Chameleon (Corrosive Knights Book 3)

by E. R. Torre

  “But the aliens weren’t about to stake their continued existence on our planetary neighbors alone. They had to make sure absolutely nothing threatened us until they arrived. To that end, they send other crafts our way, armed satellites which, even now, orbit the outer fringes of our solar system. We’ve identified at least five of them just outside the orbit of Neptune and suspect there are many, many more. Their purpose is to analyze incoming comets and asteroids and predict their paths. If they’re coming our way, the satellites take them out.”

  General Spradlin grimaced from the effort of talking. He pressed his injured arm against his chest and let out a breath.

  “So everything was in place and ready,” he continued after a few seconds. “But they wanted more.”

  “More?”

  “They searched long and hard through our flora and fauna for just the right elements. They discovered the possibility, at the dawn of mankind, that Earth possessed sentient life forms.”

  “Our ancestors,” Samantha said.

  “With so many years before their arrival, they had to anticipate our development and progress. Estimates were made as to how much more advanced our fledgling civilization would be by the time they arrived. The aliens’ greatest minds examined their data and found it insufficient. They needed eyes on the ground, spies among us, to see for themselves just how fast we were developing. But they couldn’t come here themselves. The laws of physics made such a trip impossible for them. Therefore, they created a series of robots capable of withstanding the sudden, crushing acceleration and deceleration required to enter Earth’s atmosphere in a relatively short amount of time and modeled these creatures on our unique physique. Their mission was to infiltrate us and get the information their masters needed. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t have much time to implement their plan. Their current home world was used up and they had to leave. They chose, despite reservations, to make the journey to Earth even though they still didn’t know enough about us. Yes, we were primitive at that time and there was a very real possibility we would still be very primitive –if we survived– when they arrived. The armada lifted off and began their journey here. The creatures within set their instruments on automatic and entered their cryogenic units. They drifted off into an eight thousand year sleep.”

  “When they awoke some seven hundred years ago, on the outer fringes of our solar system, their ships had begun the long process of slowing down. The scientists aboard the armada immediately sent more probes our way to make sure their destination remained habitable. It was, but the scientists were shocked to find their projections regarding our progress were inadequate. We were much farther along than they expected. We had rudimentary nations and were on the verge of our Renaissance. At the rate we were advancing, the aliens feared we'd have nuclear weapons well before they arrived.”

  General Spradlin paused before saying:

  “That scared the shit out of them.”

  “Why?” Becky asked. “They’re still far more advanced than us.”

  “They may have no love for humans, but what scares them is the possibility we might put up a fight.”

  “How can we possibly be any match for them?” Samantha asked.

  “We wouldn't —indeed we couldn't— win a war against them,” Spradlin agreed. “But if we know we’re going to lose a war to a race that takes no prisoners, there’s a chance we might turn our weapons from them and toward the planet itself. If we’re going to die, we’ll take those sons of bitches down with us.”

  “Scorched earth,” Becky said.

  “Humanity dies in the blasts,” Spradlin said. “And the aliens starve.”

  “So why didn’t they take steps back then to get rid of us back then?” Becky asked.

  “That’s a very good question. The fact that they have left us alive suggests they have uses for us. Given their ravager mentality, I’m not terribly optimistic about what those uses are.”

  “How the hell do you know all this?” Jennie Light asked.

  “Isn't it obvious?” General Spradlin said. “We're in contact with them.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Five simple words. In any other context and about any other subject matter, they might have elicited a polite nod or, perhaps, indifference. At this moment and regarding this subject, the words set off the equivalent of a nuclear firestorm.

  Samantha, Becky, and Jennie were glued in place, their full attention on General Spradlin. For several more seconds, no one spoke. For several more seconds the three women survivors of the Little Charlie digested this incredible revelation. Finally…

  “How...how is that possible?” Jennie Light asked.

  “It turns out the inhabitants of the armada are not all that different from us,” General Spradlin said. “They don’t all share the same opinions and often argue about their course of action. Some have openly questioned their nomadic, parasitic way of being. They wonder whether it’s time to lay down genuine roots and no longer conquer and subjugate planets in their path. They may not feel any sympathy for the cultures and peoples they’ve destroyed in the past, but pragmatism tells them they may eventually reach a point where there is no other nearby planet they can use for their nutrients and fuel. For years they’ve worried faulty scouting data could send them to a world with any number of dangers that might threaten their existence and strand them without the means to move on. This group represents a small minority in the armada, yet they have changed some minds.”

  “Enough to halt their attack?” Samantha said.

  “I’m not sure,” General Spradlin admitted. “But everything evolves, and their culture is no exception. This group has followed our progress. Some of them even have a grudging respect for us. They want to negotiate. They’re willing to share our resources.”

  “Share?” Jennie asked. “In exchange for what?”

  “Information,” Spradlin replied.

  “How can we trust them?” Becky said. “What if this is a stalling tactic, a way to make us give in?”

  “It’s possible, of course, but they sent us something very important as a sign of good will.”

  “Doctor Evans,” Jennie Light said.

  Silence again descended on the control tower. A breeze kicked up and the verticals danced against the shattered windows.

  “Doctor Evans was a chameleon,” Spradlin said. “When he…arrived…we were weary. We feared we were sent a Trojan horse. But Doctor Evans did everything we asked and provided considerable information about the Armada and its history.”

  “How do you know any of the information was accurate?” Becky said.

  “We couldn’t verify everything, but we were able to verify quite a bit,” General Spradlin said. “The fact is that until Dr. Evans came along, the aliens went to great lengths to keep us from having even a piece of one of their robotic scouts. Giving us Evans was a big –a very big– good will gesture. For three years we examined this being. For three years it allowed us to poke and prod its inner workings. That’s how we gained such an in depth knowledge of its strengths…and weaknesses.”

  “The black blades?” Becky asked.

  “Doctor Evans gave us the schematics for them. He told us how to make them. Even more importantly, he told us every individual chameleon scout from the armada has its own suicide switch designed to be used in case it, or its group, was in danger of capture. Doctor Evans used the suicide switch back in the mess hall to destroy those other creatures.”

  General Spradlin leaned back in his chair and again winced as pain roared through his body.

  “He saved our lives,” General Spradlin concluded. “Let’s make sure his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

  Becky, Samantha, and Jennie returned to their search of the control tower. Long minutes passed and the deadline to make the needed call approached too fast. Becky and Samantha looked increasingly frustrated with the search, while Jennie kept her cool. She turned over boxes and chairs, tables and shattered equipment.

  And
then she let out a yell.

  “I found something!”

  The group converged quickly around General Spradlin. In Jennie’s hands was a cell-phone.

  General Spradlin let out a relieved laugh.

  “You’ve come to our rescue, Private.”

  Jennie Light beamed.

  The cell phone was very compact. It had a blue casing and a small screen. She switched it on and muttered a quick prayer. The cell phone’s screen lit up.

  “I’ll be damned. It’s got juice! Now let’s see if it gets a signal.”

  They waited for the telltale bars to appear on the phone’s screen. It was only a matter of seconds before they did. Two bars. One more than they needed.

  “We’re going to make it after all,” she said.

  “Most of us,” General Spradlin muttered.

  “Most of us,” Becky repeated. She laid a comforting hand on Samantha’s shoulder.

  Jennie handed the phone to Spradlin.

  “Excellent,” he said. “And with a whole eight minutes to spare.”

  Becky and Samantha embraced each other. Jennie laughed, and was joined in the laughter by the others.

  General Spradlin rose unsteadily to his feet.

  “Let me get by the window,” he said as he stepped away. “Get a clearer signal.”

  The women followed behind as Spradlin approached the window. Half-way there, he let out a loud groan. His hands wrapped around his midsection and he tumbled forward to the ground.

  “General!” Becky yelled.

  Spradlin eyes shut tight. They slowly opened, to see the trio of women standing over him.

  “Look…looks like I’m in worse shape than I thought,” Spradlin said. “Officer Light, could you get me my chair, please?”

  Jennie Light hurriedly brought a chair to the General’s side. Samantha and Becky placed him on it.

  “Thank you,” General Spradlin said. He held up the phone. “Still in one piece, thankfully.”

  He shook his head.

  “You know,” he said. “This phone represents more than our personal salvation. As I said, the aliens do not want any of their technology to fall into our hands, which makes this phone very special indeed.”

  General Spradlin turned the phone over, examining its body.

  “The aliens we are in contact with told us Evans’ suicide switch would work on all chameleon scouts within its immediate area. But they were wrong. Isn’t that so, Private Light?”

  Jennie Light stiffened. She looked at Becky and Samantha and then back at the General.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Very convenient you finding this phone, isn’t it?” General Spradlin said.

  “Someone left it behind,” Jennie insisted.

  “But the chameleons were so damn thorough going over this base,” General Spradlin said. “They got hold of every weapon and communication device on the island yet they just happened to miss this one cell phone? A cell phone left behind in the very nexus of the base’s communication?”

  “I don’t—” Jennie began.

  “And let’s not forget how incredibly lucky it was for you to somehow activate the self-destruct code on that communication jammer,” General Spradlin continued. “There were ten indentations on the bottom of that device. I’d say the odds of finding the self-destruct code –hell, any code– on it has to be several million to one. Yet you got it on the very first try.”

  Samantha and Becky took a step away from Jennie Light. The Private’s eyes remained on General Spradlin.

  “Of course, that’s the more subtle stuff,” General Spradlin said. “We’ve been moving for hours and have barely stopped. In all that time, I haven’t seen you sweat. Not even once.”

  “General,” Jennie Light began. A smile appeared on her face. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

  “I wish it were the case.”

  Jennie shook her head and opened her mouth to say something. Instead, she jumped Spradlin. Her left hand locked around his throat, her other snatched the cell phone from his hand.

  General Spradlin gasped. His now freed hand reached for the knife sheath tied to his belt.

  “You idiot,” Jennie Light said. “All three of your blades are gone. The last two roasted along with Doctor—”

  Her final thought was left unspoken. A curious expression appeared on Jennie Light’s face. She released General Spradlin and turned around. Becky Waters stood just behind her. With Jennie’s back to him, the General noted a black blade protruding from her back. It was the blade Spradlin found in the Mess Hall kitchen. The one he told Becky to hide. She did so, until now.

  “She’s not frying,” Becky said.

  “She’s different,” General Spradlin replied. “Give her a minute.”

  Jennie Light took a step forward. Her movements were jerky, uncoordinated. The flesh on her pretty face darkened. The nano-robots within her were burning up, though at a slower pace than the creature Becky killed in the forest.

  “You’ll die, too,” Jennie Light said. Her voice was no longer human. She held up the cell phone. Becky and Samantha reached for it. They tried to remove it from the stricken chameleon’s hand, but Jennie Light had more than enough strength left in her to crush it.

  “Shit!” Becky yelled as the pieces of the phone fell to the ground.

  Jennie Light eyed Becky. Her blackened lips parted, revealing a horrid smile.

  “We’ll die together,” she said.

  “No, we won’t.”

  The thing that was Jennie Light slowly, ever so slowly turned. Her eyes, already almost completely black, opened wide. General Spradlin stood behind her, several feet away. In his hands was a cell phone, the one Jennie Light had found.

  “W-what?” Jennie Light asked.

  “When I was much, much younger, I was a big fan of Harry Houdini,” General Spradlin said. “He was the greatest escape artist and magician there ever was. Like all the great magicians, he was a master at the art of misdirection.”

  General Spradlin sat back on his chair.

  “When I fell to the ground a moment ago, you were all focused on me. None of you noticed that I used the fall to switch your nice little alien artifact with my very own personal cell phone. It was here in my jacket pocket. You see Jennie, I had a cell phone on me this entire time. When you presented this cell phone, I knew it was yours. But how special was it? I had to see how far you’d go to keep it out of my hands.”

  The creature that had been Jennie Light stumbled toward him. But her movements were slow, uncoordinated. She stopped.

  “In your haste to do just that, you didn’t look closely at the phone you snatched back from me,” Spradlin continued. “The cell phone you smashed, my cell phone, didn’t even look like yours. Not at all.”

  Jennie’s mouth locked up. She could no longer speak.

  “I suppose this is how you and Frank communicated with the other ACUs and coordinated the Mess Hall ambush,” General Spradlin continued. He addressed Becky and Samantha. “I suppose this is also how you back up any information you find on us. If anything should happen to you, your fellow chameleons make it a priority to retrieve the data in a unit like this one and get it back to the armada.”

  Jennie Light’s jet black eyes stared at General Spradlin. Despite the trauma to his body, the General could hardly contain himself. He let out a laugh.

  “Touching a nerve am I?” he said. “We always wondered how you talked to each other. In the few chameleon bodies we studied, we found no internal communication devices. Even in Doctor Evans. He had no explanation for it, so I knew my contacts in the fleet didn’t tell me everything. It was to be expected, to some extent. The fact that you had no internal communication devices seemed counter intuitive. You’re machines. How hard could it be to insert a radio device of some kind within your bodies? Ah, but your masters were clever. Maybe at one time the chameleon units had them. But with the advances we’ve made in communication, perhaps your masters feared we would
find a way to monitor your transmissions, both to track you down as well as listen in on what you were telling each other. So your clever, clever masters found a much safer, more rational course of action, especially for this day and age. Nowadays everyone has a cell phone. Why not you guys? We can’t monitor every cell phone transmission on the planet.”

  Jennie Light turned her withered face away. Her black eyes focused on the door leading out of the control room.

  “I’ll bet we’ll find some interesting things inside this device, won’t we?” General Spradlin said. “I wonder…”

  Jennie Light could no longer hear General Spradlin’s words. The world grew dark to that machine. She took two steps toward the door before falling heavily to the ground. Thin wisps of smoke rose from within her body.

  “Ashes to ashes,” Spradlin said.

  Becky folded her arms.

  “Never was for playing Charlie's Angels,” she said.

  “Charlie’s…?” Spradlin said.

  “TV show,” Becky said.

  “Movie,” Samantha added.

  General Spradlin shook his head.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “You need to get out more, General.”

  “I think I’ve had all the fresh air I can take for several lifetimes,” General Spradlin said.

  Becky let out a laugh. Samantha shook her head.

  “Why did you string her along out like that?” Samantha said. “She could have killed us all!”

  “That’s what she would have done the second after I made the call,” Spradlin said. He leaned back in the chair. “Once the code was given, we were worthless to her. The creature masquerading as Private Julie Light kills us and changes her appearance. Like Frank Masters, she would most likely have duplicated me. When the helicopters arrive, they find the phony General Spradlin lying on this floor, severely injured, surrounded by your bodies. The creature would make it look like the two of you died heroically while saving my life. She could dial down her vitals until they’re very faint and hope no one checks up on her too closely. If they don’t, the fake General Spradlin is boarded up and flown off to get medical care. The chopper never reaches its destination and our chameleon disappears into a crowd.”