?”
Dask took a breath. “She was in my command when I was a young man, I probably should have left the service and married her,” he pondered to himself for a long time, “Rik,” he ordered, “get out of my sight and go find your girl.”
Rik stood and left, bending into the wind and rain to slosh toward the field where his Flyer sat with others. He climbed into his Flyer and realized how small and cramped it was, it stunk inside, he entered a search routine on the Flyers computer. He saw a text message. ‘Found your Flyer but not you. Where are you, click here for location connection’
He tapped his screen, Iris’ image came on, she was hiding under a tent. “Hey, mister man, directly across from you, northeast in Tech Tent Twelve.”
Rik popped the canopy. He climbed out of the Flyer, stood on the wing looking around. Behind him, Iris was running toward him and screamed, “Rik.”
He spun around, jumped to the ground and they ran into each other's arms. He held her for a long moment then gently kissed her. She wiped rain out of her face, composed herself but it’s too late, they’re soaked, and her hair was a streaky mess. Rik pointed around them at all the destruction, “You were supposed to keep things tidy down here.”
“I don't clean up after you, Korpe man.”
The rain lightened to a steady but light drizzle. Rik held Iris, “I will never let you go,” they kissed completely, abandoning any pretense that they are just friends. The pain and sorrow of the day washed away in the rain as they held each other.
“Gods I thought I lost you.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easy, girl”.
Iris broke her embrace. “Ra is alive, can you believe it.”
“What? He died; I saw that right?”
Iris smiled overjoyed. “I forgot they can administer the meds remotely. His metrics must have warranted that action, he was in distress. It was your fault making him so agitated.”
“He was struggling to talk. I kept pushing him back down, not listening to him. That’s the best news ever. He said he could hear them in his mind, and they were coming back. I ordered the outposts to look for a larger invasion force further out, but nothing came of it.”
Iris wondered, “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, I need to talk with Megs and establish a research protocol to understand what’s going on with Ra. I have some theories.”
“That won’t go over well. Ra’s not good with doctor visits, inspections or interviews, it reminds him of the police station.”
“Well, we need to get information from him as his friends. If Ra is experiencing the same condition that I think he is, it’s an attribute of highly evolved species.”
“So, you don’t hear them?”
“No.”
“You said highly developed and evolved, right?”
“Yes?” Rik said, “what are you saying? Seriously in our experience people who experience these things end up hurting themselves. We need to get to Ra sooner than later,” Rik inspected Iris’ shoulder bag, “do you have my recorder?”
She searched her bag and saw it at the bottom. “Ahem, No I don’t have your recorder, but I have mine,” she lifted out Rik’s second recorder.
Rik stared at her for a moment. “Well, that will have to do. Mine was destroyed. We’ll record Ra, but we won’t share anything on the common net until Ra feels comfortable allowing it.”
“What do you mean,” Iris frowned, “by ‘hurt themselves’?”
“Suicide.”
Chapter Fifty-three
Their steps matched again even though they walked through a muddy field. At the medical tents area, they checked in to the outpatient staging and soon they were pushing through sterile Plexiglas doors fully suited in medical scrubs and face shields.
“Hi guy, hear you got a new arm, let’s see,” Iris smiled as she approached Ra’s bed and he lifted his prosthetic arm and wiggled the fingers. Iris touched his shoulder and sat in the chair next to him. “Looks like new, all you need now is a neural implant and we might process the paperwork to classify you as a robot.”
“That would be pretty cool,” Ra said softly.
Rik inspected Ra’s other hand and touched it without thinking, Ra gently pulled it away, “Sorry, how did they fix your hand? Last I saw, it was a mess.”
Ra lifted the other arm to look at his hand turning it side to side and flexing the fingers. “Yeah, next time I try to close a super-heated door, tell me to stop. They had to cut my hand off and repair it separately and then re-attach it. Easy stuff.”
“What?” Rik looked at his hand, “easy stuff? No. In all the other worlds in my experience a medical procedure like repairing a hand is not possible,” he turned to Iris, “you should have seen his hand.”
Iris touched Ra hair gently. “Glad I didn’t.”
“Can we talk about what you told me at the Orbital Medical Facility,” Rik stared at his hand, “you know about ‘hearing’ them?”
“They didn’t show. I was delirious,” Ra buried his hand under his prosthetic arm while watching Rik, “I didn’t know what I wa
s saying to you. I am not sure why I told you that. I lost my cool, man. I panicked.”
“Well there you go,” Iris defended Ra, “there was lots of stress. We’re so proud of you. Most civilians would not have been so brave. I am glad you’re back home. Word of warning, don’t you ever volunteer for space duty without talking to me again. Understand?”
Ra smiled at his friends and then his smile faded when he searched Rik’s face.
“When you heard them—”
“Come on Rik, leave Ra alone he said he was delirious, give it a break.”
Rik ignored her, “did you taste an oily substance like olive oil, sweet and nasty bitter at the same time, coating your teeth and throat? Did you want to throw up or have the urge to pound your head like to the point of hurting yourself, did you feel weightless, did you feel closed in, did you want to find something? Did you contemplate suicide?”
Ra was silent staring at Rik. Rik thought I hit a nerve, and he stared at the wall behind Ra.
“What do you know?” Ra said then he shifted in his bed with an expression of pain.
Rik instructed without taking his eyes off Ra, “Iris please record this conversation but do not send it out or share it.” She quickly took the recorder from her bag and began typing into her IARI and then on the recorder. She pointed it at the two of them.
“No, stop that, no recording right now,” Ra held out his arms, “Damn you, Rik I am not telling you anything until that recorder is off and Iris confirms no cloud units are on.”
“O.K.” he nodded at Iris and she put the machine down and showed Ra her IARI.
“Guys, I am getting to the point where I am gaining respect as a scientist,” Ra pleaded, “I’ve been marginalized all my life. Scrapping and struggling. Hearing voices in my head is not the way to further my credibility.”
Rik slid the chair closer and Ra leaned back away from him. “We’re not recording anything. There are humanoids in other worlds who can hear what the Spipeculas are thinking or more accurately cognitive activity. We don’t think they know that they are projecting to these individuals. In our experience this is rare and generally, the species that experience these connections to the Spipeculas are not from worlds harrowed. It’s very dangerous, they end up killing themselves and so what we know about this is postmortem.”