Last Man Out (Poor Man's Fight Book 5)

by Elliott Kay

  “Just find it!”

  “Okay, sorry, sorry.” He returned to his task, deliberately shifting bags and boxes over the battery unit sitting on the rover floor. “Oh, y’know, some light in here might help.” He keyed the windshield controls to drop the sandshield so he could look at the cloud again.

  From the looks of it, Tanner was out of time. The leading edge of the storm blasted over the vehicles almost as soon as the sandshield was down.

  “God damn it, let’s go!” growled Solanke.

  “Oh, here! I’ve got it.” He hit the sandshield again before he rolled out of the rover with the battery unit in hand. The wind was incredible. Particles of sand and dust hit hard enough to sting the exposed skin of his head and neck. Almost as soon as he had his feet on the ground, a stronger gust made him fight to stay upright. “Whoo! This is amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Asshole, come on,” Garcia snapped. He pointed to the canyon path angrily.

  Tanner pulled his goggles down over his eyes. Solanke and Garcia already had the white lamps of their rifles going to make up for lost light. Looking upward, Tanner saw only billowing sand in every direction. His mouth split into a grin before he swept his bandana over it.

  The two mercenaries waited. They clearly had strict orders not to let him out of their sight. Tanner had no intention of running off, but he was out of excuses to stay up here in the storm. After one last look around, Tanner relented in his torment of his two minders.

  The way down was tougher. Even with the shelter of the canyon, the wind and darkness made for a precarious descent. By the time they were on the canyon floor, gusts of sand poured down from above. Solanke and Garcia were reduced to little more than grunts and profanity.

  Their shelter was across from the field lab, both of them modular structures of ultralight alloys. The military shelter was a shorter and smaller hut by comparison. As they arrived, Tanner turned to the others. “Hey, like I said, we’re gonna date some pottery samples if you want to come see how it works.”

  “Why the fuck would we care about that?” grumbled Garcia. He ducked into their hut.

  “We’ll be right in here,” said Solanke. “Don’t go anywhere without coming for us first. If you see or hear anything weird, come get us.”

  “Oh.” Tanner feigned surprise. He looked around the canyon floor, though visibility wasn’t what it had been. He couldn’t even see up all the way to the top of the ridge anymore. “So you guys aren’t gonna go out on any patrols or anything?”

  Solanke pulled off his breath mask to reveal his disdainful expression. “How the hell are you so naïve? I thought you were supposed to be some war hero!”

  “Hey, if it was my navy here in a communications blackout, they’d have us patrolling all up and down the canyon.” Tanner shrugged. “I thought you guys were professionals.”

  “Man, get on with your pottery bullshit.” With a final disgusted glare, Solanke disappeared into their hut. The brief sound of rushing air signaled the seal of the hut’s entrance.

  Tanner knocked on the field lab before he went inside. The entrance wasn’t locked, but the pattern of his knock let everyone know it would be him. Nobody would have to cover up anything. It hadn’t even been his idea. Almost as soon as the class took on the armed chaperones, privacy became a unifying preoccupation.

  The sound-dampening field running through the shelter’s framework cut down sharply on the noise from the winds. The quieting effect hadn’t been a selling point when Naomi purchased the shelters, but now it was worth every credit. Not only did it block out the noise of the storm, it would also limit the noise that might escape.

  Folding worktables, chairs, and light shelves filled much of the lab. Field gear sat on the tables to provide computer functions since no one could trust their holocoms. The center table was largely cleared, with students gathered round for what looked like a lecture by the professor at the head of the table until all eyes turned to Tanner.

  “Here we go,” he said, presenting the battery unit. “No big deal. We only caught the leading edge of the storm. It’s intense, though.” He didn’t try to hide his smile.

  “I ran a couple figures through the satellite overhead before it hit,” said Nigel. “The computer estimates say we might get a half-meter of sand dumped on us down here before it’s over. Like a snowstorm.”

  “How is the spring still here if this is common?” asked Gina.

  “The same way the canyon hasn’t filled up completely with water,” said Naomi. “The current sweeps most of the sand away through the channels ducking underground at the other end of the canyon. Here, I’ll take that.” Naomi set to work hooking the battery unit up to her gear.

  “Thank you, Tanner,” said the professor. “Anything else from our guests?”

  “I’m pretty sure they’re gonna drink their way through this storm. Or sleep. They were pretty grumpy about having to go out.”

  “They’re only here for you in the first place,” said Olivia.

  The comment stopped more than one conversation. Tanner sighed. “Yeah, I’ve thought about that. I’m sorry. Don’t know what more I can say.”

  “We might never have gotten even this far without Tanner,” said Naomi. “How about we stop blaming him for things he can’t control?”

  Uncomfortable glances flew around the room. “Naomi makes a good point,” Vandenberg spoke up. “Their presence is beyond all of our control, but they aren’t here now. Let’s not waste the opportunity.”

  Vandenberg produced a bin of soil samples from underneath the table and reached inside, pulling out the small obelisk wrapped in plastic. Over the last two nights, Naomi and Kim had thoroughly cleaned away all the dirt, revealing only a little more of the fractal patterns of embedded crystal. Nothing suggested damage from the fall it had taken from the top of the ridge.

  “So is that not really a chronometric reader you’re using?” asked Gina, stepping up to watch Naomi work.

  “This does a deeper materials scan. We tried chronometric analysis last night with the other instruments. Thing is, the analyzer kept coming back with a whole mess of readings all over the scale. Old, new, in between. Everything. Not just the cut, but the raw material itself. The thing is, the more I look at this thing under a magnifier and on the computer, the more I’m…uh, curious.”

  “You weren’t curious already?” asked Tanner.

  “She’s saying she doesn’t want to share her theory out loud so we don’t think she’s crazy or dumb if it turns out wrong,” Kim explained.

  “You’re a real pal,” Naomi muttered.

  “Yep. Always here for you.”

  “Okay, so what’s the theory?” asked Antonio.

  “I’ll tell you once I know if it’s crazy or not.” She kept working.

  Tanner wasn’t familiar with the gear or the process. It was one thing to put an artifact in front of a computerized scanner, but another to adjust sensitivity levels and other parameters. The team also had only the storm as a brief window of privacy. This wasn’t the time for instruction. Tanner and the other less-experienced students had to stand back and watch.

  With the gear set, Naomi brought up a readout screen and expanded it to fill the air above the work table so all could see. The scanner itself sat on a simple, adjustable frame. She set it to the right height on the table and placed the obelisk underneath. The scans took seconds.

  The results weren’t anything Tanner recognized immediately. He’d taken basic chemistry courses, but it wasn’t as if he knew every random atom or molecule by sight.

  Molecular compounds flashed up on the screen. Atomic breakdowns followed. More than once, two words appeared: sample unidentified.

  “Is this set right?” asked Nigel. “We didn’t…we didn’t really just discover a new element, did we?”

  “The settings are correct,” said Naomi.

  “Okay, but what the hell is that?”

  “Alien,” said Antonio.

  Nigel frowned. “Thanks
. I mean what are we really looking at?”

  “Antonio isn’t wrong,” said Vandenberg, transfixed by the screen like the rest of them. “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve found something entirely new to human experience among the stars. It won’t be the last.”

  “Yeah, but it isn’t rock, which is what I suspected,” said Naomi. “This is a blend of mineral components. Not only the crystals, but the rest of the piece, too. Look at the matrices on this scan here.” She cut into the large projection with another window showing a different analysis.

  “It’s not one big stone carving?” asked Gina.

  “Nope. It’s made to look and feel like stone, but it’s synthetic.”

  “Wait,” said Antonio. “Everything else we’ve found so far is natural stone from the planet’s surface, right? If this is alien, is it Krokinthian? Nyuyinaro?”

  “The parameters we know for their tech and materials are in the scanner’s files,” said Naomi. “Look at the atomic analysis. The source materials all come from Minos. But they’ve been blended.”

  “Okay, but that’s gotta be way beyond the tech level of the Minoans…right?” asked Antonio.

  Tanner knew the answer. He watched the woman who had told him the truth until she looked to Vandenberg.

  “Naomi,” said the professor, surely aware of all the eyes upon him, “could you focus on the crystalline structures? I only want to see the property analysis. The summary, please.”

  She keyed in the commands. The readout offered primarily text with a few small graphs.

  “It’s conductive,” said Vandenberg. “All the way through. No damage.”

  “Oh my god,” murmured Kim.

  Tanner looked back to the entrance, confirming he’d secured it tightly on arrival. He almost wanted to tug on it to be extra sure.

  “What do you think it does?” asked Gina.

  “Let’s see if we can’t find out.” Vandenberg plucked a thin power cable from its spool on the edge of the table, stepping around to reach the little obelisk. He attached it to the exposed crystal on the bottom of the piece with a simple bit of tape.

  “You want to power it up?” Antonio blinked. “With the utility line and some tape? How do you know which side is positive and which is negative? Or if it even works that way at all?”

  “I don’t. Trial and error. Have you ever watched live surgery?” Vandenberg already had a new holo screen open to access the worktable’s power settings. “You think it’s going to be an intricate task of precision and care, and none of that is inaccurate…but you might be surprised how indelicate a surgeon can be.”

  “You’re not making me feel any better,” Antonio replied.

  “There’s nothing in the scans to suggest volatility or danger,” said Vandenberg. “Whether we power it up here or somewhere else, sooner or later someone will have to take the risk. But we need the answers now.”

  “You know the Union has laws about what to do with advanced alien tech found in random dirt piles, right?” Tanner asked.

  Vandenberg’s eyelids fluttered with annoyance.

  Tanner shrugged. “Okay. I tried.”

  Glowing red text on the screen warned the scanner could only give estimates based on the available data. Vandenberg keyed in commands for a slow scaling of power. Then he looked up around his students. “You might not want to be so close for this.”

  Everyone stepped back.

  Everyone, of course, except Tanner, who was already by the entrance. Nigel backed up all the way to stand beside him. “I knew I should’ve kept my helmet and body armor when I went off to college,” Tanner muttered.

  Nothing happened with the lowest settings—but as Vandenberg increased the power, the white crystals embedded in the obelisk began to glow. At first it seemed to be nothing more than a finely-crafted lantern. Then came a flash, followed by a sudden change in the air all around them. In the blink of an eye, the population of the field lab doubled.

  Tanner stood beside himself near the exit. Everyone else stood near a double, too. Tanner turned his head to look at the others in shock, only to see his double do the same thing a second later. Similar mimicry followed all around the room as the mirror images repeated the actions of their originals with the slightest delay. They repeated words, too.

  “What the hell?” asked Naomi, only for her double to repeat exactly: “What the hell?”

  Tanner reached out to his double, finding it completely intangible. His classmates had much the same idea. With a few more seconds to process, he noticed subtle differences and the fundamental transparency of his double. It was only an image of light, unlikely to fool anyone for more than a moment, but one with far greater fidelity than human holographic technology.

  The images blinked out again. The obelisk grew brighter.

  “I think that was some sort of default,” said Vandenberg. “Clearly this is an audiovisual recorder. Or at least that’s part of its function.”

  “That was fucking amazing,” said Kim. “You can’t even get that kind of quality in a dedicated holo suite.”

  “You’re still powering it up?” asked Naomi.

  “Only with a trickle,” Vandenberg explained. “We don’t have any kind of command menu, so I don’t know what it will do next. It’s not like a holocom.”

  “Holocoms! Right,” said Emma. She reached for her earring to call up her main menu. “We need to record video on this the next time it—”

  “Don’t,” Gina interrupted with a hand on her wrist. “They’re compromised. Remember?”

  “Shit, sorry.”

  “We can use one of the survey pieces,” Naomi thought out loud. She placed another scanner on the worktable and queued it up. “These things all have audiovisual…oh!”

  White light flashed from the crystals embedded in the obelisk, only to turn abruptly to far darker colors. The shelter all but vanished, replaced by a sky filled with dark and billowing ash and a landscape of shadows.

  Some of those shadows moved, rushing past the living observers in the field lab. They stood taller than the students. Their dark, hooded robes were cut strangely to human eyes, concealing the bodies within. White lights pierced the darkness in a staggered series much like the lantern posts the class had sunk into the canyon trail. They heard voices, too. None sounded human, nor did they speak anything recognizable as a human language.

  Distant thunder boomed relentlessly across the sky. Flashes of light seemed to herald more thunder, but these lights were orange, red, and even a faint blue. The lights revealed silhouettes on the horizon, obscured by ashen clouds but clear enough to make out in simple shapes. The skyline held buildings with sloping walls like pyramids, spiraling towers, and shapes less familiar to human sensibilities. Alien or not, it looked every bit like a city.

  Under the flashing lights, the city crumbled. Many of those lights came from above in bright, powerful beams. Other lights welled up from the distant ground as explosions.

  The cloaked figures didn’t move like humans. The proportions and gait were all wrong, but the fear and panic in their motions was unmistakable. So was the destruction of the city, whether obscured by ash and distance or not.

  Tanner watched, his heart beating heavier and his body tensing to move. He remembered to check his breath. He found the wall by touch right where he’d last seen it. His classmates still surrounded him. Though he remembered the terror of orbital bombardment all too well, he kept his head. The flashback and freak-out he dreaded never happened.

  The shadows kept coming. Cloaks and hoods stayed in fashion, though soon Tanner made out other features: jewelry of shining metals, three-fingered hands encased in metallic gauntlets clutching bags and belongings. One body turned back to look to the city, giving Tanner a glimpse at its face. Green eyes glowed over a vertical feature that might be a mouth and skin that might be grey and scaled. Then the face turned away.

  A single, split-second flash turned the room red, accompanied by a thundering boom. Everyone flinc
hed. A couple yelped. Even for Tanner, who had been all too close to the real thing, the moment passed too quickly to react. As soon as it happened, it was over.

  Understanding came only in the heartbeats after the fact. The blast came from above. More light shined down, this time steady and growing bright below the ashen clouds.

  They knew this sight, if only from pictures. Everyone recognized the Nyuyinaro.

  The alien’s wingspan reached several meters across. Swirling, multicolored light ran under the membrane and the skin. The body at the center could be mistaken for something human at a distance. It bent at points similar to hips and knees. Perhaps some evolutionary ancestor’s legs were not so naturally close together, but these legs were no longer meant to walk. The alien’s head glowed with an angry red light, heralding a blast like a laser from the top pair of eyes on its skull.

  In reality, the ground at Tanner’s feet remained steady and firm. In the vivid image projected all around, the beam tore up the ground and vaporized the cloaked figure nearby.

  More Nyuyinaro appeared. They scoured the landscape with the same ruthless power. The cloaked figures on the ground continued to flee. Some fought back with energy weapons, returning fire in yellow flashes of light. Most ran.

  Another blast from the sky ended the display. The entire scene disappeared. Everything returned to normal in the field lab save for the shocked expressions all around.

  “Holy shit!” Kim squeaked.

  “Everyone else saw that, right?” asked Emma. “I didn’t imagine it?”

  “Was anyone recording yet?” Jishen wondered. “Tell me somebody got that. Can you do it again, professor?”

  “I think so, yes,” said Vandenberg, though he pulled the power lead off the obelisk. He stared at the device in shock. “I don’t see why not.”

  Stunned like the rest, Tanner’s first reaction held to old habits even if he didn’t fall all the way into combat mode. While others blurted out their amazement, he counted bodies to make sure everyone was still here. Only after he assured himself everyone was okay did his sense of awe catch up.

  “Was that them?” asked Kim. “Did we see the Minoans? And the Nyuyinaro?”