Shadows

by Brian Whiting

  “See, in the end, we avoid the plant right?” Alex said, as if trying to make a point.

  “Sir, now we know why the Gothans are afraid of the plant. We also know we can overpower the plant, and we know that if we encounter one, we’re likely to receive severe lacerations or punctures from it. It’s good intelligence, sir.”

  “If you say so. As for me, I am still avoiding it on general principle, just like before.”

  Travis took the lead, and Alex followed close behind as the humans walked behind the jogging Gothans.

  They continued for several minutes. Alex noticed that the leaves on the trees were three times thicker than they tended to be on Earth. Some kinds of leaves had dense patches of fine hairs on them. Every so often Alex or one of the other crewmen felt a headache coming on and would take another puff of oxygen.

  “My little tank is empty,” one of the guards said, tossing the canister off to the side.

  Alex knew he must be low as well. Only one of Alex’s guards had an undamaged EVA suit and was still using the oxygen the suit provided.

  The Gothans would circumvent fallen trees, treating them as impassible obstacles, and would go under bushes impassible to the humans. It slowed their progress greatly. When the Gothans stopped without a clear reason, Alex asked why but got no direct response.

  “We must be quick!” one of the Gothans whispered to another, taking a slight step back.

  There was a rustle of movement several yards to one side.

  “What is that?” Alex whispered.

  “We are being hunted!” one of the Gothans replied. “None of us will survive.”

  The lead guard raised his assault rifle toward the direction of the noise, which came a second time but louder this time. All of the Gothans turned away from the noise and looked in the opposite direction.

  What an odd survival response, Alex thought.

  A scream came from behind him, and he spun around. The security guard with the intact EVA suit was facedown on the ground, thrashing violently as a large—animal—of some sort tore at his back.

  Several gunshots rang out from behind, and Alex again turned to see who was firing and at what exactly.

  Whatever was making noise in the bushes was now running toward the group but was still out of view. Alex raised a sidearm he took from the shuttle and added his own gunfire to the barrage. Wounded on all sides, the approaching creature made a half-hearted attempt to leap onto the guard nearest Alex but instead collapsed onto the ground. Dark orange blood oozed out the many gunshot holes along the length of its body.

  Alex swung his sidearm back around to offer assistance to his fallen shipmate, whose EVA suit was now slashed open. The other two guards stood over the dead body of the attacking animal, wonderment etched on their faces. The beast had four powerful legs with tiny claws and big teeth, a mouth and skin like those of a crocodile but a body like a large cat of some kind.

  “Are you OK?” Alex asked.

  “I got cut up pretty good!” the man responded even as Alex noticed through the cuts in his EVA suit that he was bleeding.

  “I am empty of feeling. No one will believe we survived an attack from these predators without any losses,” Gs Ho Tae responded appearing half dazed.

  “They are equally deadly on land or in water,” another Gothan said.

  “And they are not the only ones. We must keep moving.” Gs Ho Tae started jogging again.

  Alex looked back at his wounded officer, who said, “I’m OK to walk. Let’s keep going.” Alex helped him up, and soon they were off.

  Alex took a puff of oxygen, realizing that his tank was now empty. He tossed the empty canister into a pile of leaves off to the side of their path.

  Something stung Alex’s neck and he slapped it immediately, killing something under his hand. A big bug of some kind. “Damn. This planet will kill us, either by infection or claw, it doesn’t matter.”

  Gs Ho Tae stopped and turned to Alex. “If you can get us to the capital, I think you will have nothing to worry about. Just keep the predators from killing us, and we will be OK.”

  Meanwhile, one of the guards pointed out to Alex that the sting site on his neck was slowly turning red.

  “Why do you think we are going to be infected?” another guard asked nervously as sweat poured off his face and he held his weapon high and at the ready.

  “We haven’t had the opportunity to develop immunities to the teeming life on this planet.” Even as he spoke Alex felt his headache getting worse.

  As if a magical force decided to hold the jungle back from continuing further, they managed to exit the jungle and entered a field where short thin blades of grass swayed side to side of their own accord, at various speeds, even though Alex couldn’t sense any wind.

  “That’s creepy,” Alex mumbled as he watched the Gothans cross the grass without a second thought. By now his headache was getting very bad, and it was difficult to focus. The last thing he remembered was falling.

  ***

  The medic reached forward and with a closed fist dragged his knuckles across the sternum, pushing down hard against the body. “Hey, wake up!”

  Lanora opened her eyes wide.

  “Are you OK?”

  She took a breath and coughed with force.

  Half the bridge crew were moving around and looked at her with concern, but she managed to say, “Status report.”

  Jack stood next to her, “Several dead, nearly everyone is wounded in one way or another. The ship is still powered, a couple subsystems are down. Multiple hull breaches, and we are coasting on a trajectory away from the local star at a speed the locals won’t be able to catch us. We are out of immediate danger.”

  “The captain’s shuttle?”

  Jack subtly moved his head left and right. “Crashed on the surface.”

  Lanora watched as a medic grabbed one of the other bridge officers moving the body toward the exit door.

  “What happened with her?”

  “We don’t know for sure, but we suspect several crew died due to brain aneurysms. The body just can’t take that kind of pressure.”

  The scene in front of her was chaotic, as she reached out to prevent a piece of debris from striking her. “Jack, activate the gravity plating all decks. Start slow, say five percent, then set us at thirty.”

  Jack maneuvered his body to the appropriate bridge chair and set in the commands.

  The hair around Lanora’s head began to settle down. “I want a complete report!”

  “The department heads are working on it; some of them are still coming around.” Even as Jack spoke, Fena began to grunt and move around in her chair.

  “Your shoulder is going to be in some pain for a few days, your arm was completely dislocated. I went ahead and set it before you came around,” the medic said as he listened to Fena’s heartbeat.

  Lanora stood up from her chair; her legs had fallen asleep and now it felt like a million needles were touching her legs. She waited a moment for the feeling to pass. Once she was able to support her weight she walked over to Fena and looked her over. Like everyone else, it seemed, Fena had bloodshot eyes, and she was sporting a dried-up nosebleed.

  Jack appeared on Fena’s other side after the medic moved on to the next crewman. “You OK?” he said.

  Lanora took note of the personal inflection he used when he addressed Fena. Wondering if she was misinterpreting the tone and the looks he had always given her, attention she had secretly liked herself.

  “I’m alive, check on him. He hasn’t woken yet.” Fena raised her hand and pointed to the crewman still strapped next to her.

  “Hey, if you’re good, I need for us to stop traveling out to empty space,” Lanora said. “If we are able, hold our position just past the belt in this system, but keep at least two days distance from the locals, in case they try to come pay a visit.” She watched as Fena slowly pulled up her display screen.

  Lanora left the bridge and went to the small room behind the
bridge. It was meant to be a storage closet, but Alex had set up this space for the subspace technician to receive and gather information on the plethora of constant subspace transmissions.

  “How are you doing?” Lanora tried to visually assess the subspace technician.

  “I’ve been better,” he replied with weak eyes and slow movements.

  “Be thankful you’re alive; we lost a lot of people today. What have you got?”

  He hesitated, “How much has Alex told you so far?”

  “Not much, why?” Lanora shifted her body weight to her right leg.

  The technician looked at the wall for several moments. His eyes shifted from the wall to her. “Uhh—”

  “Damn it, just tell me if you are getting messages from the captain.”

  “Oh, uhh, no, no messages from the shuttle or the planet.”

  “Send a message to Earth. Inform them of our situation.”

  “We lost our transmitter; we can receive but not send any subspace messages.” The tech replied.

  “Keep me updated, the communications officer on the bridge passed away. I am counting on you now.” She left the small room and went into the hallway. Now that she was out of earshot from most of the crew, she activated her headset. “Symboli.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “What’s your assessment of our ship?”

  “We have sustained a fair amount of hull damage, the functionality of most of the ship remains intact. We have lost a portion of our secondary stock of long-term supplies. The room took two direct hits from their missiles.”

  “Do you know what happened, why they attacked us?”

  “It seems there was a change in leadership aboard the battleship. An order was then given to destroy the predators in the system.”

  “You mean us, we are the predators?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about their fleet?” In the hallway, she passed Jack and a medic as they left the bridge carrying a body, the medic hefting the victim’s upper torso and Jack supporting the lower half of the body. As Jack passed she made eye contact with him, and the sadness his eyes held made her lose her train of thought.

  “Umm… Look, the enemy ships, are they a threat?”

  “The battleship has taken critical damage and is not a threat. We took out several smaller ships and two, what I would classify as destroyers. There’s a significant number of smaller ships still available but only a few destroyers. If they attacked as one, we could be overwhelmed.”

  “Estimate time for complete ship repairs in space?”

  “Four months, twelve days, and sixteen hours, give or take a twenty-percent margin of error. Many unknown variables still exist.”

  Lanora continued walking down the corridor from the bridge. So far she hadn’t noticed any damage to the ship, until she came upon a domicile with a red light outside the door. Red meant decompressed.

  The deeper into the ship she got, the more red-lit doors she observed. Many crew members nodded their heads in respect or glanced at her with apprehension or concern as she passed them in the halls. Doubt began to worm its way in, and at some point she realized she was delaying returning to the bridge because she wasn’t sure what to do next.

  ***

  “Drones incoming, we are about to be overrun, where are you?” Biggs yelled into the radio as his squad laid down fire on the swarm of approaching drones. Dayanh pulled a pin from a grenade and tossed it as far as she could; somehow the grenade managed to miss a number of branches and vines and landed in the path of the Zorn drones.

  She kneeled and closed her eyes and ears just before the grenade went off, clearing a small area of vegetation. The drones all stumbled and froze in place for a few moments. The large explosion seemed to disorient them momentarily. It was hard to tell if the grenades had done any real harm to the drones. It didn’t exactly explode directly under them. Meanwhile her squad quickly wiped them out with their assorted weapons.

  ***

  The bridge of the Destiny was bathed in a slight red hue.

  “Approaching kill box two.”

  “I want us touching the treetops!” Brandy commanded.

  The Destiny was traveling too fast as it approached the location. Utilizing the slight aerodynamic properties of the hull, the pilot banked the craft to the side for the best heading into the engagement area. The craft dropped altitude a bit as the heading was adjusted in flight.

  The ship shuddered a moment.

  “What was that?” Brandy scanned the room looking for an explanation.

  “That was a treetop, ma’am,” the pilot said, with a devilish grin on his face.

  “I’ve got targets, closing in on our ground team!”

  “Then use the very accurate lasers and fire already!” Brandy shouted, her disbelief that she even had to give the command at the forefront of her mind.

  Below, the newly repaired Destiny’s three decoupler turrets shot forth their beams of destruction as they cut down trees, vines, and drones alike. The viewscreen was activated with an overhead view of the jungle floor. Friendlies were clearly marked. The muzzle flashes of several machine guns blazed on the screen, intermingled with a few tiny flying stars as the soldiers conducted a bounding retreat. Thankfully in this environment humans had the advantage. The Zorn drones often tripped up or collided with large branches or trees, fell into shallow ravines, or got tangled in a mass of vines. In this environment was obvious they couldn’t see, and the jungle, while great for hiding, was not their friend when it came to swift movement.

  ***

  “Moving!” Dayanh looked left as she watched the last person leave the front line. She waited tensely.

  “Set!” Dayanh heard behind her. Standing up she spun and ran away from the red beams that began to cut down the jungle from the Destiny above her. She ran past several members on her team as they continued to lay down fire in the direction of the drones. When she approached the rearmost section of the team, she yelled, “Set.” She got into a kneeling position and aimed carefully down her weapon sights.

  Thankfully the jungle was largely damp and humid, which made it difficult for the laser strikes to start any kind of lasting fires.

  “We’ve got air support, let’s move up!” the sergeant barked. Dayanh got up from her position and approached her team as they regained the ground they just lost. They passed fallen trees cleanly cut by the laser as well as more than a few drones sliced in half.

  “Target is up ahead.” The team approached the gaping hole in the middle of the jungle floor. The hole at a slight angle went into the Earth for about sixty feet. They flashed a light down the hole, at the end of which was a queen pod. The walls of the hole were lined with white eggs. The queen was partially in its pod and partially outside. It appeared to be missing its front two legs, because it moved slowly.

  “Satchel.”

  A soldier approached carrying thirty-five pounds of explosive, surrounded by a mixture of ball bearings, metal shavings, and tiny bars of rebar, all of which were neatly contained inside a book bag. The soldier pulled a cap to ignite a thirty-second fuse and dropped it into the deadly hole.

  “Go, go, go.”

  The squad ran in a straight line as they ran from the area.

  “Brandy, do you think you can find a spot for a pickup around here?” the sergeant asked into his comm piece.

  “Too bad you can’t just rappel your way back into the ship, huh? Don’t worry, there’s a creek about a mile straight ahead in the direction you’re heading. I can pick you up there. We might need to cut a few trees down first, though.”

  A giant explosion shook the ground and sent dust and particles zipping into the air as the tunnel acted like the barrel of a giant cannon. A plume of dust and dirt rose into the air and hung over the jungle canopy.

  Brandy watched from above as several trees fell into the ground surrounding the explosion site as the area caved in on itself. She smiled. “I think they got it!”

  Chapter 5


  Refreshed Body

  Normally the ship was dark, but now it was pitch black. Ga Plu Tin was on gat hands and knees and could feel the vibrations of the dying ship. The air was peppered with the cries and screams of a desperate people. All too often floating debris in the ship’s zero gravity would hit gat somewhere on gat body. Thankfully the ship layout was simple, and even in the dark ga knew where to go.

  Moving in the tight corridor was scary as the echoes of the others’ screams were unbearable. Ga began to move toward the shuttle bay, located near the rear of the ship. Without knowing why, gat face and skin became wet instantly. Something liquid was floating in the halls.

  As ga turned a corner at an intersection ga could hear a peculiar whistle; it was coming from the rock face, which had been cracked and damaged. Fear shot through gat body as ga increased speed down the next and much larger corridor. Someone was approaching gat from the front to pass. Instead gat grabbed the unknown and forced them in the other direction.

  The rock face was about thirty feet behind ga when it caved and buckled out into space.

  The atmosphere was being sucked out at an alarming speed. Ga instantly reached out and grabbed the shipmate’s arm, and a nearby rail as ga hung on for dear life. “Hold on!” ga shouted above the noise of rushing air. The remaining Gothans in the area moved quickly to cross the nearest threshold to a control port. One of them reached out and grabbed Ga Plu Tin’s hand, pulling them both to safety. The other of the two stood by waiting for the last moment before they would be forced to close the bulkhead, allowing Ga Plu Tin and the other crew member time to exit the doomed corridor.

  “Thank you for saving me,” said the unknown Gothan that ga had forced out of the corridor.

  Ga Plu Tin looked over gat shoulder. The other shipmate was much younger than ga and looked terrified.

  “Don’t worry. Stay with me, and I will take care of you.” Ga Plu Tin smiled as ga felt the lifelong bond of a thankful servant forming. “What’s your name?”

  Before an answer came, the door shut. In a parallel corridor that escaped harm, the latest arrival sparked a physical reaction from everyone as they tried to hug the walls to allow the captain to pass.