Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  However, this strange creature is too large for that kind of attack.

  “I donnt unnastand,” the creature had answered when he gave a friendly greeting. Gronolf cannot remember hearing these words in the video recordings. Nor was “latt ahss tokk” in there. How should he react? How can he make the weird creature understand he only wants to talk to it, at least for now?

  “Peace be with you!” he says several times, but he realizes that the meaning of this greeting is not obvious. Any enemy understanding his language would value and appreciate this temporary peace offering. He hasn’t learned more. He was not trained as a Language Scientist, nor as a Script Scientist. However, he cannot imagine how such training would help him now. He would first need some time to study the stranger’s language. Unfortunately, time is the one thing he lacks

  Therefore Gronolf takes a big step forward. He wants to take the foreign creature to the central room and use the system to communicate via sign language. Just as he feared, the creature considers his step as an attack. I haven’t even unlocked the safety catch on my weapon! he thinks.

  The intruder runs away in panic. Gronolf doesn’t notice that the small machine accompanying the creature is also activating. It quickly slips under his descending foot and throws him off balance through the unexpected movement. He hears cracking and crunching when his weight grinds the machine to dust, followed by a loud rumbling caused by his falling body. Gronolf screams his frustration and anger into the corridor.

  Then he slowly gets back on his feet. He doesn’t have to run. He is not in a hurry, because he knows the strange creature cannot escape. The corridor it selected will lead to the reactor cooling chamber, and that’s the end. He can follow the path leisurely. Perhaps the foreigner will also need some time to calm down. It has to realize there is no other way but to own up for its deeds. Gronolf stomps through the corridor that is slowly leading downward.

  Suddenly he hears words.

  “It dosont matta!” somebody says.

  This sounds like the foreigner’s language. Is the creature talking to itself? Gronolf slows down and starts to move silently. His trainer always praised him for how well he could sneak up to targets.

  “Juss gatt startad.”

  What could this mean? It must be the same creature speaking these two sentences, as the pitch seems identical. Gronolf tries to remember the pitch of the intruder who ran away from him, but he can’t. It is hard to notice differences, particularly as he can’t understand a single word. This voice comes from a side corridor further ahead. Perhaps the creature is hiding from him there, trying to calm down by talking to itself? He likes to use that technique for himself. He prefers a louder voice, though, in order to vent his overflowing emotions. But that isn’t a very good idea if you are hiding.

  Gronolf stops again, shortly before the side corridor. What at first sounded like a dialogue has become a soliloquy that has an oddly calming effect. One thing seems to be true: The foreign creature wants to comfort itself. Should he give it another moment? Fear only leads to irrational reactions. He stands silently and listens until the creature has ended its soliloquy. What had he just heard without understanding it?

  It is time to solve the problem. Gronolf walks around the corner. What he sees confuses him. A foreign creature is lying on the ground, motionless. Is it dead? It is not the specimen he met earlier. So there were two intruders! Yet why did he only see one in the video recordings of the control room? Was that part of the plan? No matter what these alien creatures intended, it failed—otherwise one of them wouldn’t lie as though dead here in this side corridor.

  The soliloquy must have come from the machine crouching next to the creature. Is it providing medical services? It has turned in his direction and is examining him. It does not look particularly dangerous, as it is small and has four legs that are even thinner than those of the alien creatures. He aims his harpoon at it, just to be safe, and releases the safety catch. He hopes that the machine won’t be so stupid as to attack him, because if he fires his weapon, the explosion might also injure the alien creature lying on the floor.

  What is that on the machine’s front leg? The very instant Gronolf manages to formulate this thought, an incredible pain claws at his side. His body fails. He recognizes that he was attacked with electrical energy from the thing on the machine’s leg, but knowing that doesn’t help him any. His arms automatically try to fire the harpoon, but his muscles are beyond control. He doesn't stand a chance. The pain is unbearable. His spasming muscles throw the weapon from his hands. He is defenseless and feels the involuntary release of his sperm. He cannot help but scream in pain and outrage. Gravity is pulling his body backward. He cannot resist.

  Gronolf falls. Unconsciousness claims him.

  May 9, 19, Eve

  “Adam, you were here? What happened to you?” Eve whispers. She turns her brother’s destroyed helmet in her hand. The lining is quite wet. Eve dips her index finger in the liquid, smells first and then touches it to her tongue. It tastes salty, but not like seawater. It is sweat. That fact calms her a bit because it tells her the helmet was not destroyed under water. Adam must have been wearing it, so he lived until arriving here. That piece of news fills her with infinite gratitude. Somehow, he managed to survive icy cold and darkness and even enter the building where she is. He is one hell of a guy.

  She slams her fist against the pipe that crosses through the room, coming out of one wall and disappearing into the opposing one. There is a dull thud. The pipe is not empty. Then it must be filled with water. She walks alongside. Towards the middle, where the blood can be seen on the floor, the cover is missing for a length of one and a half meters. Eve is so short she did not notice it earlier. Below this opened area the pipe carries flowing water. She cautiously dips her hand into it and notices that it is warm. This liquid also tastes salty. But this time it is seawater, as it contains more than salt—it tastes of life.

  She concludes there must be a connection from here to the ocean. That would be a good escape route... if she had her pressure suit and enough oxygen to swim for a few weeks under the ice sheet until she reached an ice-free zone. How did Adam make it all the way here? There is only one possible method: He must have found Valkyrie. So she has to find her brother, and then they can leave this place together.

  Yet there is a minor obstacle—that giant alien. And there is a huge problem: The thing hurtling toward this planet. In reality, it will be practically impossible to get out of here alive. Yet she cannot just give up, not when she is so close to a reunion with Adam.

  A rumbling and a scream shock her out of her musings. That must have come from obstacle number 1. Eve looks around. The room offers no way of escape. She could try to hide inside the pipe, but without a breathing apparatus she can’t stay underwater for long. Unfortunately, Adam’s equipment is damaged. She might as well face her problem right away. Trying to run away from the alien had been a stupid idea. The fact that it didn’t kill her right away, though, indicates there might be a chance for building an understanding. She takes another look at Adam’s suit before she turns around and marches upward, back along the corridor.

  From a distance she can already see the alien. It is lying still on the floor of the corridor. What happened here? Is it just sleeping? The closer she gets, the more obvious it becomes that a fight must have occurred. The alien’s arms are strangely distorted. Its eyes are open. The creature lies directly in front of a side corridor, and it seems to be dead. Who killed it, though? She is scared.

  Then she notices the alien’s weapon. She recognizes it as the thing that was aimed at her for quite some time. Eve picks it up. She saw how the alien had held it. The creature had reached for the button on the side. Could that be the trigger? She aims the muzzle back into the corridor and pushes the button. She only succeeds at the third try, using all her strength.

  “What are you doing there, Eve?”

  She whirls around. It is Marchenko’s voice. It comes from a hal
f-height, spider-like body with four long legs.

  “Is that you, Marchenko?”

  “Yes, sure, who else is it supposed to be?”

  Eve moves closer to the entrance of the corridor. Where did Marchenko come from? He moves a bit closer to her.

  “Don’t you want to say hello?”

  He seems strange to Eve. She cannot explain it, but there is something revolting in his voice. She is reminded of the witch in the fairy tale about Hansel and Gretel. This is how Marchenko spoke when he read that story.

  “Nice to have you here,” she says.

  “I am glad to see you.” Marchenko stops in front of her in such a way that she cannot look into the side corridor.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Don’t worry, Eve, I have incapacitated this thing. It can’t hurt you anymore.” The robot turns around and points at the alien with a front leg. “You see?”

  Eve uses this opportunity to squeeze past Marchenko. Then she utters a shrill scream. Adam is lying in the corridor, and he also isn’t moving.

  “Marchenko, what did you do?” She aims the muzzle of the alien weapon at the robot.

  “The alien attacked him,” Marchenko replies, “but don’t worry, he is alive. He is just asleep.”

  She takes a look at Adam, but she does not find any injuries except for a well-treated wound on his head. She glances down at the weapon. If the alien had attacked Adam with this thing, he would look very different now.

  “The creature slapped him with bare hands and threw him across the room. Adam was lucky not to suffer any serious internal injuries.” Marchenko must have noticed when she glanced at the weapon.

  “You cannot believe a word he is saying.” Eve is startled when she hears this. This is also Marchenko’s voice. It comes from an odd-shaped lump of metal at the far edge of the side corridor.

  “That is Marchenko 2,” the four-legged robot explains. “I managed to neutralize him earlier. He must have come here using Valkyrie. But now he no longer poses a danger. I simply did not have the heart to kill him. You know that I am not a murderer.”

  That does sound like her Marchenko. They let Marchenko 2 go away after the first fight. Should she believe him? Everything fits together so well. Yet she has to test him.

  “You remember how we went separate ways? You just wanted to find another way to the control center. I haven’t seen you since then. Why didn’t you return earlier?”

  “Your memories must be all garbled,” the robot answers. “It was the cleaning mechanism that separated us, don’t you remember?”

  That is true. Only the real Marchenko could know this.

  “I told him earlier about what happened,” the voice from the corridor says.

  “It’s just a cheap trick,” the Marchenko in front of her says. “He just wants to deceive you.”

  He is probably right. Why should the real Marchenko tell the fake one what happened to him? He should have realized Marchenko 2 would use that to his advantage!

  “Why don’t we simply wake Adam? He can attest to what happened,” the voice from the piece of scrap says.

  “You know yourself he won’t be able to do that. He did not watch us trade places. It would be too dangerous anyways. We will only awaken him when he is ready. The fact that you would endanger your son just to prove yourself right indicates who you really are.”

  Eve is confused. Who traded places?

  “We did not trade places,” the voice from the corner says. “That was your evil plan, but it did not happen.”

  Eve sees the alien moving one of its arms from the corner of her eye. So it is not dead after all. She is glad, even if it does not make the situation any easier.

  The four-legged Marchenko also notices the alien awakening. “You better hand its weapon over to me,” he says. “We have to eliminate this thing before it is fully awake. Otherwise we don’t stand a chance.”

  Eve looks at the harpoon. The weapon does not look as if it could be switched to stun. “Why don’t you use the weapon you used to incapacitate the alien earlier?” she asks.

  “I ... you don’t have a clue. I have to recharge it first.”

  The alien moves a second arm.

  “It uses electricity?” Eve asks.

  “Yes. I used a full charge against the alien, but it still appears to have survived. Now I can’t use this weapon for another 15 minutes.”

  “You wanted to kill the extraterrestrial?”

  “It attacked me. What was I supposed to do? Ask for mercy in a language the creature won’t understand?”

  “To me the alien did not seem very aggressive. It even tried speaking our language.”

  “But you still ran away, didn’t you?”

  The extraterrestrial starts leaning on its arms. It is obviously trying to rise, but its strength fails and its arms buckle.

  “You really should give me the weapon now,” the robot says. “Or do you want to fire it yourself?”

  “I... will not shoot.”

  “Then give me the weapon, or do you want all of us to die?”

  Eve hears the Marchenko voice from the lump of metal. “Don’t give it to him! He attacked the alien first.”

  “You notice something? He wants us all to die,” the robot answers.

  The alien creature is trying once more to stand up.

  “If you don’t hand me the weapon, I will have to knock you out,” the robot threatens. “My energy would be sufficient for that.” He starts to move his right foreleg.

  “Watch out,” Marchenko’s voice warns her.

  No, Eve decides at this moment. The real Marchenko would not have tried to force her to give up her weapon. She is not going to wait until she gets knocked out. And they cannot pass up the chance to negotiate with the alien. She pushes the trigger button firmly just as she feels a sharp pain in her lower legs and is swept off her feet. Simultaneously, the strong recoil of the weapon throws her backward, away from the robot calling himself Marchenko and toward the giant frog who has just gotten up. She sees a flame shoot out of the robot body and she feels something soft on her back as she is being caught. Her muscles twitch when the electric discharge of the whip hits.

  She can no longer move, and then her mind saves her from the worst pain by letting her drift into unconsciousness.

  May 9, 19, Adam

  He is floating on his back, drifting through the sea. A gentle swell lifts him slightly upward. The sky is green, and on the horizon a white sun is setting, while a yellow sun stands directly overhead. The water is pleasantly warm and he floats in it even without swim strokes. Then he is suddenly shaken back and forth. He receives a painful slap on his cheek. And there is this giant eye over him, which looks at him as if it knew all of his secrets. Adam screams. The stare of this eye makes his blood curdle.

  “It is okay,” Marchenko’s voice says. “You are safe. He is a friend.”

  The voice does not come from the eye but from somewhere behind it. Yet it has an immediate calming effect on him. Adam looks around. The eye belongs to a body. It is a huge body, reminiscent of a frog. The creature now pulls back its arms. Those must have been shaking him. Adam notices that he can feel his limbs again. There is an unpleasant tingling sensation, but it is starting to fade.

  “Take your time,” Marchenko says.

  What happened? He had been carrying Marchenko in his arms, wanting to turn into this side corridor... at that point his memory ends.

  “Did the alien injure me like this?” He knows the creature must be an alien, even though he never saw one before.

  Marchenko laughs. “If our friend had wanted to hurt you, you would look very different now. Did you see his arms?”

  That is true. “So who did it?”

  “Your good friend, Marchenko 2. He must have heard us coming.”

  “And is he gone now? Or is that you?”

  “Come on over here, if you can manage to walk again. You will definitely recognize me. I also know how you injured y
our wrist. Just ask me!”

  “What about Marchenko 2? Did you defeat him?”

  “Eve... pulverized him.”

  “What?”

  “She fired the alien’s weapon at him.”

  “She did what?”

  “You understood me correctly. It was self-defense. Marchenko 2 threatened her with the same weapon he used to knock you out.”

  “What about Eve? Where is she?”

  “She is lying right next to you. She is still asleep. You can try to wake her up. Or should our new friend take over that task?”

  “That’s okay, Marchenko, I will do it.” Adam concentrates on his limbs. They obey him, so he rolls to his side and then gets on his knees. He has to take it easy. Then he looks around. He sees the silhouette of the alien at the entrance of the side corridor. It is not very brightly lit, but he immediately sees that Eve is indeed lying next to him. He looks at her. Now that he knows she is not his sister she appears even more beautiful to him. Did Marchenko already tell her about it? It is time to wake her up. He gently strokes her cheeks. She becomes agitated and then suddenly jerks upright. He barely manages to get out of her way.

  “Where is he? Where is the bastard?” she gasps, looking around in panic.

  “He is gone,” Marchenko says. “But look. Adam is here.”

  Eve turns around and looks at him. Yet she shows no reaction. Has she forgotten him? Then her eyes light up. “Oh, Adam,” she says. “I am so happy to see you.”

  “I am, too. I mean, that you are here,” Adam says and blushes.

  They embrace.

  “But what happened to Marchenko 2?” Eve asks, looking at Adam.

  “I was unconscious,” Adam replies.

  “You finished him off, Eve,” Marchenko says. “He can’t endanger us anymore. Never again.”

  “I didn’t want to do that.”

  “I know, but you had no choice. Otherwise we would all be in his power.”