Super World Two

by Lawrence Ambrose

  "There appears to be a lot of technology on the walls," said Kushner. "Which some of these beings seem to be attending. But that could be misleading. We should check out the rest of the ship."

  They drifted along – at one point briefly appearing just outside the ship – until Dennis hastily corrected course and they resumed traversing the length of the alien vessel. The water-filled interior abruptly transitioned into a dry environment that looked to have been ripped from the landscape of Earth. Perhaps prehistoric Earth, from the herd of woolly mammoths that rumbled by in a vast field of tall grass speckled by tall, thickly blooming trees.

  "Are those mammoths?" Dennis asked in disbelief.

  "Looks that way," said Jamie. "Must be some kind of preserve."

  "They were saving people in the mothership," said Kushner. "Saving other Earth life forms would be a logical extension of that."

  "I don't know." Jamie spotted what appeared to be people, and zoomed in on a cluster of heavily built red-haired men gathering in the grass near the mammoths. "I'm having a bad feeling about this."

  "Bad, how?" Tildie asked.

  "It doesn't seem to be adding up. Those things swimming around – I don't believe they're Elementals. The ones I've met were definitely human-like in form, and they claim to be related to us."

  "We don't know of any aquatic alien civilizations." Kushner rubbed his lower lip. "Of course, there's a lot we don't know about many of them. How much faith do you place in your psychic?"

  "A fair amount of faith, I guess. But she can be wrong."

  "Maybe we should go back and talk to her," said Dennis.

  "Or Captain Cameron," said Kushner. "He might know something I don't."

  "Okay." Dennis closed his eyes, focusing. "Here we go."

  They reappeared in a darkened bridge, causing startled breaths and people to back off. Captain Zane Cameron stepped through the group, grim-faced, to greet them.

  "What's going on?" he demanded. "What did you do down there?"

  "Nothing," said Jamie. "We just looked around and decided to come back. What happened here?"

  "They shut down our communications, weapons systems, and antimatter engines. Pat, our AI, is offline. We have life support and a few other basic necessities, and that's about it."

  "But they didn't destroy the ship," said Major Harrington.

  "No." Captain Cameron rubbed his jaw. "If you didn't do anything to antagonize them, I'm guessing they're just taking precautionary steps."

  "I don't think the Elementals would destroy you unless you attacked them," said Jamie. "That wouldn't be their style."

  "Not to be technical or anything," said Lieutenant Mallory, pushing through the remaining team, "but they attacked us. We were just sitting here."

  "They must take exception to us being so close," said Kushner. "Regard us as a possible threat."

  "Why did you come back?" Cameron asked Jamie.

  "They don't seem to be Elementals, Captain," she said. "Most of the ship is filled with water."

  "Or some liquid medium," Kushner said.

  "And there's some kind of Earth nature preserve on one end," Tildie chipped in. "We saw mammoths!"

  "Did the other starships show up?" asked Major Harrington.

  "Yes," said Captain Cameron. "They were standing off ten million miles out. If they haven't been decommissioned, they'd know we are."

  "If they are out of commission," said Lieutenant Mallory, "the alien ship could take off at any moment – or it could decide to move up its Armageddon plan – in which case we're shit outta luck."

  "Dude has a point," said Jake. "I say we get back in that ship before it hightails it the fuck out of here or blows us into space debris."

  "If they wanted to do that," said Cameron, "why haven't they already done it? I think the most likely scenario is that they're rendering us dead in the water so they can leave in peace."

  Jacob Kushner joined the Captain in massaging his face. "Once they take off, we may never find them again. Or not find them in time."

  Cameron shook his head. "If they were planning to destroy Earth you'd think they wouldn't show us any mercy."

  Jamie turned to their resident psychic. "Kim-Ly? Are you getting anything new about this ship?"

  "It's leaving."

  The bridge lit up.

  "Pat?" asked Captain Cameron. "If you're back with us, report."

  "All systems operational, sir," Pat's unaccented gender-neutral voice stated. "I've detected a shutdown of my core processors beginning at UTC 12:34:32 and ending 12:41:12. I assume our ship's systems were temporarily compromised by the alien vessel."

  "Safe assumption. Is the alien vessel still in the area?"

  "I cannot detect any indication of its presence, Captain Cameron."

  "Can you determine how it disabled our systems?"

  An uncharacteristically long few seconds passed before Pat replied, "The relevant power channels appear to have been shut down individually. There is no indication that an energy-dampening field was employed."

  "They reached in with an invisible hand and turned off quantum computing gateways," Kushner mused. "I know of no technology – not even a theory of technology – that could achieve that."

  "What else is new," Lieutenant Mallory grumbled.

  The com lights flashed blue.

  "Accept," said Captain Cameron.

  The three other starship commanders appeared in the default image display area – plus General Martin Akron, from his Space Command office.

  "We lost communication with all of you for nearly seven minutes," said General Akron. "I'd appreciate a report, starting with you, Captain Cameron."

  "Sir, we successfully teleported a team inside the alien ship. The team had some question about the identity of aliens, and returned. The alien craft disabled several of our control systems, including communication and transport. Apparently, it's gone now – or is undetectable by our telemetry."

  "Same here, General," said Captain Horace Lindley, and was echoed by the other starship commanders.

  General Akron sat with his head cocked as though hearing unsavory voices, Jamie thought. She had a good guess whose voice he was hearing.

  "I'm assuming long-range sensors are showing nothing," the USSC leader stated more than asked. When the others confirmed that, he nodded, his gaze growing distant. "Can the psychic, Kim-Ly acquire a new location for them?"

  Kim-Ly lowered her head in concentration for several seconds before murmuring in the negative.

  "Excuse me," Dennis spoke up. "But I think I still have a teleportation link to the alien ship."

  General Akron's eyes were in good company when they lit up. "Are you saying...you can still take a team there?"

  "I think so." He was frowning a little under Jamie's hard gaze. "It's hard to explain, but once you've been somewhere you keep connected with it. I've experienced it a few other times, but with nothing so far away."

  "It might not be far away," said Kushner. "It could simply be cloaked."

  "Then why did it bother to disable the ships?" Harrington asked.

  "I would guess to prevent us from detecting what it was doing – whether that was departing or cloaking."

  "Regardless," the General broke in, "I am authorizing a return to the alien vessel immediately, courtesy of Mr. Shepherd."

  "And then what?" Jake asked, adding as an after-thought: "Sir."

  "You are to disable the craft, avoiding harm to the crew insofar as possible."

  "Right. Not like that could get messy at all."

  General Akron regarded Jake with flinty eyes. "I've read your file, Sergeant Culler. It suggests you have some experience in creating and then cleaning up messes."

  ON THOSE ominous words their mission re-launched, after no more than ten minutes of reflection and strategizing. The consensus among the military masterminds was that too little was known about the ship or its crew to waste time in speculation. Better to remain tactically fluid, ready to improvise. Read
y to do whatever was needed.

  Jamie found herself profoundly uncomfortable with those words and their sentiment. The root of her discomfort was not the improvisatory feel to their mission, but the mission itself: her gut instinct said it was wrong. But she couldn't deny the logic of USSC's position: the ship had been labeled a possible extinction threat which they couldn't afford to ignore. Better to err on the side of survival.

  No time for more than a few stray thoughts and apprehensions before they were back in the nature preserve. On Harrington's suggestion, Dennis guided them in through a towering wall that separated the preserve from the aquatic portion of the ship. The sole plan at this point was to send people in they knew could survive an extended period underwater because they could forgo breathing. Of the first group, that amounted to exactly two people: Jamie and Tildie. Perhaps Horner or Thomas or Kushner could also manage to hold their breath for long periods, but how they'd do underwater was mostly theoretical. As was what would happen when Jamie and Tildie materialized in the aliens' water-world. Their only plan was to do enough damage to the control system to disrupt the ship's operation – short of causing mass destruction and death – and possibly teleport one of the beings back into the nature preserve where they hoped to establish some rudimentary communication between it and Karen Clarkson.

  Everyone but Jamie and Tildie disembarked from the DARPA-rigged teleportation carrier, and Dennis dematerialized with them again. In an instant they were back in the water surrounded by aquatic beings attending varicolored lights on the walls. They materialized. Jamie and Tildie scrambled off their seats – and Dennis disappeared promptly back to safety of N-Space, where he would observe them.

  The aquatic interior was as pellucid as the clearest blue sea once out of the blurry confines of N-Space. The aliens appeared more solid, slug-like, than amoebic. If not for the sense of floating and the gentle resistance to their motions and the dampening of sound, Jamie might've believed they were in a normal, air-filled chamber.

  The aliens responded so quickly it was as if they'd been waiting for them: the water resonated with an intense, buzzing sound while beams of green light speared through the water, striking them from multiple directions. Jamie lashed out in front of her, smacking the aliens back and one section of wall inward.

  A lightning burst from Tildie branched out in a brilliant flash through crystal clear water, spearing dozens if not hundreds of the slug-like aliens. Thunder shook the chamber, while aliens floated unconscious or worse all around them.

  The exchange had happened too fast for Jamie to get a measure of the weapons that had been deployed against them. She guessed lasers or particle beams and maybe sonic devices. She had no doubt of the lethality of the weapons on any normal human beings.

  Dennis reappeared, gesturing a question. A single green beam of light struck his chest. His hands flailed apart and he flopped backward, dropping the carrier.

  No. Jamie threw a hard telekinetic punch in the direction of the beam. Three or four aliens vaporized in a brownish-red mist and the wall behind them caved in. She felt the pull of water for a moment before the wall sealed itself.

  Tildie was already tugging Dennis back to the carrier. He hung limply in her arms, eyes closed, air bubbles burbling from his lips. Jamie swooped in, wrapping him gently in her arms. He gave no response. A single air bubble squeezed out of the small hole in his chest where the laser or whatever it was had hit. Jamie met Tildie's terrified eyes and nodded sharply to the other end of the ship. They needed to move now.

  They were on the other end of the ship, many kilometers from the preserve. Jamie shielded Dennis in her arms and revved up the speed as high as she dared – a torpedo ripping through the water. Tildie raced ahead blasting any aliens in their path. Jamie hit several areas on the walls that looked like control centers, but her mind was mostly on getting Dennis to the preserve. She had to believe his alien nanites would keep him alive until he had air to breathe. Thank God we took Terry with us! Terry, with an assist from Dennis's nanites, could probably cure him in seconds.

  They reached the other end of the ship. Tildie was waiting – pointing to a an oval, body-sized panel that appeared to be a door. Jamie motioned her back. One hard telekinetic strike blew the panel through the wall. She and Tildie rushed out with the water into a large, air-filled rectangular compartment. Jamie rose into the air with Dennis still in her arms, turning back to seal the hole. But as she started to compress the wall inward an alien splashed through, flippers flapping, and belly-flopped in the shallow water on the compartment floor.

  The wall sealed. Dennis took a gasping breath, his eyes half-opening. Relief flooded through Jamie. Her man was going to be okay.

  She wasn't sure she could say the same for a alien thrashing about in the shallow water below. This was the closest she'd been to one of them, and it was about the size of a walrus: smooth, rubbery brown skin shading into dark flippers. But a few seconds of observation showed that the "flippers" could morph into digit-bearing appendages – not only morph but withdraw completely and re-emerge elsewhere on the body. In that sense, it struck Jamie as more amoeba-like. Sets of small dark orbs on the body might or might have been eyes or possibly ears. It was now thrusting its massive body out of the water, a flipper-hand stretching up and slapping a red square six or seven feet up on the wall. A compartment opened, dropping what looked to Jamie like a black briefcase in the water.

  "What's it doing?" Tildie asked, voice quavering. "Could that be a weapon?"

  Jamie wondered the same thing. She held back a telekinetic strike as the creature snatched the box. It might be some form of rescue device. Creatures that lived in water might not be able to survive in air. Now the box was folding out over the alien's body in fast-motion, spreading into a multi-segmented skin that looked a lot like a space suit. Strangely, the suit appeared to arrange itself – and the creature within it – into a bipedal shape as the alien, positioned firmly on two feet, rose from the water to a standing position and faced them.

  "Uh, Jamie, maybe we should, you know, like stop it...?"

  "It could be a rescue suit."

  "It looks like fucking Gort. You know, The Day the Earth Stood Still?"

  "Give it a chance...Jamie," Dennis wheezed. "Don't kill it unless it attacks us."

  "Yeah." Jamie blinked back tears of gratitude that he was okay. "That was my plan."

  The alien stood silently in its suit, which to Jamie's eyes appeared heavily armored. How it emerged from the small "briefcase" was yet another marvel of alien technology. But then her own people had shown her plenty of marvel-worthy technology. This chamber, she guessed, was a kind of decompression/compression chamber, analogous to one in a space ship, that allowed the aliens to move between their aquatic environment and the preserve. That would explain the airlock-type door and the suit which apparently allowed the alien to survive out of water.

  Jamie turned to what she thought was the last wall between them and the Preserve, and blew out the oval door. Crisp daylight burst into the chamber. What might've been a pack of wolves scattered into the tall grass.

  "Who are you?"

  They all twisted to face the suited alien. Its voice had a metallic, speaker phone sound, but the words were clear, network Earth English.

  "You can understand us?" Jamie asked.

  "Yes. Did you understand my question?"

  "We're people. Human beings."

  "You wear American space fleet uniforms. You are from the space craft?"

  "Yes."

  "Why did you attack us?"

  "Why did you shut down our ships' ability to travel and communicate?"

  "To depart without being monitored or followed. Your sudden arrival suggested aggression."

  "Who are you?" Tildie asked. "What kind of alien?"

  "You know us as the Luminate."

  The uneasiness Jamie had been feeling since the start of this mission reached full bloom in a gut-chilling dread.

  "This is a misundersta
nding," she said.

  "What have you misunderstood?"

  "We thought you were someone else. An alien civilization that is hostile to us."

  The alien regarded them as if it had turned to stone. Not a flicker of movement in its multi-segmented suit.

  "Please come with us," said Jamie. "We should talk. And you could communicate what we say to your people."

  "What you are saying is being communicated. To all of us."

  "Tell them it was a misunderstanding."

  "We understand. We require that you surrender to us now and submit to adjudication."

  "Surrender?' Jamie swallowed dryly. "What would that mean?"

  "You would be rendered unconscious and captive until an adjudication is reached."

  "Unconscious?" Tildie said.

  "Yes."

  "What kind of judgment?" Jamie asked. "What would be the possibilities?"

  "Release or life-termination."

  Jamie hesitated, glancing at Tildie, who was shaking her head no. "I don't think I can agree to that."

  "You have killed many of us. That requires adjudication."

  "I understand, and I'm sorry...very sorry for your loss. But I cannot place our lives in your hands."

  "That is not your choice."

  "Please, don't do anything rash," said Jamie. "Talk to us more. Take time to think this through. We don't want to fight you. We don't want more loss of life."

  "We will consider your request."

  "Come with us to our people. We can talk about this more."

  After pause, the alien said, "Agreed."

  They walked out into the preserve. A warm wind carried a buffet of odors – dry grass, blooming flowers, and something pungent that made Jamie think of a cat's litter box. Jamie checked out Dennis' wound, which had reduced from silver dollar to quarter size and was walled with white fibers.

  "How are you feeling?" she asked him.

  "Good." He withdrew his arms from around her neck. "I think you can set me down now. This isn't doing much for my macho image."

  Jamie lowered his feet to the ground. After a moment of steadying himself, he seemed okay. Tildie was peering at the Environment Analysis and Scan (EAS) tablets furnished the team, while Jamie asked her wrist communicator for Jacob Kushner's channel.