I felt my pocket for the Deltra device and couldn’t find it. Panic coursed through my body until I found it on the ground across the bridge. It must have gone flying when we were jostled around in the wormhole.
I pressed the touchscreen, and yellow light glowed in a ring around it. Everything looked fine.
“Be careful,” Mary said.
I leaned over, giving her a deep kiss, long enough to make a sailor blush.
“I love you,” I said, hoping it wasn’t for the last time. She mouthed it back to me, a tear falling down her cheek.
Leaving that bridge was the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do, and considering what I’d been through, that meant a lot.
“Nick, what are you waiting for? Suit up,” Slate said, causing the doctor’s mouth to fall open.
“What? Me? Out there?” Nick stammered.
“Why do you think I’ve been training you? So you can go home and win the Hill Valley state karate competition?” Slate asked.
“Oh crap, you’re serious,” Nick said.
“It’s time for the big leagues, my friend. Don’t worry; we just need you for backup. We still don’t know what we’re getting into,” Slate said, and I saw Nick’s tense look loosen up a little.
The corridor to the weapons room felt longer this trip.
“What do you think we’re going to find?” I asked Slate while Nick was busy getting his assigned suit on.
“She might be bringing us right into the hive of the enemy. Good thing you have that weapon,” he said, nodding his chin to the device in my hand.
As much as I wanted to protect Earth, I wasn’t sure genocide of a race was the answer this time.
“Of course, we’ll still need to eliminate Mae when it’s said and done,” Slate whispered in my ear.
I solemnly nodded, still not believing we had to kill my close friend. I felt so used by her.
“Don’t worry, boss. I’ll make the shot if that helps.”
It didn’t. “I’ll do what’s necessary.” The words came out, but I didn’t recall saying them.
We got suited up, leaving our helmets off, and lined them beside our weapons in the storage room next to the ropes and tethers. I pushed the pin on Nick’s collar just long enough to see him glow green as Slate held him.
“I’m not looking forward to this,” he said.
“Just press this, push yourself through on this bar” – I lowered the bar from the center of the room – “and don’t forget to strap in. You don’t want to end up floating around in space. We haven’t had a chance to train you on the suit’s propulsion system yet.”
This just made him pale more, if that was possible. A year ago, I would have looked just like him, but I’d been thrown into a desperate position with no other options.
“You guys have to see this.” Clare said through the speakers.
We crossed the ship and entered the bridge, amazed at what we were seeing.
“Our cloaking tech is functional, right?” I asked.
“They can’t see us,” Clare said.
The viewscreen showed us a planet in the distance, and one of the two stars in the system, on opposite corners of the planets, which made for a complicated orbit pattern and had to be hell on days and nights. Maybe whatever life was on them had adapted to that, if there was any life.
Before us was a satellite, a small moon for the closest planet, which reminded me of a sand-colored Mars. The viewscreen zoomed, and there was Mae’s ship, hovering near the moon.
“Look.” Mary zoomed closer and we saw a structure on the surface. It stretched out in an intricate system of halls leading to an assortment of outbuildings. There was obviously no atmosphere, and probably very little gravity, so they had a sealed colony.
Beside the structure, three ships were settled on the rocky surface.
“This looks like an outpost. We must be closer to their home galaxy,” Slate said, clenching his fists. “We can’t let Mae get to them.”
Mae’s ship was just hovering there. She was either contemplating her next move, or she was waiting for clearance. Clare tried to scan all communication frequencies, but nothing came across.
The good news was, they still didn’t know we were there.
“What do we do?” I asked, looking to Slate for guidance.
“We go down there, activate that death tool you have, and blow up Mae’s ship.” He said it so straight-faced, it startled me.
“What if there are more than Bhlat down there?” I asked, playing devil’s advocate.
“That’s why we have guns,” he replied, a smile crossing his face. It was more than a little unsettling.
“Does it end here? We stop Mae, we stop the outpost from ever passing on the knowledge we were here, and we go home. Right?” I laid it out and everyone nodded.
The device was light in my pocket, but the weight of what it could do almost caused me to sit down. The good news was, I would just need to use it one last time. To kill the potential enemy before they knew what hit them, in order to keep humanity a secret longer.
“How close do you think we need to be to use it?” Mary asked, not having to say what “it” was.
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I doubt it will work instantly from a thousand kilometers. I’d say we fly over them and hope they can’t see us, turn it on, get Mae, and go home.” It sounded so easy. Part of me was excited that we might be on the way home in a very short amount of time; the other was tired of having to kill.
“Bringing us in,” Mary said.
Mae was still in space, and we went the long way to avoid crossing her path. The moon was rocky, small hills and mountains jutting out from it. The station was on the flattest part of the moon, which was even smaller in diameter than I had originally thought.
I tried to gauge the size of the room and hall structure as we approached, and put it at about six city blocks long with about twenty separate buildings, each connected with dark corridors, no glass anywhere.
When we hovered above the center of the area, I stood, sliding the device from my breast pocket. Tapping it turned the yellow ring on, and I scrolled to the icons, even though my helmet wasn’t on to translate the text. I remembered which to press.
“God forgive me,” I whispered as I tapped the confirm icon.
“Is it done?” Clare asked.
Nothing on the base looked any different. Were they dead?
The device ring shone red and started to flash. Text appeared over the screen. “I can’t read it, but I think something’s wrong.” Grabbing my helmet from beside my chair, I popped it on, locking it in, and let my HUD fire up. I scanned the device text again. DNA sample insufficient.
“Shit. The DNA sample has failed. Must have messed up when it flew onto the ground when we were tossed around in the wormhole,” I said, my hands nearly trembling. I tapped it a few more times, trying to get it to work, and the same result occurred. I even popped the sample tray open on the back, careful not to add my own sample to it. This thing was dangerous.
“You know what this means?” Slate asked, before answering his own question. “This means we go down there, kill one of them, and get a fresh sample. Then we beam the hell out and destroy them.”
It was as sound a plan as we had. “Couldn’t we just blow them to hell?” This from Nick.
“As much as I agree with the good doctor here, I think we need to get the sample. What if they do find their way to Earth? Having protection against them would be the difference between survival and extinction,” Mary said. I found it hard to argue with her logic.
“Then it’s set. Let’s go, Slate. We’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t leave without us.” I led the way off the bridge, catching a worried glance from Mary. I knew she wanted to be down there with me, but her injuries weren’t healed enough, and it was a lot safer on the bridge than in the spider’s web we were about to jump into.
Nick was there beside us, passing us our rifles. He slid his helmet on. “Cal
l me and I’ll be right there.”
Slate clapped him on the arm. “Dean, you ready for this? We isolate a Bhlat, incapacitate him, take the sample, activate the thing, and walk out of here.”
“Deal,” I said, pressing my pin, green light covering me once again. Nervous sweat dripped down my back and sides as I pushed on the bar, passing through the floor of the ship and into the light atmosphere of the moon, before crossing through the two-meter-thick ceiling of the building we hovered above.
I emerged in a room, gun ready to fire at will, but it was nearly dark, soft lights coming from some wall computers. Slate was beside me; we unlatched our belts and made our way to the doorway.
“All we need is one.” Slate took the lead. The door slid open at our foot pressure, making more noise than I wanted. So much for stealth.
The hall went both directions, lights glowing along the floor. It was quiet. Left or right. Right would lead us to a group of larger buildings we’d seen from above, so Slate led us left, probably assuming there would be fewer enemies that way.
We walked quietly, our rifles held up, ready for action.
“Guys, Mae’s on the move. She’s landing in their shipyard,” Clare said in my earpiece.
“That doesn’t change anything,” I said, Slate nodding firmly. He motioned to keep moving, and we approached another door to the left. Slate stepped in front of it, gun ready to blast, and it opened. He rushed in, gun moving from side to side, but the room was empty. It looked like weapons storage, and Slate’s eyes widened at the sight of huge alien guns lining the walls.
“Later,” I assured him.
Alarms clanged through the halls, and I winced at the volume. They knew we were here.
TWENTY-THREE
“What do we do?” I asked.
“We keep moving,” was the reply I got.
We checked each room. Some were empty; each served a different purpose. Whatever this place was, these guys were there for the long haul, or at least intended to be. Bunks lined the walls of a massive open space, enough room to sleep fifty of the large warrior race.
Where were they all? We passed the kitchen and mess hall, and I couldn’t help but feel they weren’t so different than we were. Maybe there was hope we could all get along. Seeing the look of grim determination on Slate’s face, I doubted it. Hell, humans couldn’t even get along with themselves.
Slate slid a finger in front of his mouth in a shushing motion and crept forward slowly. “There’s a group of them ahead. This is one of this side’s larger rooms. Maybe an auditorium.”
The alarms still blazed, but not as loudly, and soon the sound went away, leaving just the flashing lights to annoy us. I snuck a peek but quickly turned around, feeling like one was about to sneak up on us at any moment. The coast was clear. These Bhlat weren’t uniformed. Instead, they wore something akin to a jumpsuit. They weren’t carrying weapons, either.
They kept moving in the same direction as us, and we poked our heads into the next room. It looked like a large laboratory, with indecipherable mathematic formulas on digital screens. The structure to them looked quite different than anything I’d ever seen, yet eerily familiar at the same time. My HUD translator read what it could understand to me, and it still made no sense.
“Maybe it’s a science station,” I said.
“It doesn’t make a difference.” Slate was trained for a mission, and he wasn’t going to sway from his objective. His linear warrior mind was focused on the task at hand, and my mind was moving a mile a minute which, after our faster than light travel, might not have been so fast.
Alien voices flowed down the halls toward us, a deep vibrating language different than our own. My translator spilled out what it could, constantly getting better as it learned more.
She comes alone. Talleidudne will be happy shiguedbggr is here. Time poloo answers.
They knew Mae was there.
We ducked into the science lab and waited as two hulking forms passed by, talking away, their voices muffled so my translator couldn’t pick them up.
“Keep going,” Slate said.
We approached the space where the group had emerged from a few minutes ago and entered an amazing room. Chairs lined the center of the space, and a glowing platform sat in the middle of the room. Either a stage or… a projector. My gut leapt as I realized this was a communication hall. They had probably been in there talking with a leader from a faraway planet, but they didn’t know the humans were here. They did seem to know Mae was, though, and it was only so long before they spotted the abnormal cloaked ship hovering above them.
Slate was right, we needed to end this now. Something rustled near the back of the room, and Slate fired a quick shot, killing the computer tablet on the wall, shutting the lights down. The helmets’ night vision sprang to life, and we covered the doorway so no one could get through. I stayed at the door while Slate headed toward the noise. I heard and saw three quick red pulse beams, and then silence.
“Slate?” I whispered into my mic.
“I got one, boss. Get the device and let’s do this thing once and for all.”
I moved to his location, seeing a Bhlat smaller than I expected. It was slender, and less ridged than the ones we’d encountered. I almost dropped the Deltra weapon when I realized what that meant. It was a female of their kind.
“Doesn’t matter,” Slate said, “just do it.” He was proving to be quite the robot, but that might have been what I needed right then.
Sliding the DNA sample stick from the back, I found a wound from the rifle, took a deep breath to stifle the wrongness of what I was doing, and jabbed it in. The device whirred to life again, following the same pattern as it had before.
“Make it snappy,” Slate called to me as we heard the door slide open.
What is idpewa here? a Bhlat asked into the darkness.
Slate fired a few rounds, and I heard two forms slump to the ground before the alarms raised again.
“What’s happening down there, Dean?” Mary’s voice came through my earpiece. I ignored it, not wanting to talk, mostly because I was holding my breath as I waited for the device to be ready to work.
“Dean, there are more coming!” Slate yelled.
“Come on, come on,” I said, and the icon glowed green. I hesitated, seeing the dead female Bhlat on the ground before me, and the door opened once again, laser fire blasting into the room at us. I nearly dropped the device; Slate grunted and ran across the room, shooting a volley of red death on the Bhlat.
Everything slowed for me for a split second. Laser fire inched around the room, Slate’s yells turned to slow-motion calls from the movies, and all there was on the moon was this device, and fifty living beings. I pressed the button, and time caught up.
“Thank God,” Slate said from twenty meters away. He was on the ground, green in my night vision. The Bhlat were all down, not a breath left in their alien bodies. I found, at that moment, that I wanted to know more about them: everything about their race, but I knew nothing, and I’d killed them without so much as the press of a touchscreen icon.
We’d been told they were evil, and that they would destroy us, but could we trust the hybrids or Deltra after all they’d done to us?
“Dean, what the hell is going on down there?” Mary asked again, this time not so cordially.
“Mary, we’re okay. It’s done.”
“What about Mae?” she asked.
I’d nearly forgotten about her. “Slate, are you okay?” I asked, moving to his slouched form.
He got up, dusting his uniform off. “I tripped on something, but no worse for the wear. Just a twisted ankle, and my arm’s still tender. We have to find Mae, and quickly.”
We entered the hall, stepping over the melted forms of the unarmored Bhlat, Slate hardly noticing them at all.
“I’ll go left, you go the way we came,” I said, taking the lead.
Slate’s large frame moved quickly down the hall as the sunken corridor lights flared r
ed, alarms still blaring along the way. I tried to not look at the corpses spread around the floor. Some might have been children; most were unarmed.
“Mary, we’re searching for Mae. Is her ship still docked?” I asked.
“She’s still down there. Do you need assistance?” Mary asked through my earpiece.
We probably did, but the last thing I wanted was the doctor or my injured fiancée to be running around the outpost, looking for our missing hybrid.
“We got this. Whatever happens, don’t let that ship get away.”
“Affirmative,” came the stiff reply.
The outpost had wide corridors, probably enough room for three of the large aliens to walk side by side, and the ceilings were at least ten feet. The sound of a sliding door down the hall caused my heart to race, and I slowly moved toward it, firmly holding my rifle. The door was closed, and I stepped forward, letting it slide open as I moved to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of what was inside. It looked like a classroom of some soft, but I didn’t see anyone inside from that quick glance.
This time, I raised the rifle, moving through the entrance, spinning to the left and then to the right, before suddenly getting kicked in the knee as Mae came into view from the near corner of the room. My blaster went off, hitting the ground in a smoldering beam.
“Mae, listen,” I tried to say before getting kicked in the stomach. I was down on the ground in an instant, knee aching and breath torn from my lungs.
“No, you listen.” She kicked my gun away, stepping on my hand. It pinned my fingers and palm against the cold hard metal grate floor. “I came here to help you. To tell them you were all gone, dead in the war with the Kraski. This would have bought you a few years. You could have moved to Proxima. But you came here and killed them!”
Anger coursed through me. So she did know them and had left us to meet with them. It all sounded like lies over lies, and if there was a truth left in the story, it was so convoluted and buried, it would be almost impossible to uncover.
“Mae, I believe you,” I lied, hoping she would get off my pained hand. Her foot pressure lessened, and my training from Slate took over. I lifted her foot with all my strength, sending her small frame back a yard while I quickly got to my feet.
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