by Jim Melanson
She turned and faced the human again. She stared at him for a few moments, trying to understand the feeling in her stomach when she looked at him. Finally, she pointed at the ground in front of him then made a “stop” hand gesture. He must have understood because he nodded his head and crossed his arms. Through the faceplate of his surface suit she could see that his face was rugged, handsome, scared… and defiant. His fear would work in her favour, for now, defiant or not.
She walked around to the undamaged side of the Eridani vessel, found the over-ride panel, opened it and then triggered the hatch. All Eridani vessels had this identical access point, and everyone on the Mars Hybrid base knew how to access them, even though the Eridani didn’t know they knew.
As the hatch swung up, she stepped back and looked around the craft to make sure the human was still where she left him. He was.
Achael then cautiously leaned inside the craft to look at the unmoving Drone. She didn’t know if it was dead or if it was playing possum. She reached in with one hand and poked it once, then twice, then a third time; each time a bit rougher than the last.
At that point it started to move around slightly. It wasn’t playing possum, it had really been unconscious. Unheard of. She had to move fast before it fully regained its senses.
Deftly, she flicked open the seat restraints, grabbed the Drone by the back of its own version of a space suit, and then quickly pulled it out of the craft. She bodyslammed it onto the ground, dropped to one knee on top of it, and reached behind her. She opened the pouch on her utility belt, and withdrew two plastic restraints.
When she had arrived, she had put her Dart in hover mode, and then she had to get into her surface suit quickly. Even though she was in a hurry, she had enough sense about her to make sure she fully kitted-up before activating the TransMat. It was quite by accident she wound up appearing right in front of the man from Earth.
With the Drone pinned to the ground, she pulled its suited arms behind its back and applied one of the restraints, then she half-turned and did the same thing around the Drone’s knees. She’d apply more restraint once she got him in the ship. She picked up the now squirming and struggling Drone, and threw it over her shoulder. She turned and looked around the small Eridani vessel. The human still stood there, arms folded, and it looked like he was tapping his foot. She smiled at that.
She walked towards the Dart, reached up and activated the TransMat. Inside she set down the struggling Drone, opened a supply bay, and took out a roll of duct tape. She made sure the Drone wouldn’t be able to struggle enough to get free.
Already knowing what had to be done, she TransMat outside again. She opened the service hatch under the craft, and took out a rescue toolkit. She then started pulling out a rescue cable. She pulled out enough to reach the Eridani craft, and walked towards it with the kit slung over her shoulder. The human was still standing where she had left him, arms still folded, foot still tapping. She stopped by the open hatch of the Eridani vessel. She looked inside for a connection point that would be solid enough to support the weight of the craft. She found a strut that looked strong enough and turned around for her toolkit.
The human was standing right behind her. She froze, just staring at him. After a few moments, the earthman bent down, picked up the toolkit and held it up to her.
Mike
I was tired of standing there just tapping my foot. I watched the bigger alien carry the squirming body of something small over to the triangular craft. She touched the craft and disappeared. I’m sure my surprisingly slack jaw slammed into the bottom of my helmet, but I was too shocked to really notice.
I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Was the alien savouring the moment to kill me? Was the alien going to let me live? Was the alien a friendly, instead of a support operation for the downed craft? If it wasn’t friendly, why had it restrained the smaller alien? If it was friendly, was there a bad-alien support operation on the way? Was I about to be in the middle of another fire fight? As these and other thoughts raced around my already overloaded brain, the alien was suddenly there again. I mean suddenly, as in one moment it wasn’t; and then suddenly, it was. No flash of light, no materialization beam like on Star Trek, no sudden shimmer or distortion. One moment it wasn’t there, and a single shake of a lamb’s tail later - it was simply, there. The suddenness and visual disorientation actually made me feel nauseous.
The alien went under its ship, took a small box out of a hatch it opened, and then started pulling out a cable. It then took the small box (it looked like a really expensive toolkit for outer space) and the cable, and started walking back to the small crashed ship.
Ahhhhh … retrieval. This alien was going to take the crashed ship away. I stood there while the alien walked around and out of view. I gave it a few moments, and then made up my mind. Kill me or not, I was done being the bitch of all these aliens. I walked around the small ship and saw the alien leaning inside of it. I walked up behind the alien and stood there. It stood up and turned around. I could see it give an involuntary jerk backwards, but at least it didn’t draw that ugly weapon on its hip. I still couldn’t see anything through the opaque visor so after a few beats I reached down, picked up the box that looked like a toolkit, and held it up for the alien. With the briefest pause, the alien opened the case in my hands, reached in and pulled out a 10 centimetre shackle and screw, along with a very human looking pair of pliers.
I watched the alien lean back in the craft, appearing to give me no further thought, and set to work. Standing on my tippy-toes to see over its shoulder, I could see the big alien wrapping the shackle around what appeared to be a support strut in an awkward location, and begin threading the shackle screw in place.
I was thinking fast and hard now. This alien hadn’t killed me, even when I snuck up behind it. It was using equipment that would have been found in any hardware store on Earth. It had a surface suit on that looked like it came out of a NASA closet. Aside from the freakishly long arms and fingers, it appeared quite human; even though it was about a head shorter than I am. I knew that according to General Rosewood there were “friendlies” visiting our planet but this, this alien before me, well, seemed to confuse me in a way that “friendlies” wouldn’t have. I was just starting to wonder what General Rosewood hadn’t told me when the alien stood up, tossed the wrench in the toolkit and closed it up.
The alien bent down and picked up the cable. The cable had a snap hook on the end of it. The alien then reached in and attached the snap hook to the shackle that had just been installed. The alien in the red suit then stood and turned. It just stood there for a few seconds staring at me. With its helmets faceplate completely opaque, I imagined it staring into my eyes, if it had eyes. I refused to look away, to tremble, to even blink. Finally the alien took the toolkit out of my hands and without so much as a “by-your-leave” head nod; it turned and walked back towards the triangular Dart.
I started to back up slowly from the crashed ship. I could see, standing this close, the surface wasn’t as smooth as it looked from any distance. There were faint seams of odd shapes. The surface actually looked like brushed metal rather than smoother metal. The cable tugged, and I looked up, the alien was making it taut and drawing the slack back into the bottom of the triangular craft. The alien walked back to the front of the craft, touched the nose of it, and then was (another shake of a lamb’s tail later), simply no longer standing there. The nausea returned.
A moment later, the black triangular craft started to slowly lift up so I backed even further away. Moving right over top of the crashed ship, the triangular craft silently moved upwards, moving very slowly until the crashed ship had taken tension on the cable, and had lifted off the ground. I could hear some faint straining and groaning of metal, but it quickly quieted to nothing in the thin atmosphere. The two alien ships then moved slowly upwards in tandem, and then started moving away; moving a bit more south of the direction than second craft had arrived from.
I
stood there and watched them until they were over the horizon. Once it was out of sight, I stood there some more. Once I was done standing there, I decided to stand there a bit longer and then a bit longer still. It seemed that the “take action” part of my brain had gone to sleep; perhaps it had gone for lunch. I fully expected to find a significant portion of my brain huddled in the corner, strumming a finger on its lips, and making senseless gibbering noises.
As if this wasn’t enough on my plate, sexy voice spoke up again, “Unknown targets detected in area of compromise. Hostile targets designated target numbers forty-one, forty-two and forty-three, referential target numbers four, five and six. Tracking hostile targets.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath then out a long sigh, “I don’t fraking care”.
“Command not recognized. Please restate command.”
Sigh. Frak off.
“Command, cancel new target voice notification, and cancel referential targeting designations.”
“Command accepted, cancelling new target voice notification. Maintaining 100 kilometre exclusion zone. Cancelling referential targeting designations. Resuming sequential target designations.”
Sigh.
I decided to just stand there some more.
So I was just standing there for a while, not knowing what in the hell to do, and not having a clue what to make of everything that had just happened. From the time I got the heads-up message from Ernst, only twenty-five minutes had passed. The alien “rescue” ship had been on the ground for less than fifteen minutes. I decided that standing there was the right thing to do in these circumstances: so I just stood there some more, and then some more after that. At some point, I noticed that my HUD had not displayed any more priority message from Ernst or from anyone else for that matter.
Eventually, I looked around behind me and to the right, the Habitats were intact. I looked over the other shoulder at Big Dawg, it was sitting where I left it, but its camera mast was pointed right at me. I looked at the supply drops, the gaping wound in the nacelles, and lower side of cargo drop #3 (hydroponics equipment). I looked at the recently arrived cargo drop #7 (return pods, more on that later), and its scary and disappointing 35 degree list towards the other cargo drops.
I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. I flapped my arms against my sides a couple times, turned to Big Dawg, gave him the hand recognition signal and then the “Follow Me” hand signal, and then walked back to the W-Hab.
Achael
She flew low and slow, not able to use the folding drive with the damaged Eridani craft swinging freely below her at the end of the rescue cable. It took her almost five hours to get to Teviot Vallis and the Eridani base.
A few minutes after leaving the crash site, her proximity scans showed three Eridani vessels in formation behind her. She braced herself to cut the cable and engage in evasive manoeuvres, but they did not attack. Two stayed in formation, while one pressed close and did a circuit first above then under her ship. Obviously they saw the crashed craft, and that she had it in tow. That lead ship moved back into formation with its counterparts, and they flew with her the whole way to her destination.
Achael had been to the Eridani base many times. Once a Martian year, the Eridani and the Hybrid base exchanged two or three personnel for a few hours. Each was treated to some entertainment, a lavish dinner and a round table discussion of any issues that needed to be discussed. She hated those trips. The Vesna creeped her out, the Voiya were insufferable, and the place smelled like rotting sweat socks and dirty crotch. However Lt. Col. KamPen had been sending her more often. She suspected it was a form of punishment for all the fighting, but it was better than the brig. There was also the biweekly deliveries of biological material that she and Hlef seemed to get more than their fair share of.
The only positive thing to come out of all these visits was that she had made some friends amongst the Trigla. The Trigla weren’t like the rest of the Eridani. Get them away from the Vesna and the Voiya; and they were friendly, solicitous, welcoming party animals. Many of them spoke small amounts of different Earth languages and were called upon by the Vesna, from time to time, to help interpret when circumstances didn’t permit telepathy to work. Achael had learned some rudimentary Trigla and could get by in a pinch, but she wasn’t fluent. Achael usually made her way from the state functions as soon as she could, and wandered down to the kitchens and maintenance areas where she would be greeted with hugs, backslapping, and the good food; not the pretentious crap they served upstairs. There was always music playing and the kitchen staff burst into unintelligible song and dancing as often as not. She had started bringing a case of human and Eben spices with her each year for the cooks, who were almost beside themselves with joy at such a bounteous, creative, and thoughtful gift.
This time, however, there would be no socializing, no gifts and no insufferable state dinner. She knew her arrival would not go over well, and there was a good chance they may just try to kill her on the spot. Key word being “try”.
Lt. Col. Gref KamPen
He stood beside Pinpin HofPin in the Defense Office. They watched the Eben version of a radar.
“Damn it”, the Base Commander said.
“I was afraid of this. There’s only one place she can be going on that heading.” mused Pinpin, while stroking his stubbly, but mostly Eben chin. The True-Blood Eben did not have facial hair, other than eyelashes. The Hybrid males tried growing facial hair, but usually wound up with patchy, odd coloured stubble only.
Lt. Col. KamPen scratched his head and looked at Pinpin, and then at Hlef and Ahshuun who had just entered.
“Straight to the Devil’s doorstep no doubt,” chimed in Ahshuun after seeing the track on the screen, “She must have a really big bug up her ass this time.”
Pinpin looked at the Base Commander, “Boss, we have to do something. If she’s alone and pisses them off, they won’t hesitate to throw her in an acid vat.”
The mood in the room changed at that moment. What everyone had been thinking was now being said, and now that it had been said, it demanded a response.
Lt. Col. KamPen held his head like he had a migraine. With squinted eyes he looked right at Hlef, “You girls are going to be the death of me, you know that, right?” Everyone smiled. He had just told them they were going to do something.
With a deep sigh, he put his hands on his hips, “You three meet me in the hangar bay. Get three Darts prepped,” and they were gone so fast, he hardly saw them go.
He looked down at the techs working the defense consoles. “Big Martha”, the True-Blood Eben tech turned her head slightly and looked at him from the corner of her eye. “What’s the current status of those ground pounders?”
Big Martha responded in her swishy-slushy Eben dialect, “Thousis ab estend atta” (30 minute alert).
“How fast can you get one up, really?”
Big Martha (a nickname she’d had for forty years) paused a moment than said, “Thousis sri” (ten minutes).
“Do it. I may need some shock and awe,” he spun on his heels, and headed for the hangar bay. He paused long enough at the Communications Office to order the tech to call the Ready-Team (10 Eben and 10 humans) to the hangar bay, with a full weapons kit for heavy combat. Shock and awe sometimes had to be upclose and personal.
The Battle Alarm started echoing in the halls when Big Martha activated the Heavy Cruiser alert. In addition to the ready team, many more pairs of feet, from all three races, started pounding towards the hangar bay.
Achael
She reduced speed a bit more as she started crossing Hesperia Planum, she didn’t want the Eridani following her to think it was an attack run. With Hellas Planitia looming broadly in the distance and quickly filling her view screen, she searched for the telltale landmark of the kidney-shaped Teviot Vallis with its dog-leg entry. Rising another 700 metres in altitude, it only took a few minutes before she saw it in the distance. She changed direction to come in slow over Gunnison
crater. She wanted to approach at an oblique angle with the entrance to the Eridani base on the west side of Teviot Vallis, just west of the dog-leg. She slowed and approached obliquely, so that the assholes following her wouldn’t think she was on an attack approach.
Slowing to an almost stop, she crawled along the Vallis proper, while sending the challenge signal from her communications equipment. There was a lengthy delay. Long enough that she had to stop and hover in place with the damaged craft beneath swinging like a pendulum, ever-so-slightly. When the approach signal was received, she winched the small craft in close to the bottom of her Dart, and proceeded through the now visible entrance and through the magnetic curtain. The thick heavy doors had opened and recessed into the walls, she could see a large contingent of drones as well as a healthy ground crew of Trigla. She started running the mental exercises that would prevent the Vesna and most of the Voiya from reading her thoughts. This was something all the hybrids and humans on the Mars base learned very early on.
The ground crew halted her in mid-flight; while they ran underneath to have a look at the barely swaying damaged craft. Emerging from underneath, the one that had to be the Deck Chief guided her to a spot along one side of the landing bay, and indicated to her to set the craft there. She let out the winch slowly, and felt the change in buoyancy as the small craft rested on the deck. She waited a few minutes for the Trigla ground crew to disconnect the cable. It amazed her that Eben, Eridani, and human flight deck operations were almost identical, even though there had never been any purposeful collaboration.
The ground crew Chief gave her the all clear after only a minute. She winched in the cable, and followed another Trigla ground crew waving lighted sticks in the air. She was guided to the centre of the hangar bay where some drones and some Vesna had gathered. There was also a platoon-size force of Trigla soldiers present, all heavily armed. She smiled. There was an Eben hybrid arriving, they had to overcompensate. As her craft moved into the indicated position, she could see three Eridani scout ships alighting, and the pilots emerging on the far side of the cavernous hangar bay.
