by Chris Fox
“Drones are programmed,” he informed her a short time later.
There were three resounding knocks on the cargo bay door. Reese hit the control panel and the floor descended, becoming a ramp leading down to the ground beneath the ship. Hubbell stood at the bottom, pistol holstered.
“Looks clear. Just stay alert, though,” Hubbell called.
Reese nodded and said, “Chris, get those drones deployed now.”
He struggled with the huge case, dragging it down the ramp and onto the stone paved ground. From underneath the ship he could see jungle surrounding them, and the bases of several step-pyramids nearby.
Dragging the case, his back straining and legs trembling, he managed to get it out from under the Falcon. Flipping the lid open, he brought out the tablet, then keyed the activation sequence. The drones began to beep and chirp as they rose into the air. Red lights began to light up, then turn green as each drone began zipping away.
Turning, he jumped and dropped the tablet. Hubbell stood twenty feet away, her pistol drawn and pointed at his head.
“Don’t move,” she said through gritted teeth.
Terrified, he complied. What had he done? Why was she doing this? His train of thought was interrupted when her pistol barked. He heard the boom of the gun, but also felt the crack of the supersonic round as it sailed past his head.
He heard a massive thump as something heavy hit the ground behind him. He whirled to see a huge cat-like beast with oily black skin and protruding claws sliding towards him. It had a neat hole drilled right between its eyes. He realized it had been in the middle of pouncing on him when Hubbell had taken it down.
She dashed past him and stood above the creature, keeping her pistol trained on it. Nudging the beast’s body with her boot, she said, “Yep, it’s dead.”
6
Tentacle Pigs
“That’s nothing,” Hubbell said, kicking the beast again.
Dr. Fox’s heart was still thundering in his ears. The adrenaline made his hands tremble. Realizing it might not be the only one, he scanned the surrounding city and jungle, anxiously looking for danger.
“Yeah, you should have seen the shrike-bats we encountered on Garog seven. That was some nasty indigenous fauna,” Reese explained as she approached.
“What’s a shrike-bat?” he asked curiously.
“Nasty critter, sort of like a cross between a bat and a crocodile,” Hubbell replied, holstering her pistol. “Hopefully the shot scared away the predators, but it could draw them in instead, so why don’t you two wait for the drones inside?”
Dr. Fox didn’t hesitate, making for the ramp back into the cargo bay. Reese nodded and followed him. Hubbell followed to the ramp then turned and sat down, pulling her pistol from her holster and setting it next to her.
As they ascended the ramp, Reese spoke aloud, “Emma, please grant Chris access to all my notes.”
Emma’s voice came back over the ship’s speakers, “Done.”
He returned to the bridge and made his way to his console. He quickly pulled up her notes. After only a short time it was apparent to him how organized and methodical she was. He had no trouble navigating, as everything was organized logically and efficiently.
Several hours later, the alarm chimed on the drone control tablet. Dr. Fox dashed to the cargo bay and down the ramp. Hubbell stood as he went past, grabbing her gun and following. He walked out from under the ship into fading evening light.
“I saw a couple of those little buggers return already. They floated down into the case,” she said as they walked up to it. The case held a small number of the silver orbs. Their lights were now yellow and blinking, illuminating the interior of the shadowed box.
The control tablet chimed again to indicate data was downloading. Curious, he pulled up one of the video files from the drone. In the upper left corner was a smaller image. It showed the city from an aerial view, a dot indicating the drone’s position. Emma must have generated that from the ship’s sensors as they circled it from above.
He activated the video stream and watched from a first-person perspective as the drone zoomed through the city. It was actually quite boring. The scenery never really changed. The same crumbling stone walls, overgrown by jungle, seemed endless. Step pyramids broke the monotony but they were just as featureless when the drone finally got close.
And then he spotted it. He had to rewind and watch several times to pick it out behind the hanging vines. He was able to get a capture of it and immediately uploaded it to the ship. Thirty seconds later Reese came dashing down the ramp, sprinting over to them.
“Good eye, Chris,” she said, clapping him on the back. “You found it, y’know, the Rakiamon glyph. It signifies a journey, traveling. All the Tevari cities bear this glyph.”
“And that shows they traveled the stars, then?” he asked, genuinely awed by the possibility. “But where’d their technology go? Where’d they go?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Reese said, confidence in her voice.
“And by the looks of the kit she brought, she’s well prepared, too,” Hubbell noted, grinning and looking at the cargo bay.
A flurry of drones zoomed back to them, drifting down into the case. Dr. Fox looked at his tablet and noted the dots on the map moving closer. They would all be back within a couple of minutes, but it would be fully dark by then.
“Chris, get the data uploaded to the ship so Emma can begin processing,” Reese instructed him as she walked back to the ramp.
“So, you’re from Melanor?” Hubbell asked Dr. Fox in an obvious attempt at small talk.
“No, I’m from Hentaru. I moved to Melanor to go to the academy. How about you? How’d you get involved with Reese?”
“That’s a long story, but the short version is we’ve known each other most of our lives. We’ve worked together often in the past.”
He suspected she had given him an opening, a opportunity to ask more, so he took it.
“What did you do before you met Reese? Consortium military?” he guessed.
“Not Consortium. I was born on Jamu. Our people had much conflict with the neighboring Dalorians the next system over. They were always trying to annex our colonies. We usually fought them off, but we lost some. I enlisted out of a need for vengeance.”
“Anyway, I went for special forces, and somehow managed to survive the training. I put the hurt to many Dalorians during my time. But then some bullshit went down, so I bailed. Left ‘em all to rot, Dalorians and Jamu alike. I’m done with war. Relic hunting and exploring with Reese is far more lucrative.”
He looked around anxiously, but realized Hubbell was on alert. Even while they had been talking, she had her head on a swivel. The remaining drones zipped into view in the fading light. They hovered above the box before descending, nestling in with their siblings and lighting yellow, indicating data transfer. The tablet chimed moments later.
“Hmmm, all but one came back. Should we wait for it?”
“No, let’s just get back inside. Want a hand?” she asked him, cocking her head.
“Sure, that’d be great. Thanks.”
They each took one end of the case and began to walk it toward the ramp. Walking through the dark toward the pool of light surrounding the entryway, straining with the case, he thought he heard something. Was that a growl? Scuffling in the trees? Another one of those cat things, maybe?
“Um, Hubbell, I think there’s something out there.”
“I know, just keep moving. There’s many of whatever that is out there. C’mon, pick up the pace.”
He scrambled faster, trying to keep up with her brisk trot.
As they ascended to the middle of the ramp, Hubbell abruptly said, “Drop the case!”
She let go of the case and in one fluid movement drew her sidearm and dashed back down the ramp. The handle was wrenched from his grasp, the case tipping and falling over, spilling the drones everywhere. They rolled around like lost marbles. A hooting soun
d came from just outside the ship. Whatever it was, was close.
“Emma, close the cargo bay, now!” Hubbell yelled.
“Affirmative,” Emma’s voice came over the ship’s speakers.
The ramp began to slowly rise. They would never make it in time. More hooting, this time from both sides of the ship. Then he saw them, masses of gray-green squiggling tentacles surrounding a large boar-like head with a tooth-filled maw. He nearly shrieked in terror, scrambling backward to escape the gaze of the hideous creature.
Then the ramp just stopped moving, a groaning, grinding sound coming from his left. Hubbell had her pistol trained on the creatures and was backing slowly away.
Shit, this was about to get ugly.
“Wait!” he cried, spying the source of the grinding sound. One of the drones had become stuck in the strut and was preventing the ramp from ascending.
He dashed to the edge of the platform and jumped off. Hubbell’s gun boomed several times as he delivered a kick to the orb, but it didn’t budge. Her shots left his ears ringing. He couldn’t hear what she was yelling. He spun and saw the creature climbing into the cargo bay, crawling up the closing ramp. He kicked again, this time dislodging the orb. The thing was only halfway in when the ramp closed. It was cut in half, the rear end dropping to the ground, a mass of tentacles wriggling and twitching.
7
Improvise
“This way!” Hubbell yelled, motioning as she began to run.
Not waiting around to find out what was about to happen, Dr. Fox bolted after Hubbell. She ran down the length of the ship, staying well to the middle. The creatures hooted again from either side. The sound made his blood run cold.
They were about to reach the nose of the Falcon, when several of the creatures lowered themselves down and squiggled under the ship.
“Emma, on my mark, fire thrusters C-thirteen through eighteen, and don’t forget the down-thrust,” Hubbell cried.
“Roger,” Emma replied.
The two creatures began to advance. Hubbell’s arm shot out, shoving Dr. Fox behind her.
“Now!”
Suddenly the hidden maneuvering thrusters at the nose of the ship slid open and fired, each one igniting in turn from each side, effectively trapping the creatures between two walls of fire. Their green-gray flesh boiled and tentacles disappeared into nothingness. Hair and flesh were burned away, leaving only an elongated skull, which burst into flames as it fell.
Dr. Fox was stunned, but elated. Hubbell wasn’t completely outgunned. She had just improvised a flamethrower. Well, it worked as long as they remained under the ship.
As he mentally cheered, he felt a pressure around his ankle. Then suddenly he was whipped off his feet. Landing hard he saw stars and lost his breath. It took several moments to realize he was being dragged.
He struggled to free himself from the tentacle’s grip. The beast’s eyes stared down at him greedily, its teeth gnashing in anticipation. Then Hubbell’s gun rang out, sharp cracks as she fired off several rounds. The first two took the thing in its face. The last shot punched through the tentacle holding his ankle, severing it completely.
The tentacle flopped limply as he struggled to free himself, unable to take his eyes off the threat before him. It bled from two large holes in its skull, but it didn’t seem bothered. Hubbell grabbed his collar and hauled him backward.
“V-thirty-four, now!” Hubbell screamed.
The creature in front of him burst into white hot flame as the thruster fired, turning it into a pile of flaming goo. Whirling around, Hubbell fired off another quick shot. He spotted several more advancing from the rear of the ship. They were closing in from all sides.
“All except V-thirty-five through W-twenty-seven, now, Emma!”
Fire erupted all around them as the maneuvering thrusters ignited. The heat from the jets was unbearably hot, scalding his very eyeballs. The furnace disappeared as Emma cut the thrusters. Good thing, too. They would have been cooked had she run them any longer.
Hubbell raised her gun and scanned around. A mass of charred bodies were strewn around them in nearly every direction. It showed just how close the creatures had come to getting ahold of them. He shivered, despite the residual heat.
“I hope that was all of those buggers,” Hubbell remarked. “Let’s go get to the airlock before their buddies show up.”
Dr. Fox trotted after her, nervously looking around. He spied the stairs lowering from the airlock. Emma must have been listening. And watching too, he realized.
As he and Hubbell sprinted to the stairs, fear crept in that at any moment another one of those hooters might jump out from the darkness. They had nearly reached the ladder when, to his horror, a beast did lunge from the darkness at them.
Hubbell fired off a rapid fire volley of shots right into the creature’s skull, tearing a huge hole. It was undeterred and lunged at them anyway.
As it advanced he focused on the wound she had inflicted. It seemed to be oblivious to it, even though it was pouring thick red ooze. It didn’t appear to have any organs in its head.
“Shoot it in the body, below the head,” he yelled, trying to be heard over the hooting sound the creature was making. Calling more of those bastards, no doubt.
Hubbell heard him, though, as the rounds stitched down the face and into the soft rubbery middle where the tentacles came together. The rounds chewed through the pliable skin and into the creature’s midsection. Undeterred it squirmed onward. Hubbell put at least ten rounds into it and finally the thing ceased moving.
“Up the ladder, go!” she said shoving him into motion.
Not hesitating, he scrambled up the ladder and was greeted by a worried looking Reese. She helped him aboard and looked out to Hubbell, who was just beginning to climb the ladder. Hooting from the darkness trailed after Hubbell as she triple-timed it up the ladder, reaching the airlock and staggering inside, breathing heavily.
“Bloody hell, that was intense!” she cried between panting breaths.
Reese palmed the door and it slid shut, just as Dr. Fox saw the creatures advancing.
“Dammit, what are we going to do about those things?” Reese exclaimed.
“Nothing,” Dr. Fox replied. He sure hoped he was right. It was just a hunch after all.
“What do you mean, nothing?” Hubbell returned.
“Well, I think they’ll be gone in the morning,” he explained. “I believe they are nocturnal.”
“Time will tell,” Reese said severely. “But I’m not going anywhere, regardless. I’m not giving up what I came here for.”
“But Reese, those damn monsters out there want to eat our flesh. How you gonna stop them?” Hubbell retorted.
“I think, like Chris does, that they are, in fact, nocturnal,” Reese proclaimed.
“Okay, so we wait ‘em out,” Hubbell declared.
8
Word Jumble
Dr. Fox had spent a little more than an hour poring over images with Reese, trying to find a pattern in the glyphs that would reveal where they were from, how they had traveled, or any other insight into their civilization. Emma had processed all the sensor data from the drones and presented any that had glyphs, along with locations marked on the city map she had generated. Her recognition algorithms had associated each glyph with its meaning in Reese’s notes.
But it was all a jumble. A huge pile of words, no context or order, beyond a few small phrases. It was strange to him. All the ancient cultures he had studied were prolific with their writing, whether glyphs or script. This was so sparse, so scattered. It wasn’t telling any stories, just a bunch of words in random locations. Unless the locations weren’t random at all. Maybe it was ordered geographically, he thought.
“Emma, can you arrange the glyphs in geographical order?” he asked eagerly.
“Yes, of course I can,” she replied, as cheerily as ever. “I’ll run the full retinue of mathematical patterns. Millions of combinations will take a few moments. Shall I?”
“Go ahead, Emma. I think you may be on to something, Chris,” Reese interjected.
Emma closed her eyes for several moments and then a grid overlaid the map. “Which patterns would you like to see first?”
“Try a spoke pattern leading inward,” Dr. Fox suggested.
The symbols arranged themselves on the screen. They pored over them again, tracing trails of symbols. It was still a jumble. Even Reese admitted there wasn’t anything there.
“What about spiral patterns, Emma?” Reese suggested.
The spiral patterns were significantly more complex than the spoke patterns were. They spent the next several hours examining all the possible variations of the spiral patterns Emma presented. Still more word jumbles. And now he was exhausted.
“It’s late. Let’s get some sleep and give it another shot in the morning,” Reese finally proclaimed, much to his relief.
He turned back to his terminal and was about to power it off, when he noticed something. The spiral pattern originating at the center and progressing outward began with a few symbols. A few symbols that made sense.
“Reese, look here,” he said through a yawn. “It says, ‘And so the journey begins, as we leave our home for a new horizon.’ And it’s at the very center. Look at the next string.”
“‘We traversed the stars, seeking a new place in the heavens.’” Reese added. “Chris, I think you’ve done it, you’ve cracked the code!”
“‘The navigator began the journey,’” he continued to read as he spiraled outward. Yawning again, his vision blurred, so he rubbed his eyes.
“Oh, you should go ahead and get some sleep.”
“Thanks,” he said through yet another yawn as he stood.