In the Presence of My Enemies

by Stephen A. Fender

  Tausan looked from one human to another before responding to their gaze. “Our bodies can withstand the vacuum of space for a short time without the need for specialized equipment.”

  Shawn had heard as much in the form of rumors, but had never witnessed the spectacle first hand. “How long is a short time? I don’t want to have to haul your body back to the ship.”

  The Kafaran officer grunted, and it was nearly impossible to tell which human he was looking at with his red, pupilless eyes. “By human standards, it would be just over three hours.”

  “Is that going to be enough time, Commander?” Wilcox asked, his voice now muffled by the helmet he had just placed on.

  Shawn fought the urge to shrug. “Let’s hope so.” Turning to Melissa, he reached out a hand that she slowly grasped in her own. “Trent will be monitoring us the whole time.”

  “And so will I.”

  “I’ll call every fifteen minutes.”

  “You’d better.”

  Shawn offered a weak smile, then placed his helmet on and locked it onto the collar with a slight twist. He gave her a thumbs up, to which she smiled and exited the compartment to stand near the airlock controls. When the door had sealed itself, she wasted little time in depressurizing the compartment. Shawn looked to Wilcox, who was still standing at the ready. He then turned to Tausan, wondering if the Kafaran’s rough exterior would show any sign of discomfort in the now airless space. How the alien could hold its breath for three hours wasn’t as much of a mystery. There were any number of Terran species of mammals and amphibians that could hold their breath far longer than three hours, and many more alien species that could do the same. With no outward side of discomfort on the colonel’s pallid, hairless face, Shawn opened the door leading into the Mark-IV’s hold. Moving through the nearly empty space, the trio made their way to D’s rear cargo hatch.

  “Everyone ready?” Shawn asked. Wilcox responded with the requisite “affirmative,” and Tausan merely nodded his head, unable to speak in the airless void.

  When the ramp was fully extended, Wilcox was the first out, moving slowly but efficiently toward a position just aft of the Mark-IV. His rifle now held in an alert stance, he signaled for Shawn and the colonel to make their way out. Shawn reached down, verifying for the third time that his pistol was charged, then made his way down the ramp to Wilcox’s position.

  Raising the computer on his wrist closer to his face, Shawn keyed in a link to D’s communication system. “Trent, the computer said there was a faint energy reading nearby. Think you can convince it to let me know where the signal is coming from?”

  “Stand by,” Trent’s voice called out from the headset in Shawn’s helmet. “The signal is about thirty feet to your left, near the edge of the hangar door.”

  “That was quick,” Shawn said, turning to the indicated direction.

  “What can I say? I have a way with computers.”

  Shining his helmet-mounted light in the direction of the hangar door, Shawn caught the glint of something metallic near the large doorframe. “I’ve got something.”

  Wilcox was the first to respond, stepping quickly past Shawn as he headed for the object with his weapon raised.

  Shawn looked over his shoulder to see Tausan looking in the direction of the Marine, but then turned his attention back to Wilcox, who had arrived at the edge of the hangar bay. “What do you have, Sergeant?”

  “Looks like a droid of some kind, sir. Judging by the types of fixtures attached to its arms, I’d say it’s a modified cargo robot.”

  Careful not to overshoot his target, Shawn shuffled his magnetic boots to get a closer look at the robot. “Can you tell how long it’s been active?”

  With one hand gripping his rifle, Wilcox reached out and entered a series of commands into the small keypad on the droid’s back. “I can’t decipher the display text, but the graph indicator shows that a quarter-charge is present. It looks like it activated the hangar manual door release and then just … stopped.”

  “That was probably the last instruction it received,” Shawn said, turning back to the nearly empty hangar bay.

  “Do you think whoever left this here was trying to get their ship inside the carrier?”

  The light on Shawn’s helmet fell on the war-weary Seminole fighter just forward and to the left of Sylvia’s Delight. “Or trying to get something out.” He bounded over to the fighter to give it a closer inspection. Holding up his computer, Shawn performed a detailed scan of the craft. The readings indicated that the Seminole was likely a hangar queen—a craft that had long passed her useful life as a fighter and was being cannibalized to support more capable ships. Outwardly, the craft was remarkably intact, but a more detailed scan showed that most of her internal conduits, computers, and all weapon systems had been removed, making the ship all but useless. “If this is what they were after, then they were going to leave empty-handed. This thing wouldn’t be worth its weight in scrap materials.” Glancing at a spot near the edge of the fighter’s canopy, Shawn could see three finger-shaped furrows made into the thin layer of ice surrounding the craft. Shawn turned back to Wilcox and the Kafaran standing beside him. “Power down that droid and move it into D’s cargo hold. The techs on the Rhea may be able to extract something useful from its databanks when we get back.”

  Wilcox did as he was asked, then returned a moment later to stand by Shawn and the parted-out fighter craft. “Time to take a look at that Akturian vessel, sir?”

  “The sooner the better.” Shawn looked down to his computer, bringing up a detailed map of their location. “There’s a passageway just over there leading to a stairwell. Take point, Sergeant.”

  Wilcox looked over to Tausan, who could neither speak nor hear in the vacuum. “What about him, sir?”

  “He’ll be behind you, and I’ll take the rear.”

  Wilcox grunted, then headed for the open doorway at the opposite end of the hangar. Shawn pointed first to Tausan, then to the Marine. Nodding in understanding, the Kafaran fell in several feet behind Wilcox. Reaching down, Shawn withdrew his sidearm, mindful of exactly who and where he was orienting the weapon.

  At the end of the short corridor, Wilcox came to the aforementioned stairwell. Wide enough to accommodate three men side by side, the trio filed up the first flight in line with one another. Rounding their first run, Wilcox quickly brought the team to a halt.

  “Sir, I’ve got something.”

  Shining his light to merge with the Marines, Shawn was greeted by the eviscerated, frozen remains of an Akturian. The alien’s suit had been torn open in several places, exposing the fragile creature inside to the harsh vacuum outside. The face was drawn, with an expression of terror etched for eternity. A blob of green-gray organic material, likely the Akturian’s innards, were frozen solid as they had oozed out from a large gash across its abdomen.

  “What the hell could have done this, sir?” Wilcox asked, his weapon pointed squarely at the body.

  “Look like some kind of wild animal got ahold of him.”

  Tausan slowly pushed the two men aside as he leaned down to inspect the corpse. Reaching out, he fingered the edge of the Akturian’s torn suit with his claw-like fingernail. Examining the material for a second longer, Tausan stood tall, and to Shawn looked both alert and concerned as the Kafaran gazed up the next flight of stairs.

  “Sure looks like something spooked him,” Wilcox said, following the Kafaran’s ruby eyes to the empty landing above.

  “Can’t say I blame him,” Shawn said, scanning the body with his computer. “Getting some odd readings.”

  “Shawn?” Melissa’s voice called to him nervously. “Report.”

  “We’ve got a body. It’s pretty torn up. We’ll have to check these readings out later, though. We’re running out of time,” he said, as much to Melissa as to Wilcox. “Continue on point, Sergeant.”

  “Aye,” the Marine replied, taking extra caution as he ascended the stairs. At the top, the team was greeted by a
long passageway.

  Trent’s voice came over the communication channel. “The signal is coming from directly ahead.”

  Shawn scanned the area behind them, then turned his attention forward. “Understood.”

  Fifty yards down the corridor, they came to another body that was curled up next to a closed airlock door. Wilcox trained his weapon toward the unmoving form, and Shawn reached down to turn the body over. This Akturian had fared less fortunately than the previous one. One arm was missing, as was one leg and half the other. A large object had perforated the chest cavity and gone clean through the body.

  “We’ve got another one,” Shawn said, addressing Melissa. “Looks like whatever killed the first Akturian got this guy, too.”

  “Any indication of what it was?” she asked.

  Shawn turned to Tausan, who was looking around the corridor with marked fascination. “I think the colonel might, but I’m not positive. Something sure has him on edge, that’s for certain. We’re at the door to the docking ring. Once we get inside and pressurize the area, maybe he’ll enlighten us.”

  Moving the body aside, Wilcox opened the airlock and the team slowly stepped inside and closed the hatch. Once the thirty-foot-long tube connecting the Akturian vessel to the Sector Command carrier was pressurized, Shawn and Wilcox in turn removed their helmets.

  “Okay,” Shawn said, immediately turning to Tausan. “What’s got you so spooked?”

  Closing his eyes, Tausan took several deeps breaths before speaking. “I do not believe we are alone on this vessel, Commander.”

  “Could you be little more specific?” Shawn asked impatiently.

  “The bodies of those Akturians. I have seen this before.”

  “Me too,” Wilcox chimed in. “In a nightmare.”

  Shawn, ever thankful he’d brought his sidearm, quickly withdrew it. “What did this, Colonel?”

  “A very dangerous one.”

  “No crap,” Wilcox snorted.

  “Get the door to the salvage ship open, Sergeant.” Shawn said, then turned to Tausan, quickly losing patience. “I hope you and that little translator of yours can be a little more specific in the next five seconds.”

  Tausan looked to the Marine opening the door, then faced Shawn, cocking his head as the translator put narration to his clicks and grunts. “Meltranians.”

  “What?” Shawn asked in confusion, but was immediately distracted by a scream from the far side of the room. He turned in time to see Wilcox hoisted from his feet by some unseen force, then flung down the corridor until he impacted with Tausan. Stunned, the colonel fell backward under the impact. That was when Shawn clearly saw the threat.

  The creature, for there was no better explanation, was easily ten feet tall. Bipedal, with grayish-purple skin and rearward hinged legs, it hunched down as it traversed the doorway, then stood upright. It had two elongated arms, with two claw-tipped forearms jutting from each of the two elbows, giving the Meltranian four dangerous-looking grapples. The elongated head was split vertically from between the creature’s four yellow eyes to the bottom of its pointed chin, and the crown of its head pointed back with an overlapping series of sharp, scale-like layers. The Meltranian advanced slowly, its clawed, three-toed feet stamping loudly on the deck as it did so.

  Shawn was quick to aim his pistol, firing several rounds at the alien. Blue-white bolts of energy crackled from his gun, which seemed to have no ill effect on the alien other than halting its advance. Shawn began stepping back, continuing to fire at the creature as he quickly ran out of maneuvering room.

  “You are only succeeding in making it stronger!” Tausan yelled from the floor over the din of the discharging pistol.

  “If you’ve got any ideas, pasty-face, I’m all ears!” Shawn screamed in response.

  Unseen by Shawn, Tausan scurried to his feet. Reaching beneath one of the armor plates on his dark bodysuit, the Kafaran withdrew a short, curved dagger. “Aim for its eyes, Commander, to distract it.”

  “Distract it?” Shawn yelled, doing as he was told. “Distract it from what?”

  Shawn watched as the beams from his weapon impacted the octal region of the creature, appearing for all intents as if they were being absorbed into the Meltranian’s body. Beside Shawn there was a flurry of moment, and he realized that Tausan was rushing toward the alien. “Get back here, you crazy idiot!”

  Trying to maintain his aim, Shawn watched as Tausan grabbed ahold of one of the Meltranian’s elbows, then used it as leverage to spin to the backside of the creature. The glint of something caught Shawn’s attention, and the commander mistakenly fired a round that impacted with the armor protecting Tausan’s left shoulder, charring but otherwise not damaging it.

  “Take care with your aim,” the Kafaran shouted.

  “You think this is easy?”

  “Do you think this is?” Tausan grunted, using all his immense strength to keep the Meltranian as immobile as possible.

  Shawn watched as Tausan hefted his knife before plunging it into the Meltranian’s neck. The response was immediate, and the creature lurched its spike-like head back. The intended impact was stopped by one of the Kafaran’s armor plates, but the creature kept jerking its rearward assault until a strike got into a kink in the Kafaran’s armor. Yelping in pain, Tausan was forced to release the creature, who immediately staggered to the ground, the knife still buried deep in its neck. A purple, syrup-like fluid oozed from the wound.

  Shawn ceased firing, taking a moment to check on Wilcox, who was lying at his feet. The Marine was unmoving, a large tear in the chest of his suit. And there was blood. A great deal of it. Shawn risked leaning down to check for the man’s pulse. Just as his fingers brushed Wilcox’s throat, the Meltranian leapt to its feet.

  Shawn once again began firing his weapon, which was just as useless as before, and quickly depleted his pistol. Tossing the empty weapon aside, he reached for the fallen Marine’s pulse rifle. Heeding Tausan’s warning, Shawn flipped the weapon from energy rounds to conventional projectiles. Firing in long bursts, round after round hitting the advancing creature. Some seemed to penetrate, while others appeared to bounce off. With a limited amount of ammunition, Shawn knew his options were quickly running out. Even if he could open the airlock and get back into the corridor, Wilcox would be killed by the instant vacuum that would form. If he wasn’t already dead. Besides, with his own helmet on the floor and between himself and the Meltranian, it would mean a quick death for Shawn as well.

  The Meltranian lurched to within striking distance, raising two of its clawed hands in a move that Shawn knew to be the precursor of a death stroke. As the two mighty arms began their descent, a dark, armored forearm wrapped itself over the Meltranian’s eyes and jerked the creature’s head back in a move that would have snapped a human’s neck instantly. Shawn watched as Tausan, momentarily recovered from his injury, firmly grasped the knife embedded in the Meltranian’s throat. In one swift, powerful movement, the Kafaran pulled the knife along the valley of two plates in the creature’s skin, and with his multi-jointed wrist, neatly decapitated the Meltranian.

  Purple blood sprang from the mortal wound as the Meltranian’s lifeless body crumpled to the floor, leaving Shawn gaping up from the floor at the Kafaran who still held the Meltranian’s head as if it were a trophy. Holding the creature’s face to his own, Tausan looked into the dead eyes of the Meltranian, then tossed the prize aside as if were garbage. “Disgusting creatures.”

  “The first hurdles in getting the Kafarans and the Unified Collaboration working together were leapt with a great deal of kicking and screaming at nearly every level in the chain of command except for the one that truly mattered—by the people out there doing the fighting and the dying. I’d never in my life seen two cultures work so well together so quickly. It was incredible, but it also frightened me to my very core.”

  —Senior Agent Melissa D. Graves

  Deputy Commander, Office of Special Investigation

  Interfac
ing with New Cultures: A Field Agent’s Guide to Dealing with the Unknown, 10th Edition.

  Chapter 6

  Melissa’s voice was near-frantic as she called to the team over the communications channel. “Shawn, what’s going on? What’s happening?”

  Shawn, still dazed from the vicious, lightning-fast attack by the Meltranian, stared down at the headless corpse at his feet. It wasn’t until after Melissa’s second volley of questioning that he managed to pull himself to his feet and address her. “We were attacked. Wilcox is down.”

  “Attacked? By what?”

  Shawn looked over to Tausan, who was still standing victoriously over their attacker’s head. “The colonel says it was a Meltranian.”

  “Was? Meaning you killed it.”

  “No,” Shawn said slowly. “Colonel Tausan did—and quite effectively, I might add.”

  Tausan shifted his gaze to Shawn. The commander noted what could almost be described as pride in the Kafaran’s eye.

  “What about Wilcox?” she continued. “He’s hurt?”

  Tausan turned from the decapitated head and leaned down toward Wilcox, then ran a finger around the opening the alien had town in the sergeant’s environmental suit. There was a great deal of blood, and judging by the depth of the wound, Shawn doubted the Marine had survived the surprise attack.

  “He’s dead,” Tausan offered somberly. “And we should all be thankful for such.”

  “Why is that?” Shawn asked.

  “The attack by the Meltranian infected him with what we call the Shadow Syndrome.”

  Shawn gave the Kafaran a look of confusion, wondering if the colonel’s voice translator was acting up. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”