by John Coon
The square gadget matched an average human hand in size. A crystal screen occupied the top two-thirds on one side. Below the screen sat a silver rolling ball flanked by a single button on each side. Kyra switched on the gadget and the screen lit up with a blue-white light. A grid appeared across the screen. Five red blobs popped up a few seconds later. Each one formed a humanoid shape.
“What is that thing?” Sam asked.
Kyra glanced up from the screen at him.
“Thermal tracker,” she said. “It detects body heat patterns. If our alien creature is hiding somewhere inside the building ahead of us, we should have no trouble pinpointing its location.”
Sam’s eyes wandered down to the thermal tracker again. Remorse gripped him. If only they had access to a similar device on the premises when Rudra tried to plant explosives earlier. It would have saved his life.
Sam cranked the wheel and opened the lab door. Dim lights brightened to normal levels once he stepped inside. He flinched and averted his eyes from the sprawled-out corpses of Sergei and Mei after stepping through the doorway. Those same dead bodies did not escape the aliens’ attention.
Xttra froze in his tracks and pressed his hand against his helmet visor.
“What in Ahm’s name happened in here?”
A shudder went through Sam as their last moments replayed in his mind. He rubbed the back of his neck and swallowed hard.
“The alien creature attacked us before we could escape from the lab.” His voice quavered a bit while he recounted the trauma that brought this whole nightmare to life. “It cut down both Sergei and Mei without breaking a sweat.”
“Where did it come from?” Xander cast his eyes around the lab. “This planet isn’t capable of sustaining life. Based on what our ship sensors told us anyway.”
“The colonists found a high-tech capsule or tank in a cavern before I arrived here,” Sam replied. “The alien creature was in stasis inside when they first brought the tank in here.”
Kyra snapped her head toward him. Her eyes had grown as wide as plates.
“Stasis?” she repeated. “Where is this device?”
Sam pointed to the tank. It had not moved since the alien exited from the device earlier. The open door hung suspended in the same spot. Piles of soil and dust on the white tarp beneath the tank lay undisturbed. Kyra and Xttra converged on the device only a few seconds apart. Xttra stooped down and examined the lights and buttons running along the side.
He turned and cocked his head at Sam.
“You said you found this device here on this planet.”
Sam nodded. “That’s the whole reason I came here from Earth.
“This is a hibernation pod.” Xttra turned away and studied the device again. “From Lathos, judging by the looks of it.”
Sam’s eyes drifted over to the other three aliens. Each one now stood as rigid as tree trunks, with eyes locked on the hibernation pod. Fear swam in those pairs of eyes and spread through their faces. Ryollo and Xander both drew weapons from their respective belts.
“No.” Kyra’s voice dropped to a near whisper. Her breaths grew more intense. “This can’t be real. It isn’t possible.”
Witnessing her terror and fearful reactions from the other aliens caused a tremor to crawl up Sam’s own spine. They already showed familiarity with the horrors this creature inflicted without laying eyes on it.
“Are you saying this alien is from your homeworld?”
Kyra ignored his question and started fiddling with the rolling ball on her tracker. Sam sidled up next to her and peered over her shoulder. Five red blobs appeared on the screen, same as before.
Her eyes darted from the tracker to the ceiling. At once, Kyra jerked her head toward Sam.
“You trapped the alien creature inside this building?”
“It’s on an upper level without a spacesuit or helmet.”
“Are you certain?”
“What do you mean? Of course, I’m certain.”
Kyra glanced at her tracker screen a second time. Her lips twisted into a worried frown.
“Then I have some terrible news.”
Sam stiffened like a board. He shot a glance at Xttra and spotted the same wide-eyed terror gripping his face. They all knew how to complete the thought she left unfinished.
“It escaped?” Sam finally found the words for the awful revelation that barged into his head. “How? How could it leave this habitat unit without dying?”
“Do you have additional spacesuits stored in this place?” Xttra asked.
“Of course, but I don’t see how that’s relevant,” he replied. “This alien had some humanoid features. But it behaved like a wild animal. How would it know how to identify a spacesuit or have enough mental awareness to wear one?”
Kyra dropped her hand still clutching the tracker to her side and locked eyes with Sam. Anger flashed through those violet eyes.
“Simple. The creature was fully human at one time. And it came from Lathos—Ra’ahm to be exact.”
Sam’s mouth dropped open. He drew in a sharp breath and clasped his hands behind his neck. Her statement was the last thing he expected to hear concerning the hostile alien’s origin.
18
What Kyra told Sam was a complete lie. Xttra refused to accept her claim. Nothing more than Confederation propaganda. He and his crew were the first people from Lathos to journey to Earth. If this alien creature who slaughtered Earthian colonists came from Ra’ahm, it meant so many things taught to him while serving with the Stellar Guard were categorically false. It also placed the longstanding travel ban to the Aramus system and Earth in a whole new light.
Xttra did not feel prepared to accept such an uncomfortable scenario. Kyra had to be wrong. He clung to this single thought and kept repeating it in his mind. He could not let these pieces of alternative history fall into place. He would not let them deceive him.
Yes, Kyra was wrong.
“Where’s your evidence?” Xttra countered her with a blunt tone. “How can you claim this thing discovered in another star system came out of Ra’ahm?”
“It confirms what we knew about your chief sovereign,” Kyra shot back, while giving him a sideways glance. “Delcor is a war criminal. This proves it.”
Xttra folded his arms and drilled an unyielding stare into the Confederation pilot.
“Nothing more than a Confederation myth, dreamed up to give your people a reason to hate us and save face over losing a war.”
“So, you’re telling me the alien who attacked this colony came from your homeworld?”
Both Xttra and Kyra wheeled around and faced Sam. They shouted simultaneous conflicting answers at him. A distressed and puzzled look washed over his face.
“Why would someone from your planet put such a dangerous creature here on Mars?” Sam’s voice percolated a quiet anger. “What did you all intend to do to Earth?”
Kyra frowned and raised the tracker. She studied the device as though she hoped the thermal sensor readings had changed in the last minute or two. Xttra glanced over at the device. Only five red blobs showed on the screen. Same as earlier.
“Earth had nothing to do with it.” Kyra said. She raised her chin and locked eyes with Sam again. “You were never meant to find this creature. Neither were we.”
Sam’s eyes drifted over to the open hibernation pod and back to her.
“What do you mean? This whole ordeal was some sort of sick accident?”
Xttra cast his eyes toward the ceiling. He let out an angry sigh. Kyra spared no effort to poison the Earthian’s mind against him and Ra’ahm. At once, he spotted a video camera mounted on the upper corner of a wall. Xttra smiled. The Earthian surveillance device would expose her lies.
“I see one of your surveillance devices in the corner.” Xttra refocused his attention on Sam. “Did you make a visual
record when you opened the pod earlier?”
Sam cast his eyes toward the camera in question. They quickly darted back to a laptop—an Earthian computer—sitting on a nearby workstation.
“Yeah, I can dig up a saved feed from earlier,” he said. “Give me a second to find the right file.”
Sam planted himself on a short stool in front of the laptop. Multiple square windows popped up on the screen. Each one showed a live video feed from a different room inside the building. Xttra marched across the lab and took up a position behind Sam. He scrutinized various feeds over the Earthian’s shoulder. Dim lighting in other rooms allowed nocturnal shadows to conquer territory. Darkness obscured corners and angles within each room in question, making it difficult to see any specific lifeform inside.
Soon, Sam found a recorded feed for the room they currently occupied. He cued it to an earlier time and started replaying captured images. Xttra kept his eyes glued to the screen once the pod began opening. A humanoid alien stepped out of the pod. He swallowed hard and bit down on his lower lip after getting a clear view of the creature. Scales and bony ridges along the brow and cheekbones blended with human flesh.
The non-human features reminded Xttra of a dochu—a flying nocturnal animal on Lathos. How was such a blending possible? Dochu and people were not supposed to be able to be genetically combined in this manner. Their biological codes were incompatible.
Two distinct species with few common traits.
One Earthian on the feed extended a hand toward the creature. Without warning, it snapped the Earthian’s wrist in half and seized him by the throat. Xttra jumped back with widened eyes. His breaths devolved into shallow rapid bursts.
“Is this still Confederation propaganda?”
Xttra snapped his head toward Kyra. She flanked Sam’s other side, peering at the same images. Terror consumed her face in equal measure. Xttra shook his head slowly over and over.
“This can’t be real.”
Kyra’s violet eyes shifted from wide to narrow in a flash. They burned hot with rage as a new scowl formed on her lips.
“You can’t deny the proof before your eyes. Not only is this real, but it’s also evidence Delcor committed a major atrocity among my people.”
Sam paused the video feed. He turned around on the stool and greeted both with an intense frightened stare.
“What did he do?”
“He partnered with scientists from a planet called Rubrum to engineer a legion of hybrids just like this creature running loose in your colony.” A trembling lilt infused Kyra’s words. “Delcor unleashed his hybrids in two Confederation cities bordering Ra’ahm during the final weeks of the Separatist War. They slaughtered more than 10,000 soldiers and civilians in a matter of days, forcing the Confederation to beg for peace.”
Sam’s mouth dropped open. He clasped his hands over his helmet.
“Rubrum? Oh God. This can’t be happening again.”
Kyra gasped and stepped back.
“You’re familiar with Rubrum?”
He nodded slowly.
“They attacked Earth almost 15 years ago. Invaded a small town in Texas. Murdered hundreds of our people. Abducted what survivors remained and performed nasty genetic experiments on them. We only stopped the invaders after destroying the entire town.”
Xttra bowed his head and pressed his gloved hand against his helmet visor. This whole situation had to be a sick nightmare. He knew aliens from Rubrum reached Earth at some point after Doni lied about an alliance with them to turn the Earthians against him, Calandra, and Lance. Still, he had no clue about the atrocities they committed on Earth. Until now. The Earthians’ hostile reaction to their expedition suddenly made more sense.
Still, tying this hybrid back to Ra’ahm and the chief sovereign made no sense to him. More than 40 years had passed since the Separatist War ended. Even if Kyra’s allegations were true, how did this hybrid survive locked inside a hibernation pod this whole time? Where did it get food and water? Xttra never heard of a hibernation pod storing enough nutritional reserves to last over four decades without an outside source replenishing those reserves. Surely, the hybrid’s muscles and organs would have broken down during such a long hibernation period until it perished from malnutrition.
Xttra raised his head again. He motioned to the open pod door. Xander and Ryollo stood on opposite sides of the pod, examining it.
“We better take this pod back to the ship and run some scans. That should give us a clearer idea of where the hybrid came from and how a hibernation pod ended up in this solar system.”
Kyra closed her eyes and sighed.
“The hybrid’s origin is clear to everyone in this room—including you. Why do you want to waste our time?”
“I found some holes in your theory,” Xttra shot back. “I want actual proof. Not your version of proof.”
Sam sprang to his feet.
“Your research can wait. Finding the alien hybrid is our priority. If you can’t find any sign of it on your thermal tracking device, we better figure out where exactly it’s lurking around here before it can cause any more damage.”
Ryollo looked up from his spot hunched over the pod interior and shrugged.
“Maybe the hybrid died on its own. You should check for a corpse on your alien gadget.”
“It’s called a laptop and, no, I can’t see anything,” Sam said. “All lights run on motion sensors to conserve energy. Nothing has triggered the sensors on the upper levels.”
“Dead bodies can’t move,” Ryollo replied.
Sam responded with a cold stare.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” he snapped. “Minimal lighting probably means no alien. But I’m not sending anyone else to check out the upper levels. Already lost one colonist—”
A persistent beep interrupted Sam. All eyes turned toward Kyra. She dug into a pouch on her belt and brought out an arca vox. Cavac’s image appeared on a holoscreen. Seeing his ocular implant on a holoscreen made Xttra shudder anew.
“I detected an alien ship landing outside the colony,” he said. “Touched down a short distance from our ship. What should we do?”
Kyra looked up from the holoscreen at Sam.
“Were you expecting some more visitors?’
Sam gave her a sideways glance. An alarmed expression overtook his face again. Xttra felt uncertain if it came from learning another ship landed outside the Earthian colony or from seeing Cavac’s melder visage.
“No, I’m not. Can he send us a picture or video of the other ship from his current location?”
Kyra repeated the request to Cavac. He nodded and his image vanished from the holoscreen. A new image occupied the screen a few seconds later. Sam’s eyes narrowed and a deepening frown formed as he studied the ship’s image.
“I recognize it. That’s our prototype deep space vessel docked at the Phobos Station.”
“Phobos Station?” Xander repeated.
“What in the hell does Cliff think he’s doing?” Sam snapped, ignoring the question. “I ordered him to stay up there until I got the situation down here under control.”
“Cavac, where is the pilot of the Earthian vessel?” Kyra asked. “Is he still with the ship?”
Cavac’s image reappeared. He glanced off screen for a moment and then his eyes refocused on her.
“No. The Earthian left his vessel. Sensors indicate he entered the neighboring building.”
Sam slammed a gloved fist into his other hand.
“That damned moron is here to take Norah away.”
Xttra tilted his head at Sam.
“Norah?”
“She’s an injured colonist,” he replied. “Suffered a punctured wrist when the hybrid attacked us. I need to stop him from what he intends to do.”
Sam turned and started for the tunnel door.
�
��Wait!” Kyra thrust up her hand. “Where is she now?”
“Back in the other building, under sedation.” Sam did not bother to look back. He kept cranking the wheel to reopen the door. “She’s supposed to remain under quarantine. And he knows it.”
Quarantine?
Xttra did not like the implications behind that piece of news. He had taken his helmet off inside the other building. Did the Earthian expose him to some alien disease or toxin? He sprang forward and caught up to Sam right as he opened the door.
“Why is your fellow Earthian quarantined?” Xttra jabbed his finger in the same direction as the tunnel. “When were you planning on sharing this nugget of information with the rest of us?”
Sam turned and glowered at him.
“I had more pressing concerns. Listen, can we save this impending argument for later? Every second we waste hashing this out is another second for Cliff to do something incredibly selfish and stupid.”
“What is he trying to do?”
“Take Norah back to Phobos. Or possibly Earth.”
“How did she puncture her wrist?” Kyra asked. Her question told Xttra she also suspected Sam purposefully withheld some critical details. “Does this have anything to do with the quarantine?”
Sam cast his eyes down at the floor and nodded.
“The alien hybrid, as you call it, jabbed a giant stinger from its forearm through her wrist. I did what I could to treat the wound, but the surrounding tissues swelled up and she’s had a fever ever since.”
Kyra froze and stared at him with widened eyes and trembling lips. Her expression perfectly mirrored the dread crawling up through Xttra’s whole body. This situation rated much worse than exposure to a simple disease or a toxin.
“Retrieve Xttra’s weapons, Cavac, and bring them to me at once,” she said, glancing down at her arca vox again. “We’ll need every bit of help we can get in here.”
“But I thought you told us—”
“Ignore my earlier order.”
Cavac answered with a reluctant nod. Both his image and the holoscreen vanished a second later. Kyra raised her head and looked over at Xander and Ryollo.
