by Jim Melanson
Both women turned towards him and dropped to one knee on the floor with one hand resting on the floor, and one arm swept in the air behind their backs. The Base Commander turned ghost white, did an about face and sacrificing dignity for a much stronger survival instinct, he scurried around the corner as fast as he could without actually running.
The women had dropped into the Eben Death Stance. The Death Stance was an ancient battle tactic of the Eben. It made the opponent think the Eben warrior was tired and needed to rest, had given up, wanted to talk, or was confused and didn’t know what to do. In fact, the Eben Death Stance usually indicated that something’s life was about to end, quickly and violently. The Death Stance was designed to throw the opponent psychologically off balance, just a little. When an Eben went into the Death Stance, it lasted only a few seconds. They would then come out of it launching an all-out final physical assault, piercing the air with the Eben Battle Scream. This assault would be one-on-one, it would be in close quarters, and in almost every single case; it would be final for the opponent or the Eben. The Death Stance assault was always to the death.
The two women didn’t do this though. They stayed in the Eben Death Stance for probably a full minute, panting, just staring at the floor in front of them. At the same time, they both realized how far they had gone, and both knew it had to stop. After some of the adrenalin slowed down, Achael looked sideways at Hlef and said, “I’m sorry Sis”.
This surprised Hlef, she looked at her sister confused and then suddenly realized what had just happened. Achael had thrown Hlef psychologically off balance, followed immediately by her fist in the middle of Hlefs face. Hlef fell backwards, hit the wall and slid to the floor unconscious, as Achael stood up and ran full out for the hangar bay. The remnants of the security team looked at the Base Commander for direction as she ran towards them, turned the corner and headed away from them down the crossing corridor. The human dominant Base Commander threw his hands up in the air and shrugged his shoulders, saying wearily, “Let her go. Let her get it out of her system. She’ll calm down before she gets there”.
Ernst & Frankie: 18 Minutes, 2 Seconds Later
Frankie leaned over and whispered, “You didn’t let me tell them … WHY??”
Ernst closed his eyes, shook his head and ignored Frankie. The question was rhetorical anyways. They kept flicking their eyes back and forth between the Mar-Sat image on the big screen, and the Jalopy-Sat image on their own screens. Without announcement, Carrie was suddenly pulling up a chair behind them and between them. She leaned forward, her shoulders pressed against their shoulders and each hand resting lightly on their collar bones. With the intensity of her stare and pursed lips, she quietly dared them to say a single verdammte word.
When Mike had jumped off the cargo deck of Big Dawg and crouched down, most of those watching thought he had twisted his ankle. Then there was a bright streak and the ground exploded in front of him. It was about that moment when the room exploded with shouts and cries, and people trying to run around to do things but not knowing what to run around and do. Karl had to yell at them a few times to remind them that at this particular moment they were merely observers because the signal delay meant that whatever was going to happen, had already happened. He reminded them they were simply playing catch-up and even so, they had no real-time assistance to offer Mike. So sit down, shut-up and face your screens. Not exactly Management 101, but sometimes leadership through YELLING-REALLY-LOUDLY had its place. It was during Karl’s rant that Carrie joined the two spooks.
Carrie saw Arno looking around for her and caught his eye. He had a quizzical look on his face, and gave her a ‘wassup’ head toss. She nodded her head back and to the left, beckoning him to come over. Ernst and Frankie started to protest to her quietly. She patted them both on the shoulder and with acerbic sweetness said, “Meine Herren, are we really going to do zis? Right now? In ze same room as everyone else?”
Ernst and Frankie both slumped their shoulders, and turned back to the screen. The secret squirrel stuff was now over. Jalopy-Sat would be common knowledge to the Mission Control staff. There was nothing they could do about that. Ernst sighed, reached over to his keyboard, tickled the keys a few times, and the Jalopy-Sat’s main image caused the big screen at the front of the room to go into split screen mode. It was showing everyone a brand new angle that was clearer, crisper, and tighter than the other view. There was a murmur of questioning and heads turning this way and that. Everyone was familiar with what Mar-Sat could see, its angles, etc.; and there was a difference from that familiar image, to what the new image looked like. This was something new around Mars, and they had access to it. Ernst caught Karl looking his way and giving him the thumbs up. Neither Karl nor Hans had ever thought the stealth satellite would remain unknown for long.
In the few seconds all of this took place, everyone saw Mike crouching behind Big Dawg and peeking around the corners, looking for the shimmer they could all see plainly.
After Ernst had sent the first message, he had sat there for a few moments considering what options there were. Finally, he made his decision. He had sat straight up in his chair, typed a sequence of commands on his keyboard, and after confirming the commands were on their way to Mars, he sent Mike a second message, only two words long. Then, he was a spook after all, made sure his screen was clear of all references to Castle Cellar. That happened just moments before Carrie joined them.
Dust Up
I couldn’t see it. It had disappeared. I looked right, then looked left, then turned a full circle where I was standing and I didn’t see …
Ahhhh, there it was! I caught the shimmer between two of the dropped cargo containers. I stepped to the back of the rover, to put the rover between myself and the shimmer or more correctly, the cloaked alien space ship. I hefted the rocks in my hands, I felt stupid holding rocks while facing an alien space ship. Time to make a decision. If I stayed here, I had very little cover and was overly exposed. I really wished I’d brought the energy weapon at this point. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. At least I hoped I would have the chance to not make that mistake again.
I decided to get out of the wide open, and into the narrow open. If I could get to the cargo drops I could gain some cover, what I was going to do after that was beyond me; but at this point, it was one step at a time. I jumped around the corner of the rover, and went into the hockey run to get to the cargo drops.
The Drone
Arriving over the ice field again, the Drone immediately moved the vessel far enough away that the Drone could barely see the human’s place. The Drone sat there for several hours waiting and watching. The Drone noticed a shimmer in the air, and watched another cloaked scout vessel from the Eridani base fly around the human colony, and then start searching farther afield. That vessel was obviously looking for the Drone. Since the Drone’s vessel was cloaked, motionless, and this far from the human site, it wouldn’t be likely that the Drone’s vessel would be located. The Drone had disconnected its transponder.
Eventually the Drone saw the human scum walking towards the row of human ships a little way away from the main living units, south of them, south towards Teviot Vallis, south towards the Eridani complex.
The burning anger and seething hatred was amplified by this. The Drone moved the vessel much closer to where the human was. The Drone wanted to know what the human was up to before the Drone ended the human’s existence in the flash of a directed energy plasma explosion. There would be a great deal of gratification for the Drone, to see the human die. PAIN, PAIN; IT WILL FEEL PAIN; IT WILL FEEL SUCH PAIN, thought the Drone. That would wait though. The Drone would see what the human was doing so it could triumphantly return to the Master with news of the human’s actions before it was obliterated (double entendre intended).
The secondary weapon on the Drone’s vessel was one that used the mass and composition of the target to destroy the target. In its low setting, it would only affect biological material. At the low setting
, hitting a human would cause indescribable agony, as the beam slowly excited the human’s molecular structure to the point that molecular bonds started to fail. A long and agonizing death for the human, that would definitely please the Drone. However, the Drone went for the high setting. In the high setting, this weapon focused an intense beam of energy that caused the target’s mass to instantly ionize, and since the ionizing matter, with instantly cascading molecular bond failure, was not contained in a magnetic field; all the objects potential energy instantly converted to release the inherent molecular energy as an electrical plasma ball. The plasma ball, still not contained and allowed to go as it would, would explode. The beauty of the design was that only a powerful energy source is needed for the emitter. The fuel, the explosive material, was the target itself.
The human was now sitting on the bigger of the two robots. The Drone hovered the vessel, watching the human for quite a while. The human scum was just sitting there. Was it aware of the Drone? Was it toying with the Drone? Was it setting a trap for the Drone? The Drone would never be accused of underestimating an enemy. The Drone took paranoia to a new height at the best of times; and this was not the best of times.
After spending too much time watching the human taunt the Drone with what had to be a rudimentary trap at best, the Drone started to slowly move the vessel closer to the human. The time had come for the human to die. As the Drone gleefully, with such focused intent, slowly approached the human from behind for the kill shot, the human suddenly jumped down off the robot, and hid from view.
A string of Eridani curse words screamed through the Drone’s mind. HUMAN THINK STUPID HUMAN TRAP SPRUNG? The Drone stopped a short distance from the human, activated the directed energy weapon on its vessel, and then fired a burst of ionizing high-energy at the human. This weapon generated such an intensely powerful electric charge that when it left the emitter on the forward portion of the vessel, it delivered about three petawatts of energy on contact, at this range. Consider that a lightning bolt has about half a gigawatt of power, this energy beam was delivering roughly six thousand times more energy in a microburst passing only a few centimetres over the human’s head.
The energy beam missed the human, but exploded the ground behind the human. Basic battle tactics flooded through the Drone’s properly trained and conditioned mind. Fire, move, find cover, fire, and repeat.
Achael
Achael had run the whole way to the hangar bay where the six scout ships, four transports, two much bigger galactic transit vessels, and a myriad of research vessels were docked. The scout ships and transports were armed with defensive weapons. The galactic transit vessels were also armed, but much more heavily. It could also be called a heavy bomber. In fact, they were called “transit” vessels to keep those humans who might become “in the know”, at ease. In reality, they were two old, but still very much serviceable, Eben Heavy Cruisers. However, they had never been used in this capacity in their two hundred years on Mars, and everyone on the base never wanted them to be used in that capacity. A method of deterrence was, however, at the end of the day, conducive to peacefulness.
As stated, the Eben are known as amongst the fiercest if not the fiercest warriors in the three galaxies, when their ire was raised. The galactic transports, in military configuration were a force to be reckoned with. So much so that even the Eridani feared the mere presence of them on the planet. It’s probably what kept them in line and the détente in place.
Achael ran so softly and burst through the door so explosively that her Eben dominant brother Pinpin, the duty officer, came clear out of his chair with a yell of surprise while jettisoning a stack of papers in the air; leaving them to flutter down slowly in the low Martian gravity.
“Sis! What the hell??” he screamed through his office door at her while throwing his long spindly arms in the air.
Achael stopped right in front of his office door, not having even broken a sweat but breathing heavily with anger. “Ship. Now.” Her eyes were still onyx black and her long-fingered hands were clenching and releasing at her side. In their years growing up together, Achael and Pinpin had been as close as she and Hlef were now. He had his noggin banged around enough times, in her surprise ambush games, to not miss the signs of the state she was in at this moment. Pinpin stopped picking up the papers, and looked even closer at her.
“Wow, you really are pissed. Was that you and Hlef I heard screaming?” he said as he looked towards the hallway doors, realizing now that Hlef had not followed Achael.
“Do you have a scout ready or not?”
Pinpin and Achael (as well as Hlef) held the rank of Major in the United States (Exo) Air Force. There was no ordering to be done in that respect. Pinpin just hated being bossed around by his sister, either of them. Pinpin looked at her for a moment, sizing things up. He straightened his dark blue jumpsuit, and stepped around the desk. Drawing himself up to his full 140 centimetre height, standing there in front of his 160 centimetre tall sister, he snapped his inner eyelids shut. They both stood there as two Eben; not two humans, not two hybrids. Putting on his most authoritative voice, he said in True-Blood Eben dialect, “Rahushi yi uhf spiksht?” (What if I say no?)
Achael took one step towards him.
Pinpin’s inner eyelid opened immediately revealing what any 1950’s teenage girl would have described as “dreamy blue eyes, just dreamy”. That was a trait of all the hybrids, they all had dreamy blue eyes. He jumped backwards and started waving his hands in front of him, “KIDDING! JUST KIDDING!”
Achael took another step towards him, “Now is not the time Pinpin. Give me a scout ship NOW!!!!”
“Number two! Bay number two! It’s preflighted and ready to go! Honest Achael, it’s yours, go, take it!” Pinpin was not a stupid man. He had tested Achael looking for any sign of backing down. There was none. He knew from many, many past experiences he could not take her. Even the most advanced Eben battle tactics would not work on either Achael or Hlef with their relatively overpowering size. Achael and Hlef were both somewhat of a prodigy when it came to hand-to-hand combat. There was no hybrid or True-Blood Eben on the base that could take them in a fair fight. The humans were too smart to try. Well, the humans that had been there more than a few weeks. Every once in a while a new arrival would have a couple beers too many, and decide to show the “half-breeds” what was what. The sisters’ three hybrid brothers almost always visited the recalcitrant fool in the infirmary the next day to give them the full rundown on Achael and Hlef. They felt it was their duty to keep the intergalactic feathers smoothed down when Helf and Achael ruffled them up.
Achael spun on her heels and parted with, “You’re the brother that got the smarts in the family, you know that?” Achael loved Pinpin as much as she loved all her siblings. She so very much didn’t want to hurt him, but she also would not have hesitated had he stood in her way as Hlef had. The image of Hlef hitting the floor unconscious flashed through her mind. She really hoped Hlef would be okay and not too pissed when she got back from dealing with this Eridani threat to the human. Of course, such fighting was second nature to them as children, as a form of play and energy release. It didn’t carry the same connotations for inter-relationship solidity or have the cultural apprehension that such behaviour generated in humans. Eben children fought very, very rarely in a state of anger. In fact, they avoided fighting in anger because of their propensity to inflict great damage on one-another in such states. Still, that image of Hlef was on her mind. The image of Hlef’s surprise, then the image of her hitting the wall hard and falling to the floor unconscious.
While that image ate at her a little bit, it didn’t deter her. or stop her. If anything, it edged her on. To stop now would have made it worth nothing. She knew Hlef was right. She knew that she should mind her own damn business and stay out of this. The human did decide to come to Mars, notwithstanding what might happen here. She knew he had been warned. Achael and the others knew he had been given a very limited briefing by General
Rosewood, overall Commandant of the Mars mission. She should stop, turn around, and let him sort it out himself.
She paused as she approached the dark grey triangular scout ship. It hovered on its antigravity supports while two umbilical lines kept the systems warmed up and ready. The scout ship in bay three was also in the same ready state. They could be in atmo in under twenty seconds from the sound of an alarm. The duty pilots were in the ready room twenty feet away, both of them, currently, human dominant hybrids. She stood there wondering if she shouldn’t just forget it and turn around. The image of Hlef was really playing on her mind now.
Then she thought of the grey ball hovering around the human man out there. Before the fight had moved into the hallway, the one remaining working monitor had shown the flash of the Eridani energy weapon. It had shown the image of the human alone, crouched down behind his rover robot. That image came to the forefront of her mind. It had been so clear that she imagined she could see his face through the visor on this surface suit helmet. The thought of him facing this alone filled her chest with burning rage, at least it felt like rage. It definitely burned in her though. The anger returned in force. She thought of the drone in the little Eridani scout craft. It was always drones in those craft as the Trigla and the Vesna were too big, and the Voiya to self-important.
