by Jason Kent
“As always,” Murst said, double-checking that his rifle’s ammunition cartridge was seated properly.
Bealeman took a deep breath and stepped out over the hole without hesitating. The FACs may have gotten in first, but who knew what was in this thing anyway? He scissor kicked and used his momentum to carry him inward with a little help from the thrusters on his suit pack. He slowed when he reached the juncture just inside the hatch. The green glow stick was lazily spinning in front of him.
Bealeman scanned left and right, keeping his rifle ready to fire at the first sign of danger.
“Clear!” Bealeman called over the common net. He could see that nothing posed him or his team an immediate risk. Still, Bealeman noticed an uneasiness building inside him. Pushing the feeling aside, Bealeman chose the corridor leading to the aft end of the ship. The Marines were tasked to enter and locate what amounted for an engine or propulsion device. From the outside, the ship appeared to contain all the drive components within the hull structure. Bealeman had wondered if there would be an engine room right out of some sci-fi show with a control station built around a pulsing power core.
Such a find would be cool, Bealeman thought. What he was seeing was indeed cool, but also different. It was too odd. Five meters down the curving corridor, Bealeman realized what had bothered him earlier. It was simply the sense of wrongness of the whole place. He said, “This place is just…so…” he almost said alien. Then again, what else did he expect?
“Weird,” Taylor finished Bealeman’s sentence.
“That’ll work, sir,” Bealeman said.
The hallways were cramped ovals. The textures on the wall were too rough, something humans would never decorate with. Or, was it more than just decoration? Bealeman put out his hand and tentatively touched the surface of the wall. He knew where he had seen something like this before. He shined his light ahead to where the corridor turned sharply. There were bulges at odd intervals, placed at different heights along the walls, each with varied texture.
Bealeman had seen something very similar to all this while diving on the reefs around Hawaii. “It’s coral,” the Marine muttered. He turned, bumping his armor against the wall. “You see this stuff?”
Taylor shined his light around the walls. “Yeah, I see it.” The Major reached out for the walls. “Make sure your cameras are getting all this.” He motioned forward. “Let’s see what’s around curve number one.”
“I bet this thing was filled with water,” Bealeman noted
“You think all the green guys got sucked out when they got drilled back at Earth?” Murst called over the net.
Bealeman did not answer as he made his away around the curve in the tunnel and found himself in what he swore was the inside of a conch shell. The walls of the low-ceiled, circular room gleamed with a dull pearl sheen. He used his free hand to pull his body along the rough floor, which seemed to Bealeman to be a growth of coral with dozens of types differentiated by texture, shape, size, and color.
A pillar, bulging with the same types of outgrowth, rose from the pile of coral-like floor to the pearl-finished ceiling. Bealeman slowly made his way around the pillar, making sure to pan his helmet cam, taking in everything he could. He was about to push off for the entry to another corridor when something caught the corner of his eye. Bealeman turned his rifle with its light and twisted to get a better look.
It took a moment for Bealeman’s brain to digest what he was seeing. “Cripes, Gunny, you have got to see this.”
Anderson was the first to notice the two meter tall containers lining the back wall of the curving chamber. “What the…”
Ian turned to face the Tech Sergeant. He found Anderson leaning close to one of the bulging cylinders. Ian felt like an idiot following the real special forces guys around so he welcomed any distraction. He moved over to get a closer look at whatever had caught Anderson’s attention.
Ian’s helmet lights joined Anderson’s. He watched as Anderson reached out and brushed brittle crystals off the curved surface of the container.
“Filled with some sort of liquid,” Anderson noted, tapping the clear material. He used his hand to wipe off more crystals. After a moment, Anderson stopped and leaned back. “Something’s in there.”
Ian leaned closer, half expecting Anderson to yell, ‘boo’. He was too interested in what might be inside the cylinder to care. There was something darker than the frozen liquid suspended just out of sight, hidden by the murkiness and glare on the container. “Could be one of the crew.”
“Or a pet,” Anderson said.
Cordella glided over. “What’s all the excitement?”
“Looks like the LT has a new pet, Chief,” Anderson said.
Cordella leaned in close. “Maybe it was dinner.”
A voice crackled over the Ops net. “Can you return the sample for study?”
Ian, lost in concentration while wandering through the tight, otherworldly ship, had forgotten those back aboard Cheyenne were hanging on their every word.
“Imuro, get off the net,” Rucker said. “This is an initial recon, you’ll have plenty of time to cut up whoever we find in here.”
Rucker floated in the center of the chamber, using what looked like a clam encrusted stalactite for balance. He shined his light at the six other containers lining the wall. “Are the others empty?”
Ian and Anderson checked the rest of the cylinders.
“It’s just the one,” Anderson reported.
“Okay,” Rucker said. “Let’s make our way aft. Check every compartment.”
Ian looked at the dark figure suspended in the dark water. “Is it alive?”
Rucker turned back to face Ian and the thing in the tank. “Don’t know. I’m leaning toward the liquid atmosphere theory though. If that is one of the crew, it managed to get inside that thing after the ship was hit.” He gestured around at the low ceiling of the chamber and the coral-like lumps that might have been equipment and might have been decoration. “This set-up starts to make sense if you imaging swimming through here and looking at things like a fish.”
Ian took one more look at the frozen cylinder. “I’m not so sure I want to be around when they thaw the thing out,” he muttered.
“Well, that explains a lot,” Murst said. He poked the frozen carcass. It was attached solidly to the floor and part of the wall. “Like a marble statue.”
“Explains what?” Bealeman asked.
“This,” Murst said, “like we’re inside some sort of man-sized clam shell.”
“I think it’s pretty, Gunny,” Bealeman said, looking around again.
Murst just grunted. He bent to examine the alien closer. “Definitely seems like some sort of underwater creature. You getting this, Cheyenne?”
“Yes,” Dr. Imuro came back over the net. “The detail is astounding.”
“You know, it doesn’t figure,” Murst said with a short laugh as he straightened up. “Humans finally make their way out into the wonders of the galaxy only to get attacked by a bunch of squids.”
“It’s more like a cuttlefish,” Bealeman noted as he ran his gloved hand over the alien’s curving hide. He traced the tentacles to the articulated hands on the end of two of the larger arms. “Must be about as big as me, when it’s stretched out.” He looked back at the head, two dark eyes with upside-down v iris’ stared back at him, frozen and unblinking.
“It ain’t stretching out,” Murst noted. He ran his hand over a patch of the wall. “Definitely looks like this place was meant to be filled with water or something. Look, all the controls are touch sensitive or sealed up good. No keys, no switches no plug outlets.” He tapped a few knobs which seemed to be switches. “Everything seems to be turned off.”
“I bet it still works,” Taylor said. “I’d bet a month of Lt Langdon’s pay.” “Why’s that, sir?” Bealeman asked.
“This ship made its way out here under its own power,” Taylor said. “Everything might have gone off-line after it jumped from Eart
h to Saturn Space, but it had to have been working at least well enough to perform that trick.”
“Over here sir,” Murst called out. “There’re more chambers this way.”
Bealeman took one more look at the pathetic alien frozen in a solid lump in the unforgiving vacuum of deep space. He wanted to say something over the body, but did not know the words. Instead, he gently laid his left hand on the creatures head before following the two other Marines to the next room of mysteries.
After an hour of careful searching, the entry team had explored every centimeter of the alien ship. At least all the crew sections.
Ian frowned at the hologram of the ship floating above his wrist display. The red outline of the ship hull was now filled in with passages on two levels filling nearly a third of the ship’s inner space. He marveled at the twisting corridors, circular rooms and niches that filled the crew space of the alien ship. “So what’s in the other two thirds of the ship?” Ian asked no one in particular.
Anderson glanced at Ian’s display. “Probably fuel, engines, whatever these things use for life support. If there was another access point to more of the ship, I think we’d have found it by now.”
Ian looked around the rough textured wall and natural forms of the control or interface equipment. He doubted the Tech Sergeant’s assertion. They didn’t know jack about this ship.
“Okay, looks like crew section of the ship is secure,” Major Taylor stated. “Captain Rucker, please take your men and put mark one eyeballs on the outer hull…all of it.”
“Yes sir,” Rucker answered, saluted as best he could with the limitations of the combat armor.
Ian turned to follow the three FACs. He was as good at using his eyes as the rest of them.
Rucker turned to Ian when the four of them reached the hull outside the hatch the Marines had forcefully opened to access the ship. “Langdon, stay put and show the civilians around. Maybe they can make some sense of what the heck any of this stuff does.” “Sir,” Ian said, saluting automatically. He managed to bang the side of this head with an armored glove. He watched the FACs disappear over the hull, heading for the aft end of the ship and, presumably, the engines.
Ian did not have to wait long before one of Cheyenne’s small shuttle craft approached his position. Really just a pressure cylinder within a support structure, attitude control system, and small engine, the shuttle was meant for short trips between ships or for ship to station travel. You would not want to try and land it on the moon and trying to take it to the Earth’s surface would simply result in a nice fireball for those on the ground to watch. But, it worked just fine transporting a few of the civilian scientists from Cheyenne to the alien ship.
The hatch opened, revealing Nick O’Brian in his blue NASA soft suit. The NASA pilot moved outside, hooking his feet into straps set into a small mesh step below the shuttles hatch. He reached back inside and helped a suited figure out the door.
Over the local net, Ian heard O’Brian give a few instructions. “Remember, Dr. Imuro, just push off and step over to the hatch. The Marine there will help you inside.”
Ian held his tongue. He had to admit the Space Corps armor was very similar to the Marine space combat armor. Ian watched as Imuro turned to look at Saturn, hanging nearby.
“Wonderful,” Imuro breathed.
“Time for sightseeing later,” O’Brian said. He pointed Imuro at the hatch.
Imuro took a small step and left the shuttle platform. It was not enough of a push to get him to the alien ship.
“Crud,” Ian muttered. He ignited his thrusters and grabbed Imuro as the biologist ignited his thrusters in the wrong direction. “Whoa there, Doc,” Ian said. He swatted the older man’s hands away from his suits thruster controls. It took a few tries to get the two of them back to the hatch since their combined center of gravity was difficult to maneuver with just Ian’s suit pack.
“Wait at the junction until the others come across,” Ian said as he helped Imuro safely through the hatch. “It’s easy to get lost in here.” He looked up and about fell over.
Jennifer was standing right in front of him in a white soft suit.
“Sorry, did I scare you?”
“Just wish you would wait ‘til I was watching before you stepped over,” Ian said.
“Ah, didn’t I tell you,” Jennifer said. “I’ve got five hundred hours suit time.” She pulled her feet off the hull and jetted through the open hatch then down into the alien corridor.
Ian grinned. God, she even looks good in a space suit.
Ian helped two more computer techs across without incident. He gave a wave to O’Brian.
The NASA pilot ignored Ian and reentered the shuttle. A moment later, the tiny ship was moving back toward the Cheyenne, a gleaming collection of modules, propellant tanks, and support structure five kilometers distant.
Ian went back inside the alien ship to find his charges had scattered, save Jennifer.
“So much for providing an escort,” Ian muttered.
“They were just excited,” Jennifer said. “Imuro went that way to check on the dead alien and the other two guys went that way.” She pointed to the front of the ship. “They all downloaded the map you brave soldiers started.”
“And what’s your preference, ma’am?” Ian said.
“Oh, I’m here for the nickel tour until the computer guys can get me into the navigation system.” Jennifer pushed off for the front of the ship. “Come on, I’ll let you show me the bridge.”
“If that’s what it really is,” Ian said. He gestured around at the walls. “Look at this stuff, it’s…”
“Alien?” Jennifer said.
Ian smiled behind his face plate. “Exactly. It’ll take the computer jockeys days just to figure out how to turn anything on.”
“But they will,” Jennifer said. She gently ran her gloved hand over a pearl smooth section of the corridor. “In time.”
Ian led the way through the twists and turns of the tunnels until they came to the room where the two techs were busy running handheld sensors over the walls and formations around the room.
“I should really go check on Dr. Imuro,” Ian said over a private channel he had established with Jennifer.
Jennifer reached out and grabbed Ian’s arm before he could leave. She turned from her study of the room and focused her eyes on Ian’s. “Stay with me.”
“Why?”
“To protect me of course,” Jennifer chided. “There may still be evil aliens running around.”
“Swimming, actually,” Ian said. “From the looks of the two aliens we found and the layout of the ship, it seems like this whole place should be filled with water. But, I should remind you, although I may look like a tough soldier guy now, I’m really just a simple Space Corps pilot who got drafted into the infantry.”
Jennifer smiled, revealing her perfect white teeth through her helmet face plate. “Ian, I know you’re in the Corps.”
“Thanks.”
“That makes you my little Marine,” Jennifer laughed.
Ian shook his head as best he could. “Wrong Corps,” he reminded Jennifer. At least their private joke stayed between them since they had had switched over to the private net.
Ian activated his map and pointed a chamber closer to the bow of the ship. “Want to see the alien in the bottle?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Jennifer said, “how could a girl resist?”
Ian led the way through a branching corridor. At a juncture, he turned to move left.
“I think it’s this way,” Jennifer said, pointing to the right.
Ian reactivated the holo and pointed at their position. “No, we’re here and we want to get here.”
“But you’ve got the map upside down.” Jennifer tapped the controls on Ian’s wrist display. The holo inverted. “We need to turn right.”
Ian looked around at the odd formations and too-small corridor. He did a quick spin and planted his feet on what Jennifer said shoul
d have been the floor. “I would have sworn this was the top of the ship,” Ian said, pointing at his feet.
“You know,” Jennifer said as she stared at him in the face, now upside down, “I’ll never get used to this zero gee stuff.”
Just then, an armored figure floated into view from the direction of the control room. The Marine stopped close to Ian and Jennifer.
“What’re you doing hanging from the ceiling, Langdon?” Murst asked.
“Just letting the blood rush to my head, Gunny,” Ian replied as crisply as he could manage.
“Might want to keep on eye on those tech boys,” Murst said. “They look like they’re about to take a hammer to that alien tech.”
“I will, Gunny,” Ian said. He watched Murst disappear around the tunnel Ian had first suggested taking.
“Huh.” Jennifer looked from left to right.
Ian flipped again so he was right-side-up again.
“Guess you were right,” Jennifer said. She held up Ian’s arm and put the hologram back in the right perspective.
“I can’t believe you questioned me,” Ian said, heading off with new confidence.
“Me either,” Jennifer said. “I’m awful with directions.”
Ian quickly showed Jennifer the alien frozen inside the container then pulled her back to the bridge where the techs were working. He did not want to be the one held responsible if they started tearing stuff up in their zeal for discovery.
Ian floated with Jennifer in the middle of the bridge. The techs were swearing, trying to figure out how to interface with the alien equipment.
“Any suggestions on what to do first?” Ian asked Jennifer.
“No idea,” Jennifer replied. She pulled herself to a raised clump with what seemed to be control panels. They were arrayed in an arc around the forward side of what could have been a pair of seats.
Ian was happy to watch her explore; glad to just be with her. Watching her approach the alien controls, Ian could not help but share in her child-like wonder as she saw everything with fresh eyes.
“This was their command station,” Jennifer said. “Maybe a pilot sat here.” She patted the oddly curved seat. “This is probably a good place for one of the aliens to sit or rest. Want to give it a try?”
