Explorations: Colony (Explorations Volume Four)

by Dennis E. Taylor

  Eva left her sidearm in her leg holster and concentrated on examining the curious creatures. “Ice spiders?”

  “They look dead, almost mechanical,” Montgomery said.

  Jax holstered her pistol. “I think you’re looking at their false eyes. Wait until one of them opens a mouth. I think all of their sense organs are in there.”

  “Damn, that’s disgusting,” Jackson, one of the security team, said.

  “Give me a threat assessment, Montgomery,” Eva said.

  “They’re not large — the biggest is less than half a meter across, including the legs — and they’re just looking at us. Hard to see if they have teeth or claws. Call me crazy, but I think they could jump the chasm if they wanted to eat our faces, but they haven’t. I put them in the ‘avoid them because they’re creepy’ category,” he said.

  “Doctor Peterson, I need you at the perimeter as soon as you wrap up your assessment of the breathable atmosphere,” Eva said.

  He came quickly, cutting his evaluation of the air’s quality down to less than ten minutes. “I must have more data to decide if they are predators or prey.”

  “Everyone is prey or predator to something,” Jax said.

  Doctor Peterson gave her an annoyed look, then turned his back to her as he faced Eva. “The air we can breathe. Radiation levels we can survive. But staying here is no good. The plateau is unstable.”

  “How unstable?”

  “We are lucky not to be at the bottom of the ravine,” he said. “When we take off, you will see. The shuttle thrusters will collapse everything.”

  “What about our first contact species?” Eva asked, nodding at the eerily curious creatures covering the ice wall.

  “They will be unaffected. This is their environment. They will be accustomed to avalanches,” Peterson said.

  Eva nodded. “Jax, I suggest we move to site number two. Do you concur?”

  Jax hesitated, then studied the crawling ice spiders on the face of the glacier. “We should return to the Legacy. Send down drones and analyze what data we can gather from orbit. We need authorization from Fleet command to start a colony, anyway.”

  Eva shook her head. “We don’t have enough fuel to go up and down from the surface.”

  “That’s what I said before we came down,” Jax said.

  “We’ll move to site number two. Instruct the pilots to use caution when lifting off,” she said.

  Montgomery took charge as though fighting a battle. “Attention all security teams, this is Montgomery. Hold your positions and monitor the alien contact. Non-security personnel, collapse back to the ship immediately.”

  Eva and Jax returned to their respective shuttles. The science teams collected samples and moved with urgency. Moments after they came up the ramp, the security teams clambered on board.

  Montgomery banged his fist three times against the inside of the cargo bay. “Last man,” he called out.

  Eva hurried to the cockpit and strapped in.

  “How are we doing, Amanda?”

  “Five by five. Ready for liftoff. Steady as she goes. We don't want to destroy this scenic paradise.”

  Eva watched Carter slide the double throttles forward and felt the ship lift into the air. The roaring engines vibrated everything in the ship.

  “I can try for gentle, but there's a limit. It takes a lot of force to get up. This planet is basically the same gravity as Earth.”

  “Understood,” Eva said. “Pull up a monitor. I want a better look at what we're leaving behind.”

  She watched plumes of smoke in debris blasting from the landing site. Moments later, the entire wall of ice started to come down. It collapsed like an avalanche, but there was something strange about it.

  Eva connected with Jax on her private command link. “Are you seeing what I'm seeing?”

  “Roger that. I'm kind of glad we're not still down there.”

  Eva watched as what had appeared to be a glacier wall disintegrated. Thousands upon thousands of the strange spider creatures un-linked from each other and crumbled like living gravel towards the bottom of the canyon. Larger creatures exploded from the river grass and fled the avalanche. What followed seemed to be a feeding frenzy, but that might have been her imagination. With all the debris in the air and the exhaust from the ship engines, there was no way to monitor what happened in the canyon floor.

  “Doctor Peterson, I'm forwarding you a video for your analysis. Please make recommendations for a future contact with this species of alien.”

  She returned her attention to the view screens and the sky above the harsh and beautiful planet. This was the correct planet. The message she had received from Pyr had scared the hell out of her. There had been times she’d thought it was merely a nightmare.

  With the nearly immortal assassin, she knew there would always be danger. She owed the woman her life. Everyone on this expedition, whether they knew it or not, owed Pyr their future. It was only right they came to answer her call.

  *

  Eva locked eyes with Montgomery.

  “Why are we here?” he asked. “The real reason.”

  She wanted to answer, maybe even abandon her plan and hide in her room wrapped in his arms. The fantasy evaporated quickly. The way he’d talked to Jax since the first landing suggested they had something going.

  And she couldn’t turn back now.

  “The next displacement drive jump will use all of our fuel,” she said, keeping her voice low as the landing party erected survival tents near the ships. “This delightful rock has resources. In time, we can assemble refineries and refuel.”

  Situated on a dry river bed, the location felt both scenic and vulnerable, with mountains and glacier fields surrounding them. Memories of the spider avalanche caused her to shudder. She looked up for the hundredth time for anything that might come rushing down on them.

  “Everyone knows the risk. Jax isn’t wrong about the rest of the crew. Nearly half are adamantly opposed to exploring this planet. No one wants to live here. Even your people, who like the cold, are afraid to come down,” Montgomery said. “And that was before the Spider-lanche.”

  “You’re not wrong,” she said. “How do you think this conversation would go at the next system capable of supporting a colony? Oops, this place is a death trap without the natural resources to refuel. Let’s leave... wait, we can’t.”

  Montgomery clenched his jaw, then rubbed his forehead with his non-gun hand.

  “Walk with me,” Eva said. The light of two powerful moons and a dense star field illuminated their progress. Creatures cried out warnings in the night. Others sang repetitively musical songs. Wind brushed the tops of surprisingly Earth-like trees, or what looked like evergreens. Doctor Peterson had sternly advised all personnel, even the armed security teams, to avoid the forest. And large bodies of water. And caves. And basically anything farther than a hundred meters from the ships.

  “How much do you know about me and my father?” she asked, passing one hand through her hair to gather it behind her shoulder and silence the nearly subliminal music it made.

  He walked a few steps before answering. “Your father was the security director for the Impregnable and saved the president of the UEF from assassins and Astral strike teams.”

  Eva shrugged and rolled her gaze to one side. She'd made the mistake of criticizing her father in public before. His people, basically all the survivors of the Impregnable and its support fleet, were fanatically loyal to him. Her father was a man who did his duty even at the expense of his own family.

  “What do you know about Pyr?”

  Montgomery's stare was hard. She was glad, in a way, because it showed the soldier he really was. He was a gentleman, nice to children and old ladies, but a warrior at heart. She thought she was going to need some of his higher-level skills before this was over.

  “Pyr was sent by Empyrean to kill the president, and tried to use me to get to my father. But you know my father; he did his duty. Pyr took me a
nd was fleeing the system,” Eva said.

  “Then she came back and fought the Astral shock troops. That much I know. It’s cited in the academy as the negative effects of infighting. The ‘evil consumes itself’ argument.”

  “Do you believe that argument?”

  He didn't answer.

  She continued.

  “We don't have to get into the details, but it’s safe to say that for whatever reason, Pyr used the power Empyrean gave her against the Astrals and killed a lot of them. That's why we were able to escape.”

  There was a long silence as they stood at the edge of the too-small clearing.

  “Why are you talking about this?” Montgomery asked.

  “I just think about it sometimes,” Eva said. She looked around. “What’s your assessment of this site?”

  “It’s no better than the first one. There's not enough arable land to start even a small colony, and I don't like being at the bottom of this valley.”

  She looked at her feet for a second, then met his gaze. “Should we quit? Give up?”

  Jaw clenched, he took a moment to calm himself. “In the morning we can finish up and move to the last site.”

  “That's going to go over well,” Eva said. “I need your support.”

  *

  Eva hurried toward the science team and their discovery. Jackson and O'Brien stood with them, weapons ready.

  “What do we have?” Eva asked.

  “Just evidence of advanced civilization. And by this I mean they used tools. Quarried stone to make the shrine or whatever it is,” Dr. Peterson said.

  “Who found it?” Eva asked.

  “Jackson and O’Brien,” Dr. Peterson said.

  “We were on patrol, ma’am,” Jackson said.

  Eva studied the writing on the stone, but not for long. “Continue your patrol. Brief Montgomery and let him decide how many people he wants searching this area.”

  Jackson and O’Brien moved away from the alien monument.

  “I should like to question them,” Dr. Peterson said.

  “You make discovery sound like a crime,” she said, kneeling close to the five-by-ten structure. Only twenty centimeters high, it looked solemn and grim. “Grave marker?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “The markings appear religious or at least primitive. I would caution our less scientific members against jumping at conclusions. This is as likely to be a well-cap as a gravestone.”

  “Could it also be a door or a hatch?”

  Dr. Peterson swallowed and looked around for the security team.

  Montgomery and Jax arrived fifteen minutes later.

  She studied them, not sure what was off, but something was different between them. His face was flushed with color and she seemed unusually content.

  “Jackson called me with an update. I doubled the patrol. What do we have?” Montgomery asked, looking at the flat structure instead of making eye contact.

  Eva waved him toward the stone.

  Jax stood back, hesitated, then came forward as well.

  The structure that Jackson and O'Brien had discovered was obviously manufactured by a sentient race. Someone or something had quarried the stone, crafted it, and engraved it with a combination of symbols and hieroglyphics. There were complex patterns of dots that everyone agreed was a numerical construct.

  “You, perhaps, are right, Eva. It is a tomb or shrine,” Dr. Peterson said.

  Eva barely heard him as she realized what had changed between Jax and Montgomery.

  She spoke to Peterson without looking at him. “Run every test you can without damaging it, Arno. If there are sentient creatures on this planet, I don't want to alienate them by destroying their sacred places.”

  The silence that followed was awkward. Jax provided updates on the survey teams, and Montgomery advised that the area was secure and he was rotating his personnel to keep them fresh. Eva barely paid attention.

  She watched the narrow valley. Her sense of dread increased. The first location had been identical to the description Pyr had sent her two years ago. This narrow valley with the mountains that felt like prison walls was not the right place. It couldn’t be.

  Images of the spider ice wall collapsing caused her to shudder. Jax and Montgomery stopped in mid-conversation and turned to watch her.

  The earpiece of her radio, now that she no longer had to wear a helmet in the cold but rich atmosphere, chimed a priority alert. “Identify and report.”

  “It’s Jackson again, ma’am,” the voice said. Atmospheric disturbances affected the transmission. “We found something, but I’m not sure everyone needs to see it.”

  “You’re a security officer. Can you tell me if it’s a risk to the other people on the mission?”

  “You better see for yourself, ma’am.” Jackson started to say something and then stopped. She could imagine him hesitating and looking around, hoping O’Brien would back him up in what he was about to say. “Maybe you should bring Montgomery. I don’t know if she’s dangerous. She looks dead, but I’m not good with cryosleep technology. Just don’t bring the doctor.”

  Eva had a pretty good idea why Jackson didn’t want her to bring Arno Peterson. “Why shouldn’t I bring the doctor?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Pyr killed his family.”

  “What are you saying, Jackson?”

  “Can you just come, ma’am?”

  Eva excused herself from the science team and moved away. She leaned against a rock, clasped her hands together, and lowered her head. Fear, relief, and self-doubt ran through her like a nebula. A few moments later she braced herself and went to see if Jackson and O’Brien had found the savior and the doom of her race.

  Without her helmet on, she had to pull the tablet from the utility pouch and follow the navigational prompts. She checked it frequently as she climbed the narrow trail. The steps were a product of erosion, and the trail itself was unlikely to have been caused by animals. The only thing she had seen clearly on this planet were the spider creatures that didn’t seem like the type to follow such a limited causeway.

  Larger creatures had been lurking in the grass below the first landing site, but she hadn’t been able to see them well. The size had been difficult to estimate. She thought they looked something like whale cows. Once they started to move, they had been very fast to escape the avalanche.

  The trail twisted back on itself and soon she felt like she was climbing straight up. “What made you come all the way up here?” she asked over the radio.

  O’Brien answered. “Standard procedure. This path led to an overwatch. It wouldn’t do to have a sniper or some other threat above us.”

  Eva found them standing around some type of escape pod or cryosleep chamber. It was difficult to say what the power source was, but it was strong. There was no ice or other moisture within a meter of the coffin-like pod. She couldn’t hear mechanical buzzing as she might from a human-made device.

  She told the two security officers to step back. They hesitated, but complied with their weapons ready. She couldn’t hear what they were saying on their security link, but thought they were probably telling Montgomery what she was doing.

  A sleeping version of herself looked up through the composite glass. The escape pod was alien technology. Not surprising because as a servant of Empyrean, Pyr had access to any of the conquered civilizations in the galaxy.

  Eva looked down on the blue hair and milk-white skin. The woman had her eyes closed and didn’t seem to be breathing. Her lips were dark and red, almost the color of rust or dried blood. She lacked the softness of Eva’s form. Pyr was an assassin and a warrior. Thousands of years ago, when Empyrean had first come to their home world, Pyr had made some type of bargain to spare a small sample of their people. In return, she had become the Hand of Empyrean, enforcing the godlike creature’s will across the galaxy, usually by assassination.

  “Montgomery,” Eva said into her radio. She didn’t have to turn away, because the connection wa
s wired into the bone structure of her jawline. The sensation had been strange when she’d first started using it, but now it was like second nature. Sometimes she wondered if they weren’t becoming part of the same shared consciousness. Access to her team was so easy, it was like they were part of a machine designed to serve a greater purpose.

  “I’m on my way, Eva.”

  “Don’t bring Dr. Peterson,” Eva warned.

  “Jackson and O’Brien said something to that effect. I have Jax with me,” he said. Audible static caused him to seem farther away than he was.

  “Eva, are you okay? I know what you’re thinking.”

  “You don’t know what I’m thinking, Montgomery. Just get up here.”

  She stared at the tomb of Pyr and controlled her emotions. The woman had saved her life and destroyed her home in the same day. The nearly immortal assassin had almost abandoned her father and her people in the human allies to their fate, while keeping Eva as her slave prodigy.

  Then, when it was done, she disappeared for almost ten years. Now, with the life pod exposed to the atmosphere of this strange planet, Eva knew that she hadn’t been dreaming. The confirmation of her decisions should have been reassuring, but wasn’t.

  Montgomery and Jax arrived and looked at the device in mute fascination. Eva watched them and evaluated their body language. Several times they glanced at each other, then back at the cryosleep pod with the Hand of Empyrean imprisoned within.

  Jax approached Eva. “Did you know she would be here?”

  Eva nodded.

  Jax stepped back and crossed her arms over her abdomen. She hugged herself and looked away.

  Montgomery looked up from his work, checking the display screen on his hand scanner several times. “There’s an energy signal that doesn’t belong here. We have to assume this life bond has power and that abomination within is alive.”

  Eva watched. His reaction confirmed what she had expected of him. “You fought against her.”

  His face filled with color as his head dipped in acknowledgment. His eyes never left hers. “She killed a lot of people before she came after your father and the president. I knew people who had been tracking her.”