Echoes In The Grey

by David Allan Hamilton

“I am Kate is . . . whole now . . . not broken.”

  She couldn’t bear to look at or touch herself there. Instead, she drew on her mental Spacer training and forced her mind to concentrate on finding Mary and getting to the Echo, no matter what. Still, the screaming in her brain wouldn’t quit, and poked through the veneer of self-control, driving her to shout, “Where’s my friend, damn you!”

  The Rossian scuttled into a dark corner, pushing itself against the smooth wall underneath the projection of the Moon’s surface where a third figure had now joined the other two by the excavator.

  “The friend Mary . . . is safe and . . . helping little one Keechik . . . mm . . .remember.”

  Kate shook her head, half out of her mind. She desperately fought to control the rage that boiled inside, but to her surprise, had no desire to cut at all, which only enraged her more. “What are you talking about? Where is she?”

  “Mm . . . the one, the friend Mary is here, I am Kate.”

  “I’m not Kate,” she whispered coldly.

  “I am Kate . . . mm . . . is repaired. The friend Mary helps the one Keechik . . . remember . . . you will come and see . . . soon.”

  The syntax grated on her, but at least she understood most of what the alien communicated. It appeared Mary was okay and located somewhere on this ship. Who knew what hell this creature had her doing, but she would find out.

  Movement in the wall projection caught her eye and caused her to double-take. There was something familiar in that third astronaut’s build. His height and broad shoulders compared to the other two suggested it was a man, and the way he moved reminded her of—

  “Jim?”

  She parked her defiance for a moment and approached the projection, not trusting what or who she perceived there. The angle of the image told her there must be a sensor directly above the ship. That blue light, perhaps? The bare hull where Mary scraped dust away, protruded from the bottom of the image. Three figures and one of the industrial excavators stood within a few meters of the craft. At 11 o’clock, the Echo rested on a dusty, flat area about 50 meters away. Above the ugly, brownish surface of the Mare Marginis, where the sky shone in permanent, pre-dawn light, the Earth glowed above the horizon like a variegated turquoise iris.

  Kate turned to Keechik. “Is that Jim Atteberry out there?” The alien clicked its limbs, then grunted. She returned her attention to the projection and asked, “Who’s out there?” The creature did not respond. Kate pointed to the images, her eyes widening. “Keechik, let me speak to them.”

  “No. . . no . . . no.”

  “Damn it, why not?”

  “No . . . not ready . . . the friend Mary is . . . not finished . . . come and see.” The alien slipped one of its limbs into a hole in the console—an input sensor of some sort—and various images flashed by on the ship’s wall. Kate thought the creature might show her Mary’s location, and prove she was safe, but instead, the pictures came to rest on a group of ships facing each other in space.

  “What—where is that?”

  “So close . . . I am Kate, ships are here . . .”

  She slowly recognized the Malevolent, one of Titanius’s cruisers, looming in front of a tiny service vessel—a shuttle or cargo carrier. Two other vessels of unknown registration surrounded Malevolent, and several other corvette class fliers, some of them Chinese and Russian.

  “Keechik, what are they doing up there?”

  “Come . . . and see.”

  One of the cruisers fired a salvo of missiles narrowly missing the Malevolent.

  “Good God . . .”

  “Mm . . . the other ones, like you, I am Kate . . . they fight. They come to Luna . . . they . . . mm . . . wish to find me . . . that is why the friend Mary is . . . helping the one Keechik . . . to remember.”

  She turned toward Keechik and knelt down. “Listen, you must stop them. If you have technology to come here and to do this,” she pointed to her chest, “then you’re capable of stopping them.”

  Keechik clacked his limbs again, removed the one toggling the images, and crept out from the shadows. Its amber eyes appeared even larger than before, and the creature struggled to keep still, at once watching her, then turning to the projection.

  “No . . . cannot stop the others. Too many are . . .broken.”

  “Broken? How do you mean?”

  “Worse than I am Kate . . . much worse . . . too broken.”

  She gathered in a deep breath, threw a cursory look at her chest, and immediately averted her eyes as her stomach pitched anew. She fought to keep the surge of bile down, then refocused on Keechik.

  “If they’re all after you and your ship, you must leave. Go somewhere else. Leave this place, and let me and Mary return to the Echo, the ship on the surface.”

  “I am Kate . . . does not understand . . . the friend Mary must go . . . with little one Keechik . . . only I am Kate returns.”

  A shiver raised the hairs on the back of Kate’s neck as a new fear entered her thoughts. “No, I thought Mary was safe, that she was helping. She can’t leave with you. She belongs here, with her dad, with me, her friends. You must not take her.”

  Keechik groaned and scuttled about before saying, “The friend Mary . . . will come with . . . little one Keechik . . . and see.” The creature returned to the console and sunk two limbs into the input holes. The images projected on the wall flashed again, finally stopping on a dark room where a figure lay on a long bed-like platform. As it manipulated its legs, the light in the image increased, revealing Mary on her back, strapped down and twitching, with fine, glowing wires protruding from her head.

  “Sweet Jesus.”

  “The friend Mary is safe, I am Kate . . . but must leave with the one Keechik . . . when she remembers all.”

  Kate swallowed hard. “What are you doing to her? Let me see Mary!”

  Keechik’s golden eyes widened, and he placed the two limbs in different sockets. “Come and see.”

  A brilliant blue light flashed through Kate’s vision and, sensing no motion, she and the creature dissolved into the room where Mary lay. At first, her confusion and loss of bearings caused her to freeze in bewilderment. Then she remembered why she was there, and ran to the bed where Mary twitched, unsure of what to do. Hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny filaments were lodged in Mary’s skull. Some were marginally thicker than others, and all of them pulsated with a blue and turquoise glow. They reminded her of old-school fiber-optics, still used in some freighters today. She shook her head and panicked, then grabbed at one of the restraining belts and wrestled to loosen it.

  Mary’s gaze shifted. Panic and confusion crossed her face, and then she frowned. “No, it’s okay. I understand now.”

  “What—what’s happening to you?” She kept tugging at the restraints, but they refused to yield. Kate swung around to find Keechik huddled in a shadow by another command console. “What are these wires? What are you doing to her!”

  Mary smiled warmly, and tears formed. One trickled down the side of her face toward her ear. Her hands and feet continued twitching, but she didn’t appear to be in any pain. Mary whispered, “I understand . . . all of it now, all of it.”

  “What do you mean? All of what?”

  “Everything . . . everything . . . everything.” Her eyelids fluttered but the calm smile on her face gave Kate pause. She ceased struggling with the restraints and stepped back from the bed. Suddenly, an immense sadness engulfed her, powerful and intense. The time had come to look again, she knew, and Kate glanced at her chest, forcing herself to stare for several seconds before breaking away.

  Who am I?

  Not only was her body being restored, it was also being healed. The rush of untold emotions swirling through her now felt different, more real and incapable of being buried much longer.

  She nodded at Keechik, and in a quivering voice, said, “You have helped me because I was broken.”

  “Yes, I am Kate.”

  She looked at the creature. “Is Mary bro
ken too?”

  Keechik clicked about the floor. “No. The friend Mary is helping . . . mm.”

  “Helping you remember.”

  “Mm . . . yes.”

  Kate rubbed her face. Her skin was smoother, more taut than before. Whatever this creature did when it touched her, somehow it repaired all the injured physical elements in her body. Her joint pain disappeared, and her eyesight improved. She felt strong again; even her lungs had cleared. Then another thought struck her.

  “Keechik, I’ve had cancer blooms for many years. Those are cells that keep growing out of control. It’s a disease that kills.”

  “Little one Keechik knows . . . mm . . . but I am Kate is no longer broken.” A deep guttural sound came from his dark corner. “No more . . . mm . . . blooms. All gone.”

  Another emotional tumult pounded her and weakened her knees, but she fought to maintain control. “Am I sick—broken—anywhere?”

  Keechik drifted out of the shadows and scrabbled to within a meter of her. It peered up with wide eyes. “No, no . . . I am Kate is whole now. No more broken.”

  Kate collapsed, at once fighting an overpowering urge to give in and release all the years of frustration and pain and nightmares that crawled into a lump in her throat. She gulped at the air as silent sobs racked her body, until finally, reluctantly, she surrendered to her emotions and allowed ancient, primal moans to surface. They came softly at first, tentatively, but quickly grew until they exploded in a torrent of jagged breaths and tears.

  She had no idea how much time had elapsed when the last of the pent-up feelings escaped, and Kate lay spent on her side, eyes closed, curled up on the smooth floor and thinking about Jim’s smile.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk.

  Kate lifted her head. The familiar tapping reverberated throughout the ship. Tears covered the side of her face and her wet bangs stuck to her forehead. She wiped them away. “It’s him, Keechik! Jim Atteberry!”

  The creature darted about the shadows, faster than before, and several images reappeared on the ship’s wall. One astronaut—it must have been Jim—knelt at the hull. He hammered at the vessel with a small tool while the other two stood nearby.

  In the momentary silence, Mary’s voice emerged. “Dad? But I’m not ready yet.”

  Kate rose from the floor and settled beside her. She grabbed onto the bed to steady herself. “I don’t care what this creature is doing to you, Mares, we’re getting off this ship now.”

  Scuttling noises erupted as Keechik danced around, but Mary spoke first. “No, Kate, not yet. This isn’t finished. There’s more to come. The entire history of Keechik’s race is being transferred into my memory: evolutionary, social, intellectual, technological . . . everything, and the process isn’t complete.” Her eyelids fluttered. “I understand now.”

  Kate turned to the creature. “You must let me talk to Jim and tell him we’re here and safe, Keechik. You must.”

  “No . . . no . . . much danger. The friend Mary is helping.”

  “For how long?”

  “Mm . . . until she remembers all . . . she must remember all.”

  Kate slammed her fist on the table beside Mary’s hand. “Damn it, how much time before we can talk to them!”

  Keechik poked its limbs into other sockets, grunted and said, “Seven . . . of your minutes, I am Kate.”

  She stared at the image on the wall. Atteberry continued hitting the hull and pausing. The taps propagated through the walls and floors of the ship, unlike anything she had experienced. The sounds didn’t reverberate like knocks traveling through metal; instead, she could almost see them rippling through the vessel and its atmosphere like acoustic waves.

  Kate scrutinized the creature anew. “What kind of vessel is this, Keechik, I mean its composition?”

  “The friend Mary remembers.”

  Kate looked down on her. Fingers continued to twitch sporadically, and Mary’s eyes moved rapidly behind her lids. Her face remained serene.

  She strode over to the wall, surveyed it, then rapped her knuckles against it, tapping back to Atteberry. After the first sequence, she glanced at Keechik, but the creature stayed at its command console. It did not try to stop her. She knuckled it out again.

  In the images from the Moon’s surface, Kate watched the three figures looking at each other. Atteberry tapped the code again.

  He thinks it’s the alien responding.

  Buried in the recesses of her mind was an ancient terran code she’d learned at the Spacer Training Center—one that few ever used now, but they were taught it anyway for its logic and sequential benefits. One Mary recognized and, therefore, one that Jim knew as well.

  How does that Morse code go again?

  Kate thought hard, turning over old memories like stones from her past, uncovering early teachings and reviewing notes. She wasn’t eidetic like Mary, but close.

  She positioned herself in front of the wall, took a deep breath, and knocked out a CQ in Morse code, the long-standing lyrical general call to invite contact with anyone who may be listening.

  dahdidahdit dahdahdidah . . .

  After repeating the pattern several times, she looked at the image again. Atteberry knelt on the hull motionless. She tapped it out again, and this time, he responded with his own CQ that the ship grabbed and propagated through its core.

  One of the other astronauts raced back toward the Echo.

  FORTY-ONE

  Carter

  Captain John Powell, co-pilot Jenson, and the comms officer Quigg stared at the main viewscreen on the bridge of the Echo. Esther remained at navigation, scanning the alien ship, but kept glancing up at the viewer with a horrified look on her face. A hundred thousand kilometers distant, the Malevolent and Volmar exchanged missile fire as smaller ships in the area scattered like cockroaches in the light.

  The Nachtfalke had been destroyed.

  What remained of her hull floated away, gently spinning like a feather in the breeze.

  Carter frowned. He’d stepped in the thick of it now and couldn’t talk his way out. “How many lives on that ship, John?”

  The captain ran through background data on the Nachtfalke. “Eighteen, assuming a full crew complement.”

  The bridge grew silent again. The only sounds he registered came from Malevolent’s battle comms. Captain Russo hadn’t been in a firefight since the days of the second Civil War, but her touch for combat had not faded. Her ship and crew dodged fire and maneuvered through the debris field with confidence.

  Something caught his eye on a secondary screen: Ishani had returned to the Echo and was hauling another piece of equipment from its belly: the Jennings laser cutter.

  “Ishani, what’s happening on the surface?”

  Her radio crackled. “Atteberry’s made contact with someone using a tap code on the hull. He says his daughter and Kate are definitely inside the ship. Dub’s gonna clear the dust with the blaster and I wanna get the Jennings in position ASAP.”

  “Inside that alien ship? Remarkable. What else can you tell us?”

  Ishani grunted as she hauled the laser cutter down Echo’s ramp to the Moon’s surface. “The composition of that ship’s hull is a mystery, sir. Never seen anything like it.”

  He raised his eyebrows at Esther working at the nav station. She turned and shook her head. “Esther says the same here. Now listen, Ishani.” He returned his gaze to the firefight in space. “We don’t have a lot of time to get in that ship, rescue our workers and grab the alien tech, understand? Tell Atteberry to return to the Echo posthaste, then Dub needs to excavate the hell out of that thing on the double.”

  “Understood.”

  The comms officer aboard the Malevolent posted updates on the message feed. Other than the destruction of the Nachtfalke, the battle between the two heavy cruisers caused minimal damage. Russo matched the Volmar’s salvos with similar weapons. She clearly wanted to avoid a full-out attack.<
br />
  Jenson jumped from her seat. “Sir, Captain, we’ve lost track of one of the other cruisers.”

  “The Edelgard?”

  “Ah, no sir.”

  Captain Powell, sitting beside her, maintained his cool, calm demeanor. “Explain, Mr. Jenson.”

  “Even though she was running dark, we’ve been tracking engine signatures. She was there earlier, coming in from the Martian run, and now . . . nothing.”

  “What was her last known position and course?”

  Jenson tweaked the dashboard controls. “Can’t be too precise from her signatures, but relative coordinates are 226 mark 8 and her trajectory was . . . oh Christ.” She looked at Captain Powell with wide eyes. “She was en route to Luna.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jenson tweaked her adjustments again and nodded.

  Carter narrowed his gaze. “What is it, John?”

  Powell exhaled long and hard. “Remember those two Prussian ships? The Edelgard was one, and she’s heading to the stand off. If our assumptions are correct, that second heavy cruiser is the Sara Waltz, and she may very well have arrived in the Moon’s orbit.”

  “The hell? Where is she, then?”

  “Likely on the far side, sir. It would explain the loss of signature.”

  Esther abandoned her surface scanning and joined Carter in the center of the bridge. The Echo, despite her advanced tech and speed, was a sitting duck for a weaponized cruiser as long as she remained immobile. As soon as the Sara Waltz swung around, she’d see them in the limb zone and could secure not only the Echo, but the alien vessel as well.

  “We’ve got to get off this rock, John.”

  “Aye, sir. Mr. Jenson, initiate lift off sequence. Fire up thrusters.”

  Esther stood in shock, her mouth agape. “No! We can’t abandon the people out there, Clayton. Call them back in!”

  Carter’s rage boiled inside his chest. “It won’t be for long, but we can’t stay here and get picked off by the Sara Waltz. In space, at least we have a fighting chance to immobilize them.”

  “Clayton, no.”