by Mars Dorian
“What about FLAK?”
“If they do have anti-air, they probably won’t fire with Chikara on board. If she’s the defense entity of the cluster, she’s a high value target.”
Tavio pondered his soldier’s offer. It sounded like a quick and effective way to leave this planet for good. His older self from the Colony War would have agreed with a big fat yes, but Tavio hesitated. The heeding of Mission Master Kelly echoed through his troubled mind: Whatever you do, Captain, military intervention should be the last option. You come as explorers and diplomats first.
“Sir?” Bellrog said as his gloved arm dove into the weapons crate, prepping the mobile desolator.
Tavio Alterra made his final decision.
46
“They need long,” Chikara said when Tavio and Bellrog reappeared from the dropship with the life support backup in their gloved hands.
“Sorry,” the captain said, “we were checking our equipment.”
Bellrog took out a cylinder-shaped pack and attached it to the back of Dr. Eriksun’s life support unit. He plugged in the new capsule into the port and activated the unit. He switched off the used version and detached it. The process took fewer than twenty seconds.
“What’s the HUD saying, Doc?”
“An emerald-green ninety-nine percent charge.”
“Alright.”
Tavio checked his new supply and breathed in the new air from his 99.5% refuel. The sudden rush flooded into his blood stream and reinvigorated his body. It felt like a quick power recharge and graced him with enough energy to punch a hole through enhanced walls.
Bellrog kept the storage chest on the ground and positioned himself two meters behind the captain who bowed toward Chikara. “Thank you for letting us refill our supplies. We would have died without your help.”
Dr. Eriksun stopped and perked her ears. Her eyes flinched, as if she knew what was going to happen next.
Tavio held his ground. “And now we have to go back to our ship.”
Chikara stood there with her slender legs stretched. The triangular drone circled meters above their heads and hummed. The captain slowly pointed his gloved fingers upward to hammer home the point. “Back to the SAS Moonshot.”
“The Collective know about the ship,” Chikara said. “But they can not let him go.”
Bellrog’s arm floated next to the utility belt. Dr. Eriksun electrified as the situation seemed to dawn on her.
“It is in your best interest, believe me,” Tavio said with more pressure.
Chikara produced a strange noise between a hiss and a low-frequency scream that only happened over the captain’s comlink. “The alien dares to threaten Chikara.”
Tavio cooled his statements but moved his legs into a battle stance. “I want to avoid any trouble, but our ship needs us.”
“Their ship attracts too much attention. Its drive leaves an energy signature that is easy to trace.”
Tavio’s reaction staggered. This race carried technology to track back the Moonshot’s thruster trail, but since they already knew about their existence, why did it even matter? Why all the obsession with keeping a low-profile? Chikara must have realized his confusion because she said, “She can, however, allow them to communicate.”
In the corner of his vision, Tavio noticed that the four-legged creatures from the back of the hangar had disappeared. Or maybe they had positioned themselves in a better vantage point from where they could shoot.
Bellrog’s readiness oozed through the private channel. “One word, Captain.”
Pressure.
Apparently the spice of life and, unfortunately, a permanent side effect of Tavio’s recent interstellar trip.
Chikara said, “The com to the Moonshot is available.”
Tavio was surprised yet again, but when he entered the ship channel, he realized the jamming had indeed vanished. An eager familiar voice reverberated from the other side of the comm. “Captain Alterra, is that really you?”
The voice echoed like a ghost whisper from another dimension.
“Srini?”
The chief engineer cheered over the link. “I can’t believe it—you’re still alive, sir.”
Tavio couldn’t suppress a smile, but his alarm bells stayed on high alert. What if the alien was capable of copying human sounds and thus tricked his mind? He needed to find out the truth. “Srini, remember what we did on the first sol at the space station?”
“Do you mean heading out to the Dune bar where the Martian drunkard punched you?”
Tavio allowed his smile to fully stretch. A slice of tension chipped off his electrified body. “It’s really you.”
“Of course, sir. How are you and the others?”
Tavio flicked a glance at his two comrades. Dr. Eriksun remained still, while Bellrog stood in his battle stance. “They’re alive. Confused and exhausted, but in one piece.”
Srini breathed out a satisfactory sigh. “I’m more than elated, sir. I worried heaps.”
“Where are you?”
“To be frank, I don’t really know, sir. I’m still inside the Moonshot, which is parked in an alien structure.”
“In orbit?”
“Likely. I reckon it’s some a space port. A squadron of unknown crafts guided us here and offered a cease fire.”
“Are you safe?”
“I believe so. Nothing has happened to me, and the ship’s still in grade-A shape.”
Tavio closed his eyes. Finally some good news. The crew could still return home to the Alliance and regroup. Hopefully sooner than later.
“How did you—“
The connection fizzled out. A crackling silence crept into the comm. The aliens had jammed his link again.
“Enough,” Chikara said. “He is alive, so is their ship. The alien’s fear is unwarranted.”
That defense entity was a piece of work, but Tavio had dealt with irritated officers from the Alliance, and he lived to tell the story. With a quick wink, he signaled Bellrog to refrain from the planned countermeasure. The giant eased his posture with a squeezed face.
Tavio and his team still waded in a minefield of interspecies conflict, but at least he made progress. He would find a peaceful solution without military intervention and hoped Srini would send an update back to the Alliance. They needed to know about the discovery.
47//Venus space station
Weeks had passed by and mushed into a puddle of memories. Quintan felt as if he was born on the orbital outpost. He got used to the small confines of astro-engineered station walls. He knew all the high-ranking crewmen and officers by now and trained harder than ever before, both in the zero gravity gym and the simulation chambers. He had enjoyed classic candle-light dinners in the entertainment sector where he could marvel at the astonishing orbital view of Venus. And yet, he woke up in the middle of the nights bathed in salty sweat. A nasty gift from the war days, now worsened by the lack of news from his brother.
Quintan didn’t tell anyone, not even Rykan, but Tavio’s disappearance worried him more than was healthy. He felt as if a vital organ was cut off from his body and taken away forever. The phantom limb remained and plagued the man with pain. The ache couldn’t be filled with material or substances.
Quintan partly blamed himself for not insisting on joining the mission to add support. He mostly blamed the Exo Protectorate’s decision to send a lean science crew without proper military escort.
A damn suicide mission ordered by a frail mind.
Quintan wiped his sweaty eyes after yet another sleepless recharging cycle. He took a dry shower, applied his uniform, and cringed at his mirror image. Sacks lingered under his blood-shot eyes. His tanned skin had lost color and oozed the bloated paleness of a cosmic corpse. Quintan moaned. The reputable veteran officer had mutated into a cargo bum.
Pathetic.
He cursed at himself for the lack of emotional strength, but the bond between two brothers burned stronger than willpower—an invisible link that transcended time
and space.
He stared at the half-empty tubes of nanomeds and pain stims lurking in the extended locker behind the mirror. It took him two downers and a standard day to calm the mind, but it also dulled his critical thinking ability which he required for the ship simulations. Rykan had commented on his lack of concentration during the last days, so Quintan stopped taking the meds. His every cell longed for the stimulation, but he didn’t want to sack his reputation, not after everything he had accomplished.
You’re better than this, Q, always were, always will be.
Quintan checked his watch on the comlink and scanned the availability of the gym. It offered ten free spots for his tier.
Excellent.
Instead of keeping his mind busy with prescription drugs, he could spend his off-time sculpting his body. Quintan was about to leave for the gym when a priority call pinged his comm. Rykan’s avatar projected into his vision and revealed a faint smile.
“We’ve got a message from your brother.”
48
A massive weight seemed to lift off Quintan’s shoulder. A rare emotion of exhilaration flooded his limbs. He felt the urge to jump and shout, but that would have appeared ridiculous so Quintan kept his composure and controlled his voice. “What did it entail, ma’am?”
“Given the possible repercussions of the message’s content, I don’t want to repeat it over the comm channel. Meet me in the situation room as soon as possible.”
Quintan stormed out the door before Rykan even finished the sentence. He rushed through the corridors, almost ran into a passing officer, and after passing the biometric scan, reached the oval-shaped room on the third deck. In front of the gate, he straightened his uniform and caught his breath. Inside, Quintan spotted Rykan, some of her crewmen, and other high-ranking officers he had seen around the station. Rykan paused her conversation and lifted her amused eyes. “That was fast. Did you teleport?”
“When you say as soon as possible, I fly.”
“Well, join our round table. Let me introduce you to—”
“No offense, ma’am, but can we jump straight into the intel?”
Rykan hesitated, but Quintan didn’t care about the military etiquette at the moment. This wasn’t some random briefing about settler policy on some backwater planet; this was a life and death situation involving his brother. Rykan was smart enough to understand his behavior. “Good news first. Tavio Alterra and his crew have survived without apparent injuries.”
Quintan smiled on the inside. He wanted to hug Rykan and give her the wettest kiss he could muster up. Instead, he nodded with a somber, “I see.”
“Secondly, they have made contact with the alien life form.”
She assembled the first-person footage taken by the crew’s helmets and placed them on the holo-board. A white curved wall framed what appeared to be an alien super structure with glittering, thorn-like, cybernetic structures scratching the sky. Double-barred turrets appeared from the massive wall’s anchor points and moved to find their target. Quintan noticed a human-made mech firing homing missiles at least two to three hundred meters away from the installation. The footage became shakier as the crew ran away from the super structure. Next, one of the alien defense walls opened up and released an array of floating weapon platforms. The terror robbed Quintan’s voice. “Are those hovertanks?”
“The life form appears to be fully militarized and possesses anti-grav technology as well as directed-energy weapons.”
A grumble roared through the round in the situation room. A weaponized life form meant serious trouble.
Rykan said, “The last message was sent by Srini Naveesh, the chief engineer and second-in-command aboard the SAS Moonshot. He claimed the crew was being imprisoned by the life form.”
All the initial joy evaporated from Quintan’s tense body. The footage of the alien armada strangled his nerves. “So much for a peaceful first contact.”
Seriously, why was anyone even surprised about the alien’s intentions? The so-called ‘help’ distress signal was nothing but a ploy to lure in gullible humans. A classic mouse trap, now blown up to interstellar proportions.
“I hope we don’t just sit around, ma’am,” Quintan said. “If that life form utilizes hover technology, it will have access to space-faring assault vessels.”
Brigadier General Rykan released a knowing smile. She still dominated the chamber with her authority as she struck a power pose. “The Alliance High Command has granted us the budget for a fleet dispatch toward planet E405. We will take the twelfth division of the rapid attack force and depart in twenty-five standard hours.”
It flowed like finely-tuned music in Quintan’s battered ears. The urge for action screamed from within. Heck, he would throw his body into an orbital slingshot and catapult himself to that rotten exoplanet. Whatever it took to free his brother and wipe out the menace.
“Sit down,” one of the elderly officers said. “Save your energy for what’s to come.”
Quintan’s charged body preferred to stand, but he didn’t want to ruin this moment because of a reactionary feeling. He sat in the nearest available chair and perked his ears. Rykan waved up a new hologram depicting a ship that Quintan had learned to love over the past weeks. Rykan’s flagship artillery cruiser, the Eye of Horus.
Vessel of the gods, crafted by men.
The brigadier general’s smile widened. Pride pulsated in her emerald eyes. “We’re going to take our artillery-cruiser on her maiden voyage.”
49//Inside the cluster
Dr. Eriksun accomplished the unbelievable. She swayed the defense entity into a ‘sightseeing tour’. Her purpose: to learn more about their fascinating race and bridge the gap between the two species by understanding their needs and desires through mirroring. Tavio knew the tactical empathy method from his Alliance training. By being interested in someone else’s standpoint and channeling their viewpoint, one could reach a conclusion that satisfied both parties. The method worked with settlers from all colonies in the sol system and led to win-win negotiations, especially at the end of the Colony War. But Chikara and her Collective sprang from an alien culture with different morals. Still, the doctor believed in her skill set. “Just watch me, sir,” she whispered to Tavio before she unleashed her mind magic.
The captain couldn’t believe it when the stubborn Chikara agreed to show the humans around and share their way of living, but his worries lingered. He and his crew needed to return to the Moonshot and notify the Solar Alliance.
Dr. Eriksun used a private peer channel. “We will get to the root of this issue, sir. But first, we need to earn their trust.”
Chikara agreed under one condition, Bellrog had to stay inside the chamber where Hōshi resided. She called him a safety risk.
Tavio reluctantly agreed despite Bellrog’s protest, but he trusted the doctor’s approach. She possessed an empathy that melted defenses.
Deep into the alien cluster, Chikara guided the two humans into laboratory-styled corridors. She halted in front of one wall and turned it translucent. The hull revealed a vibrant indoor factory with dozens of crawling units and collective style hardware.
“They run a dedicated supply network underneath the planetary’s surface. Automatized units rail through the tunnels and mine minerals. Thankfully, the Collective needs few.”
Tavio pondered—who needed few resources—the drones or the race itself? He wanted to ask for clarification but Eriksun shushed him.
Chikara continued, “Their factories refine the resources for further processing.”
Eriksun nodded. “Is your entire industry automated?”
The defense entity stopped and hesitated. “Yes. Machina produces and manages. The Collective overviews and commands.”
Tavio wondered about the rest of their race. So far, he had only seen two members—Hōshi and her. Surely they couldn’t be the only units running this cluster. But since Eriksun worked so hard at building rapport, he wanted to stay quiet about it and see where the
tour took them. The trio left the factory labs and lifted to another a section of the cluster.
Chikara revealed more information on how they used stealth drones and mobile factories to harvest resources from asteroids, and how they had built a smart network that leveraged the planet’s power without harmful intrusion. But the most important remained unanswered. At one point, Tavio needed to chime in. “Where is the rest of your race?”
Dr. Eriksun squinted her eyes but the captain couldn’t pass up the chance. He needed to know.
“I’m just curious.”
“One only uses the minimum amount of units with maximum efficiency. Everything else is a waste of natural resources.”
Tavio nodded and reflected on her words. So, basically only a handful of units roamed the area while, from resource gathering to maintenance, autonomous machines ran the cluster. But where did the rest of the race remain? Did they sleep? More questions flooded Tavio’s mind. He wanted to get inside the alien’s brain and harvest the answers himself.
“Sorry, Chikara,” Dr. Eriksun said with a slight bow toward the defense entity. “Like me, the captain is fascinated by your advanced race.”
The entity paced her walk. “The captain is like Hōshi; always exploring, not knowing the dangers of unrestrained curiosity. Some answers should remain hidden for security.”
Tavio begged to differ. “Sometimes it’s helpful to open up. When great minds trust each other and collaborate, magic happens.”
Chikara produced an odd sound reminiscent of a humming. Maybe she didn’t know the meaning of magic in Tavio’s context, or maybe she disagreed and refused to show it. “One has seen terrors humans will never understand. The captain is not to judge a collective he does not know.”
Dr. Eriksun stepped between the two and sidetracked Tavio with a wink. He understood the gesture and lay low. Whenever he and Chikara conversed, the tension boiled up. Despite her position as defense entity, she also seemed protective on a personal level. An invisible shell rounded her private space and stopped anyone from getting too close.