The Sublime Seven

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  He was downright giddy now, despite the effects of Chimera-23B. Or perhaps because of them. She could see a sheen of sweat on his face behind the visor and wondered if mania was one of the symptoms. How could anyone be so happy about dying?

  “Right. With luck, at least one of our strategies will prove effective,” she replied.

  “Oh, do you feel that?” He pivoted on the red Martian soil. A bright light filled the sky behind them. It seemed to coalesce suddenly, then the source of the intense illumination streaked overhead.

  The vessel landed precisely on the spot where the supply rockets set down, a turn of events that was the best they could have hoped for. The craft’s occupants recognized the significance of the area. Would entities of non-human biology have done the same? Much was riding on the conclusions they had formed based upon Psi intel from a handful of people. If they were wrong, and the aliens were in fact lizard people or little green men, they may well be fecked.

  The spaceship looked nothing like the rockets from Earth. Instead of a white carbon-composite shell, the alien craft was gun-metal gray. Instead of cylindrical, it was spherical. Instead of touching down in a thunderous cloud of red dust, it alighted upon the landing strip like a feather in a breeze, all elegance and effortless grace.

  The colonists who came from engineering and astrophysics backgrounds would have been enthralled to witness it. Instead, they were hunkered down in the caverns. If any of them lived to see tomorrow, they could rewind the vids from the surveillance cameras, strategically placed throughout the colony in hopes of capturing the most monumental event in human history.

  She thought her heart might pound out of her chest and splat against the interior of her bio-suit.

  “Here they come,” Khandar said. “Did you see that section near the bottom? It moved. That must be the vessel’s point of egress.”

  When the human-aliens descended from the opening, it was almost anti-climactic. Their suits appeared eerily similar to those from Earth. The entities had two arms and walked on two legs. Some sort of breathing apparatus encased their heads; the section covering what would be their faces was opaque. Ten beings strode toward Jaeda and Khandar without hesitation. If she didn’t die of a heart attack, she would be one of the first people to see an alien face-to-face. Or at least, visor-to-visor.

  She fought a sudden urge to stop the MAHEM directive. These were humans. No question. But the commandos manning the weapons didn’t answer to her.

  “Sir, they’re human. I can feel it,” she said.

  “That’s wonderful news, Captain. What we already suspected.” She watched him blink moisture from his left eye. The grin had turned maniacal now.

  “Maybe they’ve had a change of heart.”

  “That seems unlikely.”

  Every step the invaders took was a step toward their demise.

  She tapped her communication panel. “Shroom, Raj, get the hell over here now.”

  “Belay that order,” Khandar bellowed.

  “Please, sir. Trust me.”

  “You’re pissing me off, JD.” He sighed. “Very well. I shouldn’t stop trusting you at this point.”

  Thirty seconds later, the two stood beside her. They had been stationed close by in case their Psi talents were needed.

  “What do you feel?” she asked.

  “It’s him. The one in front,” Raj said, his eyes closed. “The individual I connected with.”

  “Are you picking up anything, Shroom?”

  “Yes.” The savage expression had returned. “They’re here to kill us.”

  “That’s not what I’m sensing,” Raj said, his eyes open now.

  “The message is coming through to me loud and clear.” The young woman reached for her weapon, an empty gesture since the standard-issue bio-suits didn’t provide a holster for them.

  “It’s okay, Corporal,” Khandar said. “We’ve got this.”

  The aliens were a stone’s throw away now. Jaeda dreaded what would come next.

  The colonel said, “Engage.”

  The next moment MAHEM unleashed fiery fury upon the vessel. White-hot balls of super-heated magnesium smashed against the gray sphere. At the same time, the colony’s small contingent of Marines cast off their camouflage cloaks and fired at the ten figures. Jaeda resisted the urge to close her eyes and not bear witness to the carnage those .30-caliber recoilless machine guns would render.

  But carnage didn’t happen. Not to the alien vessel, nor to the aliens themselves. Molten globules slid harmlessly off the metal and sizzled in the red dust. The .30-caliber bullets slammed against the aliens’ protective suits, then bounced off, leaving the occupants unscathed.

  Even worse, none of the explosive drama even slowed them down. They continued walking toward Jaeda’s group, which stood in mute horror a mere twenty paces away now.

  “We knew this was a possibility. Time for the next phase.” Khandar’s voice trembled slightly, but not from fear. The effect of Chimera-23B was evident in the resolute grimace and oily perspiration. At this point, he would be running a high fever and experiencing acute joint pain. The muscle spasms could begin at any time. She hoped the involuntary convulsions would hold off long enough for him to infect the invaders before it was obvious there was something terribly wrong with the leader of the Martian colony.

  “Is the syringe gun ready, JD?”

  “Yes, sir.” She covertly handed it to him. “I doubt it will pierce their suits if the Marines’ RIP cartridges couldn’t.”

  “Scalpel versus sledge hammer. Perhaps their suits’ defense system is triggered by traditional attacks. We can only hope at this point.”

  Raj spoke. “Before that, sir, please let me try to communicate with them. Specifically, the one in front. I’m positive he’s the one I connected with before.” His face also glistened, but from anxiety and terror rather than a deadly contagion. As Jaeda’s graze traveled from Raj’s face to Khandar’s, she knew she was looking at father and son.

  Before Khandar could respond, the individual in front hand-signaled to the nine others behind him. It was a human gesture: stay back.

  “That’s him,” Raj said. “He’s their leader. I think I can communicate with him. He wishes he could be home, but that’s not possible. His prime directive is to...”

  “Kill us,” Shroom finished the statement.

  “Yes,” Raj said, his voice a whisper. “But he doesn’t want to.”

  “Doesn’t matter, son,” Khandar said. “He has his orders.”

  Four Earthlings stood on the red Martian soil, awaiting the lone figure who strode toward them now. When it finally reached them, light filled the inside of the helmet. Jaeda was one of the first humans to see the face of a sentient extraterrestrial life form.

  And it...he...looked exactly like the eleven billion people on Earth.

  She felt a wave of gratification and exchanged an excited look with Shroom, the one who had first suspected these aliens were just as human as everyone they knew.

  A hand, wrapped in otherworldly material, was raised in Khandar’s direction. The being must have identified the Kraken as the leader, and he stopped just short of the Colonel with the gloved hand still raised. Was it a greeting? An attempted handshake?

  She watched the two in mute fascination. The colonel also raised a hand – the other hid the syringe gun. She saw the grim facial expression of the invader as he pointed toward the unraised hand.

  He knew it was there.

  In a swift motion, he removed the glove. The exposed hand was hairless but possessed four fingers and an opposable thumb, now laid bare to the frigid temperature of Mars. The naked fingers pointed toward the syringe in Khandar’s hand again, followed by another gesture: give it to me.

  Did he expect Khandar to just hand it over?

  Another give-it-to-me motion, impatient now. Urgent. The bare fingers were splayed open. The palm faced downward, not upward to receive an object being given to him. The gloved hand now pointed to the
bare hand.

  Jaeda understood. And so did Khandar.

  Chimera-23B shot into the exposed flesh. The face behind the visor winced, then the body turned to face Raj.

  “He’s sending me a message,” Raj said, choking with emotion. “We won’t make it out of this alive, but neither will they. He knows what’s in the syringe. He plans to take it back with him to his ship. Our people – below ground and on Earth – will live. He is determined to make it so.”

  The leader replaced the glove, then signaled to the nine figures waiting behind. Before terror could consume her, Jaeda’s life ended in a blazing, painless flash of light.

  The In Between

  Jaeda opened her eyes. The bright flash that preceded her arrival at the In Between still blinded her for a few seconds. Of course that wasn’t physically possible since her presence here wasn’t of a corporeal nature. Nevertheless, the eyes, quickly manifested, saw sparkles from the blast that had killed her on Mars. Then the sparkles faded, and she experienced the familiar sensation of being in the In Between. It was comforting. She knew Sarah would be along shortly, so she created an appropriate setting in which to have their discussion.

  She closed her eyes and imagined Khandar’s private quarters. She didn’t turn on the hack block, though. It wouldn’t be needed here. She actualized lips so she could smile to herself. Soon she had legs and arms covered in the soft bamboo cotton of the Martian colony’s clothing. They couldn’t have all the luxuries on Mars that people had on Earth, but at least their clothes were snuggly and warm. It was a pleasure to wear them again now. She sat in Khandar’s small guest chair and waited for Sarah.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  “Hello, Jaeda,” a voice said from the black void beyond. Soon a figure emerged. She immediately recognized the short, stocky form of Corporal Eckland.

  “Hi, Sarah. I love that you look like Shroom. She was a pivotal part of my experience this time.”

  “Indeed,” Shroom said in Sarah’s voice. “How did it go, my dear?”

  “I think it went quite well. My ears are still ringing a bit, though.”

  “I hope it didn’t hurt too much.”

  “No. I didn’t feel a thing. A good way to go. Much better than when I died of old age in Renaissance Italy.”

  Sarah’s tinkling wind chime laughter filled her heart with joy.

  “Are you ready to talk about it?”

  Jaeda pictured her head from her previous life: tight, black curls surrounding an oval face and brown eyes twinkling within the mocha-skinned, heart-shaped face. She nodded the head now.

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Your lesson was Responsibility and Accountability with a Moral Restraint Rider. Explain how all that was learned, please.”

  “I think I was born with an inherent desire to take care of people. That seemed to make it easier to learn about Responsibility and Accountability. Don’t you think?”

  Sarah didn’t answer.

  Right. That’s not how this works.

  “Even as a child, I wanted to tend to people and animals...protect them, make them comfortable and happy. It was ingrained. I’m not sure if you were able to manage that before I incarnated this time, or if it was always part of me and surfaced more overtly this time. Anyway, when I got to Mars and everyone depended on me, I felt I was exactly where I should be, doing precisely what I was meant to. When something went wrong, I didn’t shirk from the mistake, even when it wasn’t my own. I suppose that’s Accountability, right?”

  “When you were told about the invaders...?” Sarah prompted.

  “The officers wanted to screw over seven hundred people. I came up with the plan for the second cavern to try to save everyone. Once Khandar was on board, I continued to do everything in my power to keep people safe. In the end, it didn’t work out so well for us and the marines on the surface, but those in the caverns should have been okay. They were, right?”

  Shroom-Sarah smiled. “Yes. The contagion infected all the human-aliens on the invading vessel. They returned home, never reaching Earth.”

  Jaeda constructed lungs so she could breathe a sigh of relief.

  “I’m so happy.”

  “What about the Moral Restraint Rider?” Sarah asked. The physical features that made her resemble Shroom dissolved, replaced now by the intense golden gaze of the Kraken. Jaeda’s figurative heart skipped a beat.

  “I think you already know,” she said.

  “Of course, but please express it in your own words.”

  She sighed. “I was in love with Colonel Khandar. And I think he was in love with me. But he was my commanding officer and fraternization was not allowed. Besides, he had a wife on Earth. Even though he would never see her again, I felt that he wanted to remain loyal to her. I knew if I had...pursued him, we would have been together. But I didn’t. It was frustrating. There was quite an attraction.”

  “But you held back.”

  “I did.”

  “Anything else?”

  She thought about her most recent life, specifically the end of it and the people who had played such a pivotal role in that final scene. “I think I got another bonus lesson.”

  “Clarify, please.”

  “Self-sacrifice,” she said.

  “How did you sacrifice yourself?”

  “Not me. Khandar. He injected himself with a deadly pathogen, sacrificing his own life to save others. It didn’t go as planned, but that doesn’t matter. And you know what else?”

  “No, what?”

  “The human-alien leader did the same thing. He asked to be infected. He didn’t want to kill eleven billion humans, so he took a bullet for all the inhabitants of our solar system. I think that’s quite remarkable for someone who wasn’t even part of our world.”

  “Agreed.”

  “They were human, right? Were they originally from Earth, as Corporal Eckland surmised?”

  Sarah transitioned back to her original form – long blond hair and luminescent blue eyes – wearing that trademark mysterious smile. She said nothing.

  “I guess that’s not for me to know. So did I pass? Am I ready for the next lesson?” She knew what the response would be, but it made her smile when she heard the words.

  “Do you think you’re ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “What will you tackle this time?”

  “I want to do Curiosity and Sense of Humor with a side helping of Gratitude.”

  “Very well. Let’s discuss the framework.”

  Chapter 6 – Curiosity and Sense of Humor with a side helping of Gratitude

  Dakota Territory, American Frontier - 1862 CE

  “You just gonna stand there and stare at me?” Jacob said. He was irritated as hell, partly because his back was killing him after a long day of cutting sod, but also because the injun was so tranquil. He didn’t trust tranquil people. They were usually up to something sneaky.

  “You speak English?” he said, after his first question went unanswered. A half-minute passed. He figured the silence was his answer, so he was surprised when the red-skinned heathen spoke.

  “Yep,” the injun replied.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Hearing another human voice after being alone for so long was a comfort. That the injun could understand him and speak to him was even better. But perhaps the best part was that he hadn’t tried to scalp him. At least not yet.

  “That your horse?” Jacob said, standing and stretching. His knees popped in protest. Constructing a house out of sod was not slothful work. He’d built several log cabins in his life, but out here on the prairie, trees were scarce. Anyone who wanted to live through the winter without freezing to death built a soddy.

  “Yep.” The Appaloosa pony grazing next to its owner was an impressive specimen and clearly well-taken care of.

  “Fine animal. Wanna trade for it?” It was a joke. He doubted he possessed anything the feller would want in exchange. Even if he did, these heathens wouldn’t part with thei
r horses if their lives depended on it. It was the injun way.

  “Nope.”

  Jacob couldn’t read the stoic expression. Might as well try to lasso the moon. “What the heck do you want, then?” He felt braver now that no other injuns had snuck up on him. He wondered how he would fare in a fight with this one. The man looked to be about thirty-five, Jacob’s own age, but you never knew with these heathens. Could be thirty-five or fifty-five. Red-skinned folks didn’t seem to age the same way as the whites.

  The injun pointed to the smoldering campfire. “Needs more dung.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t have more dung. The bison roamed through last week, but I haven’t had a chance to gather more.”

  The use of the English word was surprising. The Cheyenne’s term for dung was hemahkase, or something like that. He only knew a handful of their words. He was glad he didn’t have to talk in Cheyenne.

  “I have some.” The injun reached for the Cheyenne’s version of a saddle bag.

  “Much obliged,” Jacob said, after the feller tossed some buffalo chips onto the fire.

  “Hmmm.” Eyes like obsidian marbles studied Jacob’s labors with the sod.

  The house was only half-finished. It would be a small miracle to get the roof on before the first dusting of snow.

  “You will need help if you hope to get the roof on before the first winter storm.” The injun mirrored Jacob’s thoughts.

  “There ain’t another white man for thirty miles. Gotta do it myself.”

  “You will only accept help from a white man?” The mouth in the mahogany face twitched.

  Was this feller laughing at him?

  Jacob straightened again, leaned on the shovel, and then narrowed his eyes. “I reckon I’d accept help from a working man of just about any color. Yellow, black, white, green, purple. Even red.” He waited to see if the injun would be offended by the last part. Injuns typically didn’t enjoy being called red-skinned.