Jury Duty (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  “Anyway, her team comes under artillery fire. Chinese troops are moving up the valley behind the barrage. They overrun the Indian forward position and a firefight erupts with the Americans. And fucking Jazz. What do you think she does?”

  “I dunno,” Nick says. “Pull back?”

  “Like hell,” Bear says, tapping at the windshield, pointing at her tracks in the snow. “She boxes the position. She works her way along a ridge line at night. Disappears almost ten miles behind enemy lines and negotiates directly with the colonel in charge of the Chinese battalion.”

  “Oh,” Nick says, surprised. He’s trying to be polite more than anything else. He has no idea what negotiate means in this context.

  “Yeah,” Bear says, “Only Jazz doesn’t speak Chinese, but it seems the barrel of a gun is a universal language.”

  Bear laughs. “The Chinese account of that night is that their forward command was surrounded by hostiles. They said they took heavy fire from the hills and withdrew, realizing their flank was exposed. But that never happened. Before she melted back into the night, Jazz pushed her Glock into the guy’s crotch, speaking softly to him, making promises he had no doubt she’d keep.”

  Nick laughs.

  “So this is right up her alley,” Bear says. “But it scares the crap out of me.”

  “Him?” Nick says, looking at the snow whipping past the frozen body. “He scares you? But he’s dead.”

  “What if he’s not?”

  “That’s ridiculous. Look at him. Besides, you’ve got a gun.”

  Bear picks up the Glock, examining it as he says, “Yeah, I could put a bullet in his skull. Just to be sure.”

  “No,” Nick says, astonished that, for once, he’s the voice of reason.

  Bear fidgets. Nick would feel a lot better if he put the gun down. The barrel is facing forward so if there was a discharge, it would be stupidly loud in such a confined space, but all it would do is add some ventilation.

  “How did you get your name?” Nick asks, wanting to distract him.

  “Bear? Oh, yeah,” he puts the gun on the bench seat, laying it on top of the tablet. “You really wanna know? You wanna see?”

  “Sure,” Nick replies, unsure where this is going.

  Bear unzips his coat to his waist. He turns sideways, hoisting his shirt, pulling it up high so it’s in front of his face, exposing his chest to Nick. “See that?”

  Scars crisscross Bear’s chest and belly. As it’s cold, he drops his shirt before Nick has the chance to take a good look, but these aren’t scratches. The pectoral muscle on his left side has been scraped away from his ribs. The claw marks are distinct, reaching down to his stomach.

  Bear zips his jacket back up, saying, “It was a brown bear. I was hiking up in Alaska. Never even saw it. One moment, I’m stepping over a fallen log. The next, I’m lying on my back as a bear slashes at my chest, tearing open my jacket. All I remember is the smell. I was in shock. All I could process was the stench. Piss and shit. Rotten meat. Wet fur.”

  Nick is quiet.

  “Its sheer strength was overwhelming. My girlfriend said it looked like I was trying to crawl away, but the truth is the damn thing threw me around like a rag doll. Somehow, I ended up on my front and it ripped open my backpack. All it wanted was lunch. We’d brought some freshly made ham rolls from a bakery just outside of Fairbanks. Once it got those, it trundled off with cling wrap hanging from its mouth.

  “Jules is a Marine Corps nurse. She knew what to do. She whipped off my jeans and used what was left of my jacket to pack the goddamn hole in my ribcage to stem the bleeding. She tied the legs of my jeans around my chest, using them as a compression bandage. By this time, a couple of other hikers had stumbled across the carnage. There was no cell coverage so one of them ran back to the parking lot and called it in. Twenty minutes later, a stretcher is being lowered from a helicopter and I’m out of there. I would have died without Jules by my side.

  “Anyway, that’s it. That’s why I’m called Bear. It started out as a lousy joke. Over time, the legend grew. I’d fought off a bear with my fists or something. The truth is, I ain’t got no bravado no more. Oh, the military thrives on that egotistical alpha-male bullshit. You’ve got to be as tough as nails. Eat bullets for breakfast. Not me. I’m a mechanic. I fix stuff. I don’t do the whole charge into battle thing.”

  He looks at his watch. Forty minutes have passed.

  The tablet crackles back into life. Audio comes through first, followed by fleeting glimpses of video.

  “Jazz?”

  “Who else were you expecting?” is the reply, to which both men smile. “Okay, we found it. Vincennes is eight hundred meters east by northeast of our position. We observed lights in the outer buildings but no movement within or between buildings.”

  Over time, the image comes through clearer. Jazz wades through the snow, running her hand over each flag as it comes into view. Dmitri is just behind her. Before long, Lucille’s lights break through the driving snow and ice. The two men can see them approaching on screen and out the window.

  Jazz and Dmitri climb up on the treads of the snowcat and clamber inside, brushing snow and ice from their jackets.

  “Damn, it is cold out there,” Dmitri says.

  Bear asks, “What’s the plan, boss?”

  Jazz looks at him like it’s a stupid question.

  “We go in hot.”

  Vincennes

  Bear backs the snowcat away from the corpse and traverses a small mound, following the flags laid down by Jazz and Dmitri.

  “I don’t like this,” he mumbles. “Nobody dies standing up. It ain’t natural.”

  Everyone hears him. No one replies. Jazz looks down at the M-4 between her legs. Her hand rests on the guard. Her gloved fingers flex. It’s not that she’s ready for action. She’s assuring herself it’s there for protection.

  Nick watches Lee Lao Chan out the side window. He’s not expecting him to move. This isn’t some dumbass horror movie, regardless of the hundred and thirty beats per minute rushing through his heart. As the man fades into the darkness, Nick wonders about all that’s been lost. Unlike him, Lee Lao Chan wasn’t a conscript. Being a scientist, he must have known the odds. Life in Antarctica is brutal, but the chance of gaining insights into life beyond Earth must have been exhilarating for him. What led him out here in the storm? Why wasn’t he wearing survival gear? From what Nick understands, even crossing between buildings requires proper clothing. It’s as though this guy just wandered out of a side door and into the night.

  Lucille trundles on at a slow pace, inching forward as the team peer out into the darkness, unsure what to expect. Tiny orange flags are caught in the headlights as Bear follows the trail set down by Jazz. At first, there’s a slight glow on the horizon. Buildings appear as blurs in the darkness, punctuated by the odd dim light.

  “That’s the operations center,” Jazz says, pointing at a distant building set beside a spotlight mounted high on what looks like a telephone pole. “But I want to go to the general quarters first.”

  “Why?” Bear asks, reducing the throttle on the snowcat.

  “It’s closer.”

  That’s not a real reason, but neither Bear nor Dmitri challenge her on that. It seems Jazz wants to know what’s at her back rather than driving blindly into the middle of the base.

  “Bring us to a halt twenty meters out.”

  Bear replies with an enthusiastic, “Copy that.” It seems he’s not keen on rushing in either.

  With the buildings providing shelter from the wind, Lucille’s spotlights reach further into the shadows. Stairs lead up to a door at the back of the living quarters.

  “There,” Jazz says, pointing.

  Bear brings Lucille to a halt. Snow has piled up against one side of the building, burying its support beams.

  Jazz tosses Bear a spare set of night vision goggles, saying, “If you need to go out there, use these.”

  “I’m not going out there,” Be
ar replies, resting the goggles on the dash.

  Jazz shrugs. She has her gloved hand on the door handle. “If anything comes out of that door other than us—shoot it.”

  Anything. Not anyone.

  Nick needs to pee, damn it. His bladder feels as though it’s bursting. He knows he doesn’t actually need to relieve himself as he’s barely had anything to drink in the past hour, but his nerves betray him.

  Jazz sees him squirming a little. She ignores him, speaking to Bear. “I’m going on the wide mic so you can catch everything that happens in there, okay?”

  “Okay,” Bear replies.

  “Anything goes wrong, and you hightail it to Vostok. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  Dmitri and Jazz exit Lucille. Snow whips around them. Jazz has her M4 pulled hard into her shoulder. Dmitri has his night-vision goggles down. He has both arms outstretched, with his elbows locked, pointing the pistol at the door to the living quarters. Beyond the spotlights, the darkness torments them.

  From behind the bench seat, Nick fiddles with his trousers, slipping his penis into the neck of a pee bottle. Damn, the plastic is cold. He tinkles, relieving himself.

  “Are you taking a piss?” Bear asks in disbelief.

  “Say again?” Jazz asks, coming to a halt beside the door with the M4 pointing at the stairs.

  “Nothing,” Bear says, only now realizing he was transmitting.

  Nick slaps him on the shoulder. Speaking under his breath, he says, “I couldn’t help it.”

  “What’s next?” Bear asks, having muted his microphone. “A nervous poo?”

  “Don’t joke about it,” Nick says, embarrassed.

  On the black and white split-screen, they watch as Dmitri reaches for the door. Ice has built up along the aluminum threshold, forcing him to jerk at the handle. Fine specks of snow rush down in front of them, being caught by an air curtain immediately inside the door. A sharp breeze blows down from a machine set above the doorway to keep the warm air from rushing out. As this is an emergency exit at the rear of the building, there’s no staging area to insulate the interior from heat loss. The high-speed fan pushes a wall of air down to reduce thermal loss, but it stirs up the snow, making it impossible to see beyond the swirling white specks.

  Jazz slides into the darkness, slipping through the invisible curtain of air. She raises her M4 in front of her. The two of them disappear into the building, closing the door behind them.

  “Are you catching this?” Jazz whispers.

  “Yeah,” Bear replies, keying the microphone back to transmit. He’s nervous. He’s holding his gun all the time now, regardless of whether he’s pushing buttons on the tablet or reducing the idle with the engine throttle. Nick’s not sure whether Bear has chambered a round, but he suspects he has. The only positive is his fingers stay well clear of the trigger.

  The lights are out. Immediately inside the living quarters, there are two doors, one on either side of the darkened corridor.

  Jazz whispers, “Cover me.”

  Dmitri positions himself on an angle, with his back pressed against the external door so he’s got a view down the empty corridor as well as at the internal door Jazz is preparing to open.

  “On three,” she whispers. “One. Two.”

  With barely any noise, she opens the door and steps inside, swinging her M4 up as she scans the room.

  On the tablet, Nick and Bear watch as Dmitri maintains his view of the corridor. He’s still got his arms out in front of him, with the barrel of his Glock threatening any approach from that direction. He edges sideways so he can peer into the room. He watches as Jazz moves around, but his attention remains on the corridor.

  Jazz creeps through the room. Overalls and jackets hang from racks lining the walls. Boots have been shoved beneath a bench seat running around the room. Radios sit in chargers with small LED lights indicating battery levels.

  “Clear.”

  Jazz steps back into the corridor. She creeps toward the room on the other side. The door is slightly ajar.

  “Oh, man,” Bear says, looking at the ghostly images being transmitted to them. “I’ve seen this movie. This shit does not end well.”

  “Shhh,” Jazz replies. She looks briefly at Dmitri and nods. He acknowledges her, keeping his eyes on the corridor. Jazz pushes the door open. She rushes inside, raising her M4 as she turns, scanning the second room.

  “Storage.”

  Shelving stretches from floor to ceiling. Boxes have been shoved in seemingly random spots, making it difficult to see through the aisles. Jazz takes her time, leading with her M4, checking for movement as she steps between the rows.

  “This is not good,” Nick says, feeling nervous.

  Bear is still transmitting. He mumbles, “Beam me up, Sc—”

  “Stay off-channel,” Dmitri replies, cutting him off.

  Reluctantly, Bear sighs.

  Nick mumbles, “What about the lights?”

  “Huh?” Bear says, looking up for a moment. He turns the Glock sideways so he can hit the mute button with his index finger and avoid transmitting to Jazz and Dmitri. “The lights are off.”

  “Not in there,” Nick says. “Out here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We don’t know what’s going on, right?”

  “Right,” Bear says, followed by a nervous and rushed, “Because nothing’s going on. Everything’s fine.” Even he doesn’t believe that. He’s saying that because that’s what he’s supposed to say to put the dumbass civilian behind him at ease.

  Nick says, “Well, is it a good idea to sit here with the engine running and our lights on? I mean, we’re lighting up the night like a Christmas tree.”

  “W—What?” Bear says, stuttering. He’s trying to process too much information at once. He’s listening to Nick, looking nervously out the windshield at either side of the building and then back at the tablet, showing progress within the darkened quarters.

  “I mean, moths are drawn to a flame, right?” Nick says. He’s not trying to stir up controversy, but it seems to him as though leaving their lights on is a major flaw in the idea of sneaking into the base unnoticed.

  “Fuck,” Bear says. He keys the microphone, resting his Glock against the steering wheel as he speaks. “Ah, Jazz.”

  “Not now,” she replies, whispering as she edges down the main corridor. “We’ve got lights ahead.”

  “Ah, Jazz,” he continues. “Should we kill our lights?”

  “What?” she says, coming to a halt. The way the camera view moves is telling. She’s distracted. “Why?”

  “Well,” Bear says sheepishly. “Do we really want to attract attention before we know what we’re dealing with?”

  “All right,” Jazz replies. “Shut them down.”

  She’s barely spoken before Bear has killed the lights, but he doesn’t cut the engine.

  It takes a moment for Nick’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. The rear door to the living quarters is barely visible through the driving snow. The aluminum rails lining the steps catch the ambient light from a distant spotlight over by the operations center.

  Within the building, on the video screen, light seeps from beneath an internal door. Dmitri holds his gloved hand on a brass lever and pauses, looking up at Jazz for his cue. She’s pulled her M4 back, pointing it down, allowing her to get close to the door. She nods. He twists and pushes the door open, standing back and allowing her to rush in with her M4 raised. Jazz turns both ways, scanning the room as she says, “Clear.”

  They’re in a kitchen. The floor is sealed with scratched linoleum. Cheap chairs surround a rickety table. There’s an empty fruit bowl.

  “Where is everyone?” Dmitri asks in a whisper.

  Jazz pulls one of her gloves off and cups her hand around the side of a kettle.

  “Cold.”

  Dmitri crouches, looking carefully at a pot of coffee on the counter beside the fridge. Although Nick and Bear can’t distinguish colors on
their black and white screen, the light’s on. It would be red for Jazz and Dmitri, but for them, it appears white. Within the glass carafe, there’s little more than a stain, but the element is on, showing up as a brilliant white blob. Whatever coffee there was has long since evaporated.

  Jazz doesn’t say anything, but she clearly sees it as she reaches over, turning it off. Dmitri looks in the fridge. Like Bear, though, there’s no way he’s holstering his sidearm. He keeps his Glock in his hand as he pulls on the door. Nothing’s going to jump out of the fridge. Nothing. Dmitri releases the handle and steps back, allowing the fridge door to swing open. Milk. Cheese. Mangos. Lots of foodstuffs in Tupperware. Labels on everything. Names and dates. No aliens.

  Is that what this is all about? No one has said as much, but they must all be thinking it. Radio contact was lost. A stranger that froze to death on the ice. Next thing, an alien bursts out of a room or someone’s chest. That’s how these things go, right? Nick shakes that thought from his head. These are nothing but modern-day ghost stories designed to scare kids. They don’t work on adults. Do they?

  Jazz peers through a set of blinds at the yard between the living quarters and the operations building. Dmitri closes the fridge without comment. What the hell was he looking for? What was he expecting to find?

  “What’s the layout?” Dmitri asks, coming up next to Jazz. She turns the kitchen light off and points at the various buildings.

  “Okay. We’re in the living quarters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it empty. Everything’s done in shifts so there are always people coming and going.

  “That’s the operations center. Staff of ten to twenty most days, but it backs onto the main research center.