The thing was big, perhaps 20 feet high, 20 feet wide and 30 feet long.
It was hard to see, hard to focus on. There was enough light, but the details, while there, were complex and strange and his eyes could not find anything familiar to anchor them.
As it continued towards him, alarms began going off in the back of his mind. The monstrosity came right up to the glass and then stopped.
Adamarus had also neglected to consider his own state of being. Had he, he would have noticed that he was wrapped in white cloth connected to dozens of tubes that dangled from the mists above. He would have also noticed that although his mind was fogged and confused, he was feeling really good in a way that was both strange and familiar.
After several seconds, the glass surrounding him seemed to slide down and away. Frigid air and the strong scent of mold washed over him. His ears popped several times. The moving hill seemed to sigh.
Without giving it much thought, Adamarus threw his legs over the side of the platform he was lying on and tried to stand, but the floor rushed up.
The strange hill seemed to flinch as he hit the floor.
Then, as Adamarus stared at it, it did something inconceivable. In a blur of motion and with the sound of sucking air, it stretched upward at least 100 feet. The expansion came to a halt. Adamarus looked up at it dumbfounded. It looked like a giant blimp set on end.
Then, muscles seemed to flex and the walking hill came down again emitting a horrible screech that was the loudest sound Adamarus had ever heard. A wall of sound and wind physically slammed into him, lifting him up and throwing him back. Still attached to tubes reaching down from the heights, his body swung upward until his back hit a wall. The tubes stretched, allowing him to slide down to the floor as he screamed and held his ears.
Simultaneously, many of the “hills” had expanded upward and were coming down, all making that incredibly loud noise.
The floor and walls vibrated and his back arched in pain from the explosive sounds. Blood started running from his ears and nose. Then, suddenly all was quiet.
Blackness was pulsing in and out from the edges of his vision. He could hear small sounds from all of the hills as they jerked up and down a few feet. He tried to look up but that was when the blackness closed over everything. The last thing he remembered was seeing the moving hill coming towards him.
Eons later, Adamarus felt himself being moved, but quickly slid back into unconsciousness. Sometime later, he again regained consciousness briefly, and had the impression that he was on an airplane.
---
While everyone was looking up at the enormous ship, the smaller atmospheric shuttle, which had detached from the ship before it had become the center of attention, descended unnoticed. It remained that way until it uncloaked and became both visible and very noisy 30 feet above the helipad at Amular’s largest hospital, Hillcrest General Hospital in the city of Hillcrest.
With an ear-splitting roar, it set down next to the emergency room. Being many times larger than a helicopter, it extended out onto the parking lot but had carefully avoided crushing any cars. The huge circular craft rested on eight extended legs. It was 160 feet in diameter, looked sort of like an upside-down umbrella—exactly like the seven-mile ship in the sky. The thunderous roar died as hundreds of people in cars and on the sidewalks looked on, momentarily frozen in total shock.
The aliens, having clandestinely studied the planet for over three years, mostly via video and radio broadcasts, then acted in a very logical way. However, the people within audio and visual range just didn’t catch on right away.
First, an ambulance-like siren blared out at such volume, it could be heard for miles. A large hatch on the bottom opened and a 15-foot ramp slowly extended to the ground. Almost at once, a black 10-foot square only an inch thick literally flew down the ramp, and floating in the air, proceeded to the side of the ship and started rotating. It gained speed, and in seconds, was spinning so fast it became a blur.
It was at that point someone screamed, and people who had been frozen in place suddenly started running.
The blurred spinning black square came to life, displaying 3D images like a hologram.
Incredibly the theme song from a popular weekly real life entertainment show called “Emergency Room Trauma” blared out at a volume no one thought possible.
At this, a couple of the fleeing people looked back, and then they slowed down as they saw the 3D images displayed on the spinning square. It showed some kind of wreckage. The familiar mining company’s logo could be seen on the dented and torn hull.
Fingers crammed into their ears, a couple of people wandered cautiously back toward the spinning square, watching as it showed small black machines cutting into the wreckage. Then the image showed a broken and bloody body being carried out of the wreckage by four of the black machines.
One of the people watching was a doctor and he had gotten as close to the spinning square as possible.
Something bumped into him. With his eyes glued to the screen he held up a hand, waving off the intrusion and hollered above the noise, “Wait! This is showing an injured person.” Something bumped him again, harder this time and he turned angrily… but then froze.
No one had noticed the second smaller black rectangle float down the ramp. Now it floated beside the doctor, bumping him to get his attention. On the floating black rectangle lay a body bandaged almost from head to foot. At that moment, a booming voice came from the ship. “He will live. Feed him when he wakes. When the bandages fall off, send him back to us.” It was so loud that everyone fell to their knees.
After Adamarus was transferred to a gurney and rolled into the emergency room, the ship went quiet. Both the black platform and the black square returned to the ship and the ramp closed. The ship then sat there quietly doing nothing.
---
The city of Hillcrest had been a small town with a population of about 1,200 before the Hospital had been built 42 years ago. Hillcrest was in the middle of nowhere, which was the reason it had been chosen for the site of the new hospital.
Eight years before its construction, the victorious soldiers had returned from the 20-year interplanetary war, bringing with them a virus picked up from the prisoners of war. The virus swept across the planet killing hundreds. The new center of medicine was located in an isolated area to keep it safe and functional should such a thing ever happen again.
The nearest small town was Big Rock, 42 miles away. Its large hydroelectric plant was another reason Hillcrest had been chosen for the hospital. Best of all, other than Big Rock, for almost 100 miles in any direction, Hillcrest was surrounded by forests and mountains, all of it government-owned land.
Being the planet’s central hub for medical training and research, the larger news networks had reporters permanently stationed in Hillcrest, so the news of the alien ship landing hit the wires within five minutes.
Within 20 minutes, all of the other news networks had reporters heading towards Hillcrest.
Within half an hour, news of the two ships had spread around the planet.
---
The government had a contingency plan for everything. However, some of these plans were somewhat old. In this particular case, 80 years old.
As it turned out, the 12-man team of experts to be notified, and who would take the appropriate action in the case of alien contact, had all passed away years ago. Of course replacements had been appointed and re-appointed over the years. However, none of the current appointees had ever given any thought to alien encounters and, in fact, most didn’t even remember being appointed to what had become something of an honorary position, or worse, a complete joke.
And of course the “procedures” that had been painstakingly worked out and documented eighty years ago were as lost as the clueless appointees. Fortunately, things went well despite all this.
Within an hour of the landing, the Hillcrest police cleared a five-block area around the ship and, except for hospital staff an
d patients, the public was kept away. The police passed the news up to the local government, who passed the news right up to the top, the President of Amular and its star system colonies.
President James Olson Wicker, a cool-headed person with a ration of common sense, knew instinctively that a contingency plan and a team assembled eighty years ago would be useless now. He immediately had the most capable person he knew of tracked down, a fairly young commander named Patrick T. Leewood.
Then, knowing communication would be a large factor, he remembered an article he’d recently read on communicating with advanced computer AI systems—the article had likened it to communicating with an alien intelligence. The author was one of the top experts in the field of AI communications, Dr. Lorraine Harrington. He had her tracked down.
Finally, he added the top four members of Amular’s Security Agency.
As each person was located, they were rushed to the nearest airport and air lifted, many via supersonic fighter jet, to Hillcrest.
Once everyone was airborne, a secure teleconference was set up with each of them and the President, and he personally briefed them. He put Leewood in charge, named Harrington as second in command, and told them to get on site, assess the situation and report back.
They could take whatever immediate action they deemed necessary with a priority on making contact.
Within five hours of the alien landing, the President’s special team, coming from different parts of the planet, arrived at the Hillcrest Airport within a 45-minute time frame.
They met briefly in the lounge, then boarded two military helicopters which took them straight to Hillcrest General Hospital.
As for the seven-mile ship still in orbit, it had stayed out of the way, and for now, it was decided no one would approach it.
---
Dr. J. A. Kallen tossed the clipboard on his desk, “Captain Maximus has been unconscious since he was admitted. His wounds were horrific and, to tell you the truth, I do not know how he is still alive. They,” Doctor Kallen waved towards the window where the alien ship could be seen, “are obviously more advanced in the medical field than we are.” The doctor sat down behind his desk and looked at the five government men and one woman who had squeezed into his office.
Dr. Kallen was a good-looking man in his early thirties, skinny as a rail with thinning blond hair, thick glasses and normally a ready smile which was absent at that moment.
A tall man stepped forward and pulled a wallet from his back pocket, “Doctor, I’m Commander Leewood.” He shook the doctor’s hand while holding up his ID in the other and Kallen studied it.
The ID confirmed Leewood’s rank, said he was from the Special Operations division but, most prominently as well as impressive, was the President’s Seal with the words “Presidential Authority.”
Leewood continued, “With all due respect, I’m going to explain the reality of the situation.”
He was the kind of person that stood out in a forceful and striking way. His military bearing was obvious; ramrod straight, chin tucked in. His muscular six-foot-four-inch, 205-pound body was not from weightlifting but rather forged from an active and hard life. He wore his blond hair in a buzz cut and his face was all hard angles, which gave him an aggressive look. His light hazel eyes were calm and confident but, if you looked carefully, they also subtlety darted around, aware of everything around him. However, sometimes when he focused on you, they seemed to go flat and gave him the look of a killer—a man you did not want to mess with.
There were other subtle and unusual contrasts to the man. Though he projected a poised and relaxed demeanor, somehow he was also always in motion. This added the impression of explosive, pent-up energy that was barely contained.
Kallen took all of this in but thought, it won’t change the circumstances.
“We’re here by order of the President.” Leewood waited for a reaction but didn’t get one. Leewood then fired his slow, intense, commanding voice at Kallen, “We must speak with that man and we need do it right now.”
Doctor Kallen jumped slightly, then tried to cover it by lifting both hands in surrender, “I’m not stopping you. Knock yourselves out. But he won’t hear you and he darn sure won’t answer you.”
The female member of the team stepped forward, “Doctor Kallen, I’m Doctor Lorraine Harrington.”
Commander Leewood moved over a fraction of an inch allowing her the floor.
He actually knew everyone on the team but Harrington, but he immediately realized that a woman’s touch might work better here – especially a knockout like Harrington. Harrington was tall, thin and tanned, with full breasts just the right size for her height and build. Her high cheek-boned face and full lips were stunning. She had green eyes and wore her long brown hair pulled tightly back in a bun. Her legs went on forever – no, Leewood wasn’t going to mind her assignment to the team at all.
However, when he had been told that she would serve as his second in command, he had balked.
President Wicker had assured him that she was a fireball and he’d be thanking him later. He was thanking him now. Wicker had also said something about there being no one experienced in figuring out how the mind of an alien might work, and that she was the next best thing. Leewood hadn’t known what the President meant, but intended to find out as soon as he could.
Harrington gave the doctor a smile that said, I appreciate the position you’re in. What she said was, “We need you to give him something that will bring him around.” She held up a hand before the doctor could reply, “As you can see,” she indicated the window and the ship beyond, “we have a hell of a situation here and we—your hospital—the entire planet for that matter, desperately need answers, and all the answers are in that room across the hall. I hate to say it, but the needs of the planet might outweigh any harm that might be done to the patient.”
Kallen nodded. Perhaps she was right but… “I’m not sure anything will wake him up. I have no idea what to try. What would you suggest?”
Harrington closed her eyes for a moment then looked back up, “You’re his doctor, not me.”
“Well, that’s just it. I’m his doctor now, however,” he waved once more at the strange ship outside his window, “they ‘were’ his doctors and we don’t know what, if anything, they gave him, nor what, if anything, will wake him up or what might kill him. As you already know, the doctor who stumbled onto Captain Maximus got very simple instructions from that ship.”
One of the agents flipped back through his notebook and read, “He will live. Feed him when he wakes. When the bandages fall off, send him back to us.”
The doctor nodded, “Word for word, and that’s what we are going to do, that and nothing more.”
Leewood moved to Kallen’s desk and tapped a file folder with Adamarus’ name on it. There wasn’t much in it as Adamarus’ records had not yet been transferred to Hillcrest. “Then what’s in this file?”
Dr. Kallen massaged his temples; he was getting a headache. “We are naturally conducting passive tests on him—in fact, every test we can think of. But passive tests do not affect the subject in any way. We take samples… stuff comes out but nothing goes in.”
“You mean stuff like blood tests and urine samples?” Leewood asked.
Kallen nodded, “Exactly.” Leewood started to say something else but the doctor cut him off. “That man had half of his head torn off. His body was pretty much severed into three parts, and a piece of metal ripped through his chest severing most of his internal organs. As I said, we do not have the skill to repair that kind of damage. Anything we might do beyond what whoever is out there told us to do would be a dangerous gamble. We could lose him and, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe he is your only source of information…”
Kallen blinked, realizing that was not correct, “…except for whatever is in that ship. If I were going to take a risk, I’d go with what’s out there for now. If Captain Maximus dies, out there is the only source you’ll have left.”
There was nothing the special team could say to that. Leewood looked out the window at the strange umbrella-shaped ship and nodded. He looked back at Kallen and tapped on the file again, then took a breath. His expression changed to sincere and earnest. He spoke in a low, friendly, we’re-all-in-this-together voice, “You’ve kept the identity of the patient classified?”
“Yes.”
“How many people know?”
“Only the people in this room, as far as I know.”
“It needs to remain that way. Destroy this file jacket and any other material with his name on it. Use “John Doe.” Also, all test results for John Doe must be classified, okay? No one sees them except you and those involved with conducting the tests unless it’s cleared through me.” His head lowered for emphasis, “This includes the patient and family members. I’ll need to be briefed on your findings later today.”
“Understood,” Dr. Kallen replied with a somewhat tentative smile.
Leewood placed a card on top of the file, “And I want to be notified the minute there are any changes in Adamarus’ condition, no matter what time, day or night.”
Dr. Kallen picked up the card and nodded while looking at it.
The six of them filed out of Dr. Kallen’s office, and once in the hallway, Leewood turned to the group, “Let’s approach the ship… see if anything happens.”
---
The five men and one woman walked out of Hillcrest Hospital’s emergency room and approached the alien ship. They walked in a rough V formation, coming to a halt approximately 20 feet from the craft. They stood there for several minutes wondering what to do next. They didn’t have to wonder long.
The voice was mechanical and, at first, so soft they could barely hear it. It repeated the same thing over and over, slowly increasing the volume as if it were unsure of what volume to use. It did this until the special team all held their ears and began dropping to their knees, at which point, the voice immediately stopped.
The voice had said, “We will only speak to the one we brought. We will prepare a place. Bring him when his bandages fall off.”
Encounters (The Spiral Slayers Book 1) Page 4