LOST REVENGE

by Yang, Hao

  I have to find out whether there is more or not, so I can’t just kill it. I need information. To do that, I have to ask nicely, so I need an isolated environment. It can be a compartment or something smaller. Something like...like the escape pod.

  That is perfect!

  I will lock that thing in it. After I am done, I can just shoot the escape pod out.

  Of course, some modifications are required. First I disable the communication system in the pod. This way that alien can’t call for help once I trap it there. Second I cut the signal line, so the bridge won’t know the escape pod is gone if I have to eject it. Then I made some changes on the pressure valve that is used for equalizing the inside and outside pressure to open the door. Now I can remotely control it to suck air out of the pod.

  I have to prepare the worst. There might be other aliens and if they didn’t kill me right away, they would surely incapacitate me. I won’t give what they want, even though I still don’t know what they want. We don’t have explosives on board, but we do have some small and high energy batteries that are used for emergency situation. These batteries are as small as quarters and they are stored in the compartment for life support system. I take one of those batteries, attach it to the inside of my hat and wire it with a controller. Now I just need to press the buttons on my watch to detonate it. Considering the situation I am restrained and not able to move my hands, I go to the reactor compartment and set up a procedure to overload the reactor. The procedure can be activated by my voice and all I need to do is say a particular word anywhere in the ship.

  Time flies when you are occupied. Now it is dinner time and I join others in the kitchen. It has been six hours since I found out Lily was dead.

  The food still tastes like shit. If I didn’t forget lunch, I would throw up right away. I am wondering whether the alien is messing with my food.

  “Commander?”

  “Commander!”

  “Yes.” I look around and it is Akio calling me.

  “How is your head pain, Commander?” Dr. Akio asks caringly while playing his fork.

  “I am fine. Thanks.” I try to smile at him, but only manage to pull me lips apart.

  “What is with the hat, Commander?” Bertha asks pointing at my hat.

  “Nothing.” I focus on my dish.

  Silence.

  Lisa keeps eyes on her dish.

  Roy carries a serious face, lost in his thoughts.

  Bud enjoys his steak very much, making loud chewing noises from time to time.

  Jim glances at me several times as if he is making sure I am eating my dinner.

  Charle and Bertha have some small talks that I can’t really hear.

  Lock doesn’t eat much but drink a lot of water.

  I finish my plate, leave the kitchen and lock myself in my cabin. I have to wait until late night to carry out my plan.

  I wait and wait.

  Finally it is 1 AM. I open my cabin door, peek into the corridor and listen carefully.

  Nobody.

  Akio is supposed to be sitting in the bridge right now. Others asleep.

  I quickly make my way to the escape pod and check it one last time.

  “Let’s do this!”

  I take a deep breath and select bridge on the intercom.

  “Dr. Akio. Dr. Akio. Are you there?”

  “Yes, Commander. You know I am doing the nightwatch.”

  “I need help. My head is hurting so much. I feel it is going to explode.”

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  “What do you mean it shouldn’t be?”

  “I mean, I mean, you said you were fine.”

  “Yea. Now I am not. Can you help me? I couldn’t even walk.” My voice is weak and low.

  “Sure. Where are you?”

  “Near the escape pod.”

  “On my way. Out.”

  My heart racing and my hands shaking, I know I am taking a risk here. Akio might ask others to come with him. That will complicate the situation. Leaning against the wall, I am listening carefully.

  Fast steps.

  Yes. He is alone.

  I open the escape pod door, lower my head to my chest, hold on to the wall and put on a sick look.

  He stops next to me and says, “Commander, don’t worry. I—”

  Now!

  I grab him, push him into the pod and lock the door.

  Done.

  He is hitting the door and shouting at me. I can’t hear anything, but we can see each other through the window on the door. After a minute, He calms down and we look at each other in the eyes. He is composed like an old fellow who knows his time is coming. I can tell he knows what is going on.

  I turn on the channel so that we can hear each other. For several seconds, neither of us says anything.

  “You are not Akio. I know that.”

  “How did you find it out?”

  “The DNA analyzer. You did something to it so that it gives the false result.”

  “It takes you this long. Your girlfriend would be very disappointed at you.”

  “How many of you are onboard Achilles?”

  He flashes me a defiant smile and stiffens.

  “What do you want from us?” I ask impatiently.

  “You are not that smart either.”

  “OK. Let me make it clear for you. You either answer my questions or you die.” I shout at the top of my lung.

  “We both know I will die.” His voice is slow and calm, sounding like some very old man’s last words before dying on the bed.

  Eyes on him, I activate the pressure valve.

  Hiss. Air is being sucked out.

  He is grinding his small teeth and glowering at me. Now I truly feel he would eat me alive if I let him survive this. After several seconds, he starts to struggle breathing, face red like Mars and eyes sinking in the sockets.

  When I see him fall on his feet, I close the valve.

  “Are you ready to answer my questions?”

  He is struggling, but doesn’t say anything.

  “I take it as NO.” I open the valve.

  The hiss sound is getting quieter and quieter.

  He curls up, trembling from head to toes.

  I close the valve.

  No response from him.

  “You want to die? OK. I will let you die!” I yell.

  I open it again. I am hoping he transforms to a squid or something weird, but nothing changes except his skin. Now it is blueish.

  Three minutes later, I close the valve and pressurize the pod. After inside and outside pressure equalizes, I open the door. I need to be sure he is dead.

  I kick his head and it rolls away from his neck. Red blood oozes out slowly.

  OK. You are dead. I believe you.

  I eject the pod into the space.

  Watching it fly away, I don’t feel any better.

  Damn it! I get nothing. I sigh and head for my cabin. It has been a long day.

  My head hurts so much that I couldn’t really sleep.

  A least two aliens came aboard. One was Akio and the other is Lily. I guess it copies Lily’s appearance so that no one could find out Lily was dead. If one crew is missing, everyone would become suspicious, which will happen soon. But why just lie there in the medical bay?

  In the message, Lily said they needed and stopped. What do they need? If they need Achilles, they don’t have to keep me and others alive. They can’t simply just kill us all, because there is something my crew and me know. That is also why they messed up DNA analyzers, so that they could keep us in the fog and we don’t know they are here.

  What they want? I have no clue.

  How do I tell the crew that I killed an alien? Some of them won’t believe me and will think I am a murderer instead. I should have kept some part of Akio and use it as evidence to prove Akio is an alien. Too late for that. But Lily’s body is still there. I can make some use of it.

  I must act under the assumption that there are other aliens.

&nb
sp; Time ticks away as questions and answers wrestling in my head. Now it’s already morning. I lie on my bed with my clothes and hat on, waiting someone call me through intercom about the Akio’s disappearance.

  “Commander?” It is Lock’s voice from the intercom.

  “Yes.”

  “We need you at the bridge.”

  “On my way.”

  I get up from the bed.

  Why Lock keeps calling me Commander? He never did that before. Never mind.

  In the bridge, everyone is sitting in their own seats and of course Lily and Akio are missing.

  “Commander, we can’t find Dr. Akio.” Roy says with a grave face.

  “You guys checked everywhere on the ship?”

  Roy nods and so do others.

  “When did you do that?”

  “About one hour ago.” Bertha says.

  “And you guys had to wait for one hour to tell me this?” I put on an angry look.

  “We don’t want to bother you until we know for sure,” Roy says.

  “Now we know for sure? He can’t just vanish.” I ask.

  “The escape pod is missing,” Bud sighed.

  “You are saying he left us,” I say.

  “That is possible, but it is also possible that someone killed him, dumped him in the escape pod and ejected it into space,” Roy says, his eyes focused on the floor.

  “Any blood or any sign of murder?” I ask.

  “No.” Lisa shakes her head.

  “I can’t believe this.” Jim murmurs.

  “Can we locate the escape pod?” Charle asks with a sad tone.

  “We don’t even know when the escape pod was ejected. Someone disabled the signal,” Bertha says as she pointed at one control panel.

  “This was very well planned.” Roy says looking at everyone.

  “Commander, given the current situation, I think everyone of us needs to know the access code to the mainframe,” Lock says seriously.

  “Why is that?” I ask.

  “Just to be safe.”

  “I suggest from now on we all work in group, no one alone. This way I could give someone the code just before I die.”

  Everyone senses the irony in my tone and they all avoid looking at me.

  “Roy, can you make a new daily schedule? We need to take turns to do Akio’s duty.” I say.

  “No problem.”

  “How is the antenna? Can we talk to Earth?” I am asking Jim.

  “It’s getting there,” Jim says blandly.

  “You and me will work on it together and get it fixed. Is that clear?” I say coldly.

  “I will go with you.” Roy says with a concerned tone.

  “We will let you know if we need you! The rest of you keep looking for clues. We need to know what happened to Akio?”

  They nod and leave the bridge one after another. Jim stays with me unwillingly. I can tell that.

  “Let’s see what is going on with the antenna.”

  Achilles has two antennae, one near the bridge and the other near the tail. Both of them can be retracted into the hull. We always use the one near the bridge and save the other one as backup. Now we have completely lost contact with Earth, so it is very possible that alien sabotaged our communication system. I must establish communication with flight control as soon as possible.

  Jim and I go to the antenna compartment. Since the antenna is outside the hull, so the space is occupied by three steel beams supporting the antenna. The main one is twisted like a wrung towel and the two are almost detached from the base. I am wondering what happened. If an asteroid hit the antenna, it would probably knock it off the ship or punch through it.

  “Did you go EVA to check the antenna?” I ask.

  “Yes, I did. Several times. The asteroid got it bad. I can’t fix it.” Jim doesn’t look at me but the twisted beams.

  “Did you try to retract it back?”

  “I tried, but with the beams like this, it doesn’t work,” Jim says easily.

  “Yea.” I nod, but still not convinced that asteroids did all this.

  “How about the backup antenna? Was it hit?”

  “No, it was inside the hull when the asteroid shower happened, but I can’t get it out.”

  “Let’s go to see the backup antenna,” I sigh.

  The antenna near the tail has the size of a tennis field when it is fully deployed. Now it is folded and resting in compartment 10 along with two EVA pods.

  We walk around the antenna and everything looks fine to me.

  “Show me the problem,” I say.

  “Somehow the control is not working,” Jim says pointing at the control panel on the wall.

  I pull over a circuit-checker. It looks like a tablet, but is a portable x-ray scanner. Its sharp edge scratches my left thumb and it bleeds a little on the screen. I leave it be and put the tablet right over the control panel.

  “Scan the control circuit for antenna NO.2,” I say.

  “Initiating…”

  It shows the circuit just like the bones in x-ray photos.

  “Short circuit detected. Please check circuit A128023-3.”

  “Go fix it,” I say and hand over the circuit-checker to Jim.

  “I will do it right away.”

  “Why didn’t you use the circuit-checker before?” I am disappointed.

  “I must forget about it. I will fix it.” Jim leaves me.

  I want to ask him more questions, but the head pain stops me. It is getting worse day by day. I was hoping I didn’t need to resort to painkillers or sedatives, but now the pain has reached the point where I want to ram my head into wall, so I head to the medical bay.

  Lily told me not to trust anyone, but with my headache going worse, I will need help. I need to find someone I can trust. The alien can take over the body, but it may not be able to inherit the memory. Yes. I know what to do.

  When I get into the medical bay, I see Roy standing next to Lily’s bed, his eyes fixed on Lily’s face, his face cold and his figure stiff.

  That is Not Lily! I recite it in my heart again and again. Then I slowly move closer to Roy watching his reaction, but I can’t read whether he knows Lily is an alien or not.

  “How is she doing?” I ask.

  “He is fine.” Roy says as he turns to me. His eyes widen a bit, but soon drop to normal.

  “She will be alright.” He adds quickly.

  Should I tell him this is not Lily?

  I don’t know whether Roy is an alien or not. If there is any alien left, it is still thinking I am not aware of its existence. If I expose myself, what will happen?

  “Roy, how is your wife doing back on Earth?” I ask.

  “Commander, I am not married,” Roy says with a surprised look.

  “Oh, sorry, I was thinking about Charle.”

  “Well, Charle is not married either. I think that head pain is messing up your brain.” Roy sounds concerned.

  “I am alright. It is getting worse, but I am alright.” I say and go to the cabinet where all painkillers and sedatives are stored.

  I open it and pull out the draw labeled painkillers.

  Nothing. Not even one pill.

  “Where are all painkillers?” I ask angrily.

  Roy joins me at the cabinet and takes a thorough look.

  “I have no idea.”

  I pull out the draw labeled sedatives.

  Same here. Empty.

  “What do you need sedative for?” Roy asks seriously.

  “I can’t really fall asleep.”

  “I see.”

  “Commander, do you notice anything weird about Dr. Akio before he disappeared?”

  Here it comes. I know someone would ask me questions like this.

  “Let me think. Ah, ah, not really. You notice anything?” I say innocently.

  “No.”

  Suddenly it hits me. Yes, there is something weird. He didn’t use the chopsticks he loved so much. He used forks! How could you miss that!

  �
��Commander, Commander?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are kind of lost there. Anything I should know?”

  “No, no, I was just thinking...” My voice trails away.

  “OK. I will leave you and Lily alone.” Roy says as he heads for the door.

  Should I tell him? It seems he passed the memory test. Then I have to prove this thing lying here is an alien. I reach for the laser knife in my pocket. I can’t just tell him that this body doesn’t have the right scent and birthmark. He would probably suggest using a DNA analyzer, but I know it is no good any more. I will have to cut Lily’s body open. This alien wouldn’t have the same organs like human.

  Roy is about to leave the compartment. I haul out the knife, but it suddenly feels so heavy in my hand and all my memories about Lily is flooding my sight, the images of her sweet smiles, kind gestures and soft body bombarding me one after another.

  Roy is gone and my knife is hanging above Lily’s body. I can’t do it. Even if I know this thing here is not Lily, I still can’t do it.

  “Fuck. Fuck!” I hate myself.

  After several minutes, I calm down and recompose myself, thinking what to do next.

  First, I need to test everyone and make sure they are what they are. Thinking about this, I am leaving the medical bay. At the door I see Bertha hanging around in the corridor.

  Right! I can start from her.

  “Bertha, you are busy?”

  “No, not really.” Her soft voice reminds me of Lily.

  “I have some questions to ask you.”

  “I am listening.”

  “Let’s go to kitchen. I am a little hungry.” I am not hungry at all. I just don’t want to ask those private questions in the corridor.

  “Sure.”

  We soon arrive at the kitchen. I take out a quick-soup from fridge and press the button on the container. It is ready in 30 seconds.

  “You sure you don’t want some?” I ask as I stir the soup using a spoon.

  “No. No. No!” She acts like the soup is something devil and gets a glass of water.

  What is the big deal?

  I take a sip of the soup.

  “Ah.” I can’t help but voice the awful taste. I don’t know why whatever I eat now tastes like shit. I put the soup aside.

  “So how are you doing?” I ask.

  “I am doing fine. What about yourself?”

  “Except the head pain, I am alright.”