Mankind's Worst Fear

by David L Erickson

  “Dear Father in heaven, save us this day,” Clinging to the con edge, Tammer's eyes stared blankly at the image on the vid. “For as you are the great creator, you have the power to...”

  O’Brien slapped Tammer’s hands aside and jabbed at an open menu. Tammer bolted from the chair and the ever-present hum of the drive diminished. On the vid, yellow and orange melted into opaque gray, then gave way to a blue-black ocean lunging up to greet them.

  Working from a limited understanding of the navigational controls, O’Brien keyed through the menus until the panel lit up with a red, dotted circle and triangles at equidistant points. He slammed his palm down on the bottom triangle and held it. Far too slowly, the ship pulled out of the dive.

  The ship smacked into the ocean. A thunderous clap reverberated through the hull. O’Brien hit the deck hard as the domino ship skipped off the water and hurtled skyward. He tried to rise, but could not. The bridge became fluid, shifting as wind-blown sand on a dune, the deck spongy. His heart raced. Wild thoughts fought to drive away any semblance of rationality as he craned his neck to see the vid. Dark ocean gave way to a green-pocketed, dirty brown visage. Looming, snow-capped granite peaks thrust upward into a dreary haze.

  Beneath him, the deck firmed. Bruised and battered, O’Brien lurched to his feet and punched the bottom triangle. With a rending, gut-twisting crash, the ship smashed into a stony peak and veered to port. Like a bottle cap clipping a rock, the wreck spun deeper into the mountains, the spectacular and terrifying journey dramatically captured on the vid. Partially blinded by vertigo, O’Brien tried in vain to catch a handhold, but was thrown savagely across the bridge. Searing pain tore at his lower back and legs. His head exploded in incandescent shards.

  The monstrous craft bludgeoned its way through a mountain peak and careened down a boulder-strewn slope, leveling a huge swath of withered trees. With a grinding screech, the ship skipped off the valley floor and hurtled through heavily wooded knolls, flattening their crests and spewing rock and earth in an ever-widening wake.

  A great cacophony rattled through the vessel. It surged upward and collided with a sparsely foliated granite wall. Boulders thudded down the ship's spine. Shattered trees and debris spewed across the winter wilderness in great waves and rained down as the ship tore an enormous gash along the base of a ridge.

  Flattened against the bulkhead above the primary con, O’Brien felt the pressure lessen as the wreck decelerated. The rending of rock against hull grew more distant until the ship ground to a halt. The mountain settled in about them, the onslaught continuing until O’Brien was certain the ship had become their tomb. Soon, the rock storm faded to an occasional rattle. He heard a sickly cough.

  “Linda?” Bruised, cut and bleeding, O’Brien pushed up, then slid down the con until his feet reached the deck. He groaned when his weight settled on his back and legs.

  “Yes...I’m...out here. I can't...yes...I can...stand...I’m okay. Ohhh...” Linda appeared in the hatchway, leaning against the deck’s slight list. “I’m going to check on Doomes.” She was pale and drawn. She combed shaky fingers through her hair. A purpling bruise marred her left cheek. Shallow, reddening cuts puffed her forehead and bottom lip.

  O’Brien cracked a half-hearted ‘at least we’re still alive’ grin. She tried to smile, but produced a grimace.

  “Linda, you sure you’re alright?”

  “Yes...” She straightened. Her eyes lost their shocked glaze. “I’m...doing okay. I’m going to be fine. I...” she pointed, “...uh, Doomes.”

  “Go ahead.” Pleased with her spirit, O’Brien gave her a half-salute, then turned away and began mentally prioritizing their survival needs. “Paider, Garson, Tammer?”

  Garson jumped to the deck and looked around appearing confused.

  “Here, Colonel.” Wedged between the con and a pedestal, Tammer freed a leg, then an arm. He growled "Mother of Mary.", pushed free and sat up.

  Paider, eyes dull and distant, leaned against the starboard con. “I’m banged up a bit, but on my feet, Colonel.” His left arm hung limp from an oddly peaked shoulder. He took a tentative step, staggered, caught himself, gasped, then collapsed on his injured side. Bone snapped. Garson rushed to him, peeling a medkit from his waist belt. O’Brien kneeled beside the Lieutenant, survival needs on hold. Garson swept Paider with a bioscanner twice and shook his head. Except for the arm and shoulder, Paider showed no other signs of injury, but his eyes were dull and his mouth slack, chest still. Garson leaned on O’Brien’s shoulder and got up.

  "Give you a hand, Colonel." He offered him a hand.

  O’Brien took it and rose painfully. “Dead?”

  “I’m afraid so, Colonel.”

  They paused, heads bowed, hands clasped.

  “Colonel.” Though his words were muted with sadness, Garson was trained to think as O’Brien had: survival took priority over grief. “Odd that the lights are still on.”

  “I don’t hear the drive. Must be a backup system.” Hands on hips, O’Brien assessed their surroundings. “More important is where we are. If the alien used the coordinates I gave it, we may not have far to go. There's an underground research center in the Oregon Cascades.” Sorrow intruded, but he swallowed and closed his mind to it. “One hell of a bounce back there, but it got us into the mountains.”

  “For sure though.” Garson picked at a tear in his sleeve. “If they think anything like us, they’ll come hunting for their wayward ship...especially since we punched a hole in that other one.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Hate to see all this technology lost to us.”

  “Might be equipped with an automated distress beacon.” O’Brien glanced up at the sightless vid. “Looked damned rough out there. Might make it harder to find us.”

  “Could be a blessing.” Garson winked and grinned, his old self shining through. “You think this wreck will ever fly again?”

  “Doubtful.”

  For a moment, they shared a bond of discovery: two inquisitive minds in an alien playground.

  “We’ll gather what we can and get our bearings outside.”

  “We’re damned lucky to be alive, Colonel.”

  “There is that. Get down to the Mars Explorer and retrieve weapons and survival gear. I’ll help Linda prep Doomes.” O’Brien slapped him on the shoulder and held it there. “And a gravpad for Doomes.”

  They shared a transitory sense of relief. Garson nodded, made to speak, but clamped his mouth shut and hurried from the bridge.

  O’Brien turned to follow. His left ankle gave way and he tumbled to the deck. Pain radiated up his leg. He pushed up and supported himself on his good leg. With an exaggerated limp, he headed for Doomes’ cabin.

  He found the Sergeant unsteady, but on his feet. Beside him, Linda gripped his elbow and put a hand at the small of his back.

  “We've got a gravpad coming. You won't have to walk, Sergeant.”

  “Then he can rest while we wait.” With a gentle nudge, she forced Doomes to sit, then helped O’Brien sort through the alien medical tools and supplies spread across the deck. They discarded most of the items they did not understand, but kept an assortment for later investigation, then further reduced the stack to two small piles.

  Garson entered the cabin leading a gravpad heaped with backpacks and an arsenal of human and alien weapons. He grinned at Doomes, who tried, but failed to do more than grimace. Though Linda had cleaned the Sergeant up, his skin was ashen, brown eyes dull and distant.

  Tammer arrived, still agitated, but less so than when he'd been stuck beneath the console.

  O’Brien motioned toward the gravpad. “Tammer, help Garson with Doomes." He tossed an empty backpack at Linda’s feet and began filling another. Garson and Tammer unloaded the gravpad and turned to Doomes.

  “Hey guys, I’m fine, really,” Doomes pleaded. “I can get on the damn thing by myself.” Despite his recalcitrance, he grudgingly accepted their assistance, made the wobbly journey to the gravpad,
and lay down.

  Backpacks filled, O’Brien cinched one up and slung it on his shoulders. “Tammer. The con still has power. See if you can pull up a map of the airlocks and maybe check the weather. It didn’t look very inviting from up there.” He jabbed a thumb at the heavens.

  “Sure, Colonel.” Tammer left, his stride now purposeful.

  Dogged by a mental fog through the entire dive, O'Brien's head had almost cleared. Shock, or temporal displacement?

  Despite the horror of the past few minutes, Garson seemed relaxed, eyes crinkled with humor. Far more serious in his usual attitude and outlook on life, O'Brien only vaguely understood how the shuttle captain could shake off mental and physical body slams with such alacrity. Someday he would have to find out, which meant he damn sure had to live long enough to satisfy his curiosity.

  “Okay...okay,” O’Brien fought a growing sense of despondency and hollered toward the hatch. “You got anything, Tammer?”

  “Yes, Colonel,” came the muffled reply, “but you’re not going to like it.”

  “Bring Doomes.” O’Brien darted a look at Linda and hobbled to the hatch, unable to conceal his injury. The pain reached up his leg and spiraled about his waist: an unwelcome intrusion at a time when he could least afford it.

  “What’ve you got?” O’Brien limped onto the bridge.

  Tammer began speaking as soon as O’Brien appeared. “Best I can tell, Colonel, three quarters of the sensors aren’t working and the ship’s brain is conversing with itself. Most of the systems are offline. There’s a huge airlock on the bottom deck, below the Mars Explorer. Hey,” Tammer snapped his fingers, “we could use their transports, or whatever they’ve got down there. What do you think? Good, huh?”

  “We expect the aliens to come hunting. Wouldn't want to leave a trail...like an energy signature. Still...”

  “Up to you, Colonel.”

  “Let's get below.” O’Brien leaned on Tammer’s shoulder. “My ankle is sprained...maybe fractured.”

  Tammer slipped an arm about O’Brien’s waist and nearly lifted him off the floor. “I’ll do what I can, Colonel.”

  “Easy. Just get me there.”

  Linda appeared at the bridge hatch. Her hand rested on Doome's gravpad controls. Disheveled and heavy with weapons, Garson stood behind her, looking as if he just walked off a battlefield. “We’re ready, Colonel.”

  “We need envirosuits.”

  “Got them out here,” Garson said.

  Linda pointed at Paider’s body. “What about Paider? We can't just leave him here.”

  “We need to put some distance between us and this ship. If nothing happens, we'll come back and give him a decent burial.”

  They helped each other into envirosuits, then Tammer stooped and made the sign of the cross over Paider. “You were a good man, Lieutenant,” he mumbled, “rest in peace.”

  Chapter Ten

  20:10 Hours, July 15, 2386 - Earth

  Stiffling a yawn, Lauren plopped into the helm chair and keyed up the display. “Anything new?”

  “Nothin’, Lauren.” Left cheek cupped, elbow on the con, Farrell pulled listlessly on his ear lobe.

  Lauren scrubbed her eyes with the back of her fists, then blinked several times to clear her vision, but it didn’t help. None of them had slept much in the past few days and their exhaustion was evident in the way they walked with stooped shoulders and the brevity of their sad, tired conversations. She could order the guys to stand down, Farrell had been at the navcon since the UFO attack, but she doubted they would comply.

  “Where are the guys?” She tried to be upbeat, but couldn't manage it. Every word drew strength from dwindling reserves. While provisions were abundant and sundry, whatever she forced herself to eat tasted of synthlube, and what she drank, mud. In a moment of indecision, she considered going to the galley for an Enerburst bar.

  “Aft, workin’ on the starboard magnetron sequencer.”

  “Why?”

  “Owen says it was damaged when we smacked into the seabed.”

  “When did that show up?”

  “When we surfaced. Got a discrepancy alert. Something to do with the distribution sub-processor.”

  “A structural problem with the magnetron tubes?”

  “Not that they could tell.”

  “It’s been three days. We should’ve heard from George by now.” Her arms trembled when she pushed up out of the chair. For the thousandth time, she paced the bridge from periscope platform, around the chart table and back. With each loop, she hesitated at Wendell’s station hoping to hear the com come alive with George’s voice. It bothered her that the team's tracer signals had remained stationary since the day after they went ashore.

  “I figure the comset got busted.” Bleary-eyed, Farrell faced her. “Best news yet. Don fixed the optical links to the bioneural net. He traced the glitch to a loose connection in the fiber-optics channel an hour ago, so now we’re at least gettin’ bioenergy readin’s again.”

  She spun around and glared at him. “What!” Tired and frustrated, she lashed out before she could curb her anger. “Why wasn’t I told sooner?”

  “Be cool, girl. I didn’t think it was worth wakin’ you for.”

  “Next time, wake me.” The tension knot between her shoulder blades eased. She uncrossed her arms, cocked her head, and smiled. Just when she thought their situation had grown more desperate, something played in their favor. “Are they strong?”

  “Strong enough. Don says the distance and terrain are interferin’, but our guys are holed up with a bunch of others. Might be why they haven’t moved.”

  “They could be captives.”

  “That’s possible, given...this...” Farrell waved his hand in a circle. “This...uh...our situation and all. Wendell’s pretty darn good with the gadgets. He could be tryin’ to fix the comset, or figurin' a ruse.”

  “Baider said they were heading into the mountains, that they found some kind of map. Why would they stop short?”

  “Can't answer that.”

  “None of our questions have answers. I’m sending the guys after them.”

  “Come on, Lauren,” Farrell held out his hands, palms up. “If they were taken prisoner, you better believe George or Baider would’ve gotten them out by now. They’re not dead...and we've got time...” he shrugged. ”...so why risk the guys?”

  Lauren turned away as tears welled. “Something's wrong, I can feel it. They need our help.” She had to act. "They should've moved on by now or returned to the ship." Cold sweat chilled her back. She spun around and stared at the vid. “Why are there only three strong signals?”

  “Don't know. Tracer failure?” Farrell turned back to the vid. “It's a tic, but not unexpected. That's why they all wear one." Farrell keyed up the bio-display.

  Lauren quieted her jangled nerves, but could not deny the obvious truth. A tracer stopped transmitting when it no longer detected body heat. “What do you make of all this?” Hoping Farrell wouldn't see right through her, Lauren consciously kept her voice firm and steady.

  On the vid, small groupings of red dots peppered the coastal areas, with a handful scattered farther inland. The coordinates of the team's bioenhancers matched a large, faint red patch twenty-two miles out. The dots along the coast were more or less stationary, but four inland groups would fade, disappear, and reappear at some distance.

  “I figure the ones near the coast are people campin’ and the crazy ones are large animals or maybe hunting parties, people or animals lookin' for somethin’. I raised the threshold to discount smaller animals and low radiant stuff, but rock or polycrete structures can block readin's too. Get a lot more detail with satellite.”

  “If we send the guys out, will they see what we see?” Excitement crept into her voice despite her effort to mimic George’s stoic professionalism.

  “Nah. Well, sort of. The hand-helds work for close in, one point five miles or so. A com link with Slinker would boost the gain to two point five, mayb
e three point o. That's it.”

  Lauren imagined the gears churning in Farrell’s head while he considered how to improve the performance of their gadgetry. It was a minor thing, but she knew he would tease out the best combinations to avoid the tedium of waiting. They all needed rest. Don and Owen especially. Daybreak was eight hours away, and George’s team at least a day’s hike from the coast.

  “Intercom,” she paused while the bioputer established the link. “Don. Listen up. How you guys coming?”

  “Just finished. Closing up now.” He sounded like he was right beside her.

  “Good. You guys get some sack time. I’m sending you after George in the morning.”

  Don's, ‘I knew you would’ muddled Owen’s, ‘I was wondering when you’d say that.’

  Lauren turned back to Farrell. “All right. Bring us about. Take us twenty miles out and put Slinker in anchor mode at a depth of fifteen hundred feet. That’ll make me feel safe enough to snooze. You too.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain ma’am.” He flashed a broad grin. Fingers skipped and tapped with the alacrity of a skilled typist.

  Coming around to the new heading, Slinker leaned four degrees to port and accelerated to cruising speed. Slinker would reach the designated coordinates in minutes, sink to a safe depth and go into sleep mode.

  Lauren sighed, thankful Farrell hadn’t questioned her authority and thankful they were finally doing something to make contact with George. She headed for the bunkroom. After three days of catnaps, she desperately needed an all-nighter. Before Slinker reached the designated coordinates, she wanted to be in George’s arms, whispering the secrets of her heart.

  07:55 Hours, July 16, 2386

  Eyespy in hand, Lauren pressed the forward hatch release. A gentle whine and the clear polymer cylinder rose until its grated base came flush with Slinker’s upper deck, then half-rotated into itself. Flush with the warmth of the sub, exposed skin stung from the bite of frigid air. She gasped, fought the urge to retreat, and stepped out. Behind her, the lift closed and sank into the deck. Unlike conventional subs, Slinker’s upper surface sported synthetic teak slats bordered by a knee-high polyvinyl tub railing.