by Jake Bible
“You going to do anything?” Felix asks, rubbing the back of his head.
“Yes,” I say as I start jogging. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Felix calls after me.
He and Bessie catch up quickly and we have no problem running shoulder to shoulder. The tunnel is massive. And the farther we go the bigger it gets until I realize it can fit maybe four or five loaders at one time. I bet you could have two going one way and two going the other way, like the highways back on Earth.
Ugh, Earth. It’s been a thousand years since we left there. I wonder how long humanity lasted. It sure wasn’t looking good when we left. Maybe the other ECAs found habitable planets and sent word back to Earth. That’s a big maybe. Even in a thousand years we haven’t found any sign of life out here in space.
“Hey, look at this,” Felix says, crouching by the floor then looking up at the ceiling above us. “I think we’re here.”
“Why?” Bessie asks. “I don’t see anything special.” She looks at me. “Do you?”
“Huh, what?” I ask, still kinda lost in my thoughts.
“You with us?” Bessie smirks. “Need a nap or something?”
“Knock it off, you two,” Felix says. “This is a lift.”
He pries open a small panel then stands up, looking at Bessie.
“Your turn,” he nods.
Bessie crouches by the panel set into the floor and looks at the interface. She presses her fingers to a couple of relay nodes and there’s a loud thunk above us.
Felix and I slowly back away.
“It’s the hatch,” Bessie says, smirking at our fear. “See?”
We look up and watch as a huge hatch slides open. Just as I was thinking, it can fit at least four loaders, maybe more. Once the hatch stops we wait, staring at the dark hole above. We’d be idiots to think that nothing is going to come out at us. We did kinda open the door to where most of the loader bots hang out.
“Not dead yet,” Felix says, stepping closer. “I don’t see anything up there. At least not through the hatch. The floor is too thick to see through to the cargo bay above.”
“Then we need to get up,” I say, turning to Bessie. “Can you get this lift working?”
Bessie presses her fingers to different nodes, but nothing happens. She kinda forgets the fruit rule and Felix laughs at the words she uses.
“So that’s a no then?” I laugh. I can’t help it, some of those words I’d never heard in those exact combinations.
“Won’t budge,” Bessie says, shining her flashlight around. “And no cables or anything to use to climb up there.”
“One of us doesn’t need cables,” Felix says, staring at me.
“Uh, yeah, one of us does,” I say. “Actually. All of us does.”
“Do,” Bessie says. “Not does.”
“Whatever,” I say. “Still doesn’t get us up there.”
Felix shakes his head and points at my legs. “You can get up there whenever you want. Just jump up.”
“Jump up?” I ask.
“It’s the opposite of jumping down,” Bessie says.
“I know what it means!” I snap. “But there’s no way I’m jumping all the way up there!”
They just look at me.
“Well…there isn’t,” I say. “Is there…?”
“Never hurts to try,” Felix says. “Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”
I grumble a bit, look up at the opening, grumble some more, then look at Felix and Bessie.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll try. Let me have that.”
I reach out for Bessie’s emergency kit. She hands the bag to me and I throw it across my shoulder then stuff my flashlight inside. Making sure the bag is secure, I take a couple of deep breaths and count down from ten.
When I hit one I jump. And go nowhere.
“Try crouching more and swinging your arms up,” Felix suggests. “It took me a while to get the hang of my eye.”
I frown and crouch, swinging my arms back and forth as I concentrate hard on bunching my leg “muscles” for the jump.
Another countdown.
And this time I fly!
Like really fly. It’s more than a bit terrifying.
I launch up through the hatch opening and sail high up into the cargo bay. As I start to fall I realize I didn’t exactly think things through. In seconds I land hard back down in the tunnel.
“You’re going to need to angle the jump,” Bessie says, grinning behind one of her cybernetic hands.
“Ya think?” I glare.
This time I make sure I’m leaning forward a little as I jump. The trajectory takes me up through the hatch and out onto the bay floor. I skid and stumble, but manage not to fall on my face. I count that as a win.
“Made it!” I yell, pulling the flashlight from the emergency kit bag. I turn it on and freeze. “Uh…guys? You’ll need to see this.”
That thing about us not finding any signs of life in space may still be true. Because I think life found us.
“What is it?” Bessie yells.
“Hold on,” I reply.
I start hunting around the bay for something to lower to them and find a pile of synthetic netting by one of the far walls. There are even hooks around the top of the hatch I can attach the netting to. Dropping it below, Bessie and Felix climb the net like a ladder and join me.
“What the fruit?” Felix asks, his eye instantly seeing what I found. “Is that what I think it is?”
“I think so,” I reply.
Bessie doesn’t say a word, just walks with us over to the object. Or, uh, spaceship.
An alien spaceship.
How do I know it’s alien? Because it looks like nothing I have ever seen before. All weird angles and swirling loops of metal. Or I assume it’s metal. What do I know about alien spaceships?
“I really want to touch it,” Bessie says, more to herself than to us. “But I shouldn’t touch it. But I want to.”
She keeps moving forward and I rush up to her, stopping her just as she reaches out to the thing.
“Don’t,” I scold. “You don’t know how it will interact with your hands.”
Bessie looks at her hands then at me. A mix of emotions run across her face then settle on anger.
“My hands, my choice,” she says.
“My ship, my orders,” I say. “I’m the captain.”
“Your ship?” she snaps. “Oh, now it’s your ship, Captain?” She waves her hands about. “Where’s your crew, Captain? Huh? What’s this thing? Did you even know it was on your ship? What’s up with the power? Where are the AIs? How about the loader bots? I don’t see any here.”
“She’s right,” Felix says.
“What?” I snap.
“I mean about the loader bots,” Felix says. “There aren’t any in here.”
“Then we’re in the wrong bay,” I reply, looking back at Bessie. “And it’s not my ship, it’s all of ours. But I’m still the captain.”
“Then captain your way into figuring out what that is.” She smirks, pointing at the spaceship. “Or I will. Because we were obviously led here for a reason.”
“Led here?” I say. “Felix just accidentally found the hatch to this bay.”
“Really?” Bessie asks. Looking over at Felix as he wanders around the bay inspecting different piles of gear and supplies. “Was it an accident, Felix?”
“Kinda,” he replies, but I can tell by his voice he’s not being truthful.
“Well, was it or wasn’t it?” I ask, putting my hands on my hips like Mom used to do when she was annoyed. Because, well, I’m pretty annoyed.
“It had a mark on it,” Felix says. “I could see it in infrared.”
“A mark? What mark?” I ask.
“Uh…an X, he says.
“X marks the spot.” Bessie smiles. “Leading us right to this thing.”
I want to just rage at them, but I can’t. They’re right.
It stings, but it’s true.
“Fine,” I sigh. “We’ll check it out.”
“It would be crazy for us not to.” Bessie smiles, and I can see the Systems person in her turn giddy with excitement. She sees me looking and frowns. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say, waving at the ship. “Go for it.”
She steps up close, her hands hovering over a long spear that juts out from the nose. Or what I assume is the nose. The whole thing is bizarre and I kinda get a headache when I look at it. There’s this, I don’t know, shroud around it. You know what I mean? Kind of like when it’s dark and you look directly at something and can’t really see it until you turn your head. Like that.
I turn my head and look at the ship from my peripheral vision. It doesn’t help. So much for that theory.
“You gonna touch it or what?” Felix asks, suddenly back at my side, making me jump.
“Yeah, yeah, back off,” Bessie says.
She takes a couple of deep breaths and then presses her hands on it really fast. Both Felix and I cringe, expecting sparks and loud noises and, well…I don’t know what else. But not what happens next.
“Welcome, Systems Chief Bessandra Sacher,” the ship says as all the swirling loops of metal light up in bright blues and greens. “I have been waiting for you.”
“Whoa,” I whisper.
“Bessandra?” Felix snickers.
“Shut up,” I say, elbowing him in the ribs.
Bessie yanks her hands back and the ship goes dark again.
“Hello?” she says. “Uh, you’ve been waiting for me?”
There’s no answer.
“Who are you?” she asks. “Hello?”
Still no answer.
“Touch it again,” Felix says.
“You touch it,” Bessie snaps.
“Okay,” Felix says. “I have a cybernetic hand too. It came with the arm package. Move.”
“No,” I say, grabbing him and pulling him back as he tries to walk forward.
“Izzy, come on!” he scowls. “It’s a spaceship, that talks!”
“We already have one of those,” I say. “We don’t need another.”
“But it’s alien,” Felix whines. “You gotta let me touch it.”
“How’d it know our language?” Bessie asks. “I mean, if it’s alien then how did it know what language to use?”
“Uh…I don’t know,” Felix says. “And don’t care. First non-boring thing on this ship and I can’t touch it. Great. This whole space thing fruiting bites.”
“How’d it know your name?” I ask, ignoring Felix and stepping close to Bessie. “And your station? Could it read it from your hands?”
“No,” Bessie says. And she’s pretty confident with that statement.
“You can’t know that,” I say. “It’s alien technology.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Bessie shrugs. “We don’t know. But I do know it can’t read anything from my hands.”
“Your hands interface with the Scorpio, though. So why not with that thing?”
“Because that’s not how it works,” Bessie says. “And I should know how it works since I’m systems chief, remember? The maybe-alien ship said so.”
“I think it’s alien,” Felix says. “Look at it. Have you ever seen anything like that come from Earth?”
“When was the last time you were on Earth?” Bessie asks, folding her arms. “I’m guessing things have changed a little.”
“Then how’d it get here?” Felix asks. “On the Scorpio? Where’s the pilot? Why didn’t we know about it? What’s it for? Research? War? Vacation?”
“All good questions,” Bessie says. “But none of them mean it’s alien. Not in the least.”
“But it could be,” Felix responds. “You have to admit it could be.”
“I’ll admit that,” Bessie says. “But all kinds of things could be. Doesn’t make them true.”
“Then now what?” Felix asks, looking at me. “We just walk away from it?”
“No, we don’t just walk away,” I reply. “We were led here for a reason, right? You found that X.”
“And I wish you hadn’t found it,” Landon says, stepping into the bay as a door opens up in the wall. “Because that means I found you.”
“Landon!” I shout and run to him.
“No!” he yells. “Stay back, Isla!”
“What? Why?” I ask, almost to him.
“Because of this,” Landon says, his face beyond sad.
He runs at me and shoves me out of the way. I stumble and fall, my body tingling like I have been shocked. My legs start to twitch slightly, but I ignore that, focusing instead on Landon as he sprints to Felix and yanks him up into a bear hug.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
“I don’t want to, Isla,” he says as Felix struggles.
“Let me go, you fruiting fruit eater!” Felix shouts as he tries to fight loose.
But even with his cybernetic arm he’s no match for Landon’s cybernetic joints and reinforced bones. I watch in horror as Landon lifts Felix up and starts to back away.
“Let him go,” Bessie says, getting in Landon’s face. “Drop the twerp.”
“I can’t, Bessie,” Landon says, tears starting to stream down his cheeks. “I wish I could, but I can’t. It won’t let me.”
“What won’t?” I ask as I get up and run towards him.
But he doesn’t answer. Instead he rams into Bessie, knocking her out of the way, sprints to the wide open hatch in the floor, and jumps. With Felix still in his arms.
“Izzy!” Felix yells. “Izzy! Izzy help…me…izzy…iz…”
His voice fades out before I’m even at the edge of the hatch. I look down then jump. But I don’t have a flashlight and all I see is darkness in both directions.
“Felix!” I scream. “Felix!”
My legs are twitching even more now, but I don’t care, I don’t have time to care. I start to run, knowing I’m not going to hit anything since the tunnel is empty.
Uh, but I’m wrong there.
I slam into something hard, very hard, and my nose cries out in pain.
“Ow,” I yell. “What the…?”
Then a dozen bright lights blind me. Well, more than a dozen. Closer to three dozen.
“Isla?” Bessie calls from the hatch. “You okay?”
“Uh…” is all I can say. I back up towards the hatch.
“Isla?” Bessie asks. “Do you see him?”
“No,” I reply, my voice shaky with fear. I get to the hatch and look up. “Move.”
She sees the fear on my face and leans over the edge, peering farther down into the tunnel. Now she looks like I must. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” I say as I flex my legs and jump up through the hatch. “I think we found where all the loader bots are.”
“More like they found us,” Bessie says as we hurry away from the hatch. “Good thing they can’t jump.”
There’s a loud banging and clunking as gears engage. A motor drive begins to whine and the two of us stare at the hatch as six loaders are slowly lifted up into the bay.
“They don’t need to jump,” I say.
“We should go now,” Bessie responds, tugging at my elbow.
“But Felix…” I say.
“We’ll find him,” she says, tugging harder. “Just not that way.”
We turn and run, heading for the door in the wall, but it shuts before we can get there, trapping us.
“Oh…”
“…fruit.”
Chapter Five
Okay, so six loader bots are coming at us and I have a small problem.
My legs have decided now is the time to stop working. They’re twitching pretty hard core. Not good.
“Isla! Come on!” Bessie yells, tugging at my arm, trying to pull me with her as she frantically looks about the bay for another escape route “Come on!”
“I can’t,” I cry. “My legs…they won’t move!”
“What?” she asks,
looking into my eyes then down at my legs. “What do you mean they won’t move?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “They just won’t move.”
The twitching stops suddenly, but now I can feel a hum that has never been there before. It’s like they are full of bees, all crawling and dancing as if my cybernetics legs are their hives. I shake my head back and forth, feeling panic start to rise as the lift clangs to a halt and the loader bots start to roll tracks towards us.
“I…I don’t know what to do,” Bessie says.
“Go,” I whimper. “Just leave me, Bessie. You have to get out of here. Find the others, if you can. Find Felix. Don’t get trapped here with me.” I look over at the loaders. “Don’t let them get you too.”
“No,” Bessie says, her face turning fierce. “No. I won’t leave you. I’ll get your legs moving.”
She tears open the left leg of my uniform and presses her hand against the outside of my knee. I hear a click and then a small panel opens and slides away.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Don’t, you’ll mess up my leg. Only Health is allowed to work on the cybernetics.”
“Well, Health isn’t here,” Bessie says. “And I’m willing to say your leg is already messed up. Both of them.”
A socket port opens and she pushes her index finger inside. She gasps and winces, but doesn’t disengage. I watch as her eyelids flutter and she bites down on her lower lip. She’s so tense I’m afraid she’s going to bite her lip off.
“There,” she smiles, sweat beading on her forehead, “got it.”
My leg jerks then kicks out and Bessie jumps back, her finger coming loose from the port. Her eyes narrow and I see her whole attitude change. Uh-oh. Whatever just happened really made her mad.
The loader bots are almost to us and will be within reaching distance in seconds.
“Come on,” Bessie says and spins me around.
She grabs me under my armpits and starts dragging me across the floor to the alien spaceship, my heels just bouncing along the floor. Bessie is able to get us behind the ship, putting it between us and the loaders. She jams her finger into the port again and I cry out.
“You felt that?” she asks.
“Yeah, I felt that!” I snap. “It hurt!”
“Good,” she says. “That you felt it, not that it hurt.”