Voyager Dawn

by Richard Patton

  “Looks like we’re just going to head west and see what we see,” Ethan informed them over the comm, locking in the pre-programmed coordinates on his GPS.

  “What’s the rule on killing hostiles, again?” Ford yelled over the rushing wind.

  “Don’t,” Mason replied, “unless they attack you first.”

  “That’s the part that makes them hostile, isn’t it?”

  “We’re hauling a lot of cargo and weaponry,” Kyle cut in. “I doubt there will be much wildlife sticking around for us to see.”

  “Yeah,” Ford said, “but it’s the stuff I can’t see that worries me.”

  The squad continued to debate the merits of blowing out the brains of unknown lifeforms, while Ethan flew dutifully west. For him, it didn’t take much concentration to fly a DRAC, and there were things on his mind that didn’t involve Ford and Mason discussing the ethics of shooting first and asking questions later. What had caught Ethan’s attention was that Rebecca was conspicuously staying out of the conversation. She had her eyes on the sky as flocks of flying creatures erupted out of the tree canopy and tree-bound beasts poked their heads through the brush to see what was making the ruckus.

  Ethan couldn’t tell if she was enjoying the view, or calculating whether or not the squad’s combined firepower could bring down the alien flock, should the need arise. From what little time he had spent in her presence, he had found her to be frustratingly difficult to read.

  The night before, Ethan had reopened Rebecca’s file, curious about her background. She had clearly seen combat. Ethan knew the look well after spending the last few years around a soldier like Ford, a veteran of the Frontier Disputes. But the Disputes were before Rebecca’s time, and Ethan’s. What puzzled Ethan was the sheer lack of information on her record. Except for the vague generalities regarding her assignment in Blackhaven, there seemed to be no records on any of her previous assignments.

  When Ethan later told Mason about what he had found - or rather, didn’t find - Mason had advised him not to look too deeply into other people’s pasts. According to him, such actions had a way of attracting unwanted government attention. Despite his impulses, Ethan agreed to set the matter aside.

  “There’s a clearing up ahead,” Rebecca said suddenly, yanking Ethan back to the present. “Good place to set down.”

  Ethan checked her observation. “Looks good. Bringing her down.”

  The DRAC squeezed through the tree canopy, barely clearing it, and found footing in the dirt below. Ethan killed the engines as the others unloaded the equipment.

  “Ford, you come with me. We’re setting the hydrometer up in a creek just north of here,” Mason instructed, “Kyle, Winters, get the cameras set up.” Everyone set off into the trees, leaving Ethan to wander idly around the DRAC.

  A deathly silence fell over the clearing as the marines disappeared into the shadows. It appeared Kyle was right; their arrival had frightened off whatever might have been living in the area. Not that Ethan minded. He had had his share of wildlife on Four, where the wildlife had been particularly large and unfriendly. Discounting the beast he had seen several nights before, the environment itself seemed much less harsh to Ethan than it had on Four. He hoped such a tame environment engendered tamer fauna.

  Something cracked in the bushes behind the DRAC. Ethan whipped around to face the noise, hand instantly gripping the sidearm strapped to his thigh.

  “Mason?” he called. No, he remembered, they went the other way. Fighting the unreasonable urge to investigate, Ethan drew his pistol and slowly backed toward the DRAC’s open bay. There were no doors to protect him against whatever was lurking in the brush, but at least it gave him a chokepoint to defend.

  Suddenly and silently, a massive beast leapt out of the darkness, straight at Ethan. He dove sideways into the DRAC, firing off two shots in its direction. He couldn’t tell if they had missed or the monster had shrugged them off, but there was no time to figure it out. The beast skidded to a halt and charged again, barreling into the DRAC’s bay. Ethan rolled to the side, allowing the beast to slide through, unable to grip the cold metal.

  A third shot from Ethan’s pistol grazed its shoulder, causing it to stumble in the midst of another charge. The monster fell short of the bay this time, but managed to wrap a claw around Ethan’s leg, yanking him towards its maw. In a panic, Ethan let loose the remainder of his pistol’s magazine. Only the last bullets found their mark, tearing through the monster’s head with a vengeance. The beast went limp, slumping over the edge of the bay. What remained of its head oozed blue blood onto the deck. Ethan untangled his leg from its grasp and took a step back.

  In less than a minute for Kyle, Mason, Ford, and Rebecca came crashing out of the forest and back into the clearing, guns at the ready. Mason was the first to spot the carcass. His eyes moved from the monster to Ethan, then back again.

  “I guess we found the hostiles,” Ford grunted.

  *

  The beast’s remains were splayed out on an operating table aboard Voyager Dawn while a number of zoologists swarmed around it, chattering excitedly to each other. Ethan, watching from the observation room alongside Rhodes, Omicron Squad, and a number of officers whose names escaped him, he remembered the scientists acting the same way after the first hostile encounter on Four. They seemed to find the fact that someone had almost died to bring them the carcass irrelevant.

  “The brain stem is shattered,” one of the scientists said through the intercom, “a result, no doubt, of the excessive force used to kill it.” Ethan’s quick intake of breath provoked a sharp glance from the captain that blocked him from retorting sarcastically.

  “Maybe we should send them out there to bag one next time,” Mason muttered to Ethan. Ethan smirked. Despite having faced death-by-mauling, he found that a great deal of good had come of the discovery. Not only had Rhodes personally congratulated him on the find and given him the honor of naming the species, but his kill had earned him a particle of respect from Rebecca, who had gone so far as to compliment him on his achievement. “Not bad,” were her exact words, and Ethan felt an unmistakable thrill when she said it.

  The Dawn Six Bullhound – named by Ethan and Frank for its uncanny resemblance to an oversized, hairless dog – was now the topic of conversation throughout the ship. Even the civilians had been fed footage of the beast from Ethan’s HUD cam, if only to dispel any thought of venturing outside until the perimeter fence was set up.

  “There appears to be something lodged in its neck…” a biologist noted. “Pass me a scalpel. I’ll see if I can get it out.” There was a pause, and then… “Oh, crap. Uh, Captain?”

  Rhodes stepped up to the glass. The biologist extracted himself from the mob of scientists, who were watching with stunned fascination, and held up his find with a pair of tongs.

  “What the hell…” Rhodes breathed. Ethan stepped sideways to get a better view. What he saw nearly stopped his heart.

  It looked like a GPS locator of some sort. The design was smooth and forged in a scale-like silver material. A single concave button rested in the center of the device, and there was a small port on the forward edge.

  Rhodes snapped upright and pivoted on his heel, locking Omicron and Ethan in his view. “You do not breathe a word of this, do you understand?” he said sharply. They nodded their heads, utterly silent. “If I hear the word ‘alien’ out of anyone on this boat, I will court-martial every one of you.” He shot a look at the senior officers to make sure they knew they were not exempt from his orders. Before he could say any more, however, the scientist with the device interrupted.

  “Uh, sir? I think it activating.” Rhodes whipped around again, this time crowded in by the others in the room.

  The scientist was holding the device in the palm of his hand, and it was emitting a steady beat of short hissing noises. The captain was about to say something when it stopped hissing, and a green gel shot out of the port. It landed on the scientist’s wrist, causing him to recoil
and fling the device onto the floor. On its own volition, the gel quickly retreated over the surface of the device, shifting into a series of characters.

  “Get the linguists in here,” Rhodes ordered. “I want that deciphered and I want the ship on blue alert. If someone comes looking for this thing, we need to know what their intentions are.”

  The Bomb

  “A beacon was activated on Nossali. They already seek to desecrate our soil.”

  “Should we expect anything less? We have seen this before. The Humans will pillage and burn until the planet is covered with their twisted machines.”

  “The longer this continues, the sweeter the purge will be. It will be a Hunt to remember.”

  True to their word, the witnesses to the discovery made no mention of intelligent extraterrestrials to anyone, although some found it harder than others.

  “We’re dealing with damn bona fide aliens,” Ford growled at the others during breakfast the following day, “And that ain’t no last-century tech neither. Before you know it, they’ll be coming out of the trees or wherever to burn this place to the ground.”

  “There is no guarantee they are any more advanced than we are,” Kyle pointed out, checking left and right to ensure no one at the neighboring tables could hear. “Even if they turn out to be hostile, we can most likely repel them.”

  “’Most likely,’ he says,” Ford spat. “They have damn intelligent goo. Tell me that isn’t more advanced than us.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Mason cut in, jabbing a fork at Ford. “We don’t even know who ‘they’ are. Could be these aliens don’t come looking. It’s not like we chase down every GPS ping we get on tagged animals.”

  “You seem way too comfortable with the fact that we just discovered intelligent life.”

  Mason shrugged. “Galaxy’s a big place. I knew someone would find intelligent life eventually. I’m just surprised that it was us.”

  “Start acting surprised, then, ‘cause you not overreacting is freaking me out.” Ford crammed a full pancake into his mouth as if it were an exclamation point.

  “He’s generally not the one who overreacts,” Ethan said mildly. Ford threw him a glare.

  “I’m just saying we need to watch our backs,” Ford said, forcibly swallowing, “because as soon as we don’t, we’re dead meat.” No one had a response to that.

  Contact with sapient life was unheard of, and only vaguely prepared for. As far as Ethan knew, the only protocol set in place for such an encounter was to vacate the planet as quickly as possible. What he found odd was that they had somehow missed this evidence in the numerous scans and scouting missions that had canvassed the planet prior to Dawn’s arrival.

  “Why don’t we just leave?” he asked after a spell.

  Mason shrugged, leaving Kyle to explain. “There’s no evidence anyone lives here – the scans would’ve picked it up,” he said. “Only that someone’s visited. We’re still well within colonization parameters.”

  Ethan lapsed into silence again, conceding the point. As exciting as the prospect of first contact was, however, he could not help but wonder if Ford was right. He sincerely hoped he wasn’t.

  The tension began to dissipate. The novelty of alien life wore off on the crew over the next week as said extraterrestrials failed to appear, and before long, Rhodes’ blue alert was nothing more than a routinely ignored morning reminder. The captain was still clearly concerned, however, as expeditionary forces went out more heavily armed, the prefab structures erected in the clearing were kept in unusually close proximity to the ship, and the perimeter fence was reinforced with what little leftover material there was.

  To Ethan, the unorthodox layout made the prefabs and the ship more vulnerable to bombing, should it come to that, but it was not his place to say. He made sure on his own time, though, that he was always as close to flight-ready as possible. What Ford said had hit him particularly hard, and he couldn’t let it go.

  “Ethan! Ethan, check it out!” Frank materialized in front of Ethan as he wandered distractedly about the halls, waiting for something to happen.

  “What?” he said. Frank held up his tablet, on which a three-dimensional rendering of what appeared to be a torpedo was displayed.

  “Check it out,” Frank repeated. He tapped the screen and the torpedo launched into a digital forest. It detonated on impact, flattening the trees and leveling terrain with a disc-like shockwave. “One terraforming bomb for landing zone creation, as per your order,” he said proudly, “It took a few adjustments, but since the captain’s been holing everyone up in the ship, I found the time.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Ethan said, surprised both at the results and that he forgot about the idea entirely until now. “What does manufacturing look like?”

  Frank powered down the tablet. “That’s where it would get difficult. Technically we have all the materials we need here on the ship, and plenty of time before the next landing to make it. But convincing the captain to have something with that high a yield onboard is tricky.” He paused. “I thought maybe you could talk to him.”

  Ethan laughed. “I’m not that good,” he said.

  “Oh,” Frank said, “I thought with all your connections and stuff…”

  “Yeah, I have connections. I make a point of it. But I don’t think they’ll get me far enough to…” He trailed off, an idea suddenly coming to mind. “You know what, Frank? Give me an hour.”

  It wasn’t blackmail, strictly speaking, Ethan thought as he made his way to the bridge, but rather implied blackmail. Threatening to reveal the alien device to the whole ship was treason punishable by death, but speaking to the captain while both of them knew what damage Ethan could do lent him a certain advantage.

  Ethan had never been particularly nefarious, and wasn’t actually going to reveal what he knew, but the captain was on edge because of the discovery, and Ethan didn’t mind taking advantage of it.

  He arrived on the bridge a short while later to find Rhodes and the tactical chief poring over the radar.

  “Captain?” he said, his voice smaller than he anticipated, “Permission to speak in private.” Rhodes looked over at him. After a long and uncomfortable stare, he decided Ethan was worth his time.

  “In here, Sergeant,” he said. He led Ethan into the conference room behind the bridge, and shut the door. As soon as it had sealed, Rhodes took a seat at the head of the table.

  “News travels fast in tight spaces like this,” he started, eyeing Ethan cautiously. “When the first nexacor sightings were reported, in only took a day for the colonists on Hawking to get up in arms, ready to take over the ship if that was what it took to protect themselves. People do strange things when they’re scared.” Ethan stood in dead silence, completely clueless as to where the captain was going.

  “Nexacors aren’t even sapient, though,” Rhodes continued. “They’re bugs, and look at how much damage they cause, even when they don’t actually attack. That said, before you speak your piece, I want to thank you for keeping your mouth shut about what you saw the other day.” Ethan visibly relaxed, realizing that he had been holding his breath.

  “Not a problem, sir,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “It’s people like you and your squad that restore a bit of faith in humanity for me,” Rhodes, said, chuckling humorlessly. “So what was it you wanted to say?” Ethan took a moment to collect himself.

  “Frank Topper and I had an idea, sir,” he stammered, “for a bomb.”

  Rhodes raised an eyebrow. “Odd start,” he said, “but continue.”

  “It’s for terraforming,” Ethan clarified, “It levels an eight hundred square meter area to make room for the ship when we can’t find a suitable, natural spot. Frank figured out the mechanics of it. He has a blueprint on his personal tablet. We just need authorization to begin prototype construction.”

  Rhodes considered him for a long, uncomfortable moment before speaking. “You know that we don’t have any use for it for at l
east a year,” he said. Ethan nodded. “But between an evidently genius scientist and a ranking airman, I’m sure you can procure the necessary materials to make a prototype. Under supervision, of course. And limit it to computer simulations for the time being.”

  Ethan cocked his head. “Is that a yes? Sir?” Rhodes smiled and nodded. Ethan lingered for a second longer and then hastily exited.

  “Don’t forget we’re still on blue alert,” Rhodes called after him, “despite how the crew’s behaving.” Ethan stopped in the doorway. “I know you have some civvie friends, but they sure as hell can’t know about this. At least not until we know more.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We can’t let our guard down. Not until we know if this is going to explode in our faces.”

  “Corporal Shields said the same thing, sir. Let’s hope you’re both wrong.”

  The Colony

  “The coming Hunt stirs the Warriors to bloodlust. They sign on to your vessel with even greater numbers than I could imagine.”

  “Indeed. Even those recovering still from the Bloodletting have professed interest in this great sport. I would ensure that we make it truly memorable.”

  “How would you do so?”

  “By making the Humans suffer even beyond what is just. Not just their bodies – I would torture their minds. Let fear and paranoia consume them from within even as we slay them in the field.”

  The civvies were getting restless. Several of the more adventurous among them had already attempted to escape the confines of Voyager Dawn, and shortly thereafter caused an increase in security. Per Rhodes’ orders, until the prefabs were set up, not a single civilian was to leave the ship. They could only watch from the windows and view screens as military personnel rushed about to set up the seeds of a colony.

  Having been consigned to performing construction operations via DRAC, Ethan could not find the time to work with Frank on the bomb. Frank was just as busy as he was, testing biological samples and mapping out geological patterns as more and more information came pouring in from the scouting parties.