Offensive

by A. K. DuBoff

“The next spike to your vitals came about ten minutes later,” Elric said, consulting his notes.

  “Yes, I know exactly what that one was about.” Kira braced for the viewing of the next segment—their visit to the mysterious pit.

  The voices wouldn’t come through on the recording, since Jasmine hadn’t heard them, but Kira remembered the chill that had run through her as they’d whispered in her mind.

  She resumed playing the video at normal speed at the appropriate point. When the video showed Kira’s perspective of looking into the pit, Elric and Leon inched back in their chairs.

  “How deep is that?” Leon asked.

  “Too deep,” Kira replied, knowing her team on the video was about to state the results of the scan. She waited for the onscreen discussion to conclude.

  “All right, this is when I heard them,” Kira said. She watched Elric follow along with her vitals feed.

  “Yes, that’s definitely the second resonance spike,” the doctor confirmed.

  Kira frowned. “That’s all well and good, but you said there were four instances of vital spikes. One of the four incidents I had in mind didn’t pan out.”

  Elric nodded. “Based on the end time of the mission record, I can confirm that the last incident corresponds with the attack while you were exiting. The third was approximately six minutes before that, but it wasn’t a spike so much as a sustained, low-level increase.” He pointed to a timestamp in his notes.

  “We were just walking through the hallways. Nothing stands out.” Kira skipped ahead to the timestamp the doctor had indicated.

  When she reached the point in the recording, the doctor’s observation suddenly made sense. “Of course, that’s when we entered the exit tunnel.”

  “They may have been subtly influencing you, trying to get you to stay,” Elric suggested.

  “I didn’t feel it at all.” Up until that point, Kira had been confident that she’d know if she was under the aliens’ influence. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  she asked her AI privately.

 

 

  Kira looked between Leon and Doctor Elric. “We know the circumstances around the telepathic resonance now, but why was it just those four times? Was it a communication attempt and I missed it?”

  “It’s strange that nothing happened in the main chamber, like you said,” Leon replied. “If they were trying to communicate, I’d think they’d do it in the place with the most valteron to act as a conduit.”

  “I agree. The fact that nothing happened in that chamber is an anomaly,” Elric said.

  Leon’s eyes narrowed in thought. “These guys are smart. All of their moves have been calculated and intentional.”

  “That’s what worries me.” Kira slumped in her seat. “I can’t shake the feeling that we were the ones being investigated, not the other way around.”

  “Or hunted,” Leon said. He straightened in his chair and had a spark in his eyes.

  “Yeah, that makes me feel way better.” She shot him a venomous look.

  Leon shook his head. “I didn’t mean it facetiously. I’ve been trying to think through the behavior from a biological standpoint—analyze it in terms of the traits we know to be evolutionarily beneficial. I think I have a working theory.”

  “These things are unlike anything else we’ve seen,” Kira reminded him.

  “But in broad strokes, there are predators and prey,” Leon began. “On the prey side, when a threat is spotted, creatures either run or freeze, with the hope they aren’t spotted.”

  “But the alien-particle-things attacked us while we were trying to leave,” Kira countered.

  “That’s what got me thinking,” Leon continued. “We can’t see these beings, so it’s easy for them to hide. But it doesn’t follow the prey pattern of waiting for a threat to pass and then coming out of hiding. They’re hunters. They set a trap for what they wanted, and when it didn’t work, they waited for another opportunity to strike.”

  Kira crossed her arms and sighed. “I knew that whole thing was a trap.”

  “But how, specifically?” Doctor Elric prompted. “Why not go after the team when they were deepest inside the facility?”

  “That’s the part that didn’t click for me until just now,” Leon went on. “Like any predator, they have their preferred hunting grounds. In this case, they lured you, Kira—the prey—toward their hiding place. The first trap didn’t work, and they also saw that you had backup. So, they waited for you to go to another location where they knew they could corner you.” He pointed to the video again. “You were behind everyone else. It’s the only point in your entire walk through the facility that the rest of the team was closer to an exit than you were.”

  “Shite, you’re right!” she realized. “I had consistently been walking in between them except for that moment.”

  “And that’s when they tried to snare you in a different sort of trap—a stronger, better one.”

  Her stomach turned over. “And it almost worked.”

  Elric nodded. “They don’t have a good understanding of our technology, despite their apparent integration into Mysaran society. But, the Mysarans also don’t have Empire tech.”

  “Okay, so we were able to catch them by surprise with firepower superior to what they were anticipating, and we got free,” Kira said. “But none of this answers why they wanted me, and only me, in the first place. Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to take the rest of my team, too?”

  “Not if they’re purely after you—or the physiological model of how your nanites have changed you, a native Valtan,” Leon replied. “I haven’t done a lot of fighting, but I do know it’s better to get an opponent on their own. The more soldiers the Trols captured, the harder it would be for them to contain you.”

  Kira crossed her arms and leaned back. “That’s a riveting analysis and all, but it tells us nothing we didn’t already know. This only confirms our suspicions that they’re on the offensive.”

  She realized that Doctor Elric had disengaged from the conversation and was looking over data logs on the desktop. He met her gaze with a slack jaw. “There’s something we missed.”

  “I took the liberty of going through the Raven’s sensor logs while you were talking, to compare the resonance readings and activity timeline with what was going on elsewhere on the world,” Jasmine said over the comm.

  “And there was definitely something.” Elric zoomed in on what he had been examining.

  A line indicating the ambient readings around the planet was relatively smooth for hours, and then rhythmic spikes initiated at the timestamp when Kira and her team exited the stairwell. The intensity of the spikes increased during the time they were in the central chamber and then dropped off again.

  Leon frowned. “What is that?”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” Elric admitted.

  Kira did. She’d been on enough ops and used enough communication systems to recognize those patterns anywhere.

  “It’s a transmission,” she stated. “The valley around the facility wasn’t the transmitter—it’s the whole planet.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Even with the Guard working on an analysis of the data retrieved from the valley lab, Ellen found her thoughts drifting back to the facility and what she’d seen.

  I can’t begin rebuilding this world so long as I know there’s something lurking down there. She slumped in her desk chair. If that ‘something’ was what she feared it was, no one would be safe.

  When Kira and her team had come to the Mysaran government building and subdued Chancellor Hale, Ellen had wondered about how the alien could go down so easily. A race capable of projecting their consciousness across systems wouldn’t give up on a three-decades-long mission because one host was gone.

  Ellen had trusted the Guard
when they said they’d eliminate the threat, but they were focused on Gaelon. There was a facility only kilometers from the city where Ellen presently resided, and it was too connected to the aliens for her liking.

  Naturally, the Guard hadn’t share a bomaxed thing about what they’d learned in their investigations. Fortunately, Ellen had her own sources.

  She walked down the short hall to Fiona’s office. The other woman finished up a call and then beckoned her inside.

  “Hi, I wanted to ask you about those people you used to send to the facility in the valley,” Ellen said.

  Fiona’s brow knitted. “I thought you handed that matter over to the Guard?”

  “They’re focused on Gaelon. I want to know if we have a threat here.”

  “That can wait for the Guard to look into.”

  “How can you be so sure we’re not in danger right now?”

  “I’m not,” Fiona admitted. “But this isn’t something we can handle. It’s dangerous to look too deep.”

  “Do you have any other leads or sources?” Ellen fixed her with a level gaze, sensing that Fiona was holding back.

  “There’s a man,” Fiona said reluctantly. “He’s the only person I know of who spent time in that facility. However, he’s never said more than five words about it.”

  “I’d like to speak with him,” Ellen requested. “I can’t focus on vetting political candidates until I’m confident that another subverted person can’t worm their way in.”

  “Keep talking like that, and you’re going to find yourself in charge,” Fiona said.

  Right! That would be the day. Ellen dismissed the notion. “Can you set up a meeting?”

  “An appointment isn’t necessary. He lives in a care facility.”

  Ellen frowned. “Oh.”

  Fiona looked down at her hands. “He was never quite right after the assignment. I’m not proud of my part in what happened to the people on this world.”

  Elle was touched by the remorse in her tone. “That’s all the more reason for us to make sure no one else can get hurt. If there’s any chance these aliens are still here on Mysar, we need to be prepared.”

  “I don’t know if Edgar can tell you anything useful, but I’ll take you to see him,” Fiona agreed.

  They headed to the train station and boarded the main line connecting the domes.

  Fiona took a seat away from the door. “We’re headed to Dome 5.”

  “Ah, I should have guessed.” Ellen settled in for a long ride.

  The domes hadn’t been planned to have any distinction among social strata, but like any society, people had sorted themselves into classes. Dome 1 was fair game for anyone to visit, being the commercial center, but only the wealthiest could afford apartments in the high-rise towers overlooking the parks. The other domes were ranked in preference roughly according to their numeric value. That put Dome 5 at the bottom.

  Ellen had spent most of her previous time on Mysar in Dome 3, which housed the university where she and Leon had attended school. Once she began working for the government, she’d found a small apartment at a reasonable rent rate and commuted to the remote capitol building for work. In her years living there, she’d made a point of avoiding Dome 5.

  While not dangerous or dirty, per se, it attracted the kind of people who didn’t want to integrate with the rest of society in a productive way. With drugs being an issue for some members of the district’s population, the hospital offered a necessary service—more of a clinic, really, compared to the main medical center in Dome 1.

  Anyone with ongoing issues would be admitted as a resident in the clinic, which made for the perfect place to hide a witness. No one took the ramblings of former drug addicts and their associates seriously.

  Ellen stared out the window as the train wove around the outskirts of Dome 1 and into the tunnel connected to Dome 5. As she anticipated, there was a distinct shift in the train’s passengers the closer they got to their destination.

  They got off at the fourth stop after the tunnel.

  “Do you come here often?” Ellen asked as they left the platform.

  “I’ve only visited him twice,” Fiona replied, looking straight ahead. “That was enough.”

  Fiona’s path took them five blocks to the west, past modest shops and restaurants that would have been considered a hole-in-the-wall in other districts.

  The destination was a five-story concrete building with slit windows. To Ellen’s eye, it looked more like a prison than a medical clinic.

  Maybe it is.

  They checked in at a reception desk inside the front door, and a nurse wearing white scrubs came out to meet them.

  “Edgar hasn’t had any visitors for a while. Are you friends of his?” the middle-aged woman asked.

  “Yes, from back in school,” Fiona replied.

  Ellen permitted the lie, not wanting to raise unwanted questions.

  “I’ll take you to him.” The nurse led them to an elevator, which they took to the third floor.

  The elevator opened into a lobby with a security gate around the perimeter.

  Ellen’s skin crawled. This is definitely not a place where people voluntarily reside.

  Through the gate, a short hallway was lined with numbered doors, which eventually opened into a common room filled with seating and entertainment screens. Half a dozen patients were situated around the room, most absorbed in their own activities.

  “There he is,” the nurse said, pointing to a man in his late-thirties.

  Ellen and Fiona thanked the nurse and approached him.

  Edgar was seated by one of the narrow windows, rocking back and forth in his chair. One hand was formed into a fist pressed over his mouth. Dark circles ringed his blood-shot eyes, as though he hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in months.

  “What happened to him?” Ellen whispered.

  “We’ve never been able to get a full story,” Fiona replied. “As part of my responsibilities, I was tasked with getting him set up in a place where people wouldn’t ask too many questions. It’s such a small world, we didn’t have many options outside this hospital.”

  Ellen watched the man continue to rock. “Will he talk to me?” she asked Fiona.

  “You can try.”

  Ellen grabbed a chair from an unoccupied table nearby and stepped up to Edgar. “Hi, Edgar, my name is Ellen. Do you mind if I sit with you?”

  His gazed darted to her briefly, but he made no other indication.

  She decided to take it that he didn’t oppose and sat down across from him. “I’m here as a government consultant. I heard you spent some time at a facility in a valley outside the city.”

  Edgar stopped rocking and removed his hand from over his mouth. His eyes grew so wide that she could see the whites almost all the way around. “Don’t ever go there. It’s evil.”

  “I don’t want to, but I’m worried that the badness there might try to get out.”

  “No, they stay in the pit.” He took a series of sharp, rapid breaths. “They always stay in the pit.”

  “Did you ever see them?”

  He brought his knees up to his chest with his feet resting on the seat of the chair, arms wrapped around his shins. “The whispers. So many voices.”

  “Anything more you can tell me would help,” Ellen pressed. She felt for the man, but cryptic answers didn’t get her what she needed.

  Edgar began rocking again. “We’ll take them—take them all. They’ll bleed and suffer. Pain. They’ll long for death that won’t come. We’ll feed. First Elusia and then the rest.”

  Ellen’s heart skipped a beat. “Is that what the voices said?”

  The man made no response, but tears formed in his eyes. He took a shaky breath and released it as a whimper.

  “I doubt he’ll say any more,” Fiona said. “You can’t reach him once he’s like this.”

  Ellen rose and put the chair back where she found it. “I need to talk with President Joris.”

  — �
�� —

  Kira and Leon huddled around the holodisplay in one of the small briefing rooms. Doctor Elric had been a good sport while they theorized the aliens’ motivations, but the medical doctor needed to attend to his patients.

  At Jasmine’s suggestion, Kira and Leon had adjourned to finish their discussion while the ideas were still fresh. Once they had their thoughts organized, they could bring a working hypothesis to Sandren and Kaen.

  Getting to that point, however, was proving difficult.

  “A planet-sized thing can’t possibly be for the purpose of controlling one person,” Kira insisted.

  Leon blinked slowly and took a deep breath. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. All I meant is that the signal must be able to differentiate recipients. Even if there only happens to be one receiver at a given moment, the whole structure will still activate. How many simultaneous signals it can send out is a huge unknown.”

  “How do we determine where the signal is going?” Kira asked. “Can we trace it, like we did with Jared?”

  “We can run a search for that specific signal and radiation signatures we’ve associated with the Trols,” Jasmine said over the room’s comm for Leon’s benefit. “I can look through the logs to see if it pops up anywhere else.”

  “Do it,” Kira told her.

  “I don’t like any of this,” Leon muttered.

  Kira crossed her arms. “Me either.”

  “You’re going to like this even less,” Jasmine said after a minute.

  “You have a hit already?” Kira asked.

  “Didn’t have to look far. The gas giant on the other side of the sun emitted a resonant signal two point seven seconds after the planet broadcast.”

  “What does it mean for us?” Kira asked. “Is there something receiving the signal on the planet?”

  Leon tilted his head. “Oh… that’s intriguing.”

  “Hmm?” Nothing on the screen jumped out at her.

  “The resonant signal from the gas giant is stronger than the one sent from the artificial planet.”

  “I believe it’s a bio-amplifier,” Jasmine jumped in. “A signal booster, if you will. Upon re-analysis of the Raven’s scans in the system, I have detected that the gas giant emits an echo of signals bouncing around the system. Its atmosphere appears to contain trace amounts of valteron. The scans indicate that it exists in an organism that feeds on hydrogen and methane.”