Starbleached

by Chelsea Gaither

  “Bryan.” She wiped tears from her face. “His name is Bryan Landry. The Overseers have a process that can make one of us into one of them.”

  “So he was man. Human. Your man?”

  She nodded.

  “What kind of man? Good?”

  “He developed the enzyme that he’s been giving your village. He was…is the best man I know.” She swallowed. “He’s alive. We all thought he’d died. I hate that he’s had to go through this but…” She smiled. It felt bizarre. Alien, after so many days of sorrow. “He’s alive.”

  “Hope is good, but hard to keep. Is freeing to have it back when you had none for so long.”

  Adrienne smiled. And then a throat cleared itself. Both of them turned. The bulk of Bryan’s alien body filled the doorway. He walked silently to his console, and the women shared a brief look. Hope is good, but hard to keep.

  Let that look stand for all she couldn’t say.

  *****

  Now:

  Three days of work, labor and medicine. The water began to clear, as did the illness in the village. But in that time, Bryan stayed away. She wanted to talk to him, ask questions, but when she returned to the compound he wasn’t anywhere she had access to. As if he couldn’t stand her presence without her hate burning against him.

  On the fourth day, she woke to find Galina and Bryan talking in hushed voices. “What’s going on?”

  “The man that shot Galina has returned,” Bryan said. “He is not hurt. And he has friends. One of them is a man from your transport.” Four eyes met Adry’s two.

  Oh, bloody hell. It didn’t take a lot of work for Adry to string the mess together. Harris had come for her. Shawn would have had to tie him down to keep him off the team. And no way Shawn would leave her in the cold. Not if it meant picking up Mich and taking out an Overseer in the bargain.

  An Overseer who is Bryan. He looked a little better, though it was hard to tell with that heavy coat of his. “That man is Michel. He’s your brother. Do you remember that?”

  White eyes dropped down, confused. Her own heart ached for him. “No,” he answered. And she had the weird feeling it was the concept of brother he was having trouble with, not the concept of Michel. After all, this was the idiot that shot him. “He’s been circling around the village for a while. Since before I brought you here. I have not known why.”

  “He wants to kill you.” She said.

  “He’s welcome to try. And succeed, if he can.”

  “Bryan—”

  “But he won’t take you. You will go to your people. I will be gone when they arrive.”

  “You can come with us.” She said, quickly, before her brain could override her altruism. “They’ll be so glad to have you back. We can deal with everything else. Bryan—”

  “Would the man you remember be happy with this life? I am not. I do not think I would be under any circumstances. You cannot save me.” He focused on her. “There is nothing for you to save.”

  “Bullshit,” She said, hands at her sides. A thousand things slammed through her mind, a thousand words unsaid, questions unanswered. They never made it past her lips.

  An explosion rocked the outpost. Galina sat hard on the floor. Adry fell forward, caught by a pair of strong arms and frightening hands. For the first time, the palm-teeth did not sting her skin. I guess that’s a symptom of being hungry, she thought. She winced as a secondary explosion rumbled…and then the lights went out.

  “That was primary power for the outpost. The first burst…” Bryan trailed off.

  “It was SF ordinance. Mich must have brought them here.” She could see it, too, the tactics Shawn would use. Blast through a wall, take out the power, grab Adry and the enzyme, blow the computer systems, kill the monster…

  …kill the monster. Oh, shit. “Is there another way out of this place?”

  “Yes. Back that way. I can—”

  “They’re going to kill you. That was the protocol Shawn agreed on. We can’t…not without letting me talk to them, first. Mich must have stirred them into a frenzy before they got here.”

  “Mich is the man who shot me?” Bryan asked. “My…brother.” The outpost shook with another explosion. He shook his head, dismissing the confused look in his strange eyes. “If we don’t leave now, we won’t get out alive.”

  Adry nodded, shoving everything she might need into her carry-all. A double thumbed hand touched her shoulder, gently. She turned and found her gun, the one he had taken from her on Marel Sanders.

  “I am sorry for taking you. I didn’t believe I had another option.”

  She nodded, stuffing the gun into the back of her pants. “Maybe we can take Mich out the equation.” The doors sectioned open, and she followed Bryan out of the lab.

  The halls were dark. Adry could barely see where they were going. But when they’d taken out the lights, Shawn’s team hadn’t accounted for the stubbornness of Overseer tech. Overheads struggled to glow as Bryan passed beneath them, giving him enough light to see by, and painting his wild hair bright enough for her to find. Smoke filled the halls instead of mist, and at one point they passed a flare, slowly fizzling out. The SF on their rescue mission. No one left behind.

  These are my people. These are the good guys. What the hell am I doing, getting an Overseer out of here?

  Bryan sectioned a door open, and the hall beyond dipped down. There were no signs the SF team had found it. “Where does this come out?” she asked.

  “Near village,” Galina answered.

  Bryan walked through without making a sound.

  They continued on, finally coming out one by one into the awful swamp. Bryan helped both Galina and Adry steady themselves on the sodden path. “I’ll take you halfway to the village. They’ll find you there.”

  Adry shook her head. “I’m not leaving this rock unless we’re on the same ship. All the way to the village. And you’ll wait, goddamn it, for me to explain things to Shawn.”

  He gave her a gentle half smile. “Then I’ll be around. And when it’s safe to come, I’ll come.”

  Why do I not trust you? She thought. It must be the glimmer in those awful white eyes.

  “The path is this way.” Galina pointed with her good hand. “It is only safe path to Village.” She started forward.

  Bryan pulled something vaguely weapon like out from under his coat. The wound, she noted with some satisfaction, was mostly healed. He was a little less gaunt. Very little. “Now, where’s Mich?” The expression on his face was not human in the slightest. Hungry, hurt Overseer, verses the tiny human idiot who’d shot him? Adry knew who she’d bet on. And she didn’t feel particularly bad about the probable outcome, either.

  “He won’t be with the SF. They’re just here to smoke us out. He’s out here in the trees somewhere. Probably saw us emerge.”

  “He did.” Predatory smile, and slow hissing intake of breath.

  “How do you know?”

  Four pale white eyes looked back at her. “Because I sense him.” The expression on his face was chilling, especially with teeth bared in a hungry snarl.

  “You remember that much of Landry brotherly love, huh?” She walked forward now, slowly, carefully finding solid places in the murk.

  “I remember him putting a gun to your head.” A guttural rumble accompanied this pronouncement. Oh, Mich, Adry thought. I don’t think you’re going to survive this one. “You two will stay on the path. I’ll be behind you.”

  The amazing thing, Adry thought, was how he seemed to melt into the trees. Poof, gone. Just. Like. That. How could something so big just…disappear? Nevermind. It was good, somehow, just knowing he was there. “Come on,” she said to Galina.

  She felt deaf, or maybe blind, walking down that path. The old woman was pale, and obviously in pain, but she refused Adrienne’s offer of help. She stayed ramrod straight, like steel. Another explosion rocked the outpost, smoke rising in the distance as the concussion rustled the grass. They’ll find his things and information
, unless he wiped it all. They’ll be able to find him, if he runs. But he won’t be--

  She would never be able to explain how, or why, or what tipped her off. It was all jumbled in her memory. A gleam of light off a gunsight, maybe, or the click of a stick under a boot. But she moved backwards against Galina just as the bullet parted the air where the old woman’s head had been. She pulled her own weapon and fired twice into the bushes. Someone screamed, high and long, and the bush coughed up a pissed off Michel Landry, moving quickly down the hard path. She fired three times more, hitting body armor each time. He grunted, but kept going. He swung his arm like a guillotine and caught her across the neck. Her world lit up in acidic fire as her lungs burned and no air came in, no air came out. He let her drop to the soil and pulled another handgun out. He pointed it at Galina. Hell no, Adry thought, and grabbed his arm, twisting so the bullet only grazed the old woman. Wisely, Galina ran for the brush.

  Bryan, where are you? She wondered, and a boot caught her in the gut. Mich pressed the gun into her head. “Give up.”

  A dark shadow moved in the branches overhead. She smiled. Bad blood between brothers. “Fuck you.” She said.

  And Bryan came down from the trees.

  He moved cat quick, not human, not caring, and missed Mich by the barest inch. The smaller man dodged and fired three shots in quick session. They all hit flesh, bluish blood erupting and then cutting off in the same breath. Bryan shoved his brother against the tree, awful hand wrapping tight around his neck. Four white eyes squinted against the morning sun, his low growl making his intentions plain.

  And the color drained from Mich.

  For a moment she thought Bryan was feeding. Then she understood it was shock, seeing Bryan’s face in the alien body and understanding what it meant. Color returned, high color, amused, and Mich laughed a sadistic bray that had Adry reaching for her gun.

  “It’s not what I wanted!” Mich crowed. “It’s better. Oh, God, look at you. Look at you. This is so per—” A flex of hand, and Mich’s laughter cut off with a whimper. But he looked into his brother’s eyes and smiled. “You wouldn’t dare. You couldn’t live with yourself if you sucked me dry.”

  “I’ll break your neck,” he growled.

  Michel laughed again. “I told you. I told you I’d make you pay for it. Pay for Dad and for Abrams and for always being the best. But they were supposed to kill you,” gasp, “and let me watch.”

  “I guess even they think being one of them is a fate worse than death,” Bryan said.

  Michel chuckled to himself. Gulp for oxygen, gulp of pain. “In two minutes your battle buddy is going to come down that path and they’re going to kill your ass.”

  “You’ll go first.” The monster growled. “Maybe that’s all that counts.”

  “Put him down, Bry.”Adrienne said, standing on shaky legs.

  Bryan turned his head, fixing her with one singular white eye. Eerily, the others were all fixed on his brother’s face. “Why?”

  “One day you’re going to remember who this piece of shit is. You won’t want his death on your conscience.”

  After eternity, the alien hand withdrew, followed by the rest of him. Very little human remained to his movements. But there were no nematocyst marks on Michel’s neck. He wouldn’t have to live with that.

  Michel stumbled forward a few steps, then grinned, reaching around back for something, most likely another gun. “You’ll never—”

  Adrienne pulled her trigger. The bullet caught him in the midsection. It would, she thought, perforate his diaphragm and graze a lung, a ten minute surgery to repair, not immediately fatal. More importantly, it would shatter his spine at the T7-L1 vertebra. Something that even the Overseers couldn’t heal. The gun went flying and blood from the grazed lung flowed out of Michel’s lips. He hit the dirt, hard.

  Bryan turned, shocked past reaction.

  “I want him on mine.” She said. A sudden shout from behind them brought all their heads around. She turned to Bryan. “Go. I’ll explain. I’ll fire off a round when it’s safe to come back.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Don’t forget me,” he whispered.

  “Come back, and I won’t have to.”

  And once more, without effort, he vanished into the trees. Adrienne kept the gun on Mich’s writhing body. She felt satisfied when his legs lay unmoving in the muck. Serves you right.

  Seconds later, Bob Harris came through the brush, followed by two kids with guns almost bigger than they were. He aimed at Adry, his eyes widened, and he lowered his gun. Then he registered her pointing a weapon at a wounded man. “Adrienne?” He said.

  “The son of a bitch tried to kill me.” She said. “Her too.”

  “He told us the Overseer killed you.”

  “He didn’t bother trying to get me out. Which is ironic—I’d have gone with him if he had. He sold out Holton. He told the Overseers where to look.”

  “We know, Adrienne.” Bob said.

  She was sobbing now. “I hoped you did. I hoped that was why you were looking for him. Do you have him in your sights?” Bob nodded. She dropped the gun and turned to her medical kit. Bryan’s brother would live. Not because of the hypocratic oath, or even because Bryan loved him, but because she wanted Mich to live.

  And be paralyzed. The Valkyrie was that kind of bitch.

  “Where’s the Overseer?”

  “He’s Bryan.” She said, without preamble. “This son of a bitch gave Holton to the Overseers in exchange for them subsuming Bryan. The programming didn’t take, he got away, and I’ll explain the rest of it in a minute. Please fire a shot into the air.”

  “What?” Bob looked gut punched.

  “I told Bryan to stay away until he heard a shot, to give me time to explain. Its him, Bob. He’s screwed up, but he’s there. We can get him back. Please—“

  Bob’s radio went off. “Sir, we’ve got activity. Overseer craft lifting off within fifty feet of your twenty.”

  “What?” Adrienne said, shocked. Tools tumbled from nerveless fingers, spilling to the tainted ground.

  “Repeat that, Paget?” Bob announced.

  “I’ve got an Overseer craft right hard on your position. It’s taking off!”

  Adrienne saw the light, the exhaust, and started running after it, screaming, her nerve shattered by a broken promise. Old, bony hands grabbed her, followed by Bob’s harder, tougher ones. The glowing blue light of an alien spacecraft’s thrust glowed as it hit upper atmosphere.

  It left this strange world forever.

  *****

  Now:

  Shawn Miller sighed. “You realize that, by the book, you’ve been compromised by the enemy.

  “I wanted to save him.”

  “He ran.”

  “He didn’t know what we’d do with him.”

  “He knew we’d keep him alive. Probably a prisoner in a small cell. Probably studied until we decided to kill him. A fate he probably wouldn’t enjoy much. And he was an Overseer. You gave him significant information. The key to the enzyme, for example.”

  “Shawn, you weren’t there.”

  Cold silence. “You’re right. I wasn’t.”

  “He was like a concentration camp victim. You saw that village. If he was like the rest of them—”

  “The village would have been decimated, you would have died, Mich would have been a bleeding smear on the pavement, and I would have paid good money to have both their corpses stuffed and mounted. I know. I’m going to couch the report in the best terms I know. But the facts remain: Mich survived. You shot him. And an Overseer, no matter how friendly he might be, has the formula for Landry’s Enzyme.”

  “You’re not seriously going to order him killed?” She was horrified. Slowly, Shawn shook his head.

  “No. But we’re going to look for him. If Landry’s behind half the things we found in that outpost, we can’t afford to lose him as an information source. It’s worth the risk bringing him back. I’ve given the order to o
ur contacts. If he shows up, if he makes an overture that we can even remotely interpret as peaceful, we’re going to bring him in alive. He took some of the Russians with him. They have families. Odds are, we’re going to find him through them.”

  “Galina’s Village?” she asked.

  “We evacuated it, for now. Too close to occupied territory. If that changes, we’ll take them home. Galina Annakova will need a few more surgeries to heal that arm, but she and her family, and most of the town are signing up with us. They’ll pack in with your unit when we make lift off.” He paused. “It’s still possible we can bring him home, Adry.”

  She nodded, and managed to wait until she left his office before she began to cry.

  Hope is good, Galina had said, but hard to keep.

  Yes, Adry added, and always worth fighting for.

  *****

  Then:

  The black foam flats were laid out on a clean tarp, one of the few the Holton Station survivors had sterilized. Adry packed the golden vials of Landry’s enzyme into them, twenty to a flat, ten flats to a box. This was going to be hell. The security protocols and radiation protectives in each yellow case weighed a ton. It took both Bob Harris and that new kid, PFC Morgan, to haul them into the transports. She wouldn’t have this kind of manpower at their destination.

  Shawn Miller watched them load. “I’d give you more cover, but it looks like the Overseers are gonna hit New Houston soon. I can’t pull anyone off for a med detail.”

  She shrugged. The numbness inside was like Novocain. Fear for herself just didn’t exist. “Where are we going?” She strapped down the last lid.