Alien Storm

by Ken Bebelle

  Halfway into Earth’s atmosphere, the hull of the jumpship glowed with red hot plasma. The blistering corona of heated gas blinded Cam’s view of the exterior. Truthfully, she had no idea what she was looking for, so she focused on teasing some understanding from the holographic instruments.

  The beginning of her descent was terrifying. As she slipped down the slope of Earth’s gravity well, the ship nosed down, angling for a steep entry like the first drop on a roller coaster. She plunged through hundreds of miles of atmosphere in moments, her heart a wailing, panicked animal in her throat.

  As the acceleration eased, Cam settled again, working her way through the instruments, searching for some understanding. Slowly, the ship adjusted its attitude, bleeding off speed through the denser air. She didn’t have much time. The ship was going to land. Somehow. She needed to know where she was going to end up. The dizzying sight of clouds whipping had been no help. And now she was ship-blind as well.

  She found what might be an altimeter. The symbols made no sense, but the rapidly cycling meter made her think of watching a stone plummet from a high roof. It was oddly comforting and insanely scary. It gave her the illusion that she had some idea of where she was.

  The shipmind flashed images at her every minute or so. Cam did her best to maintain her focus. Home. The Wolves. Keenan. Her growling stomach didn’t help. Wherever she landed, she hoped they had food. Water would be nice, too.

  The thing that might be the altimeter flashed, faster and faster now. The ship rocked and bucked, buffeted by the turbulent air outside. A dull red flash blinked on in the corner of her vision. It was the damage on the starboard side. More warnings flashed and the rocking became more violent, less rhythmic.

  A metallic shriek rang through the ship and the jumpship gave a clanking shudder. Cold tendrils of fear wormed their way around Cam's heart. The ship began to toss and jerk, slamming her left and right in the chair. Several alerts were flashing now and screaming incomprehensible warnings.

  Cam clung to her handgrips. The coils around her tightened and she felt the chair soften, sucking her body in. A rending crunch wrenched the ship, sending it into a tumble. Cam grunted, as if she’d been punched in the gut. Her abused innards gave up, and she vomited a thin stream of acid that ran across her cheek. Black panic crept into the edges of her vision. The screaming altimeter was a blur now.

  Too late, Cam realized her chair was morphing again, creeping around her body. Her legs were already encased and immobilized. Her heart rate jumped again, pounding painfully in her chest. Cam was gasping, gulping for air as her chest and arms were engulfed. She bucked and strained, fighting against the terror of imprisonment.

  Unrelenting, the chair wrapped itself over her face, bringing down its black bag of mindless panic over her eyes.

  Cam came to with a start, surrounded in darkness and with no idea which way was up. Forcing herself to close her eyes, Cam reached for the shipmind. With a trickle of awareness, Cam realized the ship had formed a cocoon around her--a safety pod. The fit of her pod cushioned her so snuggly she couldn’t move or turn at all.

  More disconcerting, she felt like she was suspended within the pod, almost weightless, like she had felt in the alien gel tanks on the mothership. The memory caused Cam’s breath to quicken, her chest rising and falling in short shallow puffs. She was going to hyperventilate soon if she didn’t get her shit together.

  Almost immediately, the cocoon began to unravel and the pressure in Cam’s chest eased. She hadn’t been imagining the gel feel. As the rings of the alien armor began to uncoil, they seemed to absorb all the moisture around her, vacuuming her dry. In seconds, she was free of any constraints and she could move about the ship.

  “Thank you!” Cam exhaled with relief. Then she realized she was talking to an alien ship and shook her head in despair. I talk to alien ships. I flew an alien ship. If it walks like a duck...

  But who was she kidding, the shipmind felt like an ally and Cam was sorely in need of someone to be on her side. As crazy as it seemed, this little jumpship had actually kept her safe, and helped her escape Mother. At the thought of Mother, Cam gave a little shiver.

  Extending her field of vision, Cam relied on the jumpship’s sensors to get a view of what awaited her outside. The last thing Cam needed was a ambush party of Ringheads waiting to pounce on her.

  It was bright out. With a sense of relief, Cam realized that she had landed during daylight. She had no idea how long she and Jonesy had been trapped on the mothership. Daylight somehow seemed more hospitable--safe even.

  The landscape around her was a riot of green vegetation. But instead of familiar Sierra pines, she was surrounded by a tangle of squat trees with lush, wide leaves. Those closest to the ship burned, giving off columns of thick white smoke. Looking behind her, she saw the ship had dug a great furrow, plowing up massive humps of dark earth.

  Looking forward, more trees marched into the distance, wide fronds waving gently in the heat wind of the fires. The tree nearest the nose of the ship slowly toppled over, spilling a crop of ripe yellow bananas to the upturned soil.

  She had missed Reno by one heck of a country mile.

  “Shit.”

  Eleven

  Bananas

  She knew the square root of shit about farming, but she was damned sure Nevada didn’t have any banana trees. Cam rocked back and forth in frustration, smacking the back of her head against the ship with a thud.

  She needed to get this thing off the ground and back en route to Camp Glenn.

  “What do you say, girl?” Cam gently patted her former armrest, reaching mentally for the familiar presence of the shipmind.

  Cam felt the gentle hum of acknowledgment, and a slow scrolling of alien diagnostics pulsed in her consciousness. Though awkward, Cam understood the jumpship’s communication. Unlike the battering ram of the mothership’s console, the jumpship’s presence bolstered her, reminding a bit of the helpful way Jeeves used to send her data. “If I’m going to talk to you, I might as well give you a name. How about AJ for alien jumpship?”

  The quiet ticking of cooling metal answered her. Cam shook her head in dismay. “I’m losing my goddamned mind.”

  Cam’s lashes fluttered and her eyes struggled to follow the stream of system queries. With a jolt, the ship stopped streaming. Cam couldn’t read the alien symbols but she could see the jumpship’s systems, so she rummaged around.

  Hell, the hull exterior was still steaming and smoking. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see she’d taken heavy damage on re-entry, but it might take a rocket scientist to get this thing off the ground again. An alien one, at that.

  Cam stood and began to pace the wide berth of the ship, laughing at the irony of it all. Earlier, she would have given anything, done anything, to get away from an alien ship. Now, she needed this Ringhead jumpship to get her home and she was scared to abandon it. Stupid.

  She was going to have to hump it back, or jack a new ride. Just as soon as she figured out where the hell she was. Hardening her resolve, Cam assessed her options on the outside. She had to be near the equator. Unknown if she would find friendlies or hostiles here. Some countries hadn’t taken kindly to the refugees from the North, fleeing the Ringheads for warmer climates.

  If she’d managed to land in Mexico, Chile, or Argentina, she might be in luck. Her Spanish was rough, but passable. No real US military installations to speak of in South America, but all Cam needed was to get to an airport. From there, she could get in touch with Camp Glenn.

  Despite having scoured every bit of the jumpship, her gaze swept the interior again. Nope. No supplies for her jaunt. Then she remembered the bananas outside, and on cue, her stomach growled.

  She pressed her palm to the side of the doors and the membrane lifted from the exterior of the ship, increasing the brightness immediately. Her pupils constricted and pinpricks stabbed into her eyes. Fuck. She blinked a few times, and leaned her weight against the doorway for a moment. She straigh
tened and gave the panel a swipe, opening the double doors of the jumpship. Sunshine swept into the ship, a wave of intense mid-day heat catching her in its wake.

  Her body temperature jumped and a fever flashed her skin, sweat soaking what remained of her SinoSov cutoffs. Cam clenched her eyes shut against the blinding light and staggered to her knees. She groped at the door frame, blindly slamming her palm against the control to shut the doors. Her breathing hitched from the effort and she moaned in relief when the interior immediately cooled. As if in response to her distress, the shipmind activated the cooling system on full blast. Cam rested her cheek against the ship’s cool surface, listening to her breathing slow in conjunction with her heart rate. What the hell just happened?

  She’d been in the tropics before. Hell, she’d been stationed in the fucking desert for the last umpteen months. But just a few seconds in the heat and she felt scorched, certain her skin would blister from the sun. She hugged her body, running her hands over her arms, feeling her cool, dry skin.

  Oh god.

  Cam opened her eyes and looked at her hand, its pale blue color a perfect complement to the ship’s dark gunmetal sheen.

  I’m like them.

  She couldn’t go out there in the heat. Cam sank down, and the ship immediately formed a cradle to seat her, coils shifting and extending from the wall and floor. The cold seat felt good against the backs of her thighs. She scrubbed her face in frustration and pulled on her hair. Should she wait until nightfall and hope the temps fell as well? Cam imagined herself lurking in shadows, skulking about in the dark of night. She’d handled night missions before. She tried to tell herself this was no different. Cam laughed at that whopper of a lie, her shoulders shuddering with exertion as she gulped in chilled air after her manic bout of laughter.

  Lying to herself would not get her any closer to Camp Glenn.

  I need to think like them.

  They had penetrated the green zone. She needed to do the same.

  She laid down and closed her eyes. The cradle writhed and shifted, lengthening to accommodate her. It seemed like a century ago, but Cam dug into that place where she’d shoved down the ugly memories of past battles. Somewhere in there lay her recall of Segovia, each ugly scene stacked atop the other and compressed in the far recesses of her mind. She unpacked them all like fragile snowglobes, reliving the jagged pain of losing Nell and Cho. She focused on her moments with O’Neill in the kitchen of the Segovia Inn, the two of them surrounded by the icy landscape.

  Seeing his familiar scowl on his ruddy face sent a sharp pang through her chest. Gone. Her team was all gone now, except for Jonesy. She flashed forward and relived the horrifying poolside battle in slow motion. Those Hunters had been submerged in the frozen pool, and later one had managed to encase itself in icy armor that had been nearly impenetrable. Only Cho’s quick work with the plasma cannon had eroded that armor.

  Her brows drew down in concentration. She had barely understood her body before the Ringhead scientist had tampered with her. Would ice armor give her hypothermia? Not that she even had any ice armor lying around.

  How cold was it in here?

  Cam opened her eyes and blew out a puff of air. Nothing. She held a hand up in front of her mouth and exhaled slowly. Only cool, dry air passed over her hand. On the mothership, Jonesy’s humid breath steamed everywhere, clearly visible. What am I?

  “OK, AJ, I’m going in.”

  She closed her eyes and entered the shipmind. Before, in the center of the shipmind, understanding had come to her, a solid feeling of rightness she knew in her gut. Cam reached for that now, the calm center. She needed a way to protect herself, to carry the environment of the ship with her.

  I don’t know what I am. But I’m not human anymore--I’m something else. With a sigh of surrender, Cam reached for that something else, and joined it, moving as their shared mind shaped her.

  Cam opened her eyes. With delicate movements, her bench began to unfurl, the alien tendrils splitting open and reforming around Cam’s left hand and forearm like a cast. The tendril moved its way up her arm, encasing her to the shoulder now. The surface beneath her sagged, and she sank into the floor of the ship, more tendrils splitting open and encasing her body and limbs. Deep breaths. The shipmind soothed her. The claustrophobia lasted only a moment, as the tendrils retracted, exposing her body again, now with a thin film of some wet looking material all over her.

  The bench beneath her rippled again, and a fractal pattern of branches grew from the surface, reaching for her arms and legs. Wherever they touched, she seemed to absorb the alien material, which became a flexible covering over her limbs.

  Cam stretched her left hand and the layer of alien biomatter swarmed over it. She reached out her right arm and the biomatter flowed over it, leaving a cool, flexible mesh in its wake. She flexed and punched, and the alien material acted like a fine chainmail over her fist.

  Cam’s wonder turned to satisfaction as she stood to allow the jumpship surrender its biomatter to encase her entirely. Her heart rate slowed, and her breathing deepened as her new armor crept up her neck and over her chin. After it covered her face, she found she could see and breathe with only minor friction. She ran her covered hands over the top of her head and along her ribcage. The alien mesh on her hands rasped against her torso with a soft scraping sound. She couldn’t imagine what she looked like, but the cool armor comforted her.

  Looking down, the new armor encased her feet as well. The interior of the ship looked ragged now, the decking holed through in several places. She looked around and reached again for the shipmind, and found the ship systems rapidly failing, the controls blinking out one at a time. This ship had gotten her back to Earth, and it looked like it was going to help get her the rest of the way as well--just not by flight.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, and felt a slight vibration at the base of her skull in response. Muted, compared to her previous interaction with the shipmind.

  “I’m ready.” Cam swiped the panel and the doors opened again.

  This time, the cascade of sunlight didn’t hurt. Her new body shield worked, and her body temp didn’t spike. Cam took a step off the jumpship, then another. She could see just fine. Acres of banana trees, and no tangos in sight.

  Cam tossed the last banana peel aside, onto the heap of limp peels at her side. She chewed thoughtfully on the last bit of fragrant banana mush in her mouth. The first one had been a heavenly experience. Now she was sure she never needed to even see another banana for the rest of her life. Still, a full stomach was nothing to sneer at.

  With an absent gesture of her fingers, the cool mesh recovered the lower half of her face. Cam stood up and stretched. Although superior in cooling capability, her new ‘helmet’ lacked the data display she was used to receiving. She tilted her head back and gauged the position of the sun, comparing it with where it had been when she’d started her banana binge. Cam looked down at the line she’d drawn into the dirt, verifying the cardinal directions.

  “OK, AJ, who knows how long we’ll go before we run into anyone.” Cam gave a last glance at the banana tree she’d been sitting under. She yanked a bunch for the road, formed a pouch in the small of her back and tucked away the fruit. “Thanks, AJ.”

  She angled north, or her approximation of north, and ambled off, first at a stroll and then launching into a loping run. It sure was easier to cover a lot of terrain without a monster rucksack.

  The sugar fueled her, and Cam’s strides lengthened and her pace increased. Even through her alien face shield, she could smell the tang of the soil and fertilizers. Her feet sank into the loamy soil and ash, and her armor gave her feet protection from the small rocks and leaf debris.

  Cam sank into her breathing, her running, and exulted in her freedom. Sure, she had no damned idea where she was, but her hunger had been satiated and her body thrummed with energy. Overhead, she heard strange squeaks and snorting. She swiveled to pinpoint the source of the sounds. Small monkeys with b
uff colored fur around their faces and torsos hopped on tree branches. As she passed, she spotted some hanging by their tails, others chewing on leaves, their small faces dominated by round dark eyes. Did monkeys live in Mexico? She might be a lot further south than she realized.

  She slowed to a trot to gaze up and wonder at the gaggle of monkeys keeping pace with her in the canopy. A chorus of chitters rose up from the trees as she stopped completely. Cam looked into the trees and spotted her new admirers. She wasn’t hungry anymore, but she would eventually need some protein. The little guy closest to her tilted its fluffy head. They were awfully cute.

  She’d better find civilization soon, or the next time her stomach growled she’d be looking at these critters in a whole new way. As she ran along, the dozen or so monkeys began to dwindle. Soon only one remained, hopping along from vine to branch and keeping pace with her. Either it was extremely curious, or just adventurous. Cam couldn’t help herself. She stopped and moved closer to the monkey, dropping down her face guard as she moved into the shade. The monkey held its ground, then opened its mouth and let out a brief howl.

  It was too cute. Like it was trying to be scary, but the scrawny thing barely topped two feet. One of its ears was notched. It looked like this little guy had been in a few scrapes. Cam made shushing noises and crept forward, maintaining eye contact. She noted her feet were surprisingly quiet as she stepped over the dead leaves and branches on the ground. She knelt, and held out one hand to the little monkey. With the other she reached behind and pulled out a banana. The monkey’s gaze snapped to the banana, following it intently.

  Cam grinned. “Worked up an appetite chasing me, didn't you?”

  Squatting, she began peeling the banana, keeping an eye on the little monkey. It followed her hands with its eyes, its mouth opening and closing as if chewing. Cam took a bite, and laughed outright at the monkey’s hangdog eyes.