Gravel and Grit

by Stacy Jones

  First, she thought it was a communication device, then some kind of transportation machine—though, how the two-foot-by-two-foot disk would transport anyone anywhere she didn’t know. She’d checked for every possible mode she could think of that it might use to move people or objects from point A to point B, even going so far as to see if it might be able to dematerialize and rematerialize matter.

  She’d actually made some headway in that direction, had begun to believe it might be capable of actual teleportation, before it scared the life out of her by beeping, which is when she discovered some code that pointed to it being a tracker or location device.

  After swiftly disconnecting every wire, sensor, and probe attached to it, she’d stared at it in white-knuckled anticipation, with her heart in her throat, waiting to see if it beeped again. If it did, she would have no choice but to sound the alarm. That would send the entire base into lockdown and put security on high alert, but Mira wasn’t stubborn or foolish enough to put herself and her colleagues in danger just to advance her career.

  Thankfully, to her relief—and a little secret disappointment—it didn’t.

  But, that meant she spent the final two days before the meeting trying and failing, yet again, to find out why it beeped in the first place. This also meant she didn’t have any definitive evidence or findings to present, just a bunch of theories and the half-identified code that prompted those theories. It wasn’t enough to guarantee she’d be kept on the project and damn sure not enough to get her promoted to a bigger one.

  “Just keep your head down and be vague. If I can get through this meeting I’ll have another week to discern what it’s capable of, and then I can present my findings and finally be taken seriously around here,” she whispered to herself as she gathered a notebook and a stack of random files, just so she wasn’t walking into the meeting suspiciously empty handed.

  “Talking to yourself again, Mira?” came a mocking, nasally voice from behind her.

  Yelping sharply in surprise, Mira spun and, purely out of reflex, threw the notebook she’d been holding at the person who’d just scared at least five years off her life.

  Unfortunately, she had good aim.

  It hit her team leader, Calvin, square in the face, making him cry out and stumble back, his own stack of files flying everywhere as he flailed his arms about, trying to defend himself from the unexpected attack.

  Mira snorted a laugh at his uncoordinated flapping, but quickly turned it into a cough when he whipped an outraged look at her, his watery-blue eyes wide with indignation behind his rimless glasses.

  “Sorry about that, Calvin. But you really shouldn’t sneak up on people,” she chastised mildly, then added under her breath, “or eavesdrop like a creeper.”

  Mira bent to retrieve her weaponized notebook while he gathered his scattered files. Exiting the lab, they walked together through the wide, brightly-lit, winding halls to conference room three in silence.

  Mira was focused on repeating her earlier pep talk in her head while Calvin was attempting to give her the cold shoulder for throwing something at his face. The snub might have been more effective if she liked him or even respected him, or if he had any authority to fire her, but she didn’t, and he didn’t, so she was more than okay at not having to endure his thinly-veiled comments that were almost always either sexual or derogatory in nature.

  When they joined the queue of people filing into the conference room, Mira split left and took a seat at the massive, oval table, farthest from the front of the room where Dr. Flannagan, the head scientist at Area 51, and General Harrison waited.

  Setting her papers on the table in front of her, she sat upright in her seat, trying to project confidence while fighting the urge to chew on her pen cap, a nervous habit she couldn’t seem to break. If she thought slouching in her seat and using her small stature to her advantage to go unnoticed would work, she’d have done it in a heartbeat, but General Harrison had the eyes of a hawk and a bad habit of calling out anyone who looked nervous or reluctant. The last thing she wanted was to be put on the spot, not just because she didn’t have anywhere near the evidence she needed, but because she hadn’t sounded the alarm at the device’s unprompted beep.

  The meeting started as it always did, with Dr. Flannagan giving his usual speech about the importance of their work, before he began calling out the names of the various team leaders, asking for updates.

  Considering they weren’t supposed to share details of their individual projects with people outside of their team, she thought the fact that they had group meetings, with everyone that worked on this level present, was a little silly. Everything was spoken of in code words with sparse detail, but if you read between the lines, it wasn’t hard to figure out what everyone was working on, how much progress they’d made, and what they speculated their assignments were capable of. Mira listened avidly and was quite adept at reading between the lines. That was how she knew Team 1 was working on a mostly intact, though so far inoperable, ship that they suspected was capable of faster-than-light travel.

  Mira had her sights set on joining Team 1.

  Unlike her colleagues, whose interpersonal skills left something to be desired, and who weren’t terribly adept at reading social cues, Mira was quite perceptive of other people. It was a necessary skill she’d honed during her childhood. It was how she’d managed to survive relatively unscathed living in numerous foster and group homes until she’d finally been booted out of the system at eighteen. She may not have escaped completely unharmed, but neither had she suffered the abuse to which so many others had been subjected.

  “How is progress coming on Project-XJ737? Mr. Stewart?”

  The question sent a jolt through Mira, bringing her attention back to the meeting. That was the designation assigned to her device.

  “Ah, that project is still being headed by Ms. Bennett. Mira? Any progress to speak of?” Calvin asked, leaning forward to look down the table at her past the people separating them.

  Hearing the snide tone in his voice, that he made only the smallest of efforts to disguise, she darted a glance at him and caught the little smirk curling his thin lips.

  Asshat. Still, should’ve seen that coming after the notebook to the face incident.

  Mira cleared her throat and looked at Dr. Flannagan, who was staring at her expectantly from the front of the conference room. For just a moment, before good sense kicked back in, she considered sharing her findings. No one knew more about that stubborn device than she did, regardless of the fact that Team 3 worked on it for six months before pawning it off on Team 7, who sent it to Team 12 where Calvin himself worked on it for a few months before giving it to her.

  She had a complete map of the electrical diagram, knew every wire, tool mark, and connector. She’d made some progress in translating the strange, alien language the code was written in and had even discovered the possible purposes behind said code. She wanted to brag about her success, but now wasn’t the time. She had to wait. When she made conclusive determinations where everyone else had failed and proven herself invaluable, then she would present her findings.

  “Not much progress to speak of. I’m recording all the data and going through it with a fine-toothed comb. I’ve got a few theories, however, and expect to have more to report at the next department meeting,” she announced, keeping her tone calm and professional, which purposefully emphasized Calvin’s rudeness, something she saw worked when Dr. Flannagan flicked a disapproving glance at him.

  Going back over it in her head, she thought she’d done well. She’d given him hope, but not too much, kept it vague so it didn’t sound like she hadn't accomplished anything, but nothing to reveal how much progress she’d really made.

  Hm. Not too shabby at this subterfuge thing after all.

  “Very good. Well, I believe we’ve covered everyone. You may return to your work, and I’ll expect to have everyone’s comprehensive reports on my desk by this evening.”

  Mira gath
ered her things and stood with everyone else, catching the speculative, narrow-eyed look Calvin sent her way as she turned to leave, and realized she may have given a little too much away.

  5

  Zaek

  It took Zaek three days of flying to reach the spot where the tracker was leading him. Only being able to fly at night, and having to find a suitably hidden spot in which to sleep and hole up during the day, meant it took longer than he’d anticipated, but he’d made it to the deserts of Nevada without any issues.

  He’d brought enough food and water to last him twice that, which was a damn good thing considering where the tracker brought him. Zaek expected to find the beacon half buried in the sand somewhere, not in what was quite obviously an Earthian military base.

  “This complicates things,” he mumbled, scanning what he could see of the low buildings spread out in front of him.

  “Of course, it complicates things. Why point out the obvious?” he snipped back to himself, rolling his eyes as he adjusted his wings slightly.

  He’d made it past the motion sensors, cameras, and little flying toys until he was about five hundred feet from the farthest outbuilding, then stoned his wings and spread them into a dome over his body so he’d look like a rock to any scans. He didn’t match the surrounding rocks perfectly, being that both his skin and his stone were dark grey in color, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

  His primary breed was warrior class and his secondary was science, so he didn’t have the camouflage capability unique to the spy class and the camo feature on his suit was long ago worn out from use. While on Duras, and even during military campaigns to Niruba, he hadn’t had many opportunities to bemoan the lack of ability to shift his color naturally, but life on Earth had given rise to plenty of situations where the ability to blend with his surroundings would have come in handy.

  He hoped looking like an out of-place rock was enough to hide him from detection, even if it might not hold up to closer examination. He couldn’t afford to get caught. Khargals may be exceedingly hard to kill, but they weren’t impervious to harm, and humans had come a long way since carrying metal sticks as they had when he’d crashed here. Besides, he watched plays on TV. He knew about humans’ horrific treatment of aliens, though he’d never personally met any of the ones that visited this planet. He had less-than-no desire to be cut up and have his insides played with for the rest of his days. He had a mission, and his brethren, whether they knew it or not, were counting on him.

  Pulling his sigil out of his suit, he relayed a quick message to Aeron, one of his Senior Officers, telling him where he was and that he’d located the beacon, just in case anything happened and he failed in his mission. He hadn’t anticipated finding it under guard, and most definitely not so heavily. An answering ping told him the message was received and verified. Aeron would pick up his mission if he failed.

  A backup plan, or six, never injured anyone.

  That finished, he settled in to wait, making note of all the surveillance equipment he could see and planning ways to circumvent them. When night fell, he’d do some reconnaissance to pinpoint exactly where among the many buildings the beacon was being held.

  He assumed they wouldn’t leave it completely unattended, but if he made his move during the very early hours of morning, before the sun rose, he thought there was a good chance they would have minimal personnel guarding it, and those personnel might very well be tired and, therefore, less observant.

  Zaek spent the day snacking on the little rocks around him, watching the comings and goings of the people on the base, observing their patterns and routines, and keeping track of their numbers and firepower.

  When it was finally time to scout, he shifted his outermost layer of skin to stone, so he wouldn’t show up on any thermal sensors. It made moving difficult, and took a lot of energy to hold, but it was necessary. Very carefully, he crept around the perimeter, listening to the quiet, steady beeps of the tracker in his supply bag and waiting for it to ping when it came within closer proximity of the beacon.

  After at least two hours of sneaking, he got what he was waiting for. Unfortunately, the signal wasn’t coming from any building in particular, but instead from an empty area near one of the runways.

  It took longer than he cared to admit to realize the beacon had to be underground. With that realization came a whole new set of problems.

  If it was underground, there was no way he could dart in, grab the beacon, and dart out again without anyone the wiser. He’d have to find the entrance to the lower levels, gain access, then somehow sneak past what were sure to be extensive security measures until he found it.

  The chances of doing all that without being discovered were slim, even for a warrior class Khargal with centuries of experience.

  Bulldozing his way in was the very last option and one he wasn’t willing to spend much time contemplating. He may have gone a little crazy over the years, but he still had his honor. Part of that was following the Prime Directive, which meant he needed to remain undetected and not harm any Earthians in the retrieval process.

  Perhaps an erosion tactic would work well here.

  It would take longer than he wanted, but he didn’t think such a remote base was accustomed to an abundance of activity. If he set off alarms in little ways that could be attributed to animals, he thought they would, eventually, become accustomed to the disruption. Once they saw that the alarms were false and never presented a threat, they’d get complacent, and their response times would become progressively slower, giving him the time he needed to break in, find the beacon, and get back out.

  After scoping out as much of the base as he could, Zaek scanned the desert around him and picked a new spot that offered a better vantage point in which to spend the coming day.

  Finding a camera within line of sight of his new hiding place, he crept up behind it and adjusted the angle slightly, then quickly retreated to watch. This would tell him how closely they monitored their security and what kind of response they had, as well as their timing.

  Within a couple of minutes, he had his answer.

  He barely made it to his spot before half a dozen white, unmarked trucks, carrying at least five people in each, sped out of one of the biggest buildings. From what he could see, they were all armed with an M27 automatic rifle and a sidearm, but nothing beyond that, nothing that would present any real danger if he were forced to abandon subtlety.

  Over the next three days, he set off alarms at random times throughout the perimeter, and occasionally the interior, of the base. As he’d hoped, their response times got a little slower with every alert. It went from less than two minutes, with six trucks and roughly thirty personnel, to closer to eight minutes with one truck carrying two people.

  More importantly, they left the hangar door open, as if inviting him in.

  6

  Mira

  Mira worked quietly, keeping to herself and studiously avoiding Calvin. He’d, thankfully, lost some of his suspicion over the last few days when he didn’t see her showing any signs of excitement or an increase in the pace of her work.

  She knew she wouldn’t have been able to fly under his radar if he became aware she was staying late, but her routine of falling behind the rush of people leaving to use the restroom worked like a charm. By the time she came back out, everyone was gone, and she could go back to her lab without anyone but the security men the wiser. Mira didn’t worry about those guys outing her. She knew they didn’t really give a damn what the scientists did so long as they followed the rules and didn’t show any signs of subterfuge or alarm.

  Sitting back in her seat, she stretched the kinks out of her back from being hunched over her keyboard for the last… however many hours. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was almost three in the morning.

  “No wonder I’m starving to death.”

  Avoiding the break room was seriously inhibiting her ability to eat. By the time everyone left the lab for the residential are
a, she was so hungry she bordered on hangry, which meant no one wanted to be around her, even if she weren’t actively avoiding them. That might be helpful for her subterfuge, but it was damned uncomfortable for her stomach, not to mention being at fault for the couple of pounds she was sure she’d lost over the last week. She may not have the figure she’d learned most men wanted, but she liked her curves and didn’t have any desire to lose them, particularly not by starvation.

  Mira reached under her work surface for her purse, pulled the heavy thing into her lap, and dug inside, searching for something to fill the hole in her middle. A cracker. One of those bite-sized chocolates. Hell, she’d take a stray Tic Tac at this point, but there was nothing.

  She made a habit of keeping a survival kit of sorts in her bag—a practice developed from growing up in such unstable environments and not knowing where she’d sleep or if the foster family of the week would feed her regularly—but this wasn’t the first time she’d scavenged her purse.

  Sighing, she set it on the table and got up to go raid the break room vending machines. She was nearly out the door when the device made a new noise, startling her. It wasn’t the beep it made almost a week ago, and it wasn’t the low humming sound it’d been making ever since. This sounded like a ping. And it was louder than the last beep had been.

  It was alarming enough to make her forget her empty cavern of a stomach.

  Racing back to her work station, she scanned the data scrolling across the screen and saw that the device had sent out a signal.

  “Everything okay in here, Ms. Bennett?” came a gruff voice from behind her.

  Shit. Shitshitshit.