by Frank Carey
"Is there anything helpful you can tell me about it?"
"It's heavily guarded and someplace to avoid if you plan on living."
"If I had a credit for every time I heard that..."
The door opened followed by four marines, each with a flower in their hair. They were followed by Hamish who sported only a smirk.
"I should go tend to my patient," Ralt said. She got up and headed to the door. "Good luck to all of you."
Kalana formed a first aid kit and threw it to the Doc. "This has one-hundred doses and instructions on how to make more in a typical kitchen. This should hold you for a while."
Ralt grabbed it mid-air. "I don't know how to thank you except to say thank you." She headed out of the room.
When they were alone, all eyes turned to Hamish and Kalana. "I will take you to the entry. I'll understand if you don't want me to go past that point. Kalana, I am truly sorry for the deception, but I had run out of choices..." He stopped when she kissed him.
"You're sweet. I can deal with sweet. Now, can we get back on mission?"
"Sure," the flustered elf replied while the team readied their weapons.
Silently, she spoke to the AI in her head. "Murph, we're missing too many pieces to this puzzle. Get into their system and find them."
"And leave you, mistress? Is that wise?"
"I'm protected by three dragons and an Alue. Oh, and did I mention that I'm a damn walking weapons platform?"
"Point taken. We're passing a node. I will return when I find something."
"Be careful," she said as she felt him leave.
###
It didn't take the team long to find the entrance to the building. Unfortunately, it had been welded shut. "Allow me," Nana said as she went to stryker form.
"Have at it, private, Trent said. "I'm detecting no electronic monitoring of any kind."
"My last scan of the area came up with the same result," Hamish said. "I think this door is so old that it doesn't appear on any blueprints."
After a scan of the area beyond the door, Nana fired a wing-mounted laser and made short work of the seal. While the others waited with guns drawn, Marcus pulled the door open to reveal a dimly-lit corridor beyond. Mersa scanned the hallway. "Some kind of self-powered lighting. The debris in the hallway is centuries old. I'm surprised there's oxygen."
"Any sign of biological weapons?" Hamish asked.
"None," the Basili replied. "I think the corridor is connected to a larger air-handling system. That would explain the lack of stink from rotting organics."
They made their way down the corridor checking rooms and corners along the way. At the end, they found another door, only this one was new. "This is a recent addition," Mersa said while running her scanner over its surface.
"How recent?" Kalana asked.
"The paint is still curing," she replied.
"What about beyond the door?"
"Mersa looked at her scanner, adjusted it, then looked again. "I've never seen readings like this."
Kalana raised her hand and formed a scanner. She passed it across the face of the door. She then aimed it at Nana. "We found the gelfs, though they seem to be missing brain waves."
"They're dead, Captain?" Marcus asked.
"No. Like you, their life signs are a mixture of those from different species. Unlike you, their brains are only operating on an autonomic level--heartbeat, breathing, digestion, that sort of thing. What's missing are higher-order functions, what we doctors like to call the somatic nervous system. Think of it as a room full of organic shells waiting for a control system. Everyone, weapons and scanners up. Hamish, keep close..."
"I thought you'd never ask," he replied as he checked his weapon, then set it to kill. Once everyone was ready, she nodded to Marcus. "Open it, private."
Marcus pushed his gauntleted fingers through the door and tore it from its hinges. The five of them quickly entered the dark room and spread out to the left and right of the door as the lights came on.
They found themselves in a nightmare. Hanging from the ceiling in plastic cases were hundreds of gelf bodies similar to a being they had encountered on Tralaska, only these were no more than vegetables. Kalana put her scanner against the head of the nearest one. "Brain is there, but no one's home. There's no sign of any telepresence circuits."
"Are these the ones we saw on Q'tec?" Mersa asked.
"No way to know," Kalana said as she peered closely at the nearest chimera. "It's like someone used a single mold to stamp them out."
A noise caught their attention. Mersa pointed to the far end. "Visitors."
"Disperse and conceal," Kalana whispered while grabbing Hamish and dragging him into a dark corner where they could watch the far side of the room.
The team watched as four beings stepped into the room, one of whom was carrying a glowing crystalline object measuring about a foot across. They walked over to one of the unmoving gelf bodies and removed it from its case. While two of them held the body upright, the one carrying the object pressed it against the elf's chest. The crystal flared, then went dark as the gelf opened its eyes and looked around the room. The fourth being nodded to the two beings holding the gelf up. They released the gelf and took a step away from it as it stood on its own. "Shtocck corrith mach," the gelf said to the fourth being.
"Mesha nath," the fourth being replied before the five exited the room together.
Kalana waited a moment longer, then came out of hiding with Hamish close behind. They quickly rejoined the rest of the team. "Hamish, have you seen these creatures before?"
"No. Did anyone else find that whole scene creepy? Was that a consciousness storage crystal?"
"If it was, then where was the transfer mechanism, not to mention the receiver circuitry in the gelf bodies?" Mersa asked.
Kalana ran her hand over a nearby gelf body. "No transfer system nor is there a receiver. Just a blank slate."
"What if the slate wasn't blank?" Nana asked. "What if there was a person already inside the body?"
"Trent, can an Alue take over a real body?"
"No. Thousands of years ago, a sect of Alue tried to take over the bodies of a species that lived on a planet near our home world in the Alue continuum. The Alue died while the intended hosts went about their business, unscathed and unaware of what had transpired. No, we need a completely different type of electromagnetic field to survive. What we just saw is impossible, at least for my people."
"Great. Why can't first contact involve tea and scones?"
CHAPTER SIX
Murph entered the building's computer system via a virtual interface. "How much League tech did these people borrow?" he asked. The interface was identical to the one's used in League systems. It allowed technicians to access the complex networks using telepresence headsets. It also allowed beings such as Trent and Murphy to more easily transverse vast computer networks.
Murph scanned the system for any information pertaining to the aliens they just saw or plans for the now-inhabited gelfs. "This looks interesting," he said when he came across a data trail. Following it, he found himself in an alien data node. With little ado, he accessed the data inside. Too late, he found he had opened a gate into Hell.
###
The selka were a warrior race divided into clans which were at war since the first selka became sapient. They fought amongst themselves to avenge even the most minute offense. Even with all the death and destruction, they had somehow developed space travel, a skill used to take their hatred outward to the nearby star systems. Eventually, the other planets succumbed to the hatred and died, leaving only their home world--Norash--alive, but that soon changed when, in a fit of hatred, the selka unleashed their ultimate weapon. In a single moment, the selka died, leaving only mindless war machines to stumble about the planet's charred and decimated surface.
But the selka were not dead, at least not in the sense that we understand death. Their hatred lived on as disembodied ghosts, ghosts which could take over ma
chines and living beings, forcing them to do the selka's bidding.
Eventually, two sides formed amongst the remaining selka-the Red and the Green. Eventually, after centuries of battle, their war came to a standstill and there they would have stayed for all eternity except for the arrival of a ship from a planet called Degreb. Aboard the ship was Tregor Skol and his band of profiteers. They had landed on Norash to search out and take an ancient stash of weapons that was supposedly hidden in the ruins.
The Degrebians had just shut down the ship's shields and opened its doors when they were set upon by members of the Red faction. Soon, the ship and its crew were taken over by the Red selka who immediately rifled through the ships data banks. In the blink of an eye, the Red selka had a method to put an end to the Greens and a new enemy to conquer.
###
Worried that Murph was overdue, Kalana went to her internal comm system, the one only she and Murphy could hear. "Murph, are you there? Kalana to Murph, please respond..." Murph returned with enough force to throw her into Marcus.
"Captain, what's wrong," the gelf said as he ran a quick scan. "What's wrong with Murph?"
"Wait one," she said aloud before switching back to internal. "Murph, what the hell is happening?"
"We have to leave, now, then we have to bomb the shit out of this place. Bomb it back to the hell it came from."
"Calm down. I'm switching our conversation to the team's comm system. Now, take it easy. What is going on?"
"These things are taking over people."
"What things? What people?"
"Brain dead gelf shells, quriss and lingles, only the last two aren't dead. They're building a freakin army down the hall. Ever watch old zombie movies? It's that kind of shit, only worse. We need to go... NOW!"
"Who is doing this, Buddy?" Trent asked
"Aliens from a nearby star system. They blew themselves to shit hundreds of centuries ago, but their hatred still exists. They roam a planet that is a monument to the excesses of war in ancient robotic forms, trying to kill one another. This all changed when Tregor Skol landed there while searching for new weapons to supply both sides of the Degreb civil war. These things took the crew over, then came back here to grab more bodies and weapons of mass destruction."
"Why?" Trent asked. "They're already dead?"
"No one told them that."
"Them who?" Marcus asked.
"They call themselves the selka. They are the very embodiment of hatred. There are two factions and one of them plans to kill the other before coming back to Degreb to pick up more bodies. I tapped into their systems and was able to put together a translation routine for our comm system. It's loaded... Now. You should be able to understand them the next time you hear one of them speak."
"We need to find Gabe, then get the hell out here. Murph, can these things move body to body?"
"Yes, but some species are resistant to transfer. The selka fear hybrid quriss-lingle in particular. They brought in a hybrid by mistake and the selka died instantly when it tried to take over its body."
"Any others?"
"I don't know, I might be able to modify a stryker's shield generator to ward off a transfer."
Kalana stared at the gelf hanging in front of her. "I hate to do this, but we need data. Murph, you feel up to going back in?"
Before he could answer, Trent piped up, "I volunteer to give him a hand. My past might not be as checkered as Mersa's..."
"Hey!" she blurted out.
"But I know my way around a system."
"Do it. Trent and Murph will go in and grab data, then get out and report back to the ship. Tell the major that we're continuing with the mission."
"Aye, aye, Captain," they said in unison. Trent handed his rifle, sidearm, and vest to Mersa. "Keep safe, all of you," he said before changing into a ball of light and disappearing into a wall.
"That never gets old," Mersa said. She handed the sidearm and spare power packs to Hamish while clipping the rifle to her vest.
Hamish checked the weapon, then set it to heavy stun. "Not that it matters, but you have OffSec's full cooperation in this matter. These things cannot be allowed to return to the League."
"Assuming they aren't already there," Kalana said. “But thanks for the support. Mersa, scan the area for human life signs."
The sergeant pulled out a scanner and panned around the room. "That way,” she said while pointing at the door the other beings had left through. "They're coming from near the center of the building on this level."
After checking the area beyond the door, the team stepped out into the hall with Mersa and Nana taking point while Marcus brought up the rear. They made their way down the corridor while ducking into a doorway or side corridor when they encountered personnel which Mersa scanned as they passed by. The data was alarming.
"Captain, every person I've scanned has an alien brain wave pattern. Elves, humans, that Goranthi we just passed, quriss, and lingle all have the wrong patterns based upon norms I have stored in the scanner's data banks. This whole damn building is one large alien invasion." She handed the scanner to Kalana. "Even the epsilon field is wrong."
Kalana froze when she saw the readout. "Oh my God," she whispered. "I've seen this pattern before."
"Where?" Hamish asked.
"When Peter's super-clone was brought into the hospital, they performed an initial scan in the ER. I thought the equipment had gone on the fritz. Since the clone was just repeating Peter's brain wave pattern, this Peter must have been something else."
Mersa turned her scanner on Kalana while Nana and Marcus aimed their weapons at the captain.
"What the hell? Do you honestly think the captain is an alien invader?" Hamish exclaimed while stepping between the two marines and the captain. Their guns remained rock steady while Mersa scanned them both, then handed the device to Nana.
"Now, scan me,"
Nana switched to stryker mode and scanned everyone in the room, then Marcus did the same. "We're clear," he said.
"And if we weren't?" Hamish demanded.
All four marines held out their hands. Each held a nucleonic grenade, powerful enough to vaporize a square mile of city. "Protect the League from all external threats," they said in unison.
"And internal," Hamish replied as he held out his hand. He was holding a grenade as well. "Damn."
"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Kalana said while reabsorbing the grenade. "Move out."
CHAPTER SEVEN
The meeting with representatives of the lingle and quriss was going well, so well in fact, that Lucien requested a recess, so he could get a status report on the stryker teams and their mission. While the rest of the attendees made their way to the bar and buffet, Lucien took out his comm and activated it. Major Williamson walked in as Trent appeared next to him. "John, I was just about to contact you. Any word from Kalana and Stryker Team One?
"Yes, and you're not going to like it." He placed a holoprojector on the table and activated it. An elf in uniform appeared above the table as Marta walked up with a mug of tea and a plate of food for her husband. "And you are, soldier?"
"It's Murphy, ma'am," the hologram said. "The comm system keeps using this image to represent me."
"And you should be happy," she replied. "So, care to tell us what the plark is going on?"
"Yes, ma'am," Murph said. He launched into a report on his activities and those of Stryker Team One. He also transferred all the information he had gathered after he and Trent had reentered the alien system. "Ma'am, as ordered, we planted a virus which will scram their computer system. The captain is continuing with the mission to save DCI Adon."
"So, these selka can take over bodies?"
"Yes, ma'am," Murph replied. "Even dead ones."
"What?"
"Ma'am, Murph and I watched as they reanimated a dead human prisoner."
"Are you sure the prisoner was dead?"
"His heart had been blown out when a munition went off. Since he wasn't an
elf, I assume he had only one of them in his chest."
"My analysis of the selka data banks suggest that the subject's own consciousness is released when the selka inhabits the body. In other words, the host consciousness is killed."
"And they want to come here to Degreb to take over the population?"
"Yes, ma'am. They want to take their army back to their planet, destroy their enemies, then come here to amass a vast army before attacking the League and any other living, breathing sapients they can find. All the data has been downloaded into the shuttle's data banks as well as those of the quriss and the lingle."
"On whose orders?" Marta demanded.
"That would be me, General," John said. "In my humble opinion, the Degrebians are right in the line of fire if those things get off that hellhole they call home. I offer myself up for disciplinary..."
"Save it! You did the right thing. I'll take responsibility if any shite hits the fan." She turned to Trent. "Anything to add, Sergeant?"
"Yes, ma'am. The AI needs a promotion, ma'am. I only got a glimpse of what he saw and it scared my corporeal. I don't know if I can ever enter a computer system again."
She looked at Major Williamson who nodded back. "Murph, I'm bucking you up to Sergeant."
"Thank you, sir. Thank you, General. Thanks Trent. I'd salute if I had hands."
"We'll figure something out," Marta said. She looked at her husband. "We need to tell the Degrebians."
"And if they tell us to bug off?" John asked.
"Then we pick-up our team, tell all League citizens to get the hell out of Dodge, then put up a blockade around the planet. Meanwhile, we launch an expedition to Norash equipped with enough power to vaporize the planet," Marta said calmly. "At least that would be my recommendation."
"Let's hope it doesn't come down to that," Lucien said. He stood up, gave her a kiss, then headed back to join the Degrebians and his diplomatic team. "Marta, don't go anywhere. I may need you to repeat what you just told me. And just in case we get the green light, you may want to get a hold of the Razor and the Meisner and have them standby. We still don't know how the selka plan to return to Norash."
