by Jim Melanson
He wasn’t aware of this, but Col. KamPen had once again interrupted the Mar-Sat feed and the Jalopy-Sat feeds. This was one alien encounter that could NOT be recorded. Greff KamPen knew that as soon as the visit was over, Lt. Gen. Rosewood would be scrubbing the spooled local files on the humans’ servers.
Khlam only had to wait a few minutes when the women appeared. He waited impatiently while they suited up in environment suits, as he had done. He noticed Hlef putting an odd-sized plastic box in one of her environment suits’ large pockets, but didn’t question her on it. Probably part of the whole cloak and dagger bullshit, he thought.
Their brother Pinpin was the duty flight deck officer and he cleared them to leave. He knew they were going without transponder or IFF, but he didn’t know where, though it wasn’t hard to guess. Achael had given him the military code word that meant ‘shut the frak up and don’t ask silly questions’.
Khlam was a bit of a hot-dog when he was on the stick. He loved flying more than anything else. His ascent to a safe folding altitude involved several barrel rolls, one loop-de-loop, and Achael smacking him on the back of the head, yelling at him to stop fraking around.
She had told him she wanted the human to have some warning that they were arriving, so he folded 250 kilometres from the colony site. He then accelerated to a breakneck speed, cutting their travel time to about three minutes. As they moved in real space, the women put on their helmets and activated their suits’ life support. By the time they were done, Khlam was bringing the ship to a stationary hover about 30 metres in front of the W-Hab.
He looked over his shoulder. This was easily done as his helmet was not on. Both of the women, with determined looks on their faces nodded at him. He activated the TransMat. The women were now standing on Mars’ surface about 10 metres in front of the Dart. They had agreed that to TransMat inside the Habitat might be a bit much for the human. They needed to give him some breathing space to handle a couple aliens, expected or not, arriving at his Mars home. After the TransMat, Khlam’s sisters immediately proceeded to the only visible Habitat airlock. He watched Achael climb up the ladder, swing the airlock armature, and then open the hatch. His sisters went inside, and the hatch shut behind them.
Khlam didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit. His instrumentation showed that there were five Eridani scout ships at about 100 km bearing 023, and were in a position to be observing what was happening. Now, his sisters had gone inside the habitat with the human. Humans could always be so unpredictable.
No, Khlam didn’t like it one bit at all.
Mike
I stared at the error messages and wondered what the hell had happened. More precisely, I wondered what the hell was about to happen. The last time this occurred was when I had the second encounter with the little alien bastard out by the supply drops. This could not bode well.
Some movement caught my eye. I shifted my gaze slightly to the video monitors. Two figures were entering the airlock and then shutting the outer door.
Oh, uhmm … frak.
I ran down the stairs and cautiously peered one eye through the portal of the inner airlock door. The two figures were standing there, blackened helmet faceplates revealing nothing. They were looking around. One of them stepped towards the corner where the weapons were hidden. I couldn’t see that she was just examining the bottle recharging system. The green light came on the airlock control to confirm that the airlock internal pressure was balanced and human breathable.
They hadn’t seen me in the portal yet. I closed my eyes, muttered a quick prayer, and then I swung the armature and pushed the airlock door inwards. Neither appeared startled, and both of them turned towards me. I stepped through the airlock door and reached around to the back of the Activity Suit I was still wearing. I grabbed the handle of the K-Bar, unsnapped the closure, and pulled it out in a forward grip. One more step and I was standing right in front of the closest alien, with the knife pointing right at its throat.
No sooner had I done this, I was looking down the barrel of the meanest, ugliest sidearm in the world. It looked like a Desert Eagle with a tin can welded around it. In fact, I would later learn, it was indeed a Desert Eagle with a pressure canister attachment that allowed it to be fired in low/no atmosphere. Regardless of knowing that, it still looked like a Desert Eagle, and that meant .50 cal; and that meant really, really big and messy hole. Not much of a combat weapon, but perfectly designed for upclose and personal.
I didn’t flinch. I couldn’t flinch. This wasn’t a game of rocks n’ lasers like before. This was, as stated, upclose and personal. This was for keeps. This wasn’t the first time since the explosion that I was scared, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Scared or not, this was my home. I would give no quarter, show no hesitation, and show no fear.
Achael
The quick draw had been automatic. She had barely registered the weapon in his hand, and her sidearm was in her hand, cocked and pointed at him. Safety off. Eben reflexes.
She sighed heavily in her helmet. She had hoped it wouldn’t go like this.
Hlef
Hlef had caught the movement of the human entering out of the corner of her eye. As she turned she could see the human with a big knife in his hand and her sister had already drawn her sidearm. As Hlef also had the Eben reflexes, her sidearm magically appeared in her right hand as well, but she didn’t point it. This certainly had been a possibility, but she knew someone had to back down first. She knew that would not be her sister. Okay, it was up to her to handle this situation.
She holstered her sidearm and stepped to the side of Achael. She paused and looked at both of them. The human looked from sister to sister, but his knife hand never wavered. He looked scared, but he also looked determined. Now she understood the package in her pocket.
Hlef reached up very slowly and unlocked, disconnected and removed her helmet. She shook her wild tangle of long curly brown hair loose, then fixed the human with a pert, perhaps somewhat saucy, smile, and said, “Hello, sweetie.”
Mike
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She looked like Loreena, but shorter. She also had freakishly big dreamy blue eyes, but they just made her even more gorgeous. I think I stopped breathing for a few heartbeats as I looked at her. After she said, “Hello, sweetie” she smiled and winked at me.
Still holding my knife on the other alien, and the other alien still holding their sidearm on me, I watched the vision of beauty who was obviously not human. Well, not entirely human. She slowly reached into a large pocket on the leg of her environment suit. She pulled out a plastic box, it looked like a Tupperware container. This breathtakingly beautiful alien woman pried the lid off, and held it out towards me. I smelled it before I saw it. I glanced down into the plastic box.
Homemade peanut butter cookies. My favourite.
Achael
She kept her gaze fixed on the human, but she knew that Hlef was stepping up to make the first contact. Achael did momentarily, unseen by the others, roll her eyes in her head when Hlef greeted him sexy-style. Her incredible peripheral vision allowed her to watch her sister open and present the cookies without taking her attention or focus off of Mike and the ridiculous knife.
As soon as the cookies were presented, the man first smiled, then chuckled. He dropped his arm holding the extended knife.
Mike
I slowly put the knife back in the scabbard and reached for the plastic box. I took out a cookie and slowly savoured its wonderful flavour. “Mmmmmm …”
The beautiful alien nudged the other one who was still holding her space-gun on me.
“You will have to forgive my sister, she’s a bit anal about having,” she suppressed a smile, “a knife pointed at her.”
The other alien re-holstered her weapon and started removing her helmet.
“Gilda sent you,” I stated.
The other alien was pulling her helmet off as she spoke, “She said the cookies would be our calling card.” The
second most beautiful woman I had ever seen shook out her long silky black hair and looked at me, again, with the freakishly big dreamy blue eyes. What was it with their eyes?
“Don’t you know you shouldn’t take a knife to a gun fight?” she asked, smiling.
Two women, two very beautiful women, and they were sent by Gilda. They had to be safe. “Meh,” I shrugged my shoulders, took another cookie and shoved the whole thing in my mouth. I offered the box to them, and the gorgeous one with the curly brown hair took one and slowly took a bite. The gorgeous one with the long silky and smooth black hair shook her head.
“Well,” I said around the last bits of the cookie, “might as well come in. I’ll put the coffee on.” With that I spun around and headed towards the airlock, and up the stairs. The situation was what it was, no sense fretting. I heard them following me, and one of them said, “Tea, please”. It was truly the most surreal moment I had ever experienced.
I set the container that still held nine cookies on the counter, and walked over to the supply cupboard. I had six mugs and had only unwrapped one of them from its transit packaging. I unwrapped two more, and set them on the counter. I emptied a stick of Starbucks coffee in one of the mugs. I dropped a Red Rose tea bag in the other mug, and one in my own mug. Filling them from the almost boiling hot water dispenser by the sink, I handed out the mugs and pointed them to the powder creamer. “Sweetener?” I hoped they would say no because at that moment I realized I didn’t have any sweetener on Mars. The gorgeous one said, “Three please.”
Frak, “Umm, ahh …”
“Never mind,” she smiled, “I imagine you haven’t unpacked it yet.”
With hot cups of coffee and tea we sat around the small work table I had previously unpacked. They had their helmets and gloves off. I could see they had really, really long fingers. They were still wearing their pressure suits though, so I wasn’t sure if they maybe had an extra set of arms or boobs or something but hey, given the events of the last few days I didn’t think there was anything that would surprise me.
“So,” I began. “Gilda sent you to see me.” The black-haired one nodded, she seemed to be the leader of the two.
“Mom sends her regards,” she said, then sipped her coffee. I was suddenly very wrong about nothing else surprising me. She smiled at the look on my face.
“Mom?” I think I gulped.
“Yes, Mom.”
“Ah-ha. So it’s like that is it?”
The other one chimed in, “Yes, yes it is.” They were most-def Gilda’s daughters.
After a brief pause where I considered several things, I spoke again. “Okay, shall we start with introductions then?” The beautiful curly brown haired one slurped noisily on her hot tea.
The other one rolled her eyes, “I’m Ah-ooh-chhale and this is my sister Uh-oo-lef”.
I smiled and tried pronouncing their names. She guided me through a couple attempts until I had them as right as a human set of vocal chords could get them.
“I guess you know I’m Mike Lane, Martian.” I smiled.
The curly brown haired one laughed out loud, and the silky smooth brunette smiled. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a bad day after all. The brunette or, as I thought of her, the hot one’s hot sister, got right down to business.
Achael
This guy actually seemed as nice in person as he did in the media and the monitoring they had done, she thought to herself. The dossier that Gilda had given them on this man summarised that he was disarmingly charming, thoughtful, and exceptionally intelligent; that he should not be discounted regardless of his circumstances; that he should be watched closely in any dealings with him. His responses could be interestingly unpredictable. Achael decided not to beat around the bush. She and Hlef did, after all, have a dinner date with their father and brothers.
“As you have noticed,” she began, “we may a look a bit different.” To his credit, Mike said and did nothing at that statement except sip his cup of tea. “We are Human-Eben hybrids. We are a product of inter-genome technology involving human ova and Eben spermatozoa.
Seventy-three Earth years ago, Eben scientists and human military personnel began experimentation with combining the two races. My sister, brothers and I are from the fifth generation of full-on trials that occurred forty years ago. The ninth generation is due for maturation in another couple of months.
The Eben themselves, we call them the True-Blood Eben, have been on Mars for over a thousand years. They used it extensively as a remote outpost for observation of humans on Earth. They made first contact by accident in the 1940’s, which I know Mom told you about. After that, the True-Bloods attempted to form relationships with the Russians, the Chinese, and the French; but only the relationship with the Americans held up. While a formal presence on Earth was withdrawn in the 1960’s due to the Earth alliances with the Eridani, the True-Bloods remained on Mars where the Eben-Human base had already been established. Currently there are about seventy True-Bloods, over two hundred Hybrids, and roughly one hundred and fifty humans assigned to the base.”
Mike just nodded his head each time she made a particular point. He seemed nonplussed by anything she was saying. Okay, a cool customer for sure then.
The True-Bloods made contact at a time that coincided with the Bsirutaeben ramping up their own genetic experiments on humans. Theirs were not voluntary subjects where the Eben test partners all volunteered.”
Mike furrowed his eyebrows, “The Seer-ROO-Tay-Ben?”
“Yes,” she continued, “they are the Voiya and the Vesh-na and the Tree-la and their drones. I believe my Mother briefed you on them?” Mike changed his face to an expression of understanding and nodded his head.
“They are collectively referred to as the Bsirutaeben.”
“Fraking Tantaloids,” her sister chimed in sotto voce.
“Yes, technically the Voiya are physically Tantaloids. The Bsirutaeben had a relationship with the American government for a number of years. There were problems, it wasn’t smooth. The relationship abruptly ended after a bloody massacre at an underground base in the New Mexico desert.”
“At Dulce?” He asked.
She was surprised he knew this. The Dossier was right. She nodded and continued. “Thirty years ago we, the Hybrid base and the American government representing Earth, reached a détente with the Bsirutaeben after that incident. We signed a détente agreement. The highpoints of this agreement were that the Bsirutaeben would no longer involve themselves in human abductions or animal mutilations. Instead, every two Earth weeks we provide them with 20 kg of living organic material to experiment on.”
Mike almost spit out the tea in his mouth, “YOU WHAT??” he almost came out of this chair. Both women were instantly on their feet. Hlef’s right hand suddenly held her sidearm, and she didn’t even spill a drop of the tea in her cup, which was still in her left hand. Achael, diplomatically, did not reach for her sidearm.
“Mike, we are against human testing without consent. We do not support it and would never engage in it. It’s not the Eben way. The Bsirutaeben are provided with organic, biological material by the American government. I know only that it is sourced humanely, but not what those sources are. I can assure you that there are never any living creatures provided, human or otherwise. I know that because I am one of the couriers.”
“Me too,” chimed in Hlef, re-holstering her weapon and sitting down again, sipping at her tea.
Mike sat as well, but he looked pissed. All he said was, “Go on.”
Achael sat down and continued, “There are some concerns at present that the Voiya are sourcing living subjects from other parts of the world. We can’t prove it yet, but there are some indications of this.” This was all a lie fed to them by Gilda, but Achael didn’t know that. She continued, “As well, they are an ever-present threat here on Mars. We don’t like them having their base here, we don’t like them in this solar system, and we certainly don’t like them interacting with those on Earth. Th
ere is always the risk one of your tribal governments will strike some kind of deal with them. Would you really want a new Cold War to start, with space aliens?” Her eyes crinkled with a brief smile.
Mike visibly shivered at that thought, “Certainly not. I had my own encounter with these bastards as a child.”
Achael and Hlef nodded their heads, they had been made aware of this by Lt. Gen. Rosewood as well.
“So that’s the Reader’s Digest version of who and what we are. That brings us to the here and now,” said Achael.
Hlef
As she sat there and watched him, she didn’t have her usual train of thoughts about how cute someone was, about how frakable they were, or about how athletic they seemed. This guy was obviously older than you would expect, but he was ruggedly handsome, even if he was a bit dumpy. He wasn’t very GQ, but he did have a boyish charm about him. She lingered over the thought that he looked very manly, very capable.
As she watched him, she had at first a fluttering, then a stirring in her chest. The surprising thoughts that came to her mind were: ‘I could rely on this guy’;‘he would be a stand-up guy’; ‘this guy can be trusted’; and ‘This guy could be …’
Khlam
Khlam was on guard but was bored. The sisters had been inside twenty minutes. The Eridani drones were still at the 100 km mark; and Khlam was trying to get a piece of duct tape off his fingers. Pull it off with one hand then shake, pull it off the first hand with the other hand, then shake. This went on for a couple minutes before the solution dawned on him. He stuck it to the corner of the console in front of him. Khlam was liked by everyone, but he was never considered the brightest of the sibs.
