Found Girl

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “Roger that.”

  The golden lines widened, tightened, and then faded as they dropped into normal space. Their escort did not fade away. They formed a tight escort around them as if testing his piloting abilities. Momentum carried them forward, but he fired his engines in preparation for entering the planet’s atmosphere.

  “Sending planet approach vectors to your station,” Arian said.

  The data popped up on his screen. He wasn’t thrilled about entering atmosphere this cozy with six ships—then the spread widened—the lead ship dropping enough, so Coop didn’t end up tasting their tail feathers when everyone started braking maneuvers.

  “Roger that.” He adjusted course. The alien birds on either side were still close, but the shuttle didn’t seem to mind. She almost flew herself. “Which planet is this?” Coop asked Tiger.

  Tiger tapped some stuff and got a HUD for his station with the in system planets’ data. “It was designated Primary A,” he said. “The big one.”

  That was good. Maybe they’d have resources to share.

  “Lots of smaller planets we didn’t see before,” Tiger murmured.

  “Habitable?”

  “According to preliminary scans, about fifty percent of them are inhabited.”

  Both the docs shifted restlessly in their seats, craning to see the updated HUD.

  “They are scanning us again,” Arian said.

  This time there wasn’t a green line. This one was pink. He tensed. What would they see? And how would they react? It seemed to take a long time to track through the ship, front to back, only fading when there was no more ship left. The wait felt long, but it wasn’t more than thirty seconds before Arian’s station signaled an incoming message.

  “Final approach instructions.” She looked up as if she knew he could see her. “I guess we passed their test.”

  He keyed in the coordinates, adjusting the course himself, watching the clock ticking down for when he needed to fire re-entry engines. They hit the atmosphere and didn’t bounce off. Could feel the little ship fighting its way through. In a smaller ship, it all felt more personal. Every time he did it, he had greater respect for the early astronauts who flew knowing pretty much jack about all this stuff.

  Once more the computer ‘helped’ them out with a visual representation of what it looked like outside the ship—a fireball. Sweat popped out on his skin. “How is she handling the heat?”

  “Like a champ,” Tiger said. “Atmosphere is not that different from Earth, a little thicker maybe.”

  The HUD scrolled a readout of the various elements. He ignored it. All that mattered right now was how bad did the atmosphere want to keep them out, and could they breathe in it when they got there. Suddenly the resistance eased. The protective screen rolled back automatically as they broke through a bank of clouds on a low orbit. It felt good to have eyes on…a desolate looking nothing. “Are you sure those coordinates are right?”

  “Verifying.” After a pause. “They are correct. Initiating a scan—”

  The shuttle jolted or shuddered as if it had passed through an energy barrier of some kind and suddenly there was a whole lot of something to see.

  “Hot damn,” Tiger said.

  Coop couldn’t argue with that. He frowned. That had felt a lot like passing through the Garradian outpost cloaking shield.

  “Is that…” Derwent craned forward but was jerked back by his restraints. His hand went to the release.

  “Don’t even think about it, doc,” Coop warned.

  “Remarkable,” Gessner breathed out.

  It was that. The city—if that’s what it was—looked like something straight out of a sci-fi flick. Rising from a sea of brown, there were a series of spires in varying heights and colors. The brown bore a strong resemblance to mud from up here. But pretty mud, which made his eye twitch. Some of the spires were connected in clusters, others stood alone. The atmosphere had a green tint, which was on the eerie side—just in case being on an unknown planet in an unknown star system wasn’t unsettling enough. There was a lot to see, too much while he was driving, but he did catch a glimpse of a pink river winding through a canyon that he’d have liked to buzz. Still on the course he’d been told to fly, he started looking for a place to land. Everything looked rough or pointy. Didn’t need a lot but they did need a solid stretch of flat. With each decrease in altitude, the ground looked less and less stable, almost like it was all swamp.

  Skimming along just above the tallest of the towers, the only signs of life were patches of what could be plants in areas that might be bodies of water or at least low lying patches of water.

  “Sending you the final approach coordinates,” Arian said. “You should see a platform circled in green lights. We are requested to land there.”

  Or what? Like he didn’t know that. Zapped out of the sky by an alien laser…beak.

  “I see it.” Coop lined them up and throttled back, bringing the shuttle in careful and slow. Didn’t want his flying to piss them off before the talking—or chirping—started. Apparently, they liked green. And pink, don’t forget the pink. The Gadi had liked pink, too, but they’d gotten over it when they bumped heads with the earth expedition a few times.

  The shuttle passed through another protective shield of some kind—apparently, they’d been cleared to land or he had a feeling it would have fried them. He throttled back, making a perfect four-point landing in the circle, before cutting his engines. Take that, aliens. “What’s it like outside, Tiger?”

  “Looks good. Don’t think hay fever is going to be a problem unless the flowers are out of sight. As long as we don’t catch an alien bug, we should be golden.”

  “Our hosts say we won’t need respirators,” Arian said. “The air is particularly clean inside the enclosure.”

  “But shouldn’t we protect them from us?” Derwent asked.

  “They don’t seem too worried,” Coop pointed out. The last scan had been different. It could have decontaminated them. He just hoped it hadn’t done anything else while they were passing through it. He did want to have kids some day.

  Their front screen gave them a nice, almost unobstructed view of the city, or region. He studied the apparently lifeless scene. He’d kind of expected birds to be, well, flying around. Nothing out there or on this platform. He did a quick scan with the various exterior cameras. Nope. No welcoming—or unwelcoming—committee.

  He glanced sideways at Tiger.

  “Maybe E.T. is shy,” Tiger suggested.

  Lights flowed from the outer edge of the circle, making a path from their ship to a shadowy hatch opening in a wall where a spire reached toward the sky. Coop didn’t like it. Could feel his shirt turning from camo to red. Unfortunately, the only other option was to leave. Or try to leave. They were here to talk, to hopefully get some help, and he had a feeling that now that they were here, inside this hidden city, leaving wasn’t going to be that easy. The fly was well and truly in the web. Would the birds object to being compared to spiders? He didn’t know, but he hoped these birds—if they ever showed their beaks—were vegetarians.

  He unstrapped and got up, turning to face his team. No one looked too thrilled, except the Marines who just looked like Marines. And the dragon who couldn’t emote.

  Tiger opened his mouth, probably to object, but closed it again. “Watch your back, Banshee,” he finally said.

  “And you.” Wasn’t sure who had it the worst, those going to meet the aliens or those who had to wait and wonder. Coop activated the rear hatch. Thick, warm air rushed in. It didn’t smell bad, but the hairs on the back of his neck rose. It was so alien. D’oh. “You’re in charge, Tiger. Monitor events and if you suspect a Charlie Foxtrot, well, you know what to do.” Tiger had been briefed by Pappy. Coop glanced at the two scientists. “Neither of you has to go if you don’t want to. The aliens said we couldn’t have more than five leave the ship. Didn’t say five of us had to go.” Pappy had told him to give them the out. And they looked like t
hey could use it.

  Both men visibly hesitated. This was not the “boldly going” they’d signed up for.

  “If you’d like to make some observations from here, we’d all understand.” He didn’t say, if the aliens got nasty, they were probably all red shirts. The pucker factor was high on this op, no question.

  “I…” Gessner teetered on the edge, then his mouth thinned to a straight line. “I’m coming.” He almost managed to smile. “It is what I signed up for.” He swallowed and fumbled his way upright.

  Derwent got up without a yay or nay.

  Coop turned to Arian and the dragon, wishing he could offer her—them—an out. Arian rose, her gaze calm, but not like the blank calm when they’d met the first time. This was different. Because he was a guy, he didn’t know what made it different, but it made the hair on the back of his neck rise for a variety reasons. She settled into her version of the military stance. Dang, he’d like to plant one on her. For luck. And in case…

  We are ready.

  With some heat in his face from this reminder the dragon could hear him, Coop stalked toward the rear of the shuttle. He felt naked without something that could point and shoot. Not even a hidden knife tucked in his sock, in case the aliens could see down to his bones—why did that make him think about drumsticks?

  “I’ll go out first. Wait for, oh, a ten-count before you follow me.”

  Arian, who had followed him, now looked up at him, blinking slowly. “Why?”

  He didn’t know how to answer without freaking her and the docs out. “Because I asked?”

  The smile was quick, the sly look from under half mast lashes stabbed him right in the heart.

  “All right.”

  He looked at the docs but didn’t say it. If the shooting started, they probably knew not to come out.

  With a final nod to Tiger, he took a breath, reached for the P-90 that wasn’t there, sighed and dropped his hands to his side. Walk casual, but confident, he told himself. Easier said than done. A fine line between the two, too fine for a flyboy. Not to mention, he’d always had trouble with thin lines. He gave his shoulders a shake, then started down. His footsteps sounded loud against the ramp in the eerie silence of the alien planet. Didn’t feel natural on a planet that looked, well, natural instead of high tech.

  At the bottom, he hesitated about stepping down onto alien soil, well, alien some kind of surface. Felt like he ought to say something profound, but the best line had been used. And what if he was stepping into a human sucking trap? He’d feel really stupid for turning a red shirt moment into something profound. Not to mention, he sucked at profound. And he’d seen way too many alien abduction movies.

  One step for mankind, or dinner. What the hell. He jumped lightly onto the surface, landing with both feet. Didn’t suck him into anything. It was solid, a little rough—kinda looked like that teapot his ex girlfriend had picked up in New Mexico, only flat. Because it was a platform and not a pot.

  Maybe he should think of something else since he had a dragon in his thoughts.

  The path of lights stretched toward the opening in a straight line from their rear hatch—which was kind of weird because he could have sworn it had appeared in front of the ship. He moved forward until he was clear of the shuttle and could draw fire if the aliens planned to shoot them.

  Okay, didn’t seem to be the plan. He looked around. View hadn’t changed much, but he could see the four, well, they weren’t corners, because the platform was round, but four positions, like guard stations. He couldn’t see any guards or weapons, but he felt the cross-hairs of at least one alien ray gun on his chest.

  He looked back at the shuttle, wondering now that it was too late, if Arian knew what a ten count was. Felt lame just standing here. He resisted the urge to kick something—since there wasn’t anything to kick. Just platform and lines. He looked down. The temptation to step outside was almost overwhelming. Too bad Pappy knew Coop that well. His orders had been meticulously precise. Don’t step out of line and don’t screw this up by talking too much. He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets, resisted the urge to whistle. The silence was really silent.

  If it hadn’t been for the tingle on the back of his neck, he might have enjoyed the view. This was what he’d thought it would be like standing on Mars, except for the structures. And the lighting. Okay, so maybe not that much like Mars but this was beyond Mars. Way beyond it.

  There was the scrabble of claws against metal as Arian and her dragon came down the ramp. He turned and watched them approach, both of them rubber-necking.

  “It is very…” her voice trailed off, she cleared her throat. “It’s very high.”

  “You didn’t do high on your planet?” She shook her head. “Then when you went down the shaft…”

  “It was my first time at that as well,” she confessed.

  “If I’d known you were afraid of heights—” he rubbed the back of his neck.

  “How could you know what I did not?”

  A reasonable woman. Wow. He glanced back. Had Derwent and Gessner bailed on them? There was no reason for them to do a ten count. Just then Derwent peered out, then came down the ramp in a nervous stumble. After a brief pause, Gessner followed him.

  “Point of no return.”

  Gessner stared past him, his jaw on the slack side, and finally shook his head. “I…no.”

  The whites of his eyes made him look a bit bug-eyed. If they really were meeting some birds, he might want to work on that. Coop cocked a brow at Derwent. He gave an uncertain nod. Then a more determined one.

  “Let’s do this then.” Coop turned and led his motley crew toward the opening at the end of the green trail. The surface, whatever it was, muted most of the sound of their footsteps, except the click of the dragon claws. Coop’s heart rate might have kicked up a bit. There was a faint hum coming from somewhere. Could swear he could hear all five of them breathing. Someone smacked their lips together. Could one hear their adrenaline rising? Felt like all of him was on high alert, for all the good that did him. He knew some hand-to-hand, but he was a flyboy, not an ass kicker.

  The opening loomed larger the closer they got. It was big. And shadowy, or something more than shadowy. He couldn’t see past the opening. A bit like looking into the fog. Another reminder of the Garradian outpost. The portals were kind of like this. The hairs on his arms rose.

  Don’t hesitate, Banshee. Just keep going. Yeah, the chips were gonna fall where they were gonna fall. Nothing was gonna change that now. His life didn’t exactly flash before his eyes, but he was aware of a few things he wished he’d done. Needed to stop thinking about kissing, sooner rather than later, though what good it did to be on high alert when he didn’t have a weapon…

  The opening loomed and then he was in it. For a minute, he felt like he’d shifted sideways. When he shifted the other way, he staggered, then steadied. Realized he was on his feet and in a room. His gaze narrowed. Oh yeah, that was a lot like Garradian portal transport. Was gonna take a wild guess that they weren’t anywhere near that arrival platform anymore. And possibly well out of radio signal range with Tiger.

  His wingman wasn’t going to like that.

  Coop didn’t like it.

  Was it good that this place didn’t look like the outposts? Looked and felt like his dentist’s office. All that was missing were the chairs. And the elevator music. And Doc Payne in his surgical scrubs.

  His other companions arrived in varying states of confusion. Arian had an expression he hadn’t seen on her face before.

  “I think we were transported to another place,” he said.

  She placed a hand on her stomach. “It was a bit unsettling.”

  “What do you mean, transported?” Derwent asked, showing the whites of his eyes now, too.

  Coop opened his mouth to explain, then closed it. How to explain without saying Garradian? Had these two needed to know about portals? Before he could figure how to explain without explaining, a panel in the
wall directly in front of them slid open.

  18

  The tension Arian felt reminded her of waiting for an Enforcer examination, but this was not Bosakli. An Enforcer was not coming through the opening. An alien was. Which, for now, still seemed preferable to an Enforcer.

  There was a stir in the shadows, a sort of flutter of wings. Did she think this because they believed these aliens were birds, or because wings had fluttered in there? She heard a scrape of something against the floor, and the first alien entered the room.

  She felt her jaw slacken, tried to close it, and could not. She had thought it a mental adjustment to meet the non-human Rhubreak but this…

  The alien was broad across the chest, perhaps two of her widths and taller even than Coop, who was the tallest of their group. Its body was clearly avian, with an aerodynamic curve from front to back. It was hard to be sure of its exact shape because it wore protective coverings on its head, chest, and legs. Protection also seemed to extend along its back and sides, but that protection—if that is what it was—had a different appearance, somewhat translucent, she decided, since it exposed the pattern of feathers. But it could be an illusion.

  The long legs bent backward as it walked toward them. She stared. The way it walked made the gait an unusual mix of ungainly and graceful. Its neck made a long, gentle curve from head to body.

  The head was also…very avian in shape but disconcerting to one who had never seen a bird of that size. Where it connected to the neck, it almost seemed an extension of that neck, but then it flowed into a narrow beak that made a substantial curve downward on the end, like a hook. This beak was pink where it connected to the head, but had a slash of dark dead center. Its eyes were dark beads in a circle of white.

  Its head rose high as the arch of the neck lessened, and it looked down on them with an imperiousness that reminded her of…something. It did not look anything like the birds on Bosakli—in so many ways, she lacked time to list them. One difference she could not help but notice, was it’s webbed feet splayed on the white stone floor.