by Isaac Hooke
Ophelia waited, apparently not satisfied with Jena’s answer. Continuing the monologue annoyed Jena and drove hot spikes through her carefully maintained self-image. She decided to drop the script and tell Security Chief Ophelia Denton the rest of the story, or all of the story she needed to know.
“There are two things that are important to this mission: the Klekemac civilization was in decline and nearly gone by the time the Sphere ship left the system; and there is UDM in abundance near every Lagrange point and beneath the surface of the inhabitable planet,” Jena said.
“There is no guarantee the Klekemacs are extinct. My review of the analysis—and don’t mind me because I’m no scientist—suggests the Klekemac species were not completely terrestrial,” Ophelia said.
Jena ground her teeth.
“How big do you think they get living in space and without the confines of planetary gravity? Will energy weapons damage creatures who live in full exposure to solar wind and radiation?” Ophelia paused, then turned back to her game. “These are the things I think about in my spare time. Gambling with a computer eases my nerves.”
Jena considered not only what she had learned about the doctor, but the circumstances of that knowledge acquisition. Her husband clearly expected trouble. The man had always been concerned with justice and civil rights. In his mind, justice and fairness equated with human rights and the New Constitution. She doubted he would make accusations without proof. It would be better to review the evidence before taking action.
“Just be ready if I call upon your team’s law enforcement services,” Jena said.
Ophelia nodded, playing her game as she had for countless hours before. “As long as you are ready to do your duty.”
“Shall we return to the bridge?” Greg asked.
“Yes, we shall,” Jena said, feeling better for reasons she didn’t completely understand.
“Would you like me to prepare a brief on the Klekemac system and what is known of the dominant life form believed to exist on the Earth-similar planet?”
“Yes, of course,” Jena said, walking in silence with Greg. Ophelia ignored them as they left the Barracks Vault.
The habitable area of the FCF Darklady was small. Storage bays accounted for most of the ship mass, which made the cramped quarters of the crew and the odd choice of Marsupial Class Small Ships more than a bit bewildering. Storage area for the UDM was important, but wouldn’t matter if the mission failed because ship designers cut corners with the crew’s living space.
The walkway circumnavigated the giant storage bays, giving Jena ample time to think as she strode forward.
“I am sorry about Kevin and Tiffany,” Greg said. “Should I have interfered?”
She thought about her answer carefully. “The mission must come first.”
“You are not happy,” Greg said.
“It is not my purpose to be happy,” she said, staring straight ahead.
Greg nodded. “I was worried you had forgotten what we are.”
Above the surface of Klekemac…
We are one being, Klekemac thought. It understood this. Broadcasting the message into alien languages was difficult. Nine physical expressions of Klekemac’s biology expelled gases in controlled bursts sufficient to break free of the planet’s gravity well, arching through the upper atmosphere with precise synchronization. Together, the nine Klekemacs rushed to greet the strangers. Biomass spread to become wings, gathering solar radiation of the sun on one side and the power of dark matter on the other. The planet of Klekemac fell farther behind as the nine entities left the upper atmosphere.
It was a glorious event, a sight newcomers to this system would appreciate if they saw it. He wanted them to see it—to experience all things worth sharing. Perhaps someday the Purgoids and Humans and Clakamads could be taught to launch without such great reliance on machines and technology.
The Purgoid vessel had greedily gathered void waste from gravity-neutral zones and fled as Klekemac attempted contact. This was confusing, because the Purgoid language was the simplest of all the sentient creatures detected in the universe. The message had been very clear.
What did I say wrong? the Klekemacs said in unison.
They did not send random messages into the void as did Humans—providing their language to anyone able to receive and decipher it—but they traveled a great deal, and Klekemac believed he understood their ways. The Purgoids were similar to, but different from, the small creatures of the Klekemac-friendly planet they called Earth.
“Purgoid creatures! Welcome to Klekemac. Come expel your gases and consume the strongest of our young, as we will gladly consume yours.” Klekemac broadcast the message again and again.
The Purgoid travel-machine did not respond—unless outward acceleration constituted a response. Neither did the small, six-limbed creatures inside the vessel send a message or messages—unless screaming about battle stations and preparations for violence counted as a response. The aliens were not skilled at diplomacy.
This made Klekemac sad, because it understood Purgoid creatures and humans would not enjoy or share each other’s waste products. They would not combine their biomass for even a short period. It sensed something horrible would happen when the aliens faced off, but the unfamiliar sensation made no sense.
What was horrible? Was it like sadness, the emotion that defined the Clakamads?
Klekemac pondered the decisions that inevitably came with first contact. Would this race be better or worse after physical assimilation? Was there another way? Were they from the Dangerous Star?
It didn’t relish bonding with the Clakamads, for example. As sentient energy, they burned a solar flare. That was why Klekemac had fled the Clakamads. No good could have come from rebellion in that deadly star system.
But the Purgoids had shown promise in this system. If the humans did not destroy their dark matter freighter, both races might help Klekemac survive another million years.
There were too many variables. Klekemac decided to simplify the dilemma.
First contact…
High definition video dominated the entire wall now, with all the sub-screens closed or minimized. The communications officer had established names for the aliens but little else. The moon sized freighter-ship-that-was-not-a-battlecruiser seemed to be crewed by a six-limbed race, called the Purgoids by the pursuing Klekemac aliens, which were most likely the source of signals found in the Sphere ship recordings used to identify this system as the Klekemac star.
“Do your job, Comms,” Jena said, staring at him instead of the man who had been her husband before the mission. Her face would have flushed red had she not volunteered for severe modifications before the FCF Darklady left Earth. The SSDD made the trip in years rather than eons upon eons—a blessedly short voyage, but still too long for extensive life support. Her decision allowed her to spend a very small amount of time in CPP. As for oxygen, caloric intake, or climate control, she needed none of it. The human crew, including her husband, needed only trace amounts while in long term CPP.
There had been no other choice.
Which didn’t change her lingering denial of what she had become.
Duty mattered. Completing the mission meant everything.
“Captain, I don’t have much to go on. The Klekemac is actually the easiest to understand, but the message makes no sense.”
“Give me the message,” Jena said.
“Captain, I can’t.”
“The message, Comms, right now.”
The communications officer swallowed, glanced at crew mates, then stared at the computer screen covered with linguistic analysis. “Klekemac wants to fart on us, or perhaps with us—I can’t be sure—then consume each other.”
Jena hammered her fist against her leg. “Comms!”
“Sorry, Captain.”
“That is not helpful!” Jena sensed the crew, including her husband and her sister, moving as far away as their work stations would allow—a lean here, a step backwar
d there. “Just put the raw communication on the screen.”
“From which alien?” Comms asked.
“Start with the Purgoid, since that will be our first contact.”
“Hhhtryhh ooma slyst…”
Jena sat heavily in her chair as the panicked six-limbed alien shouted through the view screen. Dozens of Purgoids crowded around the speaker, all shouting at once, resembling nothing of how a ship’s bridge should be staffed and operated.
“Put me through, Comms,” she said. She looked at her husband while she waited. He was a handsome man, a good man. She would never forgive herself for leaving him and her humanity behind. “Purgoid vessel,” she began.
“Iiiiiiiiiidacrahhhtry ooma slyst,” the Purgoid creature said. Others shouted and yelled. A few fled the room, some fought, others appeared to dance nervously.
“Oh hell no,” came the voice of Ophelia Denton in Jena’s ear. “That thing did not just call you an ooma slyst.”
Jena ignored everything but her attempt to communicate. The Purgoids were now so distraught they were injuring each other.
“Give me the Klekemac link,” Jena said.
“Good morning,” said a frighteningly large avatar of a Klekemac behemoth perched by a mountain lake. “All are one. Klekemac requires your biomass.”
Jena pressed a button to hide the view screen and glared at the communications officer.
“Perfect English,” he said, avoiding eye contact. “That is why I didn’t understand the gas expulsion and defecation references. Something is not right with these things.”
“Clearly.”
“They are aliens,” Dr. Cook said.
Jena considered the doctor. Despite some criticism in the scientific community of her secondary theories, her résumé was impeccable. That was one reason it shocked her to hear Kevin implying dishonesty. A moment passed that seemed much longer than it was. The doctor never looked away from her gaze.
“The corporation was wrong to disregard my organic UDM theories and restrict my budget, but I think we will be all right,” Dr. Cook said. “The Purgoids, unfortunately, will not. I would have told them to avoid planetfall on the Klekemac home world.”
Jena looked at her husband and her sister. “Please maintain redundant analysis of the doctor’s projections.”
Kevin nodded, regret hiding behind his eyes. As for Tiffany, her eyes watered before she looked back to her work station.
Everything was falling into place, right up until Dr. Cook began to swear like one of Ophelia’s semi-organic marines. “Not like that!”
Jena watched nine of the Klekemac space creatures converge on the Purgoid freighter. Expanding until every inch of their victim was covered, the strange creatures pulsed and convulsed.
“How far are we?” Jena asked.
“More than four light hours,” the navigation officer said.
“Dr. Cook,” Jena said. “Stop what you are doing and report to my stateroom.” She walked off the bridge without another word, still spending too much time on personal issues and regrets, but finding her command stride, nonetheless.
A shout went up around the bridge as something shocking happened to the Klekemac and Purgoid ships. Jena didn’t look back.
Moments later, Dr. Cook entered her stateroom and took a seat without an invitation to sit.
Jena glared at the woman.
Dr. Cook loosened the collar of her uniform shirt, produced a nicotine stick from her back pocket and began smoking without evidence of smoke or vapor. Technology made nicotine almost healthful.
“What is your game, Doctor?” Jena asked.
Dr. Cook crossed one leg and stared at her captain. “The Klekemacs are essentially one creature—a single consciousness linked through the UDM. That is the key to controlling the UDM. Right now your crew is freaking out about aliens eating them. For the Klekemacs, consuming each other and becoming one entity is natural.”
“How is that going to work for us?” Jena said, but she had already figured out the answer.
“I have subroutines I can add to your SOA processor. Yours is more powerful than all the other semi-organic androids on the mission combined. Have you explored it?” Dr. Cook asked. “Some of your crew have probably realized that I maintain control of a significant portion of company stock. This gives me an unfair advantage. I stand to gain financially from this mission.”
Jena flinched at the understatement while hiding her embarrassment. She had thought all the SOAs were built with excessive processor enhancements. The second part of the doctor’s confession struck home; she realized why Kevin accused the woman of dishonesty.
“Klekemac, or the Klekemacs if you prefer, are dying to assimilate someone from Earth. They will be disappointed to learn they can’t have us all,” Dr. Cook said. “And they will be somewhat shocked to learn their level of self-control and self-determination is about to end.”
“You want me to become Klekemac,” Jena said.
“Yes,” Dr. Cook said. “More importantly, the Board of Investors wants you to become Klekemac. I have SOA override codes if you would prefer I relieve you of the choice.”
A short fantasy of punching the doctor’s face pushed aside rational thought. “You might consider which of my personality traits followed me into the semi-organic android process.”
“Yes, your temper is legendary, as is your compulsive need for order and control. Few of us could hope to control an alien as vast as the Klekemac. The board, myself included, thanks you. Greg has volunteered to accompany you,” Doctor Valerie Cook, Darklady Enterprises Vice-CEO, said.
The last pretense of humanity…
Jena understood that her exterior was flash-frozen the moment she entered the void. With her biosensors shield and her power levels maximized, none of it mattered. She only needed to make contact. Gracefully as an Olympic high diver, she twisted in the void and shoved Greg before he was ready to twist clear of her attack.
“You look too much like someone I love, Greg. Go back to the ship,” she said, watching the distance between them increase.
“Jena, this is my duty,” he said through the infrared laser link of his eyes.
“We will talk later, once I have become the creature I will be for all eternity,” she sent through her bio-comms.
Twisting against her own mass was not easy. By the time she faced Klekemac, the space monster was very close. There were no visual clues to the alien’s expression, but she thought it was smiling.
“It would be easier for you to propel yourself if you expel your gases,” Klekemac thought at her.
Jena cried frozen tears as the distance dwindled to nothing. I was a good woman. My duty is to humankind. This is right no matter how it hurts me, she thought.
Her last truly human thoughts were memories of her husband and her friends during their final days on Earth at the COST facility. Without the Sphere ship mission, many of them would still be strangers.
We shared so much, she thought.
Klekemac expanded what looked like a mouth or an air lock or something uniquely alien. She hit the soft inner membrane and lost track of time.
Pain was not the correct descriptor of the sensations that arose from the epic struggle for dominance. She understood Klekemac was sad and confused when it was over.
“Jena, can you hear us?” The voice of Dr. Cook resonated through the void with primitive mechanical-based technology.
“Jena-Morrison-Diablo-Klekemac,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” Doctor Cook said.
“I will require controlling interest in Darklady Enterprises to comply with your demands,” she said.
Ophelia Denton, SOA and Chief of the Security Marines, dominated the communication link with her laughter.
“Impossible,” Doctor Cook said.
“Not for Jena-Morrison-Diablo-Klekemac.”
Scott Moon Bio
Scott Moon has been writing fantasy, science fiction, and urban fantasy for over thirty years. When no
t reading, writing, or spending time with his awesome family, he enjoys playing the guitar or learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He loves dogs and plans to have a ranch full of them when he makes it big. One will be a Rottweiler named Frodo. In the meantime, he dreams of being discovered by thousands of readers who aren't afraid to demand his stories be made into movies.
In 2012, he published Dragon Badge, a novel that took years to write. Realizing that the process never really gets easier, he continued with Dragon Attack, Dragon land and a series of science fiction books full of action and suspense. Currently he is working on a new military science fiction series more ambitious than previous novels.
Learn more at http://www.scottmoonwriter.com/
Amazon Author Page
Triaxial
By Stephen Moss
Confusion Remains Persistent
Sports
“It’s like this rugby ball.” said Professor Wilesmith, holding up the leather ball on its end.
“A what?” asked one of the Professor’s most adept students, his nose, as usual, an inch from his screen.
“Like this,” emphasized the professor, drawing Jacob’s eyes up from his laptop screen.
It was 2004, years before the Lost Sister would suddenly park itself in the Lunar shadow, and forever change humanity’s view of the universe.
But another such revelation, albeit a much smaller one, had just made its existence known through the massive SMARTS telescope only a few miles away at the Palomar Observatory, and to Professor Wilesmith’s mind, it was pretty much the most fascinating thing to happen in years.
Jacob focused on the ball in the professor’s hands.
“You mean it’s like a football, Professor.” said Jacob, with a smirk.
“No, I mean a rugby ball, Jacob. If you’d ever left Texas, or wherever the heck you’re from, you might have heard of it,” said the professor, and a laugh rippled around the small, internationally diverse class of doctorate students.