A New Threat

by Aaron DeMott

  “Just what is going on here?” she demanded. “You said we were going on vacation, and now we’re moving here? What’s gotten into you? You didn’t even think to ask me about this first? What about your job?”

  “Earth won’t be safe for me much longer.”

  “What?” She took a step back. Where did that come from? “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sorry, Andrea. I should have told you a long time ago, but it wasn’t safe. Not for you or me. A great change is coming for mankind. It’s been on its way since we first took to the stars. We found new worlds and a solution to our overcrowding problem on Earth.” Jonathan stood and paced. “But we’ve managed to screw even that up. It’s bad enough that the Psygens treat us like pets, always telling us what we can and can’t do—and then enforce it even if all of mankind doesn’t agree with them. Now we’re giving away resources and technology that could save starving children to a bunch of alien animals!”

  “Jon, I think that’s just a gesture of goodwill—”

  “No, Andrea!” Jonathan slammed his fist down on the coffee table. “A gesture of goodwill is a box of chocolates or not taking their planet for ourselves. UGAL is treating these animals like people, like they’re our equals. Not everyone is happy with the situation. A revolution is coming, Andrea. Mankind will have freedom again.”

  Andrea sat in stunned silence. She didn’t notice when Jonathan left the room, still ranting about human superiority. Jonathan still hadn’t returned an hour later. Andrea found a bedroom upstairs with her luggage in it. She changed into her pajamas, climbed into bed, and cried herself to sleep.

  She woke early the next morning and checked to make sure Fred was still asleep. After that, she wandered into the kitchen. The pantry was stocked well enough with eggs, toast, and bacon. She wasn’t hungry, but Fred would want to eat.

  By the time Fred woke up and found Andrea, she had finished cooking and had forced herself to eat something. She filled a plate for her son and kissed him on the top of his head before she left the kitchen to explore the rest of the house.

  Anything to keep my mind off… She couldn’t finish the thought.

  Jonathan had left earlier in the morning, if not late last night, since he never missed breakfast when he was home. Andrea meandered through the house and poked her head into every room—anything to keep her mind off the events of the past few days. She stopped at a room that looked like it must be her husband’s study.

  Maps of Earth and its colonies were on every wall. One in particular caught her eye. Earth and its first colony, along with Alpha Centauri and the first two mining colonies, were circled in red. The Paradise Colony and Mining Colonies Three and Four were circled in blue.

  There was a line of text in the center of each circled area. Andrea slowly stepped forward. The first was labeled ‘UGAL.’ She swallowed when she read the second.

  THE HUMAN REPUBLIC

  Andrea’s first thought was to call her husband and ask if this was some kind of joke. She quickly discarded the idea as she remembered the almost maniacal sound of his voice last night.

  Another poster had red circles around different colonies and spaceports with dates next to them. Something was familiar about those dates. Andrea gasped as she remembered why. The dates on the map were the days the news had reported that the sites had been attacked by pirates. Her heart beat faster as she realized some of the dates were still in the future.

  A brightly colored paper on a table near the door caught her eye. Her hand trembled as she reached down and picked it up. The title of the pamphlet read: “Aliens as Sentients: The Great Deception.”

  She dropped the paper and ran to the kitchen. She stopped outside the door and took several deep breaths. It wouldn’t do any good to make Fred panic. She had to act like nothing was wrong.

  After she took another breath and forced a smile, she stepped into the kitchen. “Hi, Fred. Done with breakfast?”

  Fred nodded behind his glass of orange juice.

  “How would you like to spend the day with your new friends while Mom goes shopping?”

  “Woo-hoo!” Fred pumped his fist in the air and ran off to get dressed.

  Andrea wasn’t sure if he was excited about a day with friends or not being dragged along on a shopping trip. Fortunately, he hadn’t asked about his brother. She wasn’t sure if she could hold herself together if he did. Andrea said a quick prayer of thanks that people she knew with small children Fred’s age had come in on the same transport with her.

  Andrea left a quick note for her husband that she was going out shopping and wouldn’t be back until late. That shouldn’t raise any suspicions. She was often out late when she went shopping.

  There was a car in the garage. Andrea sighed with relief. Her other plan had been to call a taxi. She dropped Fred off at his friend’s house and then drove to the hospital. One of the doctors there was able to give her the name of the captain of the cargo ship that had rescued her. A quick check on a public SatNet terminal told her that he was still on-planet.

  Andrea pulled over across the street from the bar. The terminal said the captain was here. The phrase she would have used to describe the place was ‘hole in the wall.’ She briefly reconsidered her plan.

  The smart thing to do would be to go to the Colony’s administrators, but they had to be in on something this big. The next best thing was to go to UGAL, but she didn’t want an official trail to show she had left the planet. The pirates would resort to anything to stop her if they knew what she had planned. Andrea squared her shoulders and marched into the bar.

  Dim lighting barely managed to poke through the haze of smoke that hung in the air. Andrea coughed and pushed forward. The sound of clinking glasses and the low murmur of conversation filled the air. It stopped whenever she walked past a table, and men in rugged clothes and unkempt hair stared at her. Andrea crossed her arms over her chest. This was bad idea.

  Captain Fisher sat alone at a booth in the back corner of the room. He still wore the brown jacket and dark pants that he’d had on when she last saw him in the transport. His hair was messy, and his eyes were bloodshot. Could she really trust him? She took a deep breath, swallowed, and walked over to his table.

  “G’day, ma’am. Mrs. Vincent, was it?”

  “Yes. I wanted to thank you for saving me.”

  “No problem. Glad to be of service.” Captian Fisher took another pull from his bottle.

  “Also,” Andrea swallowed nervously. She wasn’t sure if she should go through with this. She had no way to know if Captain Fisher was also connected to the pirates. On the other hand, he was her only option that wouldn’t be connected to the planetary authorities. “I need to get off the planet. Inconspicuously.”

  Captain Fisher lowered his voice. “Really. May I ask why?”

  “I can’t say. It’s too dangerous,” Andrea whispered.

  “I can’t help you then. It’d raise too much suspicion. If you can at least tell me who you have to contact, and a subject, I might be able to get someone who can.”

  Andrea paused. She hadn’t planned to tell anyone anything until she was safe on Earth. “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “You can’t. How can I trust you?”

  “UGAL. Pirates.”

  Captain Fisher took a swig from the bottle and didn’t reply for a long time. Andrea tried to remain calm as she wondered whether or not she was going to be handed over to the pirates.

  Captain Fisher spoke so softly that Andrea had to lean in to hear him. “I can get a message to someone who can get you out. Go home. Act natural. He’ll find you.”

  “Are you sure he can get me out in time?”

  “If the person I have in mind can’t get you off planet safely, no one in the galaxy can.”

  “How do I recognize him?”

  “They might not send who I have in mind. You’ll know. You’d better leave now.”

  Andrea stood and strode out of the bar with as natural of a walk as she co
uld manage.

  Chapter 13

  Captain Trenton turned to Nilre once they were seated in the conference room. “I’m assuming you got more out of that exchange than I did?”

  “Quite a bit more, thanks to the NTO Ara brought over. Mr. Loker is working for a man he knows as Ceres. That confirms his activities are related to those of the pirates we captured on Alkask. Loker has been careful not to find the identity of Ceres, but he has a few suspicions. I’ll check them out privately before I reveal who he suspects.”

  Nilre pressed a button on the table and a holographic map of known space rose out of the table. Several different locations had blinking dots next to them. “The red areas are all places attacked by pirates in the last four months.” Nilre pressed another button and a handful of the red dots turned yellow. “The yellow areas are activities Mr. Loker knows about, or helped to plan. You’ll notice that Mining Colony Two is one of those locations. That is the reason I’ve requested a course change for that location.

  “Mr. Loker also does not know what Ceres’s plan for the supplies is, but I was able to get the location where he drops them off.”

  Nilre pointed to a spot on the holo-map centrally located between the Paradise Colony and Mining Colonies Three and Four.

  “There is a star in this location with one gas giant planet in orbit. According to Mr. Loker, there is a space station in orbit of the gas giant. This station is where he drops the stolen supplies.”

  A light on the table blinked in front of the captain. He pressed it and read a short message.

  “The bridge reports we’re approaching Mining Colony Two. Tomed is on his way here from engineering. I assume you’ve filled him in on what you’ve already told us?”

  Nilre nodded.

  “Good. When he gets here we’ll hold a holo-conference with the Heim and decide our next move.”

  Tomed arrived shortly and sat next to Nilre. Captain Trenton pressed another button and a hologram of Captain Radik appeared at the opposite end of the table. Nilre brought Captain Radik up to speed.

  Captain Trenton steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair. “The question now is whether we continue our investigation, or raid the unauthorized space station.”

  “If I may?” Tomed asked. He continued after a nod from Captain Trenton. “We might be able to prevent whatever it is they have planned if we act now. But we don’t know exactly what they’ve planned, and we don’t have any evidence. If we show up at that station now they’ll probably just say they’re a gas-mining outfit trying to stake a claim or something. And I doubt we’d find any of the stolen goods. Enough time has passed that they’ve most likely already been moved to wherever they’re really being used.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Captain Radik said.

  Tomed grabbed a glass of water and took a sip. “Loker’s been careful to not know too much about this operation. None of the pirates we’ve captured know anything about it either—just enough to do their part. This whole thing has been set up so that if any one part fails, the overall goal can still be accomplished.”

  Tomed met the eyes of each person in the conference room. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not happy with the small fry. I want whoever is really behind all this.”

  “Not that I disagree with you, Psygen, but if we wait until we know exactly what’s happening we could be too late to stop it,” Captain Trenton said.

  “I agree. That’s the risk we take.”

  A loud beep interrupted the meeting.

  “Bridge to Captain Trenton. I’m sorry for the interruption, but we have an encrypted priority one message for Psygen Tomed Nor.”

  The captain nodded to Tomed. “You can take it in my office.”

  Tomed nodded as he rose and exited the room. He was back in moments. “What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room.”

  Everyone nodded at him except the Meskka. They glanced at each other, then at Nilre. A moment later they nodded as well.

  “Here’s a new wrinkle. That was a message from my undercover operative. He’s made contact with someone on the Paradise Colony who knows something about the overall pirate objective. This person wants a covert extraction before they’ll tell us anything.”

  Captain Trenton exchanged glances with Captain Radik before he spoke. “I think we should hear what this person has to say before we make any further plans. In the meantime we’ll go over what we know about the current pirate activity and see if we can find anything new, perhaps we can extrapolate what their next target might be. Now, who are we going to send to extract this person?”

  Tomed raised his hand. “I’ll go. I can take the fighter that Ara brought over. I haven’t looked it over thoroughly yet, but it seems to have a few modifications that might come in handy.”

  “Oh, you’ll love it.” Captain Radik chuckled. “Some of the Psygen techs have been tinkering on it for our whole exploration mission.”

  “Well then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get my arm tended to and be off immediately. If anyone needs me I’ll be in touch with Nilre the whole time.”

  Tomed left the briefing room and headed for the med bay. Ara wasn’t the Goddard’s physician, but he’d still bet that’s where she’d be. He was glad to finally be doing something, and something that might be productive at that. But it wasn’t like Jake to be so sparse with information. On the other hand, he was deep undercover and it was probably hard to get a message out at all.

  Ara was in the med bay. Tomed grinned—the girl needed a hobby. She was reviewing medical records with Doctor Zoet.

  “Hey, Ara. Bored yet?”

  “Nope, not at all! I was just reviewing what you did to that arm.”

  “Speaking of which… is now a good time to get it fixed?”

  “Sure. Go sit in the OR and I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Tomed sat on the first bed in the operating room. Ara disappeared around a corner and was back in a moment holding one handle of a tank of gray goo. Doctor Zoet carried the other handle.

  “All right, Tomed. First I need to borrow your NTO. I left mine back on the Heim.” Ara giggled.

  Tomed rolled his eyes and handed the backpack-shaped NTO to Ara, who slipped it over her shoulders.

  “All right, now I need you to stick what’s left of your hand into this tank of icky goo here.”

  “Been working in the children’s hospital again?”

  “Yup. Just finished my doctorate in pediatrics before the exploration mission.”

  “I thought you already had a doctorate or two?”

  “Four actually, and this was on SeQish. Which brings me up to five.”

  Tomed stuck his right bicep into the tank and gasped. “Ooo! You could have warmed it up a little!”

  “Excuse me,” Doctor Zoet said, his eyes on Ara. “I have never seen this procedure done before, but I’ve read about it in history books. They were a tad unclear on exactly how the process works on a physical level. I was hoping you would be willing to clarify?”

  “No problem. Fortunately I don’t have to do this often. I’m going to use my abilities, along with spare power from the NTO, to do two things—enhance the patient’s own healing and use most of this bio-matter as raw materials to regenerate his arm.”

  “And how is that accomplished?”

  “Magic!” Ara grinned. “Actually, it has something to do with controlling quantum reactions and energy. None of my doctorates are in unified field theory, though, so I can’t explain exactly how it works, other than re-arranging molecules to a specified pattern.”

  Dr. Zoet gave her a small smile back and nodded.

  Ara grabbed Tomed’s right shoulder and stuck her other hand in the tank. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Doctor Zoet leaned closer to get a better look inside the tank. He stood there while the bone and muscle tissue started to re-grow.

  “Amazing!” he whispered.

  Half an hour later, Ara pulled her arms from the tank.

  “Yuck.”
Ara made a face and wiped her hands on a disposable towel. “See if you can move it.”

  Tomed stretched his new arm and wiggled his fingers. “Looks as good as new.”

  “Not quite.” Ara pushed his chin with her finger so he was eye-to-eye with her. “As good as new, yes, but not as good as ever. This arm doesn’t have the muscle memory, tan, or strength it had before. Although it’s based on the original DNA, you need to take it easy for a while. It’s not going to take the beating you’re used to until you work it into shape. Okay?”

  Tomed stuck his tongue out. “Yes, Mom!”

  Ara laughed and poked him in the ribs. “Go have fun on your mission. Just don’t come back needing the arm done again.”

  Tomed laughed as he hopped down from the table. Ara handed him back the NTO and went to the sink to wash her hands.

  Tomed entered the shuttle bay and waved to the techs he recognized. The customized fighter sat parked near the shuttle bay doors. Tomed ran a hand down the black hull as he looked it over. From the outside, it didn’t look all that different from the standard model.

  He climbed the ladder, popped the canopy, and dropped into the pilot’s seat. After he fastened the restraints, he punched the button to close the canopy. The controls appeared identical to the standard model as well. He shrugged and started the engines.

  “Gail: avatar.”

  A smaller version of the holographic interface stood on the console.

  “Yes, Tomed?”

  “Load a local copy of yourself aboard the fighter and switch to voice mode. You’re standing on my weapons controls.”

  “Yes, Psygen.”

  The holo-image of Gail disappeared and a moment later her voice came through the cabin speakers. “I’m aboard and ready.”

  “All right, let’s go through a systems check.”

  “Aye, sir:

  computer core: online

  reactor: online

  life-support: online

  anti-grav: online

  NTO: charging.”